“Liberal arts with extra steps.” She's fighting a smile though. “What are you working on, anyway? You've typed like three words in the last hour.”
I look at my screen where my Computational Thinking homework sits abandoned. “Just this thrilling essay on algorithmic efficiency. Due tomorrow at noon, so naturally I'm starting it now.”
“That's actually irresponsible,” she says, but she's fully smiling now. “When did you plan to sleep?”
“Sleep is for peoplewithoutcoffee addictions and better time management skills. Look, it’s not the best system. But it’s worked so far. Sort of.”
She snorts, finally turning to face me. Our knees bump in the narrow space between computers. “Want help? I took that class last year.”
Of course, she’s already taken it.
“You want to help me cheat?”
“It's not cheating, it's... collaborative learning.” She's already rolling closer, her chair squeaking against the ancient linoleum. “Show me what you've got.”
“Three sentences and a profound sense of regret.”
She leans over to read my screen, and I catch that vanilla scent that's been driving me insane since our first tutoring session. Her shoulder presses against mine as she points at my opening paragraph.
“Okay, first of all, that's not what Big O notation means...”
Twenty minutes later, she's basically rewritten my entire introduction while I pretend to pay attention to her explanation instead of the way she bites her lip when she's concentrating.
“Are you even listening?” she asks, catching me staring at her mouth.
“Absolutely. Big O. Very important. Continues to mean things.”
She laughs and the sound makes my chest do stupid things. “You're hopeless.”
“Hopelessly charming?”
“Hopelessly distracting.” But she doesn't move away. If anything, she leans closer. “I need to finish this assignment.”
“What's it about?”
“You’d find it boring.”
“Try me.”
She launches into an explanation about nodes and consensus and network partitions, and I understand maybe 30% of it, but the way her eyes light up when she talks about elegant solutions makes me want to learn everything about distributed systems just to keep her talking.
“—and that's why the Byzantine Generals Problem is actually fascinating,” she finishes.
“I understood some of those words.”
“Which ones?”
“'The' and 'and.'“
She shoves my shoulder, laughing again. “You're the worst.”
“The worst at computer science, maybe. But...” I grab the back of her chair suddenly, pulling her backward. She squeaks, hands flying to grip the armrests. “I'm excellent at other things.”
“Like what?” Her voice comes out breathless as I spin her chair in a slow circle.
“Like this.” I spin her faster, and she's laughing now, feet lifted off the ground like a kid on a playground ride. “And making you laugh when you're stressed about homework.”
“Ethan!” She gasps between giggles. “Stop, I'm getting dizzy!”
