When Walls Fall

Dr Alexandria Byrne had once believed that tenderness was a kind of safety.
A shelter.
A promise.

Then someone she loved broke that promise, and the aftershocks hollowed her out in ways she still couldn't speak of.

Now, years later, she carried herself with the calm precision of someone who could not afford softness again. Her voice clipped, her posture immaculate, her emotions tucked away as neatly as the papers on her desk.

Her colleagues called her distant.
Students called her cold.

But she called it survival.

She never imagined the girl who would unravel all of it had already stepped onto campus-heart bruised, hands trembling, carrying a grief heavier than her rucksack.

They would meet in a storm, though neither knew it yet.