The sun rose behind a veil of low clouds, turning the campus a muted gray as students began their day. Garren moved through it like a shadow, hands deep in his jacket pockets, head down against the bite of the wind.

The previous night’s conversations played over and over in his head—the edge in Aria’s voice, the softness in Lydia’s touch. Both unsettled him in different ways.

He skipped breakfast, stomach too knotted to bother. Instead, he found himself in the back of the library, where the windows framed the storm-heavy sky and the world felt far away.

Books he didn’t care about lined the shelves; he chose a seat where he could see the door, where no one could sneak up on him. He didn’t want company, but part of him expected it. Maybe even wanted it.

An hour passed before Tessa appeared, sketchbook hugged to her chest. She hesitated at the end of the row, then approached with that quiet determination that always surprised him.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked.

He shook his head. She didn’t need his permission, and they both knew it.

She settled in, opening her book, pencil moving before she even spoke again. “You look tired.”

“I am.”

Tessa didn’t press. The scratch of graphite filled the silence. Garren found it comforting, in its way—a reminder that not everyone wanted something from him. Some people just wanted to be near.

Classes blurred by after that. The storm broke in the afternoon, rain lashing against windows, wind howling down the stone corridors. Garren moved through it all, half-present, thoughts turned inward. When he passed Aria in the hall, she looked at him like she wanted to speak, but whatever words she had died before they reached her lips.

By evening, he ended up at the gym again. The familiar sting of impact, the rhythm of fists against leather, gave him focus. Sweat stung his eyes, breath came hard, but he didn’t stop until his arms trembled. He didn’t stop until the ghosts quieted.

Later, soaked through from the rain, he went to the infirmary. The lights were low, the room warm and still. Lydia stood at the counter, writing notes he couldn’t see. She turned at his approach, eyes wide for just a second before she masked it.

“You’re drenched.”

“Noticed that, did you?”

She grabbed a towel, handed it to him. Her fingers brushed his, and the warmth of the room seemed to thicken around them.

“You’re going to get sick.”

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she motioned for him to sit. She checked him over, gentle but thorough, and he let her. The air felt heavy with things unsaid, her nearness both a balm and a reminder of how much he tried to keep buried.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she said, voice low.

“Doing what?”

“This. All of it. Beating yourself bloody. Carrying everything alone.”

He met her gaze, saw the crack in her usual calm. “What do you want me to do instead?”

“I want you to stop pretending you don’t need anyone.”

For a heartbeat, neither of them breathed. Then he stood, towel in hand, the weight of her words settling into him deeper than any bruise.

“Goodnight, Lydia.”

“Garren—”

But he was already gone, out into the rain again, where the storm felt easier to face than everything he’d left behind inside.

The rain hammered down, plastering his hair to his forehead, soaking him through again before he’d even crossed the courtyard. His boots splashed through puddles, the cold seeped into his bones, but it felt right. The storm matched the churn inside his head.

He didn’t go straight to his dorm. His feet found the path to the edge of campus, to the old stone wall that overlooked the woods beyond. He climbed it and sat there, the city lights a faint haze through the downpour. His breath misted the air, his fingers curled around the edge of the stone. The world felt huge and indifferent, and for once, that brought him a strange kind of peace.

A voice cut through the rain. “You’re going to catch your death out here.”

Aria. Hood up, coat drawn tight. He hadn’t heard her approach.

“Already caught it,” he said without looking at her.

She didn’t laugh, but he thought she almost did. Instead, she climbed up beside him, sitting in the rain like it didn’t bother her either.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she asked after a long while.

He shrugged. “Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t like watching people drown when they don’t have to.”

The rain drummed on the stone between them. Garren turned to look at her, and for once she didn’t look away. Her eyes were dark in the stormlight, fierce and tired all at once.

“Then stop watching,” he said quietly.

She shook her head, rain dripping from her hood. “It’s not that simple.”

And somehow, he believed her.

They sat there until the storm began to break, the clouds thinning, the first stars flickering through. Neither spoke again. There was nothing left to say.

When they finally climbed down, it was side by side.

They walked in silence at first, boots squelching in the mud, the smell of wet earth and rain-soaked stone thick in the air. Garren kept his hands in his pockets, head bowed, but he was aware of Aria’s nearness—the way her shoulder sometimes brushed his when the path narrowed, the sound of her breath soft under the fading storm.

At the quad, she paused under a bare tree, water dripping from the branches. “You’re not as unreadable as you think,” she said, voice low.

Garren gave a humorless huff. “That so?”

She nodded, rain still trickling from her hood. “You want to save yourself, but you don’t know how. And it kills you that no one’s handed you the way.”

He didn’t answer, because what was there to say? She wasn’t wrong. But hearing it out loud left him rawer than the cold ever could.

“Goodnight, Garren,” she said, softer now. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he almost asked her to stay. But the words stayed locked behind his teeth.

She left him there in the dark, and he stood alone beneath the dripping tree until the quad emptied and the rain became nothing more than mist. He didn’t move until his legs ached from standing still. Only then did he turn toward the dorms, the weight of the night pressing into his bones.

And as he walked, he wondered if anyone ever really learned how to save themselves.