Then I look over at Thalia’s table. I don’t mean to do it. I don’t even want to do it, I just do. She’s facing toward me but intently listening to the man next to her, a middle-aged white guy with glasses and graying hair. She’s hanging onto every word he says, nodding along, smiling.
Jealousy pins me like an arrow out of the blue. It’s a surprise. It blows the breath from my lungs for a moment with unexpected tightness, and I look away before I can make it worse.
As soon as I exit the ballroom, I take a deep breath. The air out here, in the foyer, is already cooler, and I feel like I can breathe again. I make my way through the other rooms in the building, all small chambers that look like something out of the year 1750, until I find one that’s empty, the lights off.
It’s blessedly, blessedly quiet, and I sink into a chair in front of the window. This window is candle-free, and through it I can see the backyard of this building, walled in by five-foot-high brick walls, wrought iron benches stationed along brick paths. A strange thing to be in the middle of a college campus, but when a building is this old, no one wants to change it.
Outside, the moon is a sliver. I can’t see the stars over the light of the street lamps, but I imagine them all the same, the constellations that my mom taught us all by heart.
I wonder, not for the first time, if I should be outside with them and not inside with antiques, oriental rugs, and sophomores who own yachts. I wonder if I’m cut out for wearing suits to events and hobnobbing when all I really want to do is go hiking and think about prime numbers.
I think, again, about Thalia looking at another man, smiling, nodding. I wonder if I should be teaching at all, if seeing a student taking an academic interest in another professor — I’d bet a thousand dollars that’s who he is — is going to turn me green with jealousy.
I’ve walked away from everything before, literally, but I think it was easier when I was twenty years old. I have more to walk away from now.
Besides, you can’t walk away from yourself.
I’m still looking outside, naming the invisible constellations to myself when I hear the slightest of creaks behind me.
Before I even turn, I know who it is. I know it in my bones.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here,” Thalia says.
I should say I’m sorry or you’re right or even we shouldn’t be in here together, but I don’t.
“You gonna report me?” I ask.
She laughs.Chapter TwelveThaliaI didn’t think he’d be alone. I didn’t think he’d be in the dark, staring out a window, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, looking slightly disheveled and somehow even more attractive than before.
“You look like you’re about to howl,” I say, because Caleb makes my mouth function without my brain, and I bite my lips together, close my eyes.
“The moon isn’t full,” he says, as I walk over to where he’s sitting, take the chair next to his, half turned toward his, half-turned to the window. “It’s waning. I’ve got at least two weeks before I transform, according to my math.”
“I suppose your math is trustworthy,” I say, leaning back.
The chair’s upholstered in velvet, the frame wooden. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’ll do.
“It had better be,” he says. “If I can’t even add up the days of a lunar month, what chance do I have of proving Glessmacher’s theorem?”
“That one’s wrong,” I say. “There, I saved you all that work. You’re welcome.”
In the other chair, Caleb laughs and the sound works itself into my chest, unwinding the knot that had taken up residence there.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice low, the lilt of his accent there even in those two words. “Doubtless, you’ve just saved me years.”
“Glad I could help,” I tease, and then we both go quiet again, looking out the window together.
I shouldn’t have followed him. I know that. I know nothing can come of this, I know nothing should come of this, and I know that I’m just torturing myself by following after him like a lost puppy.
But I’m not sorry. Not yet. I might be, sooner rather than later, but not yet.
“Do you think werewolves ever get the urge to howl at the moon while they’re human?” I ask. “Just a little yip, while they’re driving home at night and the moon’s a sliver, like this?”
“Werewolves don’t exist,” he points out, and I sigh.
“I’m not asking whether werewolves exist,” I tell him. “I’m asking whether they want to howl at the moon even when they’re human.”
“So, to clarify, I’m supposed to know the innermost desires of a creature that doesn’t exist?” he asks, his voice low, teasing.