Chapter Eight — Questions Without Inheritance
Alexander had never doubted the order of his life.
Not until now.
Since the moment Mariam's eyes had locked onto his face, something in him had slipped out of alignment.
He moved through campus like a man walking on a floor he no longer trusted, solid enough to stand on, unstable enough to keep his muscles tense.
He replayed the scene again and again.
The dropped spoon.
The color draining from her face.
The way recognition had arrived in her before reason.
It unsettled him more than any accusation could have.
For the first time, the words that usually defined him felt distant.
Heir. Son. Successor. They hovered at the edge of his mind, strangely irrelevant. His father's expectations, the future already mapped for him, all of it dulled beneath a heavier curiosity.
Who am I, if I am not what I was told?
He had never needed to ask that before.
Alexander sat alone in the university library long after midnight, books spread around him without order.
Medical ethics. Adoption law. Family lineage. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, only that he couldn't stop.
Every answer raised another question.
He wasn't afraid. That surprised him.
If this were true, if something fundamental had been taken from him or given to him without his knowing, it did not feel like loss. It felt like suspension.
As if his life had been paused at the edge of a revelation that refused to arrive neatly.
For the first time, inheritance did not call to him.
And in its absence, his mind grew clearer.
Across town, Lena sat on the edge of her bed, hands wrapped tightly around her phone.
She hadn't called Ava.
She hadn't called Alexander.
She hadn't even cried the way she expected to.
Instead, she had gone through drawers.
Not violently. Not desperately. Carefully. As if the truth might shatter if handled too roughly.
Birth records.
School forms. Old rent agreements. Documents she had never questioned before now sat exposed on her bedspread, their inconsistencies glaring under the harsh light.
Names misspelled. Dates corrected by hand. A father's signature that never appeared twice the same way.
Mariam had always been careful.
Too careful.
Lena pressed the heel of her hand into her chest, trying to steady the ache spreading there. She didn't want to believe it. The idea felt like betrayal layered on top of love, and she couldn't bear to choose between them.
Yet her body had already chosen.
She felt it in the way the room no longer felt anchored to her. In the way her reflection looked slightly misaligned, as if she were standing half a step outside herself.
She thought of Alexander.
The familiarity she'd felt the first time they collided.
The pull she couldn't explain.
The way her chest had tightened when Mariam saw him.
Her throat closed.
Truth did not always arrive with proof. Sometimes it arrived as recognition, and demanded that the mind catch up.
A knock sounded at her door.
Lena froze.
Then, quietly, she opened it.
Alexander stood there, hands in his pockets, posture controlled but eyes searching. He looked like a man who had spent the night dismantling himself and found no clear edges.
"I didn't know if you'd want to see me," he said.
"I didn't know either," Lena replied honestly. "But you're here."
They stood in silence for a moment, neither stepping aside, neither retreating.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
She nodded.
The room felt smaller with him in it, not because of his presence, but because of everything that hovered between them. He noticed the documents spread across her bed, the careful order.
"You're looking for answers," he said.
"So are you."
He let out a slow breath. "I don't feel angry."
Lena looked at him sharply. "You should."
"Maybe," he said.
"But I don't. I feel… unsettled. Like I've been reading a book where the first chapter was replaced."
She swallowed. "I feel like I've been living in the margins of someone else's story."
Their eyes held.
"I don't want to inherit anything right now," Alexander continued quietly. "Not answers. Not blame.
Not a future built on assumptions. I just want to understand."
Lena nodded slowly. "Mariam said she chose me."
"She did," he said without hesitation.
That certainty cracked something in her.
"She didn't lie about loving me," Lena whispered.
"No," Alexander agreed. "She lied to survive."
They sat on opposite edges of the bed, close enough that Lena could feel the warmth of him, far enough that neither reached out.
"Do you regret meeting me?" he asked.
She considered the question carefully. "No. And that's the worst part."
His mouth curved into a faint, sad smile. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He reached out then, hesitantly, resting his hand over hers. He waited, giving her time to pull away.
She didn't.
The contact was grounding. Human. Familiar in a way that now felt frighteningly literal.
"We don't have to decide anything," he said. "We don't have to explain this to anyone yet."
Lena squeezed his fingers. "I don't want to lose what this is."
"Neither do I."
They leaned toward each other, foreheads touching, the intimacy quiet and fragile. This wasn't desire demanding expression. It was connection seeking reassurance.
Somewhere between heartbreak and understanding, romance softened into something deeper.
Trust.
Outside, the campus moved on, unaware of the fracture running beneath two of its students. Papers would still be written. Lectures would still be attended. Futures would still be discussed.
But for Lena and Alexander, time had shifted.
They were no longer moving toward what they were meant to inherit.
They were moving toward the truth.
And for the first time, neither of them felt the need to run from it.