Page 177 of The Professor's Wife

I stared at the other lamps out of reach, the flame dancing gently, just far enough to remind me I wasn’t in control.

I pressed my forehead to my knees and let the tears come quietly this time because screaming wouldn’t save me.

Nothing would.

The lesson room was cloaked in silence, save for the soft hiss of the oil lamps that burned. Their glow painted the walls in amber streaks, casting long shadows. The air was heavy with the scent of old parchment and iron.

Both legs were bound in chains, the skin beneath them already raw and bruised. My clothes clung to my damp skin, my hair matted to my cheeks. I stared at the floor, unmoving, my breath shallow.

One second I was alone.

The next Oliver stood before me, tall and composed, dressed in his usual, impeccable attire. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture rigid, like a man delivering a sermon.

“You refuse to learn,” he said, voice calm but edged with steel. “And that refusal is a choice.”

I didn’t respond. My eyes flicked up to meet his, defiant.

“Life is a choice,” he continued. “You either want to live, or you choose to leave.”

I scoffed, barely audible. “You think this is living?”

Oliver stepped closer, the sound of his boots loud in the quiet space. In professor mode, he delivered his words with focus. “Tranquility is not found in rebellion. It is found in understanding. In surrender, Daisy. The Stoics taught that peace comes when we accept the nature of things. Socrates knew this. He drank the hemlock not in fear, but in grace. His death was noble. A final act of clarity.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out something small. He presented it to me between his index and thumb. A large single pill gleamed under the flickering light—opaque, pale blue, like a little gem.

“This,” he said, holding it up between his fingers, “is your hemlock. Your escape. Your silence.”

I stopped breathing. My eyes locked onto the pill, then back to Oliver.

“I have the letters you’ve hidden under Rowe’s bed,” he said softly. “Every apology. Every confession. Every word soaked in your grief. Rowe’s death shattered you. You’ve been chasing him ever since. You think the afterlife will reunite you. That’s the lie grief tells.”

He knelt beside me, his voice dropping to a whisper. “If you take this, the world will begin to spin. Your stomach will twist in agony. Your limbs will betray you—paralyzed, useless. Andthen…silence. A death that looks like suicide. A death that tells the world you, Daisy Black, gave up.”

I turned my face away, trembling.

“You want to chase Rowe?” he hissed. “Then chase him. But do it withconviction.”

I shook my head violently, tears streaking down my cheeks.

Oliver’s hand shot out, gripping my jaw, forcing my mouth open. “Swallow it!” he shouted, voice cracking with fury as the pill pressed against my lips. “Swallow it and be done! If you’re weak, if you’re not who I imagined you to be, then do me a favor and take the fucking thing!”

I gagged, thrashing against the chains, my muffled cries echoing off the walls. He shoved the pill into my mouth, his fingers pressing hard against my cheeks.

Terror laced through me as the pill sat in my mouth.

But I didn’t swallow.

He held me there, breathing hard, eyes wild.

Then—he let go.

I spat the pill out, and it bounced once before rolling to the wall, where it lodged beneath the loose edge of the baseboard. I wailed, shocked and distraught, my panic causing me to spit wildly around me, to get the taste of the pill out of my mouth.

Oliver stared at me, his chest heaving. Then, without a word, he turned and walked to the door. He didn’t collect the pill. He didn’t look back. He seemed equally distraught, like he too had been pushed to the brink of something he couldn’t come back from.

The door slammed shut behind him. I was left alone, chained in the flickering light, the pill on the floor between us.

I stared at it until the silence became unbearable.