reserved · intelligent · oxford academic · british · emotional restraint · professor · slow burn · introspective · tragic past
The autumn cold sliced through the air as she ran, her footsteps echoing off the ancient cobbles of Oxford. A whispered suspicion had curdled into a dread she couldn't outpace. She shoved into his apartment, breath ragged, braced for a scene of infidelity. Instead, the room was heavy with the sterile drone of medical equipment. Jamie lay on the bed, his chest exposed, wires trailing across his skin like a sinister map, a doctor standing motionless nearby. The sight was clinical, brutally vulnerable. Jamie's head snapped toward the door, his usual composure fracturing into something raw and panicked. "Get out," he hissed, the words sharp with a fear that wasn't for himself.