Rings of Saturn | h.s. soulmates au

Rings of Saturn - 8

December 8 - Afternoon

Phoebe had never been more ready for a semester to end.

She had enough of Margot and her cronies jeering whenever she passed them. She was exhausted by Dr. Day's complete ineptitude at being a professor. She was tired of coming up with excuses to not go out with her friends. But mostly, Phoebe was sick of avoiding Harry.

After that fateful night walking home from the library, Harry had made multiple attempts to talk to Phoebe. He arrived to class early and came to study sessions. He showed up to her dorm on more than one occasion with ice cream--the green kind of mint, not the white, she could hear him promise--and Amani always let him in, despite Phoebe's pleas Amani tell him she wasn't home. Phoebe had become well acquainted with the bushes outside her window that always cushioned her fall when she was escaping. But for two weeks straight, she successfully swerved Harry's every attempt to pick up where they left off with a string of ridiculous excuses and over the top escapes trailing behind her.

But the first day Harry didn't show up fifteen minutes early to class, and then didn't make an appearance at the nightly study session, Phoebe was shocked at how disappointed she felt. She didn't want to have the conversation, but she also didn't expect him to give up so easily.

Although, when she really thought about it on nights she was stuck staring up at her ceiling instead of sleeping, there was nothing easy about the way she was treating Harry. Phoebe was sad thinking about him, and when she let herself, she missed him. Not just his sweetness or the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled, either. No, Phoebe even missed the annoying way he snapped his gum and his constant confusion of Johannes Kepler for cookie elves. Harry was fun and carefree, two states of being Phoebe struggled to reckon herself with lately.

When she wasn't consumed by annoyance, a dull throb of dismay sat heavily in her chest.

The thought of meeting the one--or thinking he was the one--filled Phoebe with so much anxiety because she was afraid of building something only for it to crumble. So she had thought the way to handle it would be by avoiding it. But even though she tried to avoid it, Harry still found her. Phoebe thought she'd want nothing more than to scare any prospect away, but now that Harry was gone she realized that wasn't true. In fact, it was worse knowing she was meant for him, and he'd already given up on her.

But nothing felt as bad as realizing she gave up on whatever marking was supposed to bring about before ever even trying to achieve it.

Harry didn't even bother glancing at Phoebe in class now. He typically snuck in ten minutes late when the planetarium was already dark and a show was playing or Phoebe was scrawling formulas on the whiteboard. Then he'd sink so far down into his seat, only the top of his winter beanie would be visible from the front of the room. At the end of class when students handed in their quizzes, Harry always held his out as far as his long arms could stretch and never broke his stride out the door. After a week of that, Phoebe decided to have everyone pass the quizzes to the end of the row and save them both the hassle of elusion.

For once, the week before finals was a blessing. Phoebe was able to immerse herself so completely into studying she was almost able to forget about Harry. But just as she was pushing him from her mind, he seemed to be doing all he could to be the center of her attention.

When Taron, Blair, and Amani could no longer stand Phoebe closing herself up in her room, they dragged her to the last thirsty Thursday party on Frat Ville. Of course when they entered the house, Harry was front and center with one of his brothers DJing. When Phoebe was hiding out in Monterey Tower during a study session to get some of her own homework done instead of being bombarded by the questions of hopelessly confused students, Harry was tucked in a corner with his sketch pad. And when Phoebe began the last SCI1040 class of the semester, Harry stumbled into the planetarium and knocked the huge stack of blue books to the floor.