The medical bay was sterile and quiet, a stark contrast to the chaos of the corridor. A kind nurse cleaned the superficial cut on my jaw and offered me an ice pack. Alston, after having his arm bandaged, was already back on his phone, dictating emails, his voice low and precise. The incident, for him, was clearly just another anomaly to be processed and moved past.

"Don't forget the preliminary data for the next phase, Ellie," he said, without looking up. "Kiara and I will need to review it before our joint presentation."

My breath hitched. My jaw tightened, not from pain, but from the raw indignity. He had just taken a blow for me, and his immediate concern was still the data, still Kiara, still the work he shared with her. My gratitude, a fleeting, tender bud, withered and died.

"I'll have it ready, Alston," I said, my voice flat.

Later that week, the mandatory annual mentor-protégé dinner was held. Alston, of course, was expected to attend. And as his-ex-fiancée, current subordinate-I was also required to be there, a painful relic of a past that refused to fully vanish.

The restaurant was opulent, filled with the hushed chatter of academic elite. Kiara, seated beside Alston at the head table, was a dazzling centerpiece. Her laughter, bright and unrestrained, floated across the room. She leaned in, whispering something into Alston's ear, and a rare, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips.

Our mentor, the esteemed Professor Albright, raised his glass. "To the future of this institute! And to our brightest minds, like Dr. Scott and his brilliant protégé, Dr. Gamble. We're all rooting for a spectacular partnership, both scientifically... and personally, perhaps?" He winked, and a wave of knowing chuckles rippled through the room.

My fork clattered against my plate. My face burned. The humiliation was a hot, prickly rash spreading across my skin. They were openly, publicly, shipping them. And I was sitting right there, the discarded history, the inconvenient truth. I felt like a ghost at my own funeral.

Kiara blushed, a pretty, artful blush. She glanced at Alston, her eyes sparkling. "Oh, Professor Albright! You're too kind. But Dr. Scott and I do have some exciting collaborations planned. Lots of late nights in the lab, I'm sure." Her emphasis on "late nights" was a subtle jab, a quiet victory dance.

Alston, however, cleared his throat. His gaze, usually fixed on some distant intellectual horizon, was momentarily sharper. "Professor, with all due respect, my focus remains solely on the advancement of the field. Dr. Gamble and I share a professional synergy, nothing more." His tone was firm, a rare but unmistakable rejection of the professor's playful insinuation.

Kiara' s smile froze. Her eyes flickered, a momentary shadow of hurt crossing her face. She quickly composed herself, but the shift was palpable.

A few minutes later, Kiara excused herself, her exit a little too abrupt. Alston, to my surprise, pushed back his chair. "Excuse me," he mumbled, already following her. He rarely left a conversation unfinished, let alone a dinner party.

Murmurs erupted around me. "Well, that was unexpected," someone whispered. "Poor Kiara." "But why would he-"

A colleague, Professor Davies, leaned over. "Ellie, are you alright? That was... a bit much." His eyes, usually sharp with scientific inquiry, now held a glint of concern.

"I'm fine, Professor," I said, forcing a smile. "Just a long day." I wanted to melt into the floor, to disappear from this suffocating room.

I stood, making my own quiet exit, hoping to escape unnoticed. But as I passed the main entrance, a glimpse through the ornate glass doors stopped me dead.

Alston and Kiara were outside, bathed in the soft glow of the streetlights. Kiara was crying, her shoulders shaking. Alston, rigid as ever, had his hand on her arm, a gesture of awkward comfort. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. She said something I couldn't hear, but the intensity of her gaze, the raw vulnerability, was unmistakable. She loved him.

And then, she did it. She reached up, pulling his head down, and kissed him. A desperate, lingering kiss.

Alston, the man who flinched from any casual touch, the man who had rejected our mentor's suggestion of a romantic partnership moments ago, didn't pull away. He stood there, stiff, but allowing it. Accepting it.

My heart, which I thought had turned to stone, fractured. He had never allowed me that. Never. Even the one, the only time I had kissed him, years ago, after a particular scientific triumph, he had stiffened, his lips unresponsive, his eyes wide with a peculiar aversion. He had tolerated my kisses, but he had never indulged them. Or her.

He finally pulled back, a strange expression on his face. He looked up, his eyes sweeping the area, and they landed, by chance, on me.

Our gazes locked across the glass. His eyes, usually so opaque, held a flicker of something. Recognition? Guilt? I didn't care.

I turned away, a quiet desperation settling over me. I couldn't do this anymore. I couldn't watch this slow, agonizing reenactment of everything I had craved, now effortlessly given to someone else.

"Ellie?" His voice, a low rumble, pierced the air behind me.

I didn't stop. I just kept walking, my pace quickening. "I'm going home, Alston," I called back, the words feeling like a final, definitive farewell.

The walk back to my dorm was a blur. The city lights, usually a comfort, seemed to mock me with their indifferent shine. He knocked on my door a few minutes later, his familiar, precise rap echoing in the quiet hallway.

Chapter 6

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