Chapter 27: The Gift She Wasn’t Supposed to Find

Roxanne was still holding her hairbrush when Isla noticed she hadn’t actually moved it in almost half a minute. She quickly ran it through her hair like that had been the plan all along, but Isla wasn’t buying it. "You’re thinking about him."

"I’m thinking about breakfast."

"You’ve been holding that brush for thirty seconds without moving."

"I like the brush."

Isla laughed and let it go, though the smirk stayed put, and Roxanne turned back to her desk mostly to escape the conversation before she noticed something sitting there that hadn’t been there the night before. Her favorite drink, exactly the brand she always bought, and beside it a small folded note that read simply, you looked tired yesterday, don’t skip breakfast. She turned the note over in her hands, studying the handwriting like it might tell her something if she looked hard enough, then glanced at Isla, who immediately held both hands up in surrender before being asked. This time, Roxanne decided, she was actually going to find out who kept doing this.

At breakfast, Liam stole a piece of toast off her plate without asking, which had become such a habit she barely reacted anymore beyond smacking his hand and telling him to get his own. He claimed hers tasted better, she told him that was because he had terrible taste, and he looked genuinely wounded by the accusation. Roshan sat quietly across from them, not participating in the argument, and Roxanne watched him take a sip of his drink while she deliberately set the folded note down beside her plate. His eyes flicked toward it for exactly one second before he looked away, and that single second told her everything she needed to know. She leaned toward Isla and murmured that she thought she’d figured it out, and Isla’s eyes went wide before she followed Roxanne’s subtle glance toward Roshan and broke into a grin she immediately tried to smother.

Wolf Control class started not long after, and the instructor announced a new assignment requiring pairs to research how heightened senses affected concentration and emotional control. When the names were read out and Roxanne and Roshan were paired again, Liam let out an exaggerated gasp and asked if the academy was doing this on purpose at this point. Roshan asked him if he ever stopped talking, Liam said no, and Roxanne laughed hard enough that Roshan’s mouth twitched into something close to a smile before they headed off toward the library together.

Once there, Roxanne found he’d already gathered half a dozen books and had an outline started before she’d even taken her seat. She asked if he’d prepared before the teacher finished explaining the assignment, and he admitted that he had, which led her to ask if he ever relaxed. He thought about it seriously before answering that he sometimes did, when Liam wasn’t around, and she laughed loud enough that Liam shouted from several tables away that he’d heard that. Roshan didn’t even look up, and Roxanne shook her head, telling him he was secretly funny and needed to stop hiding it, to which he replied that he had a reputation to protect.

As they worked, she struggled to locate the right section in one of the books, and he slid it toward her already opened to Chapter six, saying she’d been looking for information on sensory overload. She hadn’t said that out loud, and when she pointed that out, he simply said she hadn’t needed to. That feeling crept up again, the same one from the day before, the sense of being noticed in a way she hadn’t asked for and didn’t quite know what to do with. Then he pushed a snack across the table, one of her favorites, and asked if she’d eaten. She reminded him she’d stolen half of Liam’s toast, and he pointed out that Liam had stolen half of hers too, which meant she still hadn’t actually eaten anything of her own.

It was while he was writing out notes for the assignment that she noticed his handwriting, and something about the slant of the letters, the particular curve of his lowercase y, made her freeze completely. She pulled the folded note from her bag and set it beside his notebook, comparing them, and her stomach dropped when they matched exactly. She said his name, and he looked up like nothing was wrong, and she held the note up and asked if it was his. For the first time since she’d met him, he actually looked caught, and after a long pause he admitted that yes, he’d been leaving them. All of them. The drinks, the snacks, the bookmark she hadn’t even mentioned yet.

She wasn’t angry, just confused, and asked why he hadn’t told her. He said she’d seemed happier not knowing, which made no sense to her until he explained further. He’d noticed she spent all her time taking care of other people, remembering Isla’s preferences, helping classmates, noticing when someone else was struggling, while pretending she was fine even when she clearly wasn’t. Nobody, he said quietly, seemed to notice when she needed something. She told him he didn’t know her that well, and he said he knew enough, and when she asked if he’d been watching her, he answered simply that he had. It should have felt strange coming from anyone else, but the way he said it carried no weight of ownership or expectation, just quiet honesty.

Then he reached into his bag and pulled out one more thing, a simple bookmark with a design she remembered mentioning once, weeks earlier, in passing, to no one in particular that she recalled. She asked how he remembered something like that, and he told her it was because she’d said it mattered to her, and that things that mattered to her mattered to him too. The sentence landed somewhere she wasn’t prepared for, not because it was dramatic, but because he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The library doors swung open right as she was still holding the bookmark, and Liam walked in mid-sentence before stopping completely when he saw what was on the table. His grin spread slowly across his face, and Roshan immediately told him not to say anything, which only made Liam insist he hadn’t said a word yet before adding that he was simply appreciating the romance unfolding in front of him. He disappeared before either of them could respond, and Roxanne was still laughing when Roshan asked what was funny, and she told him nothing, though she pointed out that he was smiling too. He looked away fast, but she’d already seen it.

That night, back in the dorm with Isla asleep across the room, Roxanne set the bookmark on her nightstand and looked at it for a long time. Dorian had known her because he was supposed to, and somewhere along the way he’d simply stopped paying attention. Roshan had no obligation toward her at all, yet he’d remembered her drink, her snacks, the book she liked, the offhand comments she’d made without thinking twice. He never once asked for anything back.

She thought about Kai, and how being close to him had felt safe in a way she hadn’t expected. Roshan felt different. With him, she didn’t feel like she had to be strong or prove she was fine.

She just felt seen, and that thought alone was enough to make her pull the blanket over her head and refuse to think about it any further tonight.