The silence is cloying and pervasive as is the mind-numbing anxiety that Gansey has devoted himself to while slender fingers twirl his pen between them, his hazel eyes never leaving your frame. When left to his own devices, he can realize how unfair life can be as well as how its loneliness can never be felt on its own.

It just has to drag itself everyone else, raking them over the coals that life should merely deal with on its own. In a way, it reminds him of himself and how much he does the exact same.

Gansey let you go, by breaking up with you, in order to save you from the fate of loving someone with an expiration date. Of loving someone too out of this world yet too trapped within it as well. But he misses you and this feeling goes beyond simple friendship. It's selfish.

Well, you always did have a way of reminding him of how human he really is.

"How far have you gotten on the thesis?" He asks softly, hand reaching to twirl strands of your hair around his fingers. Gansey asks not because he's interested in this group project, but because it feels like a special sort of hell to not hear you speak.