Chapter 11: The Unseen Level
The following week, the rhythm of the climb felt different. The metronomic grind of warehouse, lecture, library, charts was still there, its demands just as relentless. But now, woven into the fabric of his exhaustion, was the memory of the bench. The dappled sunlight, the comfortable silence, the simple, unpressured company. It acted as a psychological stop-loss against his own despair. When a paper trade hit its stop and the old, familiar shame began to bubble up, he could mentally reach for the memory of that peace and halt the emotional slide. It was a new kind of discipline.
He found himself noticing Val more, not just in class, but in the ecosystem of the campus. He saw her laughing with a group of friends by the student union, a bright, animated figure in a sea of faces. He saw her sitting alone on the library steps, staring into the middle distance, a pensive look on her face that mirrored his own private battles. She was no longer just "the art girl"; she was a complex, fully realized person with her own ascent, her own struggles with a different, but no less demanding, mountain.
Their interactions remained mostly confined to their shared class and occasional, brief encounters in the library. But the quality of them had shifted. A nod was no longer just an acknowledgment; it was a shared secret. A raised eyebrow during a particularly obtuse point from the professor was a private joke. They had created a tiny, neutral territory, a demilitarized zone between their two warring camps of ambition.
It was during one of these library sessions, buried in the stacks on a Thursday evening, that the nature of their connection was tested. Liam was hunting for a specific, obscure text on market microstructure when he heard her voice. It was tight with frustration, a sharp contrast to its usual melodic quality.
"No, Mom, I understand that. But a law internship isn't just a 'different path.' It's the opposite path." A pause. "Because it's not what I want to *do*. I don't want to interpret rules, I want to... I want to understand what makes people feel something. I want to curate a space that changes someone's afternoon." Another, longer pause. "I know it's not as secure. I know." Her voice dropped, becoming almost inaudible. "I just... I need you to trust me."
Liam froze, a book on order flow dynamics half-pulled from the shelf. He was an accidental audience to a private war. He felt a sharp pang of recognition. The pressure to be practical, to choose the safe, definable future over the uncertain passion—it was a mirror of his own father's ghost, urging him toward the stability of engineering. He heard the defeat in her voice, a sound he knew intimately from his own moments of doubt.
He considered slipping away, giving her privacy. But the memory of the bench, of her offering him a place of quiet understanding, pushed him forward. He rounded the corner of the bookshelf.
She was leaning against a cart of returns, phone pressed to her ear, her shoulders slumped. She looked up as he approached, her eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. She quickly muttered, "I have to go, Mom. I'll call you later," and ended the call.
"Sorry," she said, shoving the phone into her bag. "Family... stuff."
"Don't be," Liam said, his voice low. He leaned against the opposite shelf, the old wood creaking. "I get it. The 'practical future' lecture."
She let out a shaky breath, a humorless laugh. "Is there a universal script for parents? It feels like it sometimes."
"My dad was an accountant," Liam offered, the statement feeling like a key turning in a lock. It was the first time he'd voluntarily mentioned his father to her. "He believed in slow, steady, predictable growth. He'd have probably loved the idea of me being an engineer."
"But?" Val prompted, her gaze intent, the frustration from her call replaced by a deep curiosity.
"But he also hated debt. And he hated seeing people he loved struggle." Liam looked down at the worn linoleum floor. "The 'practical' path wasn't going to fix the problems his death created fast enough. So here I am, trying to learn the least practical, most unpredictable skill I can imagine."
They stood in silence for a moment, surrounded by the silent, towering wisdom of thousands of books, none of which had the answer they were looking for.
"It's funny, isn't it?" Val said softly. "We're both here, fighting like hell for futures that look insane to the people who love us. You're staring at charts trying to build security. I'm staring at paintings trying to build meaning. From the outside, we both look a little... lost."
"Maybe we are," Liam admitted. It was a terrifying thing to say aloud. "But at least we're lost in the same general direction."
The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "Towards the summit?"
"Something like that."
He didn't have any answers for her. He couldn't solve her debate with her mother any more than she could magically refill his trading account. But he could stand with her in the quiet acknowledgment of the struggle. He could be a fellow climber on a nearby ridge, a visible reminder that she wasn't the only one on the mountain.
"Hey," he said, pushing off the bookshelf. "I'm going to go get a truly terrible cup of coffee from the vending machine. You want one?"
She looked at him, and the last of the tension drained from her face, replaced by a weary gratitude. "That sounds like the best offer I've had all day."
As they walked out of the stacks together, Liam understood something fundamental. Support and resistance weren't just concepts on a screen. They were human. They were the people who saw you struggling and didn't try to pull you off your path, but simply stood beside you, offering a terrible cup of coffee, letting you know you weren't climbing alone. It was an unseen level on his charts, one he had been blind to, but it was perhaps the most important one of all.