The faculty housing complex sits at the end of a row of modest homes, each one identical in structure but distinct in the small ways their occupants have made them their own. Potted plants. Curtains left open or drawn tight. A bicycle chained to a railing.

Number 17 has none of those things.

Inside, the kitchen is dim except for the single light above the stove. A half-empty cup of coffee sits cold on the counter. A stack of graded papers waits beside it, untouched for the last hour.

The silence in the house is heavy. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that settles into your chest and makes you forget what it sounds like to have someone else's breath in the same room.

He sets the pen down.

Outside, footsteps pass the window. Quick. Purposeful. Someone walking home, probably. Someone with somewhere to be.

He doesn't look up.