All Chapters of The Architect of My Ruin: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The gold-embossed sign on the door of Room 402 should have felt like a trophy. To Ethan Vance, it was supposed to be the threshold to his sanctuary—the private, single-occupancy studio awarded to the top-ranking architecture student at St. Jude’s Academy. He adjusted the strap of his leather messenger bag, his fingers tracing the rigid edge of his Grade-A architectural renderings. He had spent his entire summer preparing for this. No distractions. No noise. Just him, his drafting table, and the pursuit of the Sterling Global Fellowship. He slid his keycard into the reader as the light flickered green with a satisfying click. "Home sweet home," Ethan murmured, pushing the door open. Then the smell hit him first. It wasn’t the scent of lemon polish and fresh parchment he’d expected. It was the smell of expensive espresso, rain-damp denim, and a hint of something spicy—like sandalwood and rebellion. Ethan froze in the doorway and he looked at the room. In the center of the suppos

The St. Jude’s Architecture Library was a cathedral of glass and old oak, a place where whispers carried like shouts and the scent of floor wax was heavy enough to taste. Usually, this was Ethan’s sanctuary. Today, it felt like a cage. "You’re doing it again," Liam murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to bypass Ethan’s ears and go straight to his spine. Ethan didn't look up from the translucent tracing paper. "Doing what, Rossi? Existing? I’m allowed to do that." "You’re over-calculating the load-bearing capacity for a decorative arch. It’s a conceptual sketch, Ethan. Not a blueprint for a bunker. Let it breathe." Liam was sitting so close that their shoulders brushed every time one of them reached for a scale ruler. They had claimed a secluded mahogany table in the back of the North Wing, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that blocked them off from the rest of the world. Ethan finally dropped his pencil. It clattered against the wood, the sound echoing throu

The clock on the studio wall didn't tick; it thudded, each second a heavy hammer against Ethan’s sleep-deprived skull. It was 3:44 AM. The air in the architecture wing was stale, thick with the smell of graphite, burnt coffee, and the hum of high-end processors struggling to render forty-eight hours of reconstructed work. Ethan’s vision was blurring. His fingers, usually so precise with a 0.3mm lead, were trembling. They had been in this windowless studio for twenty hours straight, fueled by nothing but spite and lukewarm caffeine. Across the wide drafting table, Liam looked like a ghost of himself. His dark curls were a chaotic nest, his grey hoodie was stained with charcoal, and his eyes—usually so sharp and mocking—were bloodshot and heavy. But he hadn't stopped. He was hunched over the main physical model, his large hands delicately gluing a sliver of balsa wood into place with the focus of a diamond cutter. "Ethan," Liam’s voice was a sandpaper rasp. "Check the elevation on

The chime of the notification wasn't just a sound; it was a shackle. Ethan Vance stared at the cold glow of his smartphone. The email from the Sterling Foundation’s bursar office was clinical, typed in a font that looked like a death warrant. “Please find the credentials for the joint project account below. Note: All disbursements require a digital co-signature or a reconciled ledger at the end of each fiscal month.” “A joint account,” Ethan whispered to the empty air of his half of the room. He looked down at the floor. The blue painter's tape was peeling at the edges, a jagged border between his world of organized textbooks and minimalist furniture, and Liam Rossi’s chaotic sprawl of charcoal sketches, half-empty coffee cups, and discarded flannel shirts. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” “Is that a thank you to the universe I hear? Or just your usual scheduled 6:00 PM complaining session?” Liam Rossi leaned against the doorframe, his hair a damp, dark mess from a recent s

The steam from the bathroom was a thick, humid wall that blurred the edges of the room, but it did nothing to soften the pounding in Ethan’s skull.The shower had been running for ten minutes. Ten minutes of Ethan sitting on the edge of his actual bed—the one he’d finally retreated to after the humiliating realization that he’d spent the night wrapped in Liam’s scent. He looked down at the floor. The blue tape was right there, a thin, jagged line of adhesive defiance. He was back on his side. He was safe.But his skin still felt hummed with the phantom sensation of Liam’s arm around his waist from the night before.“I didn't want to lose you.”The words repeated in his head like a glitching blueprint. What did a Rossi mean by that? Liam was a predator in the studio, a man who built monuments out of chaos. He didn't care about people; he cared about the curve of a roofline and the way steel met glass. Or at least, that’s what Ethan had spent three years telling himself to keep the riva