January
“Four more to go.” Benji exclaimed cheerfully as Ana slumped dramatically into the chair across from him.
“Don’t remind me.”
Ana cracked her third Celsius of the day and passed it across the table after several gulps. “How’s your evening been?”
“Unproductive.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve redone the tutorials to the point that I’ve just memorized the answers.”
“What’s your plan for the rest of the night?”
He rubbed his eyes, shoving his glasses up his forehead.
“Probably just going through lecture concepts on Wikipedia. You?”
“I should probably try a few practice exams for Quantum.”
She made absolutely no move to do so.
“Or I could just listen to that one Max Verstappen edit song on loop until I feel something.”
“Yah sounds equally productive.”
He pulled a bag of chocolate pretzels from his jacket and tossed them into her lap.
“I brought dinner.”
“My body hates me,” she returned his grin, before shoveling a handful into her mouth.
“If you lock in now, you could be out of here before midnight.”
“How late are you staying?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” Which both of them knew meant however long she was staying.
Ana pulled out her laptop next to his, and they both slipped on their headphones.
For an amount of time between three to six hours, they filled notebook pages, emptied energy drink cans, and coated their stomachs in cheap salty chocolate.
Everything goes during exam season.
Each day was another in a series of lawless cramming, nights fading into mornings and vice versa. Time felt static.
Their minds felt anything but. Emotions ran high and ration didn’t run at all, it lagged several weeks behind, in a time where hours weren’t measured in coffee efficiency.
But Ana knew it couldn’t be only the caffeine fueling her thoughts.
She didn’t remember when it had begun to mean something, the fact that both of their lips shared the same drink.
Sometime among the blurry minutes, he reached across the table to her phone and queued an album for her. At some point, she tossed aside a quarter of an hour to doodle race cars along his formula sheet.
This was routine, and what a lovely thing to be able to call a co-existence like that familiar. But anything can be routine if you grow used to it. There was a point where goodnight hugs weren’t routine. When they didn’t take study breaks to wander the buildings. When he didn’t hold her gaze just a little longer than necessary when she laughed at something he said, and when she didn’t laugh so often that being happy just meant being herself.
