Fuck my life.
Question 1: A researcher wants to determine whether…
My brain skips the rest and just goes,“Run. The door is right behind you.”
“Okay,” I whisper to myself, under my breath. “You know this. You studied. You have a safety plan. You’re not going to die in this stupid classroom.”
Martin nudges my ankle from the desk next to me, like he heard my internal monologue through sheer friend telepathy. He doesn’t turn around, just taps twice—our low-key “you got this” code.
I take a breath. Box breathing.
In for four.
Hold for four.
Out for six.
The radio in my head is already playing a low, insistent track:Don’t fuck this up. Don’t prove everyone right. Don’t lose everything because of one exam.
I pick up my pencil and flip to the second question. Sometimes you need to ease your brain in, like a skittish animal.
Confidence intervals. Hypothesis testing. Type I versus Type II error. Somewhere in the mess, things start to click. Not all at once, but enough that I can feel my hand moving, writing formulas and drawing tiny bell curves like I know what I’m doing.
Halfway through, the panic hum drops from a seven to a five. My heart is still beating too fast, but not in that “you’re going to pass out” way. More like I just sprinted emotionally and by the time I bubble in the last multiple-choice answer and scribble the last bit of work, my brain feels wrung out. I hand the exam in and step into the hallway like I just escaped from a cave.
Martin appears beside me two seconds later, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets.
“Well?” he asks. “Did we survive?”
“I didn’t cry or throw up on the exam,” I say. “And I only wrote ‘fuck this’ in the margins once, so I’m counting it as a win.”
“Growth,” he says, solemn. “We love to see it.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Miguel
How’s my stats king? Did you conquer the numbers, or did they conquer you?
Caleb
We’ll call it a draw. I live to suffer on future assignments.
Miguel
Proud of you. Eat food. Hydrate. Stop clenching your jaw.
Yes, I can tell.
I roll my eyes at the last line, even as I force my jaw to unclench because, of course, he’s right, even through a phone screen.
“Coach texted me,” I tell Martin, shoving my phone away. “He wants me to swing by his office.”
Martin gives me a look. “I wonder if that’s a good ‘I’m so proud of you’ meeting or the ‘you’re playing like ass’ type of chat?”
“Hopefully, the first?” I say. “If it’s the second, I’m transferring schools.”
He snorts. “Call me if you need an alibi to get out of it.”
