The Daughter They Abandoned Is The Doctor They Can’t Reach Chapter 28
In the spring of my second year, our paper was accepted by the student research journal.
When the acceptance email came in, Eli and I were standing in line at the dining hall.
He read the message over my shoulder, then put his tray right back on the counter.
“We have to celebrate.”
“We’re eating first.”
“This deserves a better meal than this.”
In the end, we still finished the sandwiches we had already picked out.
After the paper was officially published, Professor Warren printed the first page and pinned it to the lab bulletin board.
Two names sat side by side beneath the title.
Nora Hale.
Eli Grant.
Neither one standing in the other’s shadow.
That evening, Eli asked me to meet him on the lawn beside the chapel.
For once, he didn’t circle around what he meant.
“Nora, I like you.”
I held my coffee cup and said nothing.
“Not because you need someone to take care of you,” he went on. “You don’t. I just like doing research with you, eating with you, and the fact that you finally remember to remind me not to drink coffee on an empty stomach.”
“How long have you been preparing that speech?”
“Since winter break.”
“It’s a little long.”
He laughed, nervous.
I looked toward the far end of the lawn.
Someone biked past, the sound of the bell drifting away on the wind.
“I don’t want to move fast,” I said.
Eli nodded. “Then we won’t.”
“And you don’t get to make decisions for me.”
“You can call me out anytime.”
I turned back to him.
“That barbecue place on Saturday?”
He stared for two seconds before he understood.
“Is that a date?”
“That depends. Are you going to be late?”
Eli smiled, the same way he had after our first group presentation.
“Absolutely not.”
On Saturday, he arrived twenty minutes early.
I didn’t lose my judgment just because someone remembered me.
I didn’t mistake a cup of coffee for salvation.
I just started to believe that getting close to someone didn’t have to begin with giving myself away.