The Allure of Love

Chapter 16

As the group ambled back towards the heart of Central State's academic quad once more, Anastasia found herself uncharacteristically withdrawn from the banter and boisterous camaraderie flowing between Sam, Josh, and Jack. Her thoughts felt scattered, a jumbled tangle of conflicting emotions and memories she couldn't quite process linearly.

Being back on Alpha Sig Sig's hallowed territory had dredged up so many ghosts - both rapturous and heartbreaking - from the past she had thought safely laid to rest. Even surrounded by her oldest friends' easy rapport and Jack's steadying presence, she could still feel the echoes of former dreams and desires reverberating through her very bones. It left Anastasia feeling strangely adrift and unsettled in unfamiliar territory, cut loose with no compass from the moorings of her old identity.

As if subconsciously seeking its gravity once more for navigation, her gaze kept flickering over towards Chris whenever her mind wandered. She would find herself studying the familiar angles and planes of his face from her periphery, searching for some reflection of the inner turmoil she felt ricocheting through her heart. Did he feel it too - this bewildering, overwhelming rush of unfinished nostalgic ache wrapping around them in atmospheric tendrils? Or was she alone in her misguided riptide of long-buried sentiments?

When their eyes would meet across the distance separating them, she couldn't help feeling a hitching jolt low in her belly. An unspoken frisson of awareness that transported her whiplash back through the years, searing away the calloused barriers of time and emotional self-preservation she had erected. It left Anastasia feeling suddenly, unbearably _seen_ \- each of her deepest insecurities and erstwhile yearnings laid naked before his warm amber-flecked gaze.

She knew the smart move would be to avert her eyes and shift back into her relationship's present moment with Jack whenever these loaded moments arose. Yet Anastasia couldn't quite resist allowing herself to sink unmoored into their connection's powerful pull, if even for a fleeting beat before the tidal wave swept them both under again.

Unconsciously, she began drifting towards the rear of their straggling group until the only person left in her immediate wake was Chris. An instinctive sort of inertia had drawn them together, the closest either had allowed themselves proximity all weekend without the buffering presences of Sam and Josh. Subtle as a whispered breath, his arm brushed up against hers as they continued on - inciting a disorientating wave of somatic memories to flood every one of her nerve endings.

"God, remember how the maple tree scents would fill this whole stretch of path come mid-September?" Chris's voice was low and hushed beside her, barely audible over the others' lively chattering ahead. "I swear, it was like a narcotic fog blanketing the campus for weeks on end. Dead leaves, dry wood smoke, and the faintest whiff of distant chimneys keeping the library toasty."

Anastasia felt her throat constrict with a potent surge of nostalgic longing at his observation. She could recreate the exact scent memory as if falling into a dream - a quintessential New England autumn enveloping her in its crisp, inviting embrace.  Long,hazy walks back from evening study sessions beside Chris, leaves crackling beneath their meandering footsteps as they analyzed Faulkner passage until the campus lamps sputtered on around them. His palm would inevitably find the small of her back whenever she pretended to shiver so she could prolong their languid journey home just a few stolen moments more...

God, how had evenings that felt so achingly simple in their blissful mundanity now taken on the lush, saturated quality of a baroque fever dream in retrospect?

"Yeah, I remember," she finally managed to reply, voice thick with a potent tangle of melancholy and wistful desire. "Those nights where we'd wander in oblivious circles half the time just to keep drinking it all in before the cold set in for real."

Anastasia kept her gaze stubbornly averted rather than meet Chris's undoubtedly soulful expression beside her. She couldn't afford to dive too far down into those molten affection-laced senses, to risk splintering into a million fragments. Not when rebuilding herself after their scorched earth implosion had required such steel-willed restraint on the path to resilience.

They walked on in weighted silence for several more yards, allowing Anastasia to indulge in the illicit fantasy that it was just the two of them adrift in their collegiate oasis once more. Her heartbeat steadily thrummed louder as the distance grew between them and their companions up ahead - as if the nostalgic atmosphere itself worked to muffle any reminders of the present day's abrasions.

"Chris, I..." she began after a lengthy pause, but the words stuck like wads of cotton in her mouth. What, exactly, was she even trying to articulate amid this thick uproar of emotional remembrances? An apology? Explanation? _Something_ to cut through the disorienting vertigo settling over her senses?

Luckily, he seemed to sense the internal battle raging within her as he shifted one shoulder in a subtle half-shrug.

"It's okay, you know," he replied, keeping his eyes angled straight ahead across the old familiar quads and study groves. "You don't owe me any grand summation or poetic refrains on the ghosts that linger for either of us back here. Not anymore."

Though the words themselves were mild, almost blasé, something gut-punchingly bittersweet still radiated from Chris's tone and overall presence. Anastasia felt her lungs constrict as if the humid autumn air itself were pressing down against her chest cavity. She knew on some cosmic plane that he understood all of her internal grappling and flickering indecisions scratching to reach the surface - not in some desperate bid to reopen old chasms, but simply to briefly exhume and acknowledge them in the stark light of present reunion before laying them peacefully to rest once more.

As heavy and daunting as this sort of catharsis loomed, Anastasia couldn't mistake the fine tremors of residual tension and anguish still evident in Chris's form after they had drawn up alongside her once more.

What wouldn't she give to stay in this gossamer bubble of nostalgic ambiguity with him forever? To sink back through the gauzy folds of time into their state of becoming...before heartbreak split the world in two and forced them to harden into their present realities?

Up ahead at the copse of oak trees marking Central State's main crossroads, Anastasia could make out Jack's tall form lingering behind Sam and Josh. He had his back angled towards her, but even in profile she could see the restless way his gaze kept roving - as if he instinctively sensed her trailing beside Chris rather than at his side. A fresh pang of remorse and guilt sliced through Anastasia, muddling the tranquil ache of her sentimental reverie.

This wasn't fair to Jack, was it? For all his posturing about not caring one way or another about this reunion weekend, she knew beneath the bravado he felt an unmistakable undercurrent of insecurity over her emotional investment in reviving so many remnants of her past life before him. More prickles of shame joined the tumult battling throughout her - she should be savoring her present with Jack, not drifting back into half-remembered raptures over a bittersweet flame extinguished long ago.

But one final, boldly yearning spark still flickered within Anastasia...fueled by whispering voices insisting this weekend's haunted pilgrimage had merely grazed the surface of her soul's unfinished business where Chris was concerned. What if allowing herself the indulgence of diving deeper could be the very demystifying catharsis needed to quell all lingering nostalgic fevers for good?

Inhaling a steadying breath, she felt the first murmurs of a decision take shape in spite of all her lingering trepidation - one that could either prove the most purifying risk of surrender...or the most self-destructive.

"Actually, Chris..." she began slowly, waiting to catch his gaze with hers. Swirling amber melted into piercing beryl green, the stormy depths rekindling that primal spark of yearning within her once more. "Maybe we _do_ need to talk more, while we have this rare chance alone together again. If you're open to it, that is..."

For a pregnant pause suspended in amber, the world around them seemed to fall away into a silence thick as cotton - a deliciously apprehensive hush encapsulating them within its gauzy cocoon. Then Chris exhaled a long, low breath...