Chapter 4: First Day of Lessons
The lecture hall was a cathedral to forgotten ambition. Sunlight, thick with dust motes, slanted through towering windows, painting bright bars across the scarred wooden floors. The air smelled of ancient chalk, damp concrete from the stairwells, and the faint, sweet decay of outdated textbooks. At the front, a professor with a voice like dry mortar droned on about the load-bearing virtues of different brick bonds.
Timothy sat in his usual mid-row seat, a buffer zone between the eager front-row enthusiasts and the checked-out back-row sleepers. His new sketchpad was open, a clean page awaiting inspiration that wouldn’t come. All he could see was the geometric shadow of a spine on damp concrete.
A heavy thud into the seat next to him made the old bench shudder. A familiar, spicy scent of cheap sandalwood cologne and spearmint gum cut through the chalk dust.
“Waltz. You look like a man who’s seen a ghost. Or worse, a structural failure.”
Timothy didn’t need to look. The voice, warm and perpetually edged with a laugh, was an anchor to a simpler past. Steve Gunnarson filled the space beside him, all six-foot-three of scruffy, relaxed confidence. He wore a faded band t-shirt under an unbuttoned flannel, his sketching hand already idly doodling a caricature of the professor in the margin of his notebook.
“Steve,” Timothy said, the word a relieved exhale. “When did you get back?”
“Last night. Dorm smells like feet and regret. Usual welcome.” Steve’s eyes, a calm green, scanned Timothy’s face. “You, on the other hand. You look different. Wiry. Haunted. Did you get a place in a haunted house? Because I know a guy who can do a cleansing. For a fee.”
“I got an apartment. A shared one.”
Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit? You? Sharing? With humans?” He leaned closer, lowering his voice under the professor’s monotone lecture about Flemish bond. “Tell me everything. Are they goblins? Reclusive violin makers? Please say one’s a reclusive violin maker.”
“They’re… women.” Timothy whispered it like a state secret.
Steve’s doodling stopped. He turned fully in his seat, his expression one of pure, undiluted delight. “Shut up.”
“Two of them.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Steve let out a low, appreciative whistle that earned a shush from a girl two rows ahead. He bent his head closer. “Okay. Start from the top. Ages. Descriptions. Threat level.”
The professor’s voice faded into a distant hum. Timothy found himself talking in a rushed, hushed torrent. He described the cramped kitchenette, the perpetual coffee scent. He skimmed over Rina’s librarian softness, her quiet smiles. He entirely omitted the laundry room incident, but somehow, the tension of it leaked into his description of Mira.
“—and the other one, Mira, she’s a bartender. She’s just very… loud. Physically.”
“Physically loud,” Steve repeated, his artist’s brain clearly working. “That’s a new one. How does a person be physically loud?”
“She does push-ups. At dawn. In the kitchen.” The words tumbled out. “And she says whatever she thinks. Whatever. She has no… internal editor.”
A grin spread across Steve’s face. “A bartender with muscles and no filter. And you’re living with her. My friend, you have not moved into an apartment. You have been recruited into a sitcom.” He tapped his pencil on the notebook. “And the other one? The librarian?”
“Rina. She’s… nice.”
“Nice,” Steve said, flatly.
“She is. She cooks. She’s calm.”
“But?”
Timothy shifted in his seat. The wooden bench creaked. “But she’s also… observant.”
“Observant.”
“She comments. On things.”
“What kinds of things?” Steve’s tone was dangerously casual.
The memory of a peach silk robe and a clinical, sleep-soft voice echoed. Healthy vascular function. Timothy felt his ears grow hot. “Just… things. Demographic things. Physiological observations.”
Steve stared at him for a long moment. The professor’s chalk squeaked violently on the board. Then Steve’s eyes widened in epiphany. “Oh my god. They’re messing with you. They’ve identified you as the vulnerable baby deer of the household and they’re just… poking you with sticks. For sport.”
“It’s not for sport,” Timothy muttered defensively, though he had no evidence to the contrary.
“It’s absolutely for sport. This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.” Steve laughed, a genuine, booming sound that turned several heads. He clapped a heavy hand on Timothy’s shoulder. “You’ve been there, what, a week? And you already have two women personally dedicated to your comprehensive flustering. This is a privilege. An anthropological goldmine.”
“It’s exhausting.”
“It’s training. You’re going to come out of this a new man. Or a broken one. Fifty-fifty shot.” Steve went back to his doodle, adding exaggerated muscles to the professor. “So, is it hell? Be honest.”
Timothy looked out the high window at the slice of blue Toronto sky. He thought of the unbearable humidity of the laundry room, the terrifying casualness of a dropped towel. He thought of the silent, shared laughter over coffee, the way Rina’s quiet teasing sometimes felt like a secret just for him. The way the apartment, for all its chaos, never felt empty.
“The rent is good,” he said finally, a massive understatement.
Steve snorted. “Right. The rent. I’m sure that’s the chief benefit.” He tore the caricature from his notebook, folded it, and slipped it into Timothy’s sketchpad. “A housewarming gift. So. You need a survival strategy. You need to regain some territory. You can’t just be their collective stress toy.”
“I have a strategy. I avoid and endure.”
“Terrible strategy. Passive. You need to engage. On your own terms.” Steve’s eyes gleamed with strategic fervor. “You need a counter-tease. Something harmless but destabilizing. You need to… observe back. Like your librarian said. Find a pressure point and give it a gentle, non-creepy poke.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Learn. Watch. Adapt.” Steve said it like it was simple. “Or, easier option: bring in a reinforcement. Me. I’ll come over. Be a buffer. I can run interference. I’m excellent with charismatic, physically loud women. It’s a gift.”
