Chapter 200: Just a Random Hi?
He heard her footsteps on the stairs and then saw her walk into the kitchen. She was dressed comfortably in a big sweater and leggings, with her blonde hair pulled up in a messy bun.
"Smells amazing, Dad," she said, sliding into her usual spot at the table.
He plated the pasta, adding a good amount of Parmesan and freshly cracked pepper. He set her plate in front of her and took his seat across from her.
"How’s your friend doing?" he asked casually, twisting some pasta onto his fork. "Ayla, right?"
Emma’s face lit up. "Yeah! I texted her earlier. She’s still at the hospital but is feeling a lot better. The doctors want to keep her for one more night just to watch her."
"That’s good," Alexander replied. "Better safe than sorry with that stuff."
They ate in a comfortable silence for a bit, just an easy quiet that came from years of shared meals and trust. If only Emma knew how carefully crafted this normal life was, how many lies held everything together.
But she didn’t have a clue. And she wouldn’t, as long as Alexander had anything to say about it.
After dinner, Emma helped him clean up, loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counters, their routine as familiar as breathing. Then she headed up to her room, calling out a cheerful "Goodnight, Dad!" over her shoulder.
Alexander watched her go, feeling a strange shift in his chest, something that might’ve been guilt if he let himself feel that way.
He pushed the feeling aside and went back to his study.
*****
Emma’s bedroom was her little escape.
Fairy lights draped along the walls gave off a cozy golden glow. On her windowsill, there were tons of plants, forming a mini succulent garden she’d been taking care of since her undergrad days.
Her desk was a mix of neat and messy: textbooks neatly piled on one side, and above that, a corkboard filled with photos of friends, concert tickets, and some random motivational quotes she printed out during finals week when she needed a push.
Sitting cross-legged on her bed with her laptop on her knees, Emma was surrounded by notebooks, highlighters, and the syllabus packets from her first day of classes.
Her blonde hair was still thrown up in a messy bun, with a few pieces falling loose around her face. She probably should’ve showered and gotten ready for bed, but her brain was too wired.
She pulled up the course page for Advanced Algorithms, her first serious class in the master’s program. Professor Chen had already put up the first assignment: a problem set due in a week.
As she scanned through it, her stomach dropped.
"Okay, this looks... tough," she mumbled, scrolling through pages of complicated computational problems that made her undergrad algorithms class feel like a kid’s puzzle.
Dynamic programming. Graph theory. Time complexity analysis that made her head spin just reading the questions.
She knew she should probably get started on it right away to stay ahead while she was still feeling motivated. But her thoughts kept drifting back to Ayla.
Her new friend was still in the hospital, which meant she was missing classes. Emma bit her lip, thinking about how Ayla would need the notes. She had to make sure to cover what she missed so she wouldn’t fall behind right at the start of the semester.
Emma remembered how tough it was to catch up in grad classes. Missing one lecture could lead to weeks of confusion.
Finally making up her mind, Emma minimized the assignment window and opened a new document instead.
"If I’m going to take notes tomorrow anyway, I might as well make them detailed enough to share," she said to herself, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
At the top of the document, she typed: "Notes for Ayla."
Next, she set up sections for each of their shared courses: Advanced Algorithms, Database Systems, Machine Learning Foundations, and Software Engineering Principles.
Emma color-coded each section, blue for Algorithms, green for Database Systems, purple for Machine Learning, and orange for Software Engineering. Being a visual learner, she found that colors helped her organize info better. Plus, it looked nicer.
"Alright, Emma, let’s get to it," she said, cracking her knuckles like she was gearing up for a competition.
As Emma worked away, she got into a nice groove. She added sections for lecture notes, reading tasks, and homework problems. She even threw in a little checklist at the end of each course section so Ayla could keep track of what she had gone over.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she added some formatting, bold headings, bullet points, and tables to compare different algorithms.
"This is actually kind of fun," Emma muttered, adding little star emojis next to the topics that Professor Chen highlighted in the syllabus as "super important for the midterm."
