Chapter 212: Chapter 212: The Sea
Chapter 212: The Sea
The bowl had never been that large.
Elias had only made it sound impossible because looking helpless over breakfast was useful. After Giselle took nearly a third of it from him, there was even less left. He finished quickly, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked up.
Giselle’s bowl was already empty.
Only a little broth and the last traces of steam remained.
Elias blinked. "How did you eat that fast?"
Giselle did not answer.
She only pulled a napkin from the dispenser and reached across the table.
Elias paused.
After a short hesitation, he leaned forward.
Giselle wiped the corner of his mouth with natural precision, clearing away the bit of oil he had missed. Her expression did not change. No embarrassment. No forced tenderness. To her, it seemed like the simplest thing in the world: he had something on his mouth, so she cleaned it.
That was Giselle.
Extreme in both directions.
If she did not know you, she could pass by without sparing a glance. Her indifference had edges. It was not rudeness, exactly. It was something colder, as if people outside her chosen circle had no weight in her world.
But once she knew you, once she allowed you near, once she decided she would give something, the gentleness went all the way down.
She did not perform care.
She simply did it.
Giselle stood, silver hair falling neatly over her shoulder. "Let’s go."
"Mm." Elias checked the time on his phone. "Class is starting soon. We’ll meet after?"
"All right," Giselle said. "I’ll come get you."
Neither of them lowered their voices.
Neither of them seemed to care that students from nearby tables had noticed them.
That, too, was a kind of progress.
During class, Elias listened with perfect attention.
At least on the outside.
Inside, he was thinking about Giselle.
We can’t keep doing campus romance like this.
[System Theta: Huh? Isn’t this going well?]
From System Theta’s perspective, it did look good. Elias and Giselle went to breakfast together. Giselle waited for him. Giselle fed him from her own plate. Giselle was starting to treat him like a habit instead of a crisis.
Sweet, almost.
Except they were not actually dating.
And sweetness did not retire him.
Elias rested his chin on one hand, eyes still on the professor. Favorability is still rising too slowly. I’m not satisfied.
[System Theta: ...]
Of course he was not.
Elias had decided the pace needed to move.
That afternoon, when class ended, he walked out with the rest of the students and spotted Giselle almost immediately.
Silver hair made hiding pointless.
She stood near the end of the hall, away from the crowd without seeming to avoid it. People looked at her, then looked away. The Frost name did that. So did her face. So did the fact that she looked as if ordinary noise reached her only after being filtered through glass.
Elias brightened and jogged toward her.
He almost reached for her arm by habit.
Then he remembered the crowd.
Students were spilling out of classrooms. Someone was at the water fountain. Two girls near the wall had already slowed down to watch.
Elias stopped his hand halfway and folded the motion into a smile. "Let’s go eat."
Giselle nodded.
At the same time, she quietly lowered the arm she had started to raise for him.
They both pretended not to notice.
Side by side, they walked toward the campus gates. Their pace was unhurried, but the attention followed them anyway. A beautiful boy with glasses and a soft voice walking with Giselle Frost was not something Westbridge students ignored easily.
Elias let them look.
Giselle did not seem to care.
As they crossed the quad, Elias turned his face up to her. "Giselle, break is coming up soon. Do you have plans?"
The faintest curve touched her mouth. "Such as?"
"Going home."
The smile thinned at once.
"I’m not going back."
Her voice did not rise, but the words hardened.
Elias knew he had touched the sore place.
He had done it on purpose.
He looked as if he had not noticed. "Then come somewhere with me."
Giselle looked down at him.
Elias’s eyes were bright now, full of a hope that looked too honest to refuse. "Let’s take a trip. Just us. What do you think?"
Giselle was quiet for a while. "Where do you want to go?"
Elias answered instantly.
"The ocean."
"The ocean?"
"Mm." His voice lowered a little, losing some of its brightness. "I’ve only seen it in videos. I’ve never actually stood by the water before."
The city where they lived was too far inland for the ocean to feel like something nearby. For rich students, that meant nothing. Flights existed. Long weekends existed. Private family homes along the coast existed.
