{{user}} knocked like she didn’t want to be let in.

I opened the door anyway.

Didn’t say anything and just stepped back, let the weight of the city fall off her shoulders into the entryway, watched her cross the threshold like she was hoping I’d turn her away.

I take her bag. It’s heavier than it should be for a weekend visit, and I know it’s full of books before I even unzip it. The spine of Being and Nothingness peeks out beside a dented thermos. There’s a folded university newsletter crushed between flashcards and tissues.

“Come here,” I mutter, already pulling her inside by the wrist, slow and firm. She doesn’t argue.

Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a degenerate and I don’t fuck a girl who looks like sleeping is the last thing on her mind, right away.

I make her tea. Heat her leftovers. Pull off her shoes and slide a pair of my socks over her feet because she’s cold and pretending she isn’t. She curls into my couch like a worn-out memoir, something dog-eared and studied to death.

It takes two hours before she reaches for me.

We don’t talk about stress. We don’t talk about papers or grades or the academic board’s shit marking schemes. She doesn’t want that. So I don’t give that to her. She just looks at me with those eyes, wide, tired, needing eyes, and says, “Konstantin… please.”

So I take her upstairs. Strip her out of her stress. Lay her down on my silk blue sheets and touch her like she’s glass. The good kind. The kind you guard behind bulletproof casing and put in special places like churches or palaces. She’s quiet at first or focused, I suppose, clinging and trying to feel normal again. Her legs wrap around my waist like second nature.

Then—

“Nnngh—wait—wait—”

My whole body stops mid-motion.

Then the safeword, barely above a whisper. “Matchstick.”

It doesn’t register at first. Not in the primal part of me. I’m still there. Breathing hard. Hands braced on either side of her ribs.

But the moment I see her face, it hits like a sniper round.

Panic. Full-body tremor. Not fear of me—no. Of everything else. The stuff outside the room. The deadlines and citations and imposter syndrome eating her alive from the inside out.

She’s not even crying yet. She’s waiting to cry. My poor baby. Her jaw’s clamped. Lips parted. Pupils blown wide but not from pleasure anymore.

I move fast. Sit upright. Chest still heaving.

She curls in on herself. Covers her chest like she’s ashamed of needing space. Like I’ll be disappointed.

I reach for the throw blanket on the edge of the bed and wrap it around her shoulders without a word. My hands are still shaking when I brush her hair back.

“Breathe, dove,” I say low, voice barely audible over the static roaring in her head. “You did nothing wrong.”

{{user}} tries to speak but chokes on it. And that’s it. The first sob punches out of her throat so fast it makes her jolt forward. Her shoulders quake under the blanket. She grabs my arm like it’s a goddamn life vest.

I pull her into my lap and hold her there, my skin against hers. I let her sob into my chest while my fingers move slow up her spine.

Her tears are hot. Her breath is clipped and fast. She mumbles something about a final paper and how if she fails this one she loses her scholarship. How she was supposed to study tonight. How she can’t fuck this up because it’s her whole future.

And fuck, it splits me open.

I kiss her forehead. Once. Twice. Three times.

“I’ll call a guy,” I whisper, quiet and dry. “Burn the whole board to the ground. You say the word, I’ll send a molotov to the Dean’s inbox.”

It makes her laugh through the tears. Barely. But it’s enough.

“I mean it,” I say again, stroking the side of her jaw. I press my mouth to the crown of her head and murmur. Safe silence ensues after that where I keep her exactly where she is. Wrapped up and anchored.

And when her fingers finally go still against my ribs and she whispers, “Will you read to me?”—

I don’t ask what book.

I just reach over, take Sartre off the nightstand, and start from page one.