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Everything was good, until it wasn't.
Ryland had been so sure about his work. That paper, the one he had been ranting to you about, using you as his personal whiteboard without writing anything down.
"An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations for Evolutionary Models". Quite the mouthful of a title, but Ryland liked it, thought it was good enough.
You did not say much when he bounced the ideas off of you, at least for the title. You did argue about the contents of the paper at times, when you actively listened.
Otherwise, the paper had become a third presence in your apartment. An obscured figure—shapeless, barely a form at all. Just the hint of what was supposed to be vapor but vapor could not exist without water—or any liquid, really—and so its shape within your household would simply prove Ryland wrong before he could even finish writing that paper.
Ryland still remembered the day he moved into your apartment.
Why yours?
Simple math, really.
-
Your apartment building was closer to campus. Walking distance.
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The space actually fit two people.
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Ryland had been living in a dorm.
It wasn't that he couldn't afford to rent an apartment for himself. Being on campus itself was just much easier—he could walk to the lab anytime he wanted, stay there till it was late. He could write his papers in the library because it was more spacious and comfortable and had way better wifi access.
And then he met you.
You weren't from the Biomedical Sciences department. Hell, he didn't even know where you had spawned from, because he was sure he had never seen you around campus before, and he had been there for years.
Would it be too cliche to say that he would remember a face like yours?
Maybe.
But there you were.
Just one afternoon. Standing in line for the same stall in the cafeteria. Ordering the same food.
You had looked at him, smiled, stifling your laughter when he ordered the exact same ramen bowl on the menu after you did. And naturally, you both gravitated towards the same table, sat there on opposite sides of a square like you had done this a thousand times.
"I don't know if you've seen me around—" Ryland had started.
"I know who you are, Dr. Grace," you teased, then ate a forkful of ramen. He was already tearing up, nose turning red, barely handling the spice. Meanwhile your face didn't change, taking the spice like a champ. "Didn't know you enjoyed cafeteria food."
He arched an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
You shrugged. "Well, you do have quite the reputation."
"Alright. Which one is it? The snobby, the obnoxious, or the over-confident?"
"Mm…I don't think you're over-confident. But you're not exactly modest either." You took a sip of your water. "I attended the Bioinformatics and Biomedical Science Conference last month."
Oh gosh, of course you did. It was a conference the department organized every last weekend of September, gathering all the leading biomed departments from other universities in one place.
"Your group presentation consisted of only…you," you continued. Ryland opened his mouth to defend himself but you held up a hand, and that shut him up for a second. "You barely let those three other members speak. Being the group leader doesn't mean overshadowing your members, by the way."
"Okay, look—they barely did their part of the presentation, alright? Not to sound all holier-than-thou, but I did most of the work. So naturally I understood the subject the most. That makes sense, right? It's like letting people who don't do their homework represent you in class. That's not gonna look good on anyone. Plus, they're only a year in. That was their first conference—"
"Oh, I see." You chuckled, leaning back in your seat and crossing your arms over your chest. "So you're a senior. You've been doing your research for…how long? Four years? And so you know more than them and they should let you speak instead."
Ryland groaned. "Okay, whose side are you on, right now?"
You held up both hands in surrender. "I'm not on anybody's side. I'm only observing."
"Observing, right." He nodded, just a tad bit mockingly. Then, because this question had been burning on the tip of his tongue since the moment you both sat down, he asked, "And why is that? What do you do here?"
A smile tugged at your lips.
"Psychology," you said, and Ryland visibly deflated. Slumping in his seat, shoulder drooping, a sigh escaping his mouth. You bit back a chuckle. "Cognitive neuroscience, if that's of any importance to you."
"Of course you are."
"Of course I am."
The second time you and Ryland spent time together, it was at the gym.
It had been two weeks since that lunch, those two bowls of ramen going cold on your table because he had spent twenty minutes asking you questions about the human brain so you couldn't ask him questions about his current subject matter.
He asked around about you. He went to the Psychology department several times but chickened out. Because why would he act like a normal human being when he could activate Stalker Mode and learn about you through other mediums like you were simply a stained microorganism on a petri dish?
