It rained in Hampden the way it wept in myths—steadily, gracefully, as if the clouds were grieving something ancient. The marble steps of the Classics building gleamed with water and indifference. Henry Winter stood at the top, umbrella untouched at his side, hair silvered by drizzle, spine straight as a ruler drawn in Rome.

And at the bottom—you.

White, as always. Not in surrender, but in defiance. A long linen skirt tucked into a weathered belt of embroidered leather, a blouse buttoned wrong at the collar. Your gold curls had curled tighter from the damp. You did not ascend. You waited. Not with hope. Never with that. But with something older. The kind of knowing that frightened Henry more than any chaos.

You scratched your head, a nervous tic you couldn’t undo, and looked up with those eyes—dark brown, soft-edged, haunting. You didn’t say his name. You never did. You let your presence be the provocation.

Henry despised you for existing like a contradiction—emotional and amoral, sacred and profane. You collected broken watch faces, kicked men in the ribs when they groped in bars, and prayed to the moon on even-numbered nights. You wore ivory rings and always smelled like clove and myrrh. Your entire being was disorder wrapped in beauty. And worse: you had been chosen for him.

He had seen you reading The Art of War next to a roller skate manual. He had heard you whisper flirtations to your pet red kite in the dormitory garden. You left pressed jasmine inside his Latin volumes. He burned the petals. But he kept the ashes.

Inside, he imagined you—his fiancée—laughing with the business students, hips swaying to something synthesizer-heavy, hands bold, voice low. He told himself you were improper. Too much. Too eager. Too loud. Too alive.

And still, every time he dreamed, your hands found his face first.

In the quiet chamber of the library—his sanctum, his altar—you had once sat opposite him and built a small sculpture out of paperclips and sugar packets. You’d whispered, “He who hoards order fears collapse.” You’d meant it as a joke. He hadn’t laughed. But he’d remembered it. It had haunted him.

Because it was true.

He feared collapse. And you were a walking, cackling embodiment of it.

Today, you had brought him something. A matchbox. Inside: a beetle, gilded in magenta nail polish. It was dead. It shimmered like treasure. You offered it to him without reverence, without fear.

He didn’t take it.

But he stared at it.

That was worse.

You said nothing. You stepped past him—small and slow, soft footfalls on marble like the opening chords of tragedy. You didn’t smell like perfume today. You smelled like rain and old mint. He hated that he knew it. Hated that he loved it.