without being stuffy.
His leg is giving him more trouble today than usual, I notice as he walks around the desk to adjust
the lighting. He always keeps it dark when he’s in here. Just him.
But now that I’m here, he adjusts the light. There’s a part of me that wants to tell him he doesn’t
have to. That I like being in the shadows with him.
But I don’t voice that part of myself.
Mr. Vaughn doesn’t know me. He thinks I am quiet. Which is true. But he doesn’t know the storm
inside of me. He doesn’t know the things I think or feel. Especially here, in his presence.
He could never know that I’ve studied every aspect of the beauty in his face. The line of his jaw,
the curve of his nose. The gray eyes that always seem to remain flat now. The fire snuffed out of his
soul six years ago.
He wears black-framed glasses. And his brown hair is always styled neat at the start of the day, but
haphazardly by the end. He likes to run his hands through it, and I like to watch.
He fascinates me. In every way.
He is a survivor.
And yet he hates himself for it.
At thirty-five years old, he has stopped living. Given up. Ceased to do the one thing that he was
born to.
So here he remains, in this college of arts, teaching oblivious students who could never fully
appreciate his talents. Because he doesn’t even remember what they are anymore.
But I do.
He moves towards the door, and a part of me moves with him. An ache to comfort him. To tell him
he is not alone. And that I feel it too.
This deadness. This solemn loneliness.
All of the blooms have been cut from both of our lives, and only winter remains inside of us.
Stark, cold, winter.
He pauses at the doorway, the same way he does every time he leaves. And I wait for it with bated
breath. For his eyes to land on me. For me to enter his orbit if only for a mere second.
“Goodnight, Chloe.”
My heart thumps wildly at the most simplistic of words. “Goodnight, Mr. Vaughn.”