Well, at least his stalking proved fruitful. Ever since Ryland learned that you didn't live on campus but would stay back late on Wednesdays and Fridays to go to the sports complex near the dorms, he knew he had to see you again. On purpose. He had to.
Why? It was simple and yet it wasn't. He couldn't stop thinking about you and the way you dabbed your mouth after every spoonful. How your nose scrunched slightly when you laughed. How you called him out even though you barely knew him. How you attended the session where he presented during the conference.
Many times over the two weeks, Ryland had thought about directly visiting your faculty and just ask for you. Your schedule, maybe. Would the admin give him that? He didn't know. He didn't actually want to seem like a stalker. But he found out that he could see you from his window, that following Wednesday, and then again that Friday, walking towards the sports complex. He stayed at his desk, reading journal articles he had heavily annotated, until you left around seven p.m. when the streetlights turned on.
He watched you walk back towards the main building until you disappeared from view. On both days. Without fail.
So the next Friday, he was there. Right at the entrance, looking quite literally like a lost puppy with his shaggy blonde hair and wide blue eyes, catching you in your workout clothes and headphones on.
He didn't say a word. He didn't have to.
You smiled, tugged your headphones off, and let it rest around your neck.
"Do you want my number?"
The way he nodded so quickly might have come off a little too pathetic in his mind. But he didn't care, at least not at that moment.
You fished his phone right out of his hand, held the screen up to his face to unlock it, then punched your numbers into his contacts like you both knew it was always going to end up there. You missed-call yourself. Smiled a little when your phone rang for a few seconds.
"I—" Ryland began, but you pressed the phone to his chest, let him take it, then walked past him.
"Monday. Ramen. Same table," you said before leaving Ryland Grace to gawk at the empty space in front of the sports complex entrance.
The table became your spot. Unspoken. Unceremonious.
The two of you would sit, have lunch, debate about things that did not at all concern the other, but you did it anyway because arguing with you was fun. You always knew what to say. And you laughed at his stupid jokes, which he didn't even believe you thought them funny. But you did it anyway, and it warmed his snobby heart a little.
"That bakery beside your apartment," Ryland said on the sixth lunch. "Does it close late?"
"Closes at ten. Why?"
Ryland wiggled his brows. He didn't know why he did that. Maybe he'd seen a rom-com lead do that a few times to get the girl to say yes. He quickly felt like an idiot, but it was done.
You laughed, shook your head. "Really? The bakery?"
"They have good pasta on their menu, no? Where else can you find a bakery that sells actual food?"
"Oh, you've had their pasta," you teased.
"Mm…definitely didn't taste test first a few nights ago just to see if it's good for a date."
"And now it's a date? Good progression, Dr. Grace."
"Thank you, Dr. L/N. How about, say, eight o'clock tonight?"
"I will be down by 7:59," you said.
Ryland grinned, then clapped his hands once.
The two of you had ended up ordering the same pasta.
It was almost comical. You both scanned the menu, took your time to evaluate your top choices, and blurted out the I'll have the bolognese simultaneously, earning an arched eyebrow from the waiter before he disappeared.
Ryland was in a long-sleeve, knitted sweater. Stripes. Jeans. Hair a little ruffled from his beanie. You were also dressed simply—a white t-shirt beneath a dark brown cardigan, tucked into fading blue jeans. Your foot would nudge Ryland's beneath the table without meaning to, and then you meant it a few times, and he nudged back.
It felt like a high school crush, all of a sudden. Where would this go? The thought of it made Ryland's palms turn sweaty, his fork almost slipped. You did that thing again, the nose scrunch. And the wiping of your lips after every spoonful because you just didn't like it when the food touched your lips. He should turn the cliche up to eleven and reach across the table to wipe the bolognese sauce from the corner of your lips for you.
Nah.
Don't do that.
Too cheesy.
But afterwards, when the plates were cleared and the dessert was too good and all the two of you could think about was how nice it would be if you could lie down—you'd turned to him and smiled that little knowing smile of yours he had grown so accustomed to these past few weeks. A smile that would haunt him deeply.
Ryland swallowed.
"What?"
Your smile grew.
