Resonant

Chapter 20

Fen

I so rarely received mail that I never bothered checking my box in the faculty mail room. I would have never known to look if Zale hadn't pulled me aside and held up an envelope with the school crest and his name on it.

"We need to talk," he said grimly.

Nerves fluttered in my stomach while I tried to come up with an explanation. But I had no idea where he could be going with this. "What is it?"

He frowned a little. "Contracts are out."

I still didn't follow. "Contracts?"

"Yeah. For the next school year?" Zale watched me expectantly, but I still had no idea what he was talking about.

I shook my head mutely and Zale pulled a letter out of his envelope, passing it to me to see. It only took seconds to realize what was going on. These were renewal offers of employment. Each school year was contracted separately and renewed in the spring. I vaguely remembered someone explaining that to me when I started working here, but there was a lot of information in the beginning and I had been willing to agree to anything for access to Zale so a lot of it went over my head.

"Oh. Well, what's there to talk about?" Unless he didn't think they'd offer to keep me. Maybe I wasn't doing a very good job? I knew I didn't have a lot of teaching experience, but I thought the students liked to hear about fae culture and history. They always seemed engaged, anyway.

"I'm not going to be teaching here next year," Zale said. "I'm needed back home."

It took some time for the words to sink in, and when they did my heart sank, too. "Oh."

Why hadn't he told me? And what did this mean for us?

I tried to hide my disappointment, but of course Zale saw through me. His hands enveloped mine, but even their warmth wasn't enough to make me feel better.

When would I even see him next year? And what should I do? Keep teaching here anyway, without him? I didn't think I could bear to go through the motions when they would only emphasize his absence. Zale was too much a part of my daily routine now. Breakfasts and lunches, grading together in the mornings, having quiet talks in either his suite or mine in the evening after dinner. We spent so much time together now that everything else just felt like the insignificant time between.

I should have had something else in my day that held meaning, but... well, I didn't. It was part of the problem with me. Part of what I so desperately needed to fix about myself. Because I knew it was bad that everything I had to look forward to in my daily routine rested on one person. He might be my soul mate, but shouldn't I be enough for me?

And, sure, maybe I should have taken some value from my job outside the closeness it granted me with Zale, but I didn't. I liked the students and I liked the atmosphere, but it was just a job. Especially without Zale here, I didn't know how to imbibe meaning into something that didn't naturally hold any.

So where did that leave me?

"I hoped you would come with me," Zale said, cutting through my thoughts.

"What?"

"Come with me. Please." The please was added like an afterthought.

I wanted to say yes. I really did. But I didn't know what I would be agreeing to, and I didn't want to keep being the kind of man who did anything for their partner, no questions asked. I couldn't stop being a pushover without at least trying to advocate for myself.

Besides, the idea of living in that castle full-time was intimidating. I could still vividly remember what it had been like walking through it with Zale for the first time. So many eyes on me, and they all felt like they were judging. That place didn't feel like a home, so I didn't see how I could live there.