ILLICIT ROMANCE

The first day of the semester dawned clear and cool, the sky streaked with lavender and gold. Halden University buzzed with new energy — groups of students hugging, coffee carts steaming, papers flapping in the breeze. It smelled like possibility and deadlines.

Zelda walked across the courtyard with her satchel slung across her body, dressed in a crisp white shirt tucked into charcoal trousers. Her steps were steady, her chin up, but her nerves danced beneath her skin. A new year. A clean start.

At least, that's what she told herself.

"Zel!" a familiar voice chirped.

Ariyah jogged up beside her, out of breath, her tote bag already overflowing with rolled blueprints and snack wrappers.

"Tell me I don't look like I just survived a mild hurricane," she huffed.

Zelda gave her a once-over. "You look like you're about to give a TED Talk on organized chaos."

"Perfect," Ariyah grinned. "That's my brand."

They walked toward the design studio building, their boots tapping across the flagstone. Zelda had forgotten how good it felt to have someone fall into step beside her without trying to read her. Ariyah didn't ask about her summer, or her house, or the tension that always seemed to linger behind Zelda's eyes. She just talked — about professors, the studio assignment they were sure to get today, the best café on campus for croissants.

It felt easy.

It felt like breathing.

Their first lecture was in Studio Hall C, where twenty students gathered around raised drafting tables. The professor, a tall, bespectacled man with silver hair and a linen vest, introduced himself as Professor Damon Virelli, an internationally known architect with a disdain for mediocrity.

"Architecture is not drawing buildings," he announced. "It is solving human problems with imagination and discipline. Some of you will drop out. Some of you will cry. A few of you might even impress me."

Ariyah leaned over and whispered, "Ten bucks says he has an espresso machine hidden in his office."

Zelda stifled a laugh.

---

After class, they grabbed lunch on the steps near the sculpture garden. Ariyah animatedly described the flaws in the campus café's salad-to-dressing ratio, while Zelda quietly opened her sketchpad and began roughing ideas for their first assignment — a reimagining of a communal space in urban Lagos.

She was focused — pencil in motion — when the hum around them shifted.

People looked up.

Zelda did too — and felt her chest tighten.

Lucien.

Walking across campus like he belonged there. Dressed in slate gray, sunglasses on, unreadable as ever. He walked alone. Confident. Unbothered. A man made of steel and smoke.

Zelda's pulse quickened before she could stop it.

Ariyah blinked. "Who is that?"

Zelda quickly looked away. "No one."

Ariyah tilted her head. "He doesn't look like a no one."

Zelda didn't reply.

Lucien's gaze didn't seek her out. He didn't slow or change direction. But for a single second — one razor-thin breath — his head turned. Just slightly.

And that was enough.

Zelda looked down at her sketchpad and pressed her pencil hard against the paper until the line tore through.

---

Later that afternoon, Zelda and Ariyah visited the materials lab to sign out model-building kits. As Ariyah haggled with the attendant over missing cutting mats, Zelda wandered through the supply shelves — and saw him again.

Lucien.

This time, near the wood sample wall, speaking to one of the campus engineers. Casual. Controlled. Too much like he wasn't supposed to be here — and yet was.

He glanced toward her, the faintest flicker of acknowledgment passing between them.

Zelda straightened.

Lucien spoke first. "So they're letting just anyone in now?"

Zelda raised a brow. "You sound like one of those alumni who peaked in undergrad."

A small smirk touched his lips. "Maybe I did."

"Why are you here?"

He glanced at the clipboard in his hand. "Guest lecturer for one of the graduate critiques. Just visiting. Don't worry — I won't haunt your lectures."

Zelda crossed her arms. "You're already haunting my semester."

Lucien's eyes flickered. "Marcella said something, didn't she?"

Zelda didn't answer.

He took a step closer, lowering his voice. "Don't let her get into your head, Zel."

"She doesn't have to," Zelda said quietly. "She already lives there."

Lucien exhaled, and for a second — just one — he looked tired.

Then Ariyah appeared, breathless, waving a signed equipment slip. "Success! We have foam boards and moral superiority."

Lucien's face shuttered again.

Zelda turned to Ariyah. "Let's go."

"Who's tall, dark, and broody?" Ariyah asked as they walked out.

Zelda didn't answer right away.

Finally, she said, "A very complicated ghost."

---

That night, Zelda sat by her window, sketching again under the soft light of her desk lamp. Lines, shadows, curves — the language of her hands. The only one that made sense anymore.

From somewhere down the hallway, she heard Marcella's laugh echo faintly through the phone.

From outside, the quiet wind shifted the trees.

Zelda closed her sketchbook and whispered, "Not this year."

This year, she was building boundaries. Not buildings alone.

And they wouldn't be easy to tear down.