Chapter 1
Golden Retriever Meets Feral Cat
Sebastian
Afortress of textbooks surrounds me, my laptop screen reflecting in my glasses as I attempt to memorize the entire endocrine system before my exam tomorrow. The library's quiet section is my sanctuary, at least it is until the doors swing open and in walks a group of pains in my ass; I can tell.
Football players. From their varsity jackets and the way they take up too much space.Crap, they're all huge.I sink lower behind my biochem textbook, hoping they'll migrate to the group study rooms.
No such luck.
"Dude, if I don't pass Chem this semester, Coach is gonna bench me at the start of the season," one of them whines, his voice carrying across the silent room. A librarian looks up with a frown but doesn't intervene.
"That's why we're here," says a deeper voice, belonging to the tallest of the group, a broad-shouldered blonde who looks like he could bench press me without breaking a sweat.
I roll my eyes.Great.Just what I need, testosterone-fueled distractions when I'm trying to secure my academic future.
The group shuffles toward a nearby table, chairs scraping against the floor. Someone drops a textbook with a thud.Another laughs too loudly at what I’m sure is nonsense on his phone.
I check my watch, three hours until closing. Maybe I should relocate to the house. My roommates are incredible, brilliant, funny, and… loud. I know they are hosting an engineering study group tonight, and those geeks get fired up about robotics.
"Guys," the tall blonde says, his voice unexpectedly firm. "This is the quiet section. People are studying."
"So are we, Gavin," one of them protests.
"Then act like it. Phones on silent, voices down." He's not asking. "If you can't focus here, we can move to the group rooms."
I glance up, surprised. The blonde, Gavin, is staring at his Chemistry textbook as if it’s written in Greek. When one of his friends suggests they bail, he shakes his head firmly.
"Sorry about that," he says, catching me staring. He offers an apologetic smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes.
I quickly look away, flustered at being caught.
For the next hour, I'm kind of aware they're studying nearby. They're clearly struggling, I hear one of them confidently state that covalent bonds involve "sharing elections" instead of electrons. The biggest of them scribbles notes furiously, but I notice him erasing as much as he writes. At one point, he holds his pencil in a death grip, jaw clenched in frustration.
Typical. All muscle, no brain cells.
When I finally stand to get another coffee, my fourth of the day, my exhaustion betrays me. I knock into my carefully arranged study system, sending my colour-coded schedule and meticulously organized notecards cascading to the floor like confetti.
"Shit," I mutter, dropping to my knees. The schedule is everything; without it, I might as well give up on med school altogether.Okay, maybe that’s going a little far, but still.Each card represents hours of work, colour-coded by subject, importance, and testing frequency.
Before I can gather three cards, a large shadow falls over me.
"Let me help," the blonde football player suddenly kneels beside me, his hands efficiently gathering my scattered life plan.
"I've got it," I snap, more harshly than intended. The last thing I need is some jock messing up my organization system.
"You're using the Leitner method," he observes, looking at the cards in his hand. "But you've modified it with your own colour system."
I freeze, one hand outstretched for a blue-bordered card just beyond my reach. "How do you know about Leitner?"
He smiles, not the cocky grin I expect, but it’s… different, that I have no time to figure out. "Spaced repetition is the most efficient way to commit facts to long-term memory. Though I've never seen anyone combine it with..." he glances at my schedule, "...five different highlighter colours and what looks like a time-blocking system based on ultradian rhythms."
My mouth opens, then closes. Whoisthis guy?
"Here," he says, handing me a stack of perfectly ordered cards. "Green for Anatomy, blue for Biochem, yellow for Pharmacology, pink for Pathology, and... purple for Psychiatry?"
"Psychology," I correct automatically.
