Page 6

Finding Meaning

Nora

My afternoon lab section is chaotic—a spilled bacterial culture, a minor equipment malfunction, and a freshman who nearly faints at the sight of blood during our hematology demo. By the time I make it back to my dorm room, I’m exhausted and wired at the same time, my brain refusing to settle.

I try to focus on reading for tomorrow’s cognitive neuroscience seminar, but the words blur together, meaningless. After reading the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word, I slam the book shut and reach for my phone.

Three new messages—one from Sadie asking about dinner plans, one from my advisor about a schedule change, and one from an unknown number.

I got your number from the project contact sheet. Just confirming tomorrow, 7:30. – Dean

I stare at the text, my thumb hovering over the screen. How did a simple confirmation message manage to send a current of anticipation through me? It’s infuriatingly clinical, nothing suggestive about it. And yet.

Me: Confirmed. Room 342. Text when you get to the building and I’ll let you in.

I hit send before I can overthink it, then toss my phone onto the bed like it’s suddenly too hot to hold.

This is getting ridiculous. He’s just another student. Just a project partner. Just a guy I’m tutoring because he missed some deadlines.

Except he’s not. Not with the way he looks at me, not with what I know about him now, not with the quiet intensity that hums beneath his controlled exterior.

He doesn’t just want sex. He wants surrender.

And maybe—just maybe—I want to know what that feels like. Just once. Just to see.

But that would be crossing every line: ethical, professional, personal. I don’t do messy. I don’t take risks. I don’t let people close enough to see the parts of me I keep carefully hidden.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars, then reach for my jacket. I need air. Space. Perspective.

The campus is quiet as I walk, most students already at dinner or tucked away in evening classes. The cold air burns my lungs, but it helps clear my head.

I’m rounding the corner near the science building when I see him. Dean, standing under the harsh fluorescent lights of the entrance, deep in conversation with Professor Whitman from the engineering department.

I slow, then stop, watching from a distance. Dean’s expression is animated, his hands moving as he explains something, pointing to a diagram on the tablet he’s holding. Whitman nods, clearly impressed, clapping Dean on the shoulder with what looks like genuine pride.

In that moment, Dean looks completely different from the controlled, quiet figure I’ve seen in class. He looks passionate. Engaged. Alive with purpose.

It’s startling how much it affects me. This glimpse of who he is when he’s in his element, when he cares about something beyond the surface-level interactions of daily campus life.

I should keep walking. Should turn around before he sees me.

But as if sensing my presence, Dean glances up, his eyes finding mine across the distance.

For a moment, we just look at each other. Then he says something to Whitman, who follows his gaze and waves in my direction.

Great. Now I can’t pretend I wasn’t watching.

I lift a hand in acknowledgment and force myself to keep walking, as if I have somewhere specific to be. But I’ve only gone a few steps when I hear footsteps behind me.

“Nora,” Dean calls, his voice carrying in the quiet evening air.

I stop, turning to face him. “Hi.”

He approaches slowly, stopping a few feet away. “Taking the scenic route to dinner?”

“Just getting some air,” I say, trying to sound casual. “You looked in the zone back there.”

“Prosthetics project,” he says, a hint of something genuine breaking through his usual reserve. “Whitman thinks we’ve had a breakthrough with the neural feedback circuit.”

“That’s the one for your Archer Initiative application?”

Surprise flickers across his face. “How did you know about that?”

I shrug, uncomfortable with admitting I’ve been paying attention. “The academic support office has your file. All your academic goals are listed.”

He studies me for a moment, then nods. “Right.”

“It seemed important to you,” I add, not sure why I’m still talking. “When I read your file.”

“It is.” He looks back toward the building where Whitman has disappeared inside. “It’s everything, actually.”

There’s something raw in his voice that catches me off guard. Something real beneath the careful control.

“Why?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Why prosthetics specifically?”

Dean is quiet for so long I think he might not answer. When he does, his voice is low, almost distant.

“I had a friend in high school. Hockey teammate.” He looks past me, out at the darkening campus. “Long story.”

I wait, not pushing.