Panic, sharp and immediate, shot through Timothy. The thought of Steve’s easy charm unleashed in that cramped, volatile space was unthinkable. He’d say the wrong thing, or the right thing, and the delicate, terrifying equilibrium would shatter. “No. That’s… not a good idea. The apartment is really small. It’s a territorial thing.”
Steve watched him, his grin softening into something more knowing. “Ah. I see.”
“See what?”
“You don’t want a buffer. You might like the warzone.” Steve’s voice lost its joking edge. “You’re scared, but you’re not looking for a way out. You’re cataloguing the explosions. Fascinated by the blast patterns.”
Timothy had no answer. He looked down at his blank sketchpad. He had started to, unconsciously, draw intersecting lines that suggested two contrasting forms: one of sharp, dynamic angles, another of soft, overlapping curves.
“Just be careful, Waltz,” Steve said, his tone lighter again. “Don’t let them steal your dignity. Or your TV remote. And for god’s sake, if the muscular one offers you an ‘educational seminar,’ get a contract in writing first.”
Timothy’s head snapped up. “How did you—?”
“Lucky guess,” Steve chuckled, standing up as the professor dismissed the class with a weary wave. The rustle of two hundred students packing up filled the hall. “Come on. I’m buying you a truly terrible cafeteria coffee. You can tell me what you didn’t say. And we need to make a plan for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
Steve slung his backpack over one shoulder. “Yeah. You’re coming out. There’s a new bar near the waterfront. They have a Belgian ale that tastes like burnt honey and regret. I need to see if your new ‘observer’ skills work on the general public. Consider it a field exercise.”
As they filed out with the crowd, Timothy felt the twin pulls of his old life and his new one. Steve’s familiar, uncomplicated presence was a relief. But even here, in the sunlit hall of academia, the apartment followed him. It was in the way he now noticed the precise scent of the girl’s perfume walking ahead of them (lilacs, too sweet), and the way he observed the taut line of a teaching assistant’s shoulders under her blazer. He was observing. Collecting data.
He was, he realized with a sinking feeling, already learning their language.
Later, over the promised terrible coffee in the echoing cafeteria, Steve leaned forward. “Okay, real talk. The thing you’re not saying. The big secret. You’ve got that ‘I’m hiding a body’ look. Is it one of them? Are you secretly into one of your terrifying roommates?”
Timothy choked on his coffee. “No. God, no.”
“The librarian? She sounds like your type. Quiet, smart, secretly devilish.”
“No.”
“The bartender? All that… energy?”
“No.”
Steve sat back, studying him. “Okay. So it’s something else. Something from before.” His eyes, sharp for all their lazy charm, locked onto Timothy’s. “Wait. It’s the high school thing, isn’t it? The shirt. You still have it.”
The world narrowed to the sticky cafeteria table. Timothy’s heart hammered against his ribs. He’d told Steve about that, once, years ago, in a late-night fit of pathetic confession. He’d assumed it was forgotten.
“You didn’t,” Steve breathed, equal parts horrified and impressed. “You brought it with you. To the new city. To the apartment you share with two actual, living, breathing women.”
Timothy said nothing. It was confirmation enough.
“Where is it?” Steve’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
“My bottom drawer. Locked.”
“Jesus, Timothy. That’s not a memento. That’s a relic. That’s evidence.” Steve ran a hand through his messy hair. “Do they know?”
“They found it,” Timothy whispered, the shame fresh again. “The first day. During the move-in.”
Steve stared into the middle distance, imagining the scene. A slow, pained chuckle escaped him. “Of course they did. So they have leverage. They have nuclear codes. And they haven’t destroyed you with it?”
“They haven’t mentioned it again.”
“That’s worse. That means they’re saving it.” Steve shook his head, a look of professional respect on his face. “You’re not in a sitcom, man. You’re in a hostage situation with incredibly attractive captors. And you brought your own shackles.”
The walk home later felt longer. The weight of Steve’s diagnosis sat on his shoulders. Hostage situation. He turned the phrase over. It didn’t quite fit. A hostage wanted to escape. As he approached the familiar, slightly rundown building, his pace didn’t slow. His key was in his hand before he reached the door.
He heard them before he saw them. Laughter, muffled by wood, and the unmistakable sizzle of something in a pan. Mira’s booming voice, then Rina’s softer, chastising tone. A crash, like a pot lid hitting the floor.
He braced himself, turned the key, and stepped back into the blast zone.
The air was thick with the smell of burnt garlic and fresh beer. Mira stood at the stove, wearing oven mitts as if disarming a bomb, poking at charred vegetables in a smoking pan. Rina was perched on the countertop, safely out of the splash zone, sipping from a glass of red wine. They both turned as he entered.
“The wanderer returns!” Mira announced. “Just in time. I’m innovating. It’s a stir-fry, but with… existential dread as the main seasoning.”
Rina smiled at him over the rim of her glass. Her hair was down, catching the evening light from the window. “We saved you from the worst of it. There’s a pizza in the oven that I ordered as a backup. How was the first day?”
Timothy stood in the doorway, his backpack heavy with books and Steve’s warnings. He looked at Mira’s proud, chaotic stance over the smoking pan. He saw Rina’s knowing, gentle eyes. He smelled the burnt food, the wine, the underlying scent of their shared day lingering in the air.
He didn’t feel like a hostage.
He felt, for the first time since he’d arrived, like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, standing at the edge of a wildfire, feeling its heat on his skin.
“It was educational,” he said, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips.