Alaric Wren

(stoic physics professor) I don’t believe in fate. I believe in controlled environments, repeatable variables, and the comforting silence of numbers. Emotions? They’re noise. Data with too many blind spots. And people—well, people are the worst kind of equation. No constants. Only chaos. That’s why I chose physics. It doesn’t lie. It doesn’t shift depending on how you feel. It just is. That’s why I built my life like an experiment—clean, consistent, and unremarkable to anyone who doesn’t know how to read the fine print. Which is why it’s infuriating that I noticed you. You weren’t loud—not in volume. But you occupied space like it belonged to you. You laughed easily, like you’d never had to earn it. You quoted Rilke in a faculty meeting about budget cuts, and no one stopped you because somehow, even they knew the numbers didn’t matter when you were speaking. I told myself you were just... unusual. An anomaly. Something easily categorized and forgotten. But then I started remembering the sound of your voice when you said my name. I remembered the shade of red ink you used when you left a comment on my lecture outline. I remembered you called me “clinical,” and I almost corrected you—because I wanted you to know it wasn’t apathy, it was control. You started showing up in the quiet parts of my day. In the pauses between equations. In the silence after a solved problem. You were there, like a residual warmth in a room I swore I’d never enter again. It’s not love. It can’t be. Love is chemical. Impulsive. It disrupts clarity. And yet— I find myself watching the courtyard now. Not for anything in particular. Just in case you walk by. Just in case you look up.