If June had been asked when Elliot became part of her routine, she wouldn't have been able to answer.

The change happened too gradually to notice.

One day he was simply someone she occasionally talked to.

Then, somehow, he wasn't.

Looking back, she suspected it had something to do with eight o'clock.

At first, the arrangement had been practical. June was trying to learn something new and discovering, much to her irritation, that enthusiasm alone was not an effective educational strategy. She enjoyed beginnings. Beginnings were exciting. What she lacked was consistency.

Consistency required showing up even when something stopped being exciting.

June had never excelled at that.

Elliot, on the other hand, seemed to possess an almost unreasonable amount of patience.

Every evening, around the same time, he would appear.

Sometimes exactly at eight.

Sometimes a few minutes earlier.

Sometimes a few minutes later.

But always close enough that June eventually stopped checking the clock.

She simply knew.

At some point between seven and eight-thirty, Elliot would arrive.

And they would study.

The simplicity of it was what made it dangerous.

Nothing dramatic happened during those sessions. Nobody confessed feelings. Nobody shared their deepest secrets. Most evenings were filled with mistakes, corrections, explanations, and occasional complaints from June whenever something refused to make sense.

Elliot never seemed particularly bothered by this.

If anything, he appeared to expect it.

Which was mildly insulting.

And annoyingly helpful.

June quickly discovered that Elliot possessed a talent she rarely encountered in other people: the ability to explain the same thing multiple times without becoming frustrated.

Most teachers eventually became impatient.

Most friends eventually gave up.

Elliot simply tried again.

And again.

And, when necessary, again.

Sometimes she wondered whether he was naturally patient or whether she was accidentally providing him with advanced training.

The question remained unresolved.

Outside those study sessions, their conversations continued much as they always had. They drifted between ordinary topics, occasional disagreements, and observations neither of them would have shared with most people.

But it was the routine that lingered.

The expectation.

The certainty.

At seventeen, June didn't realize how rare certainty was.

Most things in life changed constantly. Plans changed. Interests changed. Friendships shifted shape without warning. Entire months disappeared before she had the chance to understand them.

Yet every evening, there was eight o'clock.

And there was Elliot.

The realization arrived one night when he was late.

Not very late.

Only twenty minutes.

Objectively speaking, twenty minutes was insignificant.

Subjectively, however, June spent those twenty minutes discovering something uncomfortable about herself.

She kept checking the time.

Then checking her phone.

Then telling herself to stop checking her phone.

Then checking it again.

By the time Elliot finally appeared, she had become disproportionately annoyed.

Not because he was late.

Because she had noticed.

That was the troubling part.

Routine had quietly transformed into expectation.

Expectation had transformed into habit.

And habits were difficult to abandon.

June didn't mention any of this.

Instead, she complained about something entirely unrelated and spent the rest of the evening pretending she hadn't spent twenty minutes wondering where he was.

Elliot never questioned her behavior.

Which was probably for the best.

Because June wasn't entirely sure she understood it herself.

All she knew was that, somewhere between the lessons, the conversations, and the endless cycle of questions and answers, eight o'clock had become one of her favorite parts of the day.

Not because of what they studied.

Not even because of Elliot.

At least, that was what she told herself.

It was because she liked knowing he would be there.

Years later, June would revisit that memory and realize how carefully she had avoided the obvious conclusion.

The truth was that she hadn't been looking forward to the lessons.

She had been looking forward to the person waiting on the other side of them.

She simply wasn't ready to admit it yet.