Scott moves onto the lecture and I try my best to keep up. The thing with calculus is that the subject is so meticulous. One little slip-up and you could go downhill. The stakes are so much higher with math and science than with English and History. In the humanities, there are so many interpretations of stories and past events.
Math? There’s only one answer. Everything else is wrong.
At least, that’s how I see it.
When class is over, Lucia and I walk out of the classroom—where I find myself glaring at another guy who bumped into me—and out of the building, heading towards the Main Library before my shift begins. She also needs to start on another paper for one of her psychology classes.
“Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?” She asks while we look at the shelves for a particular book she asks.
I shrug. “Homework, work, andGilmore Girls.”
She chuckles. “You do that every day, though.”
I nod. I don’t need to argue otherwise—Lucia has been one of my best friends since we were both assigned roommates our first year in the dorms. Even now, we live off-campus with each other; along with two other girls and one guy because housing in South Central Los Angeles is crazy expensive.
“I’ll order takeout this time,” she assures me. “I still owe you for introducing those Croquetas to me. They were heavenly.”
I grin. “No need. You showed me what real Ethiopian food is supposed to taste like.” Lucia is technically an Eritrean-American to her core but because her culture isn’t well known due to how fucked up it can be—her words, not mine—Ethiopian food is the closest we can get.
She pushes each book aside and reshuffles them. I groan internally, knowing that I’m the one who will have to arrangethem. Why can’t people have enough human decency to just place their book exactly where it’s supposed to go? It not only drives me crazy but the head librarian has the absolute worst case of OCD.
If she suffers, then so does everyone else.
A phone ringing breaks through the silence of the library. The Main Library is usually pretty quiet, especially on Fridays, when everyone is getting ready for the weekend, doing who the hell knows what.
Lucia checks her phone and her dark eyes widen. “You will not believe what Bailey just sent me, D.”
I raise a brow, busying myself with reorganizing the books. “What now?”
“She just found out who got the A.”
My hands freeze over an old book I don’t bother reading the spine of. “So?”
“Aren’t you curious to know? Isn’t that little voice in your head telling you to prod me for details?”
Honestly? Yes. I wanna know the name of the son of a bitch (or just, bitch) who messed with everyone else’s grade.
I give in to my curiosity and wait for Lucia to show me the screen so I can go find the person responsible.
My jaw drops in horror. “No.”
2
Give Me A Break
Carson
“Hey,compa,” my housemate, Enzo greets me as I close the door behind me and slip my sneakers off. The most important rule in this house is to always slip my shoes off the moment I walk through this door. I don’t understand why but it’s the only rule that’s been enforced in the three months we’ve been living here.
I grunt as I drop my bag onto the ground right in front of the couch and fall onto it, stomachside down. After the week I’ve been having, I’m fucking beat. The only bright light has been earning back my calculus midterm, which I had extremely low hopes about.
“One of those days?” He snorts, munching on something.
My groan is muffled through the couch cushions. Three more semesters of this and I’ll be done with undergrad. That gap year is out of my reach but I can feel it inching closer.
And closer.
And closer.