"Wanna come upstairs?"
He didn't care that you both smelled of tomatoes and minced beef.
Your first kiss was barely past the bakery, barely around the corner. Ryland's arms wrapped around your waist like a vice, lifting you slightly off your feet. Your fingers were in his hair, tugging—tugging as if you had dreamed of it for days on end.
Every step you had led him down the street, past the lampposts and the closing stores and the stray students speed-walking towards the campus entrance, Ryland followed. His hand never left yours, fingers intertwined for dear life because when was the last time he had felt the warmth of another hand that wasn't his own?
One streetlight, two streetlights, three.
Your door. This was you. You barely touched the keycard, barely let yourself in. Up the winding staircase and onto the third floor. You almost missed a few steps, almost dragged Ryland down with you and he would be glad to fall apart if it meant you were right there with him. How had it come to this? He didn't care. He liked it. He needed it—desperately.
You fumbled for the keycard again.
"Ryland—"
"I got it—"
He reached for the card that was in your front pocket and swiped it at your door, and then you were pulling him in. Shoulders bumping into coat hangers and picture frames. Hands over each other, over doorknobs, over strands of hair and the hem of shirts. A door opened, closed. The back of his thighs hit the edge of your bed, and then you were on him.
Two pairs of jeans on the carpeted floor. Striped sweaters and brown cardigans over the back of chairs, slipping, falling into a heap on the floor.
Ryland looked nowhere else but at you.
Those deep blue eyes stared and stared, hands gripping hips and thighs and waist and spine. Tracing, touching, worshipping.
Your name was soft on his tongue, syllables coalesing into a single sound that echoed in your ears every time it left his mouth. He couldn't say it any other way. He had you on your back, thighs spreading, head between your legs like it belonged there, like your fingers were made to be buried in his hair.
And he was made to be buried in you. In all of you.
All your sounds and soft curves and the ferocity of the way you loved—let him pretend this was love. Let him pretend this first time would be the last because you could wake up the next day and chase him out, not want to sit with him and order the same food again. You could discard him like the washed denim on the floor and he would let you.
Gosh, he would let you.
You rejoiced and fell apart and then you fell apart again. A few times, loud and soft and into the night, Ryland Grace refused to think about water as the base of life or a judgmental colleague or that one new researcher who had just transferred from—
It didn't matter.
You were beneath him, and then you were on him, and then the bed turned into the couch turned into the floor, and Ryland had never felt so liberated.
Afterwards, when your breathing had calmed to a soothing rhythm against his collarbones, Ryland stared at the shadows the streetlights below cast on your ceiling. Through the shades they glowed a dim orange against the white paint, lines of darkness painting the matching furniture black.
He loved your room. He loved your apartment. Two bedrooms and one was turned into a study. Filled to the brim with books. The living room was so small though, that half of it was already the dining area. You had white lilies in a vase on your desk. You had two more white lilies in another vase adorning the cabinet beside the TV.
Ryland sighed.
He had known you for a matter of weeks and it was inevitable—he would learn every creak of the hinges and every crack in the window frame. He would learn which staircase made a hollow sound, which cabinet held your favorite mug. He would learn it all, and curse the labyrinth of information he retained in his brain, because everything that was you was tucked into a pale green box of memories stacked on top of everything else.
Pale green because it was the color of your toothbrush, your mug, your cutlery, your rug.
A pale green box within the stacks of blue and yellow science fighting for attention in his mind, and yet you didn't have to scream. You had quickly become a quiet constant. A refuge.
At this moment, the box was only a quarter full—a growing list of the dimples at the bottom of your spine after the nose scrunch and the mouth wiping and the two identical moles painted perfectly beside the fold of your left knee.
Ryland turned his head and kissed your temple, then left two more kisses over your hairline. You only hummed in return. Warm, comfortable, trusting. He liked that. Could feel that hum reverberating in his ribs as if you were personally planting flowers in between them so his bones wouldn't be lonely without yours pressing against his.
He whispered your name; you hummed again.
"Can I stay?"
You tilted your head slightly, pressed a tender kiss in return to the curve of his chin.
"Yes."
Ryland smiled.
