Page 38 of Down My Chimney

8

Blake

“There you are! I swear, I’ve combed the whole library for you.”

I looked up in surprise to see Marika approaching the table where I was working on my paper. She had two cups of coffee from the cart on the second floor and a giant bag of Skittles.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as she pushed one of the coffees towards me. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but I thought you weren’t supposed to help me with my finals.”

I held my hand out, palm up, and she poured some Skittles into it.

“Well, technically, I’m not. But there’s no rule against stopping by and lending you some moral support and chemical stimulants, right?” She sat in a chair opposite me. “I texted you, but you never responded. What gives?”

I sighed. “Sorry. Turned my phone off. I was getting too many notifications and I have to physically turn the whole thing off or the temptation to check and get distracted is too great.”

She laughed. “You know you can just change your notification settings, right? You don’t have to have them on if you don’t want to read them.”

“What, and lose out on all that dopamine? I don’t read them, but knowing they’re there is the only thing getting me through this week.”

I couldn’t have read my notifications anymore even if I’d wanted to. I got way too many. They turned into a slurry of hearts and all caps and too many exclamation points, and my eyes glazed over whenever I looked at them. I couldn’t have told you who my most active followers were, or what they said, even though a site I’d been on last week said I was supposed to be keeping track of those things, and to give my biggest fans exclusive access in exchange for their engagement.

Exclusive access to what, I wondered. To watching me struggle to write a twenty-page paper onWuthering Heights? To watching me try to catch a full 5 hours of sleep? To watching my hair shed at an alarming rate in the shower? Maybe I should offer to save the clumps that fell out and mail them to my supporters in plastic bags.

“You’re losing out on it now,” Marika pointed out. “And you seem to be surviving.”

“Barely.” I laughed. “And the second I’m done here, I’m gonna walk out of the library and drown in that sweet, sweet love from strangers on the internet, just like—” I broke off. “Hmm. Nobody drowns inWuthering Heights, do they?”

“No.” Marika shook her head. “You wantThe Mill on the Flossfor that. Though I wouldn’t call it very dopamine-y.” She tapped her index finger against her lower lip. “You know, you could probably make some connection between Maggie’s need for Tom’s love, and the way he manipulates her throughout the novel, and our modern need for external validation through social media.”

“No, thank you. External validation is all I have at the moment. I do not need it ruined for me with insight or analysis.”

“Then finish your paper.” Marika popped a handful of Skittles in her mouth. “Getting graded is the ultimate external validation experience.”

“Only if your grades are good.” I stretched, then noticed a clock on the wall across the room. “Oh, shit. Is it eight already?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “I guess so. You have somewhere to be?”

“I told the guys I’d be back by seven-thirty. I already paid them for my share of pizza, and they’re gonna eat all of it if I’m not there.”

“Want me to take a look at what you’ve got so far?” She pointed at my laptop.

“Really?” I gave her a pleading look. “That would be amazing. Are you sure you don’t have your own shit to work on?”

“Nah. I turned in my last paper two days ago.”

“So you’re just…voluntarily staying at school and hanging out in the library? Like, for fun?”

She shrugged. “I’m a summer RA for incoming freshmen doing those nerdy summer science programs. But they don’t start for another week, so I have some time.”

“I would point out that I don’t think you get to call people nerds when you’re the one volunteering to read someone else’s term paper for fun,” I said, “but because you’re the most amazing person ever, I won’t.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Marika pushed her chair back. “Just email it to me, and I’ll send you some edits by tomorrow.”

“Amazing. Absolutely amazing.” I pulled my email up and sent her my draft, then shoved my laptop in my backpack and turned on my phone.

“I thought you were waiting to get outside ‘til you checked,” she said as we walked towards the door.

“I’m not checking now. I’m just taking advantage of the lighting. It’ll be too dark outside.”

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