“He lost his leg,” Dean says finally. “Car accident. Couldn’t play anymore. Everything changed for him.”

I hear what he’s not saying. Something happened to this friend. Something bad.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly.

Dean refocuses on me, his expression closing off again. “Ancient history.”

But it’s not. I can see it in the tightness around his eyes, hear it in the controlled flatness of his voice. This matters to him in a way that goes beyond academic ambition or career goals.

It makes him more real to me somehow. More human than the controlled figure I’ve been circling for days.

I’d always wondered why he took the courses he did. Most hockey players were enrolled in general ed classes—the kind with open book exams and lenient professors.

“I should get going,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable with how much I want to know more. “I have reading to finish.”

Dean nods. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” I agree.

I walk away, feeling his eyes on me again, but this time it’s different. This time, I’ve seen a crack in his armor, a glimpse of the person beneath the performance.

And it makes everything more complicated. Because now he’s not just the guy Daphne complained about, the one who’s too intense, too controlling, too much.

Now he’s someone with wounds and purpose and depth. Someone I might actually like, if I let myself.

And that’s far more dangerous than simple curiosity.

It’s after midnight by the time I crawl into bed.

The campus is quiet—just the sound of light wind rustling through the branches outside and the hum of the old heater trying to keep up.

My room is small but efficient: twin bed against the wall, books stacked in clean rows on the desk, a cheap lamp casting a soft gold halo over my textbook pile. My roommate, Sadie, is already asleep in the bunk above mine, headphones in, one arm flung over the edge. Her string lights pulse in soft color, cycling between lavender and peach and cool blue.

I slide into bed, hoodie still on, and pull the covers up. My laptop’s shut. My planner’s closed. My highlighters are lined up like colorful little soldiers. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Everything I can control.

But my brain won’t shut up.

I lie there staring at the ceiling, watching the light shift as cars pass outside. My mind keeps replaying the day—bits of conversation, Dean’s voice, the way he watched me in the lab.

And then, worse, it circles back to Daphne. To what she said over dinner like it was no big deal.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

And now every time I look at Dean Carter, I wonder.

I wonder what he sounds like when he says take that off .

I wonder what it feels like to be touched like that—slow and sure and certain .

I wonder what he sees when he looks at a girl and knows exactly what she needs before she’s brave enough to say it out loud.

And I hate that I wonder.

I’ve trained myself not to want anything I can’t control. Not to need anyone who could leave. My body is mine. My mind is mine. I’ve built a whole life out of keeping the sharp edges dull and the hunger manageable.

I turn on my side and hug a pillow to my chest, mind still wandering.

Sophomore year, I dated a guy named Kai. A senior psych major I really looked up to. He liked that I was smart. Said he admired my focus. Called me intense like it was a compliment.

Until it wasn’t.

He started small—suggesting I “soften” my tone in study groups, smile more in class, not interrupt even when I was right. Then it was the way I asked questions during sex. The fact that I had questions at all.

He never raised his voice. Never made it obvious. But I stopped feeling like a person and started feeling like a project. Something he was slowly editing down.

By the time he broke up with me, I didn’t recognize myself. I was smaller. Quieter. Less. And still, it wasn’t enough to make him stay.

Last year was worse.

There was a guy—Tariq. Soccer team. Big smile, soft voice, said all the right things. He flirted with me like I mattered. Touched me like he meant it. I let myself believe him.

The night we hooked up, I tried something I’d never done before. Nothing big. Just… intentional. Present. I wanted to feel something.

The next week, I heard from someone in his dorm that I was “surprisingly wild for a nerd.”

He never spoke to me again.

But everyone else did.

Desire gets you humiliated.

Desire makes you weak.

Desire is what gets you turned into a story someone else tells at a party.

But now I think about the way Dean watches people without performing for them. The way he speaks like he already knows the end of your sentence. The way he sat across from me and said, Whatever you want, Nora.

And I think maybe I don’t want polite.

Maybe I don’t want soft, safe, and easily forgettable.

Maybe I want the fire.

What I don’t want is to be burned again.