WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

19 - The Things We Keep Separate

HANA'S POV

I wake before the rest of the house does. Not because I have suddenly become one of those people who enjoys mornings, but because the thought of Aera appearing in the library with another complaint is apparently enough motivation to drag me out of bed before sunrise. The estate is almost unnaturally quiet at this hour, the kind of quiet that makes every small sound feel amplified—the soft click of my bedroom door closing, the muted footsteps of my slippers against the hallway floor, the distant hum of someone beginning preparations in the kitchen. 

I carry my books against my chest and make my way toward the library, hoping to claim at least an hour of uninterrupted studying before anyone else decides the room belongs to them. When I push open the doors, I'm relieved to find the table exactly as I left it yesterday, the morning light only beginning to spill through the tall windows, turning the dust floating through the air into tiny pieces of gold. I set my things down, pull out my notebooks, and settle into the same chair I'd occupied the day before, determined to pretend that the last twenty-four hours didn't happen.

It lasts approximately four minutes. The library doors open behind me.

I don't turn around immediately. I already know the footsteps. There's something distinctly annoying about recognizing someone by the sound of them entering a room, especially when that someone has spent the past week making himself impossible to ignore. I keep my eyes on the page in front of me until a familiar voice reaches me from across the table.

"You're awake."

I look up. Niki stands there with a stack of books tucked beneath one arm, his hair slightly disheveled and his expression considerably less put together than usual. He looks tired. Not ordinary tired, either. The kind of tired that settles beneath someone's eyes and makes them look like they've spent half the night arguing with their own thoughts.

"Unfortunately."

His mouth twitches. "Same."

He drops his books onto the opposite side of the table and pulls out the chair. I watch him sit, then glance toward the clock on the wall. It's barely six in the morning. "You couldn't sleep?"

He shakes his head, opening one of his textbooks. "No. Couldn't sleep." He says it so casually that I almost let it pass, but there is something in the way he rubs the back of his neck that makes me think the answer is more complicated than that. 

Maybe it's the argument with his father. Maybe it's London. Maybe it's the red mark on his cheek that has faded but hasn't disappeared completely. Or maybe Niki is simply one of those people who can lie awake for hours while his mind refuses to stop moving, which, unfortunately, is something I understand far too well. He flips through a few pages without really reading them, his eyes moving over the words with the kind of practiced concentration that tells me he's trying very hard to convince himself he's fine. 

"So I figured I might as well study." He shrugs. "If I'm going to be miserable, I may as well be miserable with a purpose." 

I smile despite myself and return to my notes. "That's a terrible philosophy." 

"It's gotten me this far." His mouth curves slightly, and for a few seconds, the library settles into silence again.

I try to concentrate on the equation in front of me, but I'm painfully aware of him sitting across the table. It's ridiculous how noticeable another person can become when they're doing absolutely nothing. I can hear the quiet scratch of his pen against paper, the occasional turn of a page, the faint movement of his chair whenever he shifts his weight. I know when he reaches for his water bottle without looking. I know when he sighs. I know when he stops writing because the sound disappears, and somehow I know when he's looking at me before I ever lift my eyes from my notebook. It's as though my attention has developed a separate, highly inconvenient instinct dedicated entirely to Niki.