Chapter 169: the boy who couldn’t sleep

Chapter 169: The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep

POV: Ivy

I’d told Astrid I was helping Camilla and Martha with a project, and technically that hadn’t been a complete lie, I had stopped by their room for an hour before slipping out again, restless in a way I couldn’t quite name. The apartment felt crowded lately, not physically, but in some quieter sense I didn’t want to examine too closely. Reed and Xander filled every corner of it now, wrapped around Astrid in a way that made perfect sense and still left me feeling like a guest in someone else’s home.

I’d started thinking seriously about moving back to the dorms. Nothing dramatic, nothing that needed explaining to anyone. Just space, the kind I wasn’t sure I had anymore.

I wandered further from the main buildings than I meant to, my feet carrying me toward a quieter section of the grounds near the old garden wall, the noise of campus fading behind me. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I almost ignored it before the persistence of the ringing made me finally pull it out.

I answered without checking who it was.

"I already told you," I said, my voice flat. "I’m not doing this anymore."

A pause while the voice on the other end spoke.

"I don’t care what you think I owe you," I said. "I don’t have anything else to give you."

Another pause, longer this time.

"No," I said, sharper now. "Leave me alone. I mean it."

The voice continued, something clearly pressing, and my grip on the phone tightened.

"I’m not one of you anymore," I said. "I never should have been in the first place."

Whatever answer came back made my jaw clench, and I pulled the phone away from my ear slightly before the call cut off entirely, the silence that followed somehow louder than anything that had been said.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the dark screen, my thoughts tangled and heavy in a way I didn’t fully understand myself. I slid the phone back into my pocket and kept walking, no real direction behind it, just needing to move, needing the night air to clear something out of my chest that wouldn’t settle.

That was when I saw him.

Roshan sat alone beneath one of the old trees near the garden’s edge, a bottle resting in the grass beside him. At first I assumed he was simply unwinding after a long day, the kind of quiet evening anyone might want. Then I noticed the way his shoulders curled inward, his expression distant and hollow, his hand trembling slightly as he lifted the bottle to his mouth.

I hesitated, still half lost in my own thoughts, but something about the sight of him pulled me out of it entirely.

"You know you’ll get expelled if someone finds you out here with that," I said, stepping closer.

He didn’t look surprised to see me, like some part of him had expected an interruption eventually. "Go back inside, Ivy."

"No."

I reached for the bottle, and he moved it out of my reach without much effort, his irritation plain despite the slur barely touching his words yet.

"I’m not in the mood for company," he said.

"That’s unfortunate," I said, sitting down beside him anyway, "because I’m staying."

He shot me an annoyed look, though something in it lacked real conviction, like arguing required more energy than he currently had.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" I asked eventually.

His expression shifted the moment Elaris left my mouth, something darker settling into his features. "I haven’t slept properly since we got back," he admitted, his voice quieter now. "Every time I close my eyes, I see it. The chaos. I thought Astrid was in danger, and I pulled the trigger."

I stayed quiet, letting him continue.

"Then I realized who I’d actually hit," he said. "Liora." Her name came out rough, like it cost him something to say it aloud. "I never meant to kill her. I know that doesn’t change anything about what happened."

"Roshan—"

"I keep thinking I could have waited one more second," he continued, like he hadn’t heard me at all. "Aimed differently. Recognized what was actually happening before I fired. I replay it constantly, and no matter how many times I go through it, I can’t find the version where she lives."

The pain in his voice settled heavy in my chest, and I noticed, as he shifted slightly, marks along his forearm he’d clearly been trying to keep hidden beneath his sleeve.

"What is that?" I asked carefully.

He pulled his sleeve down immediately. "Nothing."

"Roshan."

"It’s nothing you need to worry about."

"That’s not an answer."

He was quiet for a long moment before finally, reluctantly, admitting the truth. "I don’t know how to make it stop," he said. "The guilt. The drinking helps, sometimes, for a while. And sometimes I need something else to feel something that isn’t this." He gestured vaguely at his own chest. "I’m not asking you to tell me I’m a good person. I know what I did."

Something cold settled in my stomach at how casually he spoke about hurting himself, like it had simply become routine, another coping mechanism he’d stopped questioning.

"Punishing yourself won’t bring her back," I said quietly.

"I know that," he snapped, sharper than I expected. Then, quieter, his voice cracking slightly, "Knowing hasn’t helped me stop."

I sat with that for a moment, choosing my next words carefully, not wanting to make a situation already this fragile any worse. I left enough space between us that he wouldn’t feel cornered, settling into a quieter kind of presence instead, grateful, in some strange way, for the distraction from whatever had just happened on that call.

"I’m not going to tell you her death doesn’t matter," I said. "And I’m not going to pretend this is going to disappear overnight. But you can’t keep carrying this alone, Roshan."

"Why do you even care?" he asked, his tone carrying genuine confusion rather than hostility.

"Because you’re a person," I said. "And watching someone destroy themselves isn’t something I can just ignore."

He studied me for a long moment, something shifting in his expression, like he was seeing me properly for the first time instead of simply registering my presence.

"I didn’t realize anyone noticed," he admitted quietly.

"I noticed," I said.

I spent the next while convincing him to let me help him reach out to someone qualified, someone who could actually support him through this properly instead of leaving him alone with a bottle and memories he couldn’t escape. He didn’t promise he’d be fine. He only promised, reluctantly, to stop pretending nothing was wrong.

I stayed beside him while we contacted the appropriate academy support, making sure he actually followed through instead of changing his mind once I left.

Before we finally walked back toward the dorms, he paused, turning toward me. "Thank you," he said quietly.

It was such a small thing, barely more than two words, but something in the sincerity behind them settled deeper into my chest than I expected, enough that for a while, it pushed the rest of the night, the call, the voice on the other end, everything I still hadn’t let myself think about properly, quietly out of my mind.