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Oxford, 1893.
She’s the chaos he never planned for.
He’s the silence she can’t quite break.

When sharp-tongued student Iris Evelyn collides with cold, brilliant lecturer Edward Ashcroft, sparks don’t fly—they simmer. In whispered arguments. Glances across bookshelves. Letters never sent.

Between debates and unspoken feelings, they orbit each other—too close to stay untouched, too distant to name what’s growing between them.

But in a place like Oxford, love isn't a possibility.
It's a liability.

And the closer they get, the more it threatens to destroy them both.


A slow-burn academic romance with razor-sharp banter, quiet heartbreak, and two people who were never supposed to feel this much.

Drifted Apart.

Ashcroft waited until he was back in his flat.

The folded paper sat untouched on his desk for an hour. Then two.

He made tea. Let it go cold. Sat beside the paper without reaching for it.

Finally, he unfolded it with the care of someone opening something that might not be meant for them.

"You wear your silence like armor. But I've started to see where it bends. Where it hurts. And where it's hollow.

I don't need to know everything. I just want to be there when you flinch."

And didn't move for a very long time.

He sat without a word, then pulled a notebook from his coat.

He didn't hand it to her. Just opened it, turned a few pages, and left it between them.

The page was blank except for one line:

"Some of us speak by not leaving."

Her eyes didn't lift from the page. "Is this your version of vulnerability?"

"I'm not." She paused. "I like it."

He reached for the notebook slowly. "You still owe me a poem."

"No," Ashcroft said. "That was a warning."

Not walking apart. Not quite walking together.

But every time their hands brushed, neither of them moved away.

And this time, when they reached her steps—

Ep 15: What She Wrote