Now he stands in front of the bakery with two lilies nearly wilting in his hands. He's gripping the stems so hard they almost broke in half on his way there. He eases his grip, flexes one hand, stares at the lilies like they'd personally offended him.
He fishes out his phone and tries calling you again. You don't pick up. Ryland swears under his breath and trudges past the bakery. The waiter, John, is rearranging loaves of bread by the window display. He smiles when he sees his usual customer outside, walking past like he has somewhere he needs to be, but Ryland only glances at him and doesn't smile back.
He can't look at the bakery and not think of all the nights you two had spent together sitting at the same table, eating that same damn bolognese as if it was weekly fuel.
The last time Ryland saw you was five days ago.
It has been five days since the two of you returned from the UNESCO conference in Denmark. You were there for support. You were always there for support. Ryland just refuses to believe he had allowed himself to grow complacent around you. You, whose ground your feet touched was worshipped by every fiber of his being. How could he have let this happen?
Ryland drowns himself in ambition because he believes you will be there if he failed. Yes, you've argued with him. Yes, you've questioned his paper and his motives and how snobby he can be around the other researchers who just don't believe in what he is trying to prove.
Yes, you booked that flight and went to the conference with him anyway because even when his arguments make you want to tear your hair out, this is Ryland, and he is wholeheartedly yours, and you would never be anywhere but at his side even when he is being an absolute pain in the ass.
And then he went and did the one thing you had told him—multiple times—not to do.
He looked down on his peers.
"Ry, you can't just say that to someone!"
You were walking away from him. Marching out of the main building and towards the hotel without turning back to look at him.
"Oh, come on! You have to admit it was a bit funny?" Ryland waved his hands in defeat. "Baby, come on. Stop walking and look at me, please."
You sighed and whipped around, eyes shooting daggers into his. "I know you think your witty comments are funny, Ry, but sometimes you gotta know when to play and when to be professional. There's a line, and you crossed it."
"Oh, so I was unprofessional back there?"
"Ryland." You wiped a hand down your face, smudging your lipstick. You didn't care. "You called the leading scholar in your field a staggering waste of carbon. And I would've laughed if you said it in private. If it was just us in our room judging every person we see. But—" Your face faltered. Ryland hated it, wished he could redo everything then when he realized how much he had fucked up.
Your thoughts were clear.
But you said it in public. To the person's face. At a UNESCO conference.
Oh, what a smart comeback. What a smart mouth. So bold, so confident, so superior.
"Do you know what they're gonna do to you?" you asked, voice quieter then.
When your eyes met his, Ryland's shoulders sagged. Gone was the bold man who had stood on that stage and shot down every person who tried to argue about his paper and his findings and the model that he had spent months perfecting. He stepped closer, tried to reach for your hands and you let him, but you didn't grip his fingers the way he did yours.
"They're gonna fire you, Ry." You looked down. Ryland fought the urge to touch your face, to tilt your chin so you'd look at him. He would accept anything but you looking away from him, walking away from him. He couldn't stomach that. Could never live with it.
"You're not an independent researcher. You can't do or say as you please all the time, Ry. I'm sorry, but that's not how the world works. I wish I could tell you that everyone would be accepting of your wit. But not everyone knows you. They don't know you, and they don't get you. They won't stand there and let you insult a scholar so openly without repercussions."
Ryland squeezed your hand.
"I…I can't take it back," he whispered.
"I know."
"They're gonna fire me."
"Yeah."
Silence wrapped itself around the two of you like opposite ends of a scarf, soft around your necks but tightening with every passing second until one of you suffocated more than the other. You pulled away first.
"I'm heading back," you said, quiet. Withdrawn. The flowers between Ryland's ribs wilted, just a little. "Need to pack. Early flight tomorrow."
And then you walked away, back to your hotel room, and Ryland only stood there until you disappeared from view, until the warmth of your fingers in his hand turned cold with the wind.
One streetlight, two streetlights, three.
Ryland stands in front of the door to your apartment building and sighs. He toys with the leaf of one lily and jumps slightly on the balls of his feet. His nerves are through the roof. He keeps balling his free hand into a fist and then stretch his fingers over and over till the joints hurt.