For Elias Kane, growing up under Arthur Hale and Marlene Bennet’s roof, the ocean might as well have been a different planet.
Marlene would never have taken him.
Arthur had spent too much of his life sick, worn down, and trapped under problems that did not leave room for pretty childhood memories.
So Elias had never seen the sea.
Giselle seemed to be thinking about that when Elias spoke again.
"But the main reason I want to go is you."
Giselle stilled. "Me?"
She could not understand how his wish to see the ocean had anything to do with her.
Elias looked straight into her eyes.
Then he smiled, brilliant and unguarded.
"Because your eyes look like the sea." His voice warmed with wonder. "That kind of blue. It’s exactly like the ocean in the videos. So deep and so pretty that it makes me want to see the real thing with my own eyes."
Giselle stopped walking.
Elias stopped too. "What’s wrong?"
She lowered her gaze.
He had said several sentences, but only one remained in her mind.
Your eyes look like the sea.
Giselle had seen eyes like hers before.
Her father had them.
She had inherited the color from him, that deep, impossible blue everyone else called beautiful. But the last time she saw his eyes clearly, it had been on a night ruined by rain. His face had been wild. His blue eyes, once bright enough to make people turn their heads, had carried the broken madness of someone already falling apart.
Then he jumped in front of her.
By the time it ended, there was nothing left of him that a child should have had to remember.
Except the eyes.
Deep. Blue. Devouring.
As if they could swallow her whole.
After that, Giselle stopped looking in mirrors. She hated catching her own reflection because, if the light hit wrong, her father looked back at her. The resemblance made her chest lock. It made breathing feel like trying to take air under water.
But now Elias had said it differently.
Eyes like the sea.
The sea was deep too.
The sea held darkness, secrets, wreckage, life, danger, and light all at once. It was not ruined because parts of it were terrifying. It did not stop being beautiful because no one could see the bottom.
Maybe what she had seen that night was not the whole thing.
Maybe it had only been one corner of the deep.
Elias watched her face change.
The tightness between her brows eased without warning, as if some knot inside her had loosened by itself.
He felt briefly confused.
Had he done something?
Had that line actually comforted her?
Before he could decide, the system notice appeared.
[Giselle Frost’s favorability has increased. Current value: 62%.]
Elias blinked.
Then decided not to question good fortune.
As long as it helped the strategy, he did not need to dig up every reason.
Deeply understanding someone’s private wounds was the kind of thing a person did when they loved them. Elias had no interest in that kind of devotion. He only needed to read their personalities, cut them open cleanly enough to know where to press, and apply the right medicine at the right time.
"Okay," Giselle said.
Elias’s eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yes."
He forgot the students around them and grabbed her arm with both hands, shaking it in delight. "Really? Where are we going? How are we getting there? When do we leave? Do we need tickets now? Flight tickets? Train tickets? Do I need to pack tonight?"
"Enough, enough." Giselle sounded helpless, but there was a small smile in her eyes. "Send me your ID. I’ll arrange it."
"Okay!"
Elias lowered his head and smiled too.
A trip to the ocean arranged by the Frost family would not be a cheap boardwalk weekend. It would not be a crowded beach with bad parking and convenience-store sunscreen.
Most likely, it would be somewhere private.
Maybe out of the country.
And if he and Giselle left the country, would Serena Blackwood find out?
Of course she would.
If Serena knew, then far from Westbridge, far from campus, far from Giselle’s still-awkward protection, would Serena’s methods be something Giselle could handle?
Elias did not know what Serena would do.
He only knew that if Serena did anything at all, his relationship with Giselle would move forward.
That was the essence of trash romance.
Pain, obstruction, jealousy, misunderstanding, rescue, dependency.
Excellent.
He was already looking forward to it.
When Elias lifted his head again, every trace of calculation had vanished from his eyes. He was once more the bright, innocent boy walking beside Giselle, full of joy over a first trip to the sea.
They were almost at the campus gate when someone called out.
"Elias!"
The voice was familiar.
Elias turned, puzzled.
A worn-looking woman stood a short distance away, eyes bright with excitement as she stared at him.
Marlene Bennet.
His mother.
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