The longer I sat there, the heavier that realisation got.
Scholarship girl, falling behind.
Scholarship girl, breaking apart.
Scholarship girl who was supposed to make the school look good, now sitting there with a cast, a headache, and a brain that wouldn’t stop spinning.
Jennie reached across the table, touching my sleeve gently. “Aurora… you don’t have to pretend, you know?”
I blinked, snapping back to her.
She sighed softly and gave a small, sympathetic smile. “You don’t have to smile for me. Just eat something, okay? One bite.”
So I did. One small, forced bite that tasted like guilt.
She smiled a little more when I did, but my stomach stayed heavy, my chest tight.
Because the truth was—
I wasn’t just tired.
I was slipping.
…I wasn’t sure I could save it this time.
—
By the time the last class ended, the sky was already dimming into that dull winter grey.
It wasn’t even five yet, but the cold air bit harder than usual, sharp enough to sting my fingers through my sleeve.
The campus was quieter, too. Most people rushed to their dorms or cars, huddled in their coats.
But I had promised.
So, I made my way toward the pool building. The hum of the heating system mixed with the faint echo of water splashing as I walked in. The swimmers were packing up, their voices bouncing off the tiles.
Laughs, wet footsteps, lockers closing.
And then, there was him.
Suliaman was still by the edge of the pool, laptop open, papers spread beside him like a mini workstation. He looked up when he saw me and smiled. “Hey, you actually came. I thought with… y’know, everything, you’d cancel.”
I shook my head and walked over, setting my bag down as carefully as I could before sitting cross-legged beside him on the cold tile.
He nodded, glancing briefly at my cast. “You sure you’re okay? You don’t have to push yourself.”
I hummed softly, small but clear enough to say I’m fine.
Even if I wasn’t.
He took that as a yes and flipped his laptop around to show me a chart. “So… this is the part I can’t get right. My stats are fine, but my reflection section’s a mess. I don’t know how to link the performance anxiety data with behavioural patterns without sounding like I’m just throwing random terms together.”
I leaned closer, scanning the text with my good hand, tracing under the lines. My brain slowly clicked into the rhythm again, the comfort of research, patterns, structure. Something I could control.
He kept talking, rambling about times and stress levels, but his voice faded into the background. My thoughts drowned in the numbers, the calm repetition of what made sense.
Water lapped quietly nearby, the last of the swimmers leaving the locker room.