She set up a section for important dates, assignment deadlines, exam schedules, and office hours. Then she added another section for extra reading that wasn’t required but could still be helpful.
Honestly, she was probably going a little overboard with this. Once Emma started organizing something, it was like she couldn’t help herself; it felt like a compulsion.
After about thirty minutes of focused work, Emma saved the document with a happy click. The template was neat, organized, and ready for her notes tomorrow.
She stretched her arms over her head, enjoying the satisfying crack of her shoulders after being hunched over her laptop. Her phone sat next to her with a dark screen, and on impulse, she picked it up.
The lock screen showed 9:47 PM. It was still early enough to check in with her friends.
She opened her messages and scrolled to her group chat with her college pals, Mia, Sophie, and Jimmy. They’d been tight since freshman year, surviving late-night cram sessions, questionable dining hall food, and that one awful spring break trip to Miami that they all agreed never to talk about again.
Emma: "Third day of grad school done. Already drowning in assignments, lol."
The replies came in almost immediately. Her friends were clearly just as bored on a Monday night as she was.
Mia: "SAME. My prof assigned like 200 pages of reading for ONE class."
Sophie: "At least you guys are still in school. I’m in the real world now, and it’s HORRIBLE. I miss homework. 😭"
Jimmy: "Sophie, you started your job two weeks ago. Chill."
Emma grinned and quickly replied: "I also made a friend! Her name’s Ayla; she’s super nice. She collapsed on the first day, though. Totally freaked me out!"
Mia: "WAIT, WHAT? Is she okay?"
Emma: "Yeah, she’s fine! Still in the hospital for observation, but should be out tomorrow. I’m making her notes so she doesn’t fall behind."
Sophie: "You’re such a good person, Emma. 🥺"
Jimmy: "Simp behavior, tbh."
Emma: "Jimmy, I’m gonna block you."
Jimmy: "You love me too much."
Emma: "That’s up for debate."
She kept chatting with them for another ten minutes, the familiar banter making her feel more grounded despite the craziness of starting grad school.
They were chatting about their classes, Sophie’s awful new boss, Mia’s dating app fails, and Jimmy’s never-ending hunt for the best pizza joint near his place.
It felt totally normal and chill, exactly what Emma needed after such a wild, stressful day.
But eventually, her eyes started to get heavy. The last couple of days had been a lot: first-day nerves, meeting Ayla, that scary moment when Ayla collapsed right on campus, rushing to the hospital with Liam, meeting her dad, and visiting Ayla with him.
It had been intense.
Emma: "Alright, I’m crashing. Talk tomorrow ❤️"
Mia: "Night, babe!"
Sophie: "Sleep well! Don’t dream about algorithms."
Emma: "I can’t even with you two!"
After a bunch of laughing emojis and heart reactions, Emma set her phone back down on the nightstand.
Just as she was about to close her laptop and turn off the lights, her phone buzzed once.
Emma frowned as she picked it up again.
A text from an unknown number.
Unknown: "Hi."
That was it. Just "Hi." No context or anything.
Emma stared at the message for a while, her thumb hovering over the screen.
It was probably a wrong number, or spam, or one of those bots trying to get you to click on sketchy links.
She should just delete it and go to sleep.
She had classes tomorrow, actual, real master ’s-level stuff where she needed to be awake and focused. Hopefully, Ayla would be out of the hospital tomorrow, and they could grab coffee so Emma could give her all the notes she’d put together.
That was what mattered, not some random "Hi" from an unknown number at almost 10 PM on a Monday night.
Emma swiped away the notification without replying.
She closed her laptop, set it on her desk, and turned off the fairy lights. The room went dark except for a little bit of light from the street filtering in through her curtains.
She snuggled under her blankets, with her phone charging on the nightstand, and closed her eyes.
In no time, her breathing evened out, and Emma fell asleep, completely unaware that the mysterious text had come from someone who had been thinking about her all evening.
Someone who was lying in his own bed across the city, staring at his phone and wondering why she hadn’t texted back.