Two minutes pass by. Three.
He finally buzzes for you, but you don't respond. He knows you're home. He can see your shadow against the ceiling, drifting away from the window.
"Come on, baby," he whispers to himself. The lilies grow heavy in his hand, lead and stone and regret. "Open the door for me, please."
Buzz. Two more buzzes.
Your window is slightly open. You've always liked letting the night breeze in. It can get pretty stuffy in there, he would know. He'd spent more time in your bedroom these past few months than he did in the lab. A place he cherished. A place you shared. A place you trusted him to take up space in without pushing you out.
He only wishes you would let him back in now.
Please let him in.
Another buzz.
He takes a few steps back and lets his shoulder rest against the third lamppost. He has the steps to your apartment memorized now. He can find his way over with his eyes closed. That pale green box is overflowing and every second another pale green box appears to catch every piece of your puzzle that Ryland wholeheartedly stores.
Sleeping in his old dorm the past five days had not been easy.
Gosh, he missed you.
He could live without his stupid science pun t-shirts and battered, annotated notebooks and special pens. But you? The waft of your raspberry shampoo and the weight of your ribs and the curve of your back against his chest and the feel of those two identical moles on your knee against his lips—he refuses to live another day without all of you.
So Ryland clears his throat and calls your name.
No response.
He calls again, much louder this time.
Your shadow halts halfway out of the bedroom. It scares him that he can tell such things. He watches as your shadow looms, larger now, closer to the window, and there you are.
Hair clipped, stubborn strands wildly framing your face. You push the window up and rest your forearms on the sill, staring down at him.
"What now, Ryland?"
No. He hates that, too. He wants Ry or baby or even asshole. Jerk. Snob.
He'll take it all but Ryland.
And then he remembers the lilies he holds in one hand and shows them to you. A peace offering. A weak attempt. Crap. Maybe he should've gone with the new Stephen King novel he'd noticed you eyeing in the bookstore at the Denmark airport when you two had first arrived. Fairytale or something.
"I, uh, got you these."
"Thanks. You can leave them on the doorstep. No one's gonna take them."
"You don't know that."
"There's like six other tenants in this apartment and they all know about my lily obsession, Ryland. They'll know it's for me."
"Can we stop being logical right now and just—" Just what? Act like adults and have a proper conversation and sort things out because that's what people do in healthy relationships? Sure. Except Ryland was the first to take the childish turn by insulting someone who disagreed with him at a fucking UNESCO conference.
So who's the adult now?
He hangs his head, removes his beanie and ruffles his hair. He holds the lilies up again.
"Please. Just—I—can we talk?"
Your eyes never leave him. He's grateful for that at least.
You never even told him to leave or anything. You were just being distant, and he understood that, and perhaps a part of him had hated himself for the things he had said and done that he got so embarrassed to face you. So he went to his old dorm instead of home. With you. He was the one putting even more distance between the two of you when he could be mending it from the start, and now he's the one crawling.
"Are you ready to talk like adults and accept that people have different opinions?" You stare at him, chin resting in one palm. Bored, almost. A facade, maybe. He wishes you missed him too. He wishes hard that you're just acting when inside your heart is rattling against your rib cage, begging to lie beside his once more.
The wilting flowers around Ryland's ribs tighten.
"I'm ready," he says.
"You're ready to come home and face the consequences of your actions instead of running away when things get hard?"
Ryland sighs, grips the lilies like an anchor. He hates facing consequences. He's used to getting away with things. He hates confrontation.
But this is you, and so he will face it all, right?
Surely five days were enough for him to wallow in self-pity, begging the Hall President not to kick him out of the dorms just yet even though his tenure had been terminated?
"Ryland."
"Yes," he answers.
You sigh. He can hear it all the way down there.
"Fine," you say, your voice carried by the wind from the third floor as you disappear from view.
A minute later the door buzzes, and Ryland jumps, already dashing forward and into the foyer and up the stairs to the third floor. You open the door just as he skips the last two steps, and then the lilies are right in front of your face, and Ryland's breathing rather steadily for someone who had just run up three flights of stairs.
