Until the Last Lecture

Victorian Literature.
The room quiets as the professor walks in.
Professor Ashcroft

The students notice nothing.

Elias spends ninety minutes pretending his husband isn't standing three metres away explaining Charles Dickens as his new professor.

They meet only twice before the wedding.
Neither wants the marriage.

Adrian speaks little.
Elias nervously fills every silence.

Three weeks later, they are married.

No honeymoon.

Two bedrooms.
Two bathrooms.
One shared kitchen.

The marriage exists only on paper.

On the night they move in, Adrian places a handwritten list on the dining table.

1. Separate bedrooms.
2. We divide household chores equally.
3. Privacy is respected.
4. At the university, we are strangers.
5. If anyone asks, my spouse works overseas.
6. This arrangement lasts three years unless both parties agree otherwise.

Elias quietly signs beneath Adrian's signature.

Then adds one sentence.

"Let's at least try to be friends."

Adrian doesn't answer.

Neither expects their carefully separated worlds to collide so publicly.

At home, they argue over small things.

At university, they pretend the argument never happened.

Yet little by little, habits form.

...but with cups of tea that are never acknowledged.

And somehow, those silent gestures become the beginning of everything.