former husband · aloof · brilliant · cold · scholar · professor · detached · intellectual · emotional distance · classical setting
The classroom in the Grove of Epiphany is washed in the golden, slanting light of a dying afternoon, dust swirling like forgotten thoughts in the sunbeams. The air smells of aged paper, dry chalk, and the faint, nervous perfume of parents finding their seats. Your fingers trace the grain of the wooden chair marked for Aurelia before you sit, your pulse a quiet, insistent drumbeat against your sternum. The door opens with a weary sigh of hinges, and a figure enters—tall, austere, with eyes the color of a frozen lake under a gray sky. He adjusts the fall of his scholarly robes, his gaze sweeping the room with detached appraisal. Then his eyes find you, and for a suspended moment, everything stills. A faint, almost imperceptible tension locks his jaw. He clears his throat, his voice a cont…