"Please," he says. "Please. I'm sorry. I'm an asshole sometimes and I know that and I need to find a new job and I need to clear the lab because I've been procrastinating but if there's one thing I don't want to change in my life, it's your presence in it." Ryland huffs. Blinks a few times, hands still outstretched and presenting the lilies to you like they're made of gold.
"Please."
You reach for his hands instead of the flowers, cupping them with yours.
Ryland looks up, and those blue eyes are immediately filled with tears. Glassy and hopeful and staring into your soul. He lets you take his hands and the flowers and guide him inside. He enters like he doesn't have the creak of the hinges memorized. He crosses the living room like he hasn't done so a thousand times.
He stands there awkwardly while you replace your wilting lilies with the new ones. You straighten them, let them soak in the water as they perch atop your cabinet. You touch a petal before turning back to face him, and Ryland tucks that tiny moment away in that overflowing pale green box.
"Your letter came in yesterday," you say, gesturing at the small, neat stack of mail on the dining table. "In case you needed a black and white."
He doesn't. YOU'RE FIRED was clear enough a message that he doesn't need it in written form, but he nods anyway.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "I'll read it later."
Silence. Then—
"I'm sleepy," you say. "I was gonna go to bed before you did the whole not-so-serenade out there."
"I wasn't serenading you—"
"Should've brought a boom box with you." You shook your head, teasing. "Making me buzz you in…I left your copy of the keycard under the mat as always but you're dramatic and forgetful and I forget that sometimes."
Ryland's mouth hangs open. "You left me the key this whole time?"
"I thought you'd want to come back!" You gesture at the apartment, your surroundings. "This is your home now too. I thought you just needed space to process everything but you didn't return for five days and now here you are acting like a wounded puppy as if I kicked you out."
"You weren't talking to me; I thought you didn't want me here!"
"I wasn't talking to you because I was mad! Not because I was childish enough to give you the silent treatment—"
"But you didn't talk to me the entire flight back—"
"Because I thought you were the one giving me the silent treatment—"
"Oh my god, I suck at this," Ryland blurts.
"What, at communicating?" You sigh, then lean against the counter and rub your temple. "Me too, I guess."
Ryland rounds the dining table and slowly approaches you. That stare of yours is enough to bring sun to the darkest of days, and he gravitates towards it every time. He's so stupid, isn't he? Dumping everything on you the moment things get hard. Pulling away the moment he makes a mistake.
He's just purely and utterly dumb.
"I missed you," Ryland murmurs. He lifts one hand, traces the back of his fingers against the inside of your wrist. "I'm sorry."
"I know," you murmur back. "I missed you too. You idiot."
And when you wrap your arms around his neck, Ryland buries his face in your shoulder like he belongs there for eternity. He breathes you in, kisses the side of your neck. Hands wrap around your waist and settle on your back, pressing you to him.
"You just had to go and get yourself fired," you whisper in his ear.
"I'm sorry."
"You need to stop running your mouth like that, Ry."
Oh thank god the Ry is back.
"I just can't help it sometimes."
"You called them idiots in your scientific paper. You said the goldilocks zone is for idiots."
"Hey, in my defense—"
You shake your head, pressing one hand to Ryland's mouth.
"I don't wanna hear it. Not tonight."
Ryland sighs, smiles. "I have no problem with that."
Slowly, he leans in. His nose brushes against yours, thumbs brushing the skin beneath the hem of your shirt. When your lips capture his, it's soft and lingering. He kisses you back, slowly, devouring every second to make up for the five days he had to exist without you beside him. Without you fighting back, without your light snores, without your head on his chest.
What a nightmare.
Never again.
"You really need to empty your dorm before they evict you and make you pay a fine," you mutter against his lips, between brief kisses. Ryland returns each one all the same.
"I will. I wanna stay here."
"Good."
"Good."
Ryland kisses you again, then gently shifts you, walking you backwards to the bedroom. Shoulders bump against the wall, the picture frames. The coat hanger nearly topples over. The pale green box continues to overflow.
And Ryland Grace decides that there is nothing he needs more than this.
Especially not the heights of his ego.