Page 1 of Study Buddies

1

TORI

Pssssst.

That was it. That was the entire message. I frowned at my phone, but even the short, cryptic message was a welcome break from the paper I was working on for my Teaching with Technology class.

I raised an eyebrow at Jayden, who was sitting across from me at the massive table. Clearly, he was getting tired of schoolwork, too.

What up?I texted back. After nearly two hours of studying, my back ached from hunching over my books, and I didn’t mind the distraction.

When his phone screen lit up, he palmed it and moved it under the table to read it. On my left side, Lucas still had his eyes glued to his laptop. That guy took his coursework seriously. Last year, an ancient encyclopedia had tumbled down from the towering, dust-covered stacks, clipped his shoulder—and he barely even noticed.

Though Jayden had his head bowed, no new messages reached me, and somewhat reluctantly, I resumed typing on my laptop. Then my phone screen lit up. It was on silent, but Igrabbed it anyway, afraid the vibration would disturb the others. And even though we were in the basement, this was still a library.

When I swiped the message open, a familiar face popped up. The picture showed a young woman with long black hair draped over her shoulder—just like mine. She was wearing a pale blue t-shirt. Also like me. And she was sitting at a heavy wooden table, her laptop open in front of her. Three for three.

My phone buzzed again.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Homework is boring,

So I’m stalking you.

Combined with the picture of me, that would be a pretty creepy message to receive from a strange number—except from the angle of the photo, it had been taken by Jayden, who was clearly bored. No one else in the study group looked particularly happy, either. We’d been hitting the books hard. And this was only the second week of the semester—imagine how much work there’d be by midterms.

I tried to catch his eye, but Jayden was pretending to ignore me. It almost felt like we were still in high school, not college, but Jayden a good guy. He could always make me laugh.

Since he wasn’t looking my way, I studied him. Objectively speaking, he was handsome, but he could just be so goofy at times that I didn’t usually think of him that way. But he’d clearly gotten some sun over the summer. His dark brown hair, perpetually tousled, had picked up some lighter streaks from the summer sun, and they suited him.

He tapped at his phone, still not looking at me, but I smiled to myself in anticipation. I wanted to be a teacher more than anything, but I was more than willing to abandon my essay onEducational Technology: Tools and Strategies for 21st-Century Classroomsfora while.

Tell me a secret, Jayden texted.

This time I message back.You’re supposed to be studying.

His response was quick.That’s not a secret.

Which was true. The rest of us were still going strong—ish. Lucas, on my left, looked as if an earthquake couldn’t shake him from the journal article open on his laptop. But if there were an earthquake, we’d all be buried by the dusty books with titles so faded they were nearly invisible around us.

To my right, Amanda was typing on her laptop, earbuds in. And Roger appeared to be doing complex math equations on the calculator app on his phone. Even though I could only see the tops of most of their heads as they bent over their work, I couldn’t help smiling. I’d missed this group. During our freshman year last year, we’d been officially assigned as a cohort to meet twice a week to form good study habits. It was only a requirement for the fall semester, but we’d kept going. I usually got a lot done on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Our last session had been in April, so we could gear up for final exams and end-of-semester projects, so I hadn’t seen any of these guys since then, except in passing between classes. To my surprise, last week Lucas had sent a group text, asking if we wanted to start up the study group for the new school year. Six of us had come to the first session last week, and five of us were here tonight.

I’m bored, Jayden messaged.You have to save me.

I caught his eye as I rolled mine. Jayden was smart, from what I could tell, but not the kind of guy who could sit still for hours at a time. Not like Lucas. If you gave him a copy ofWar and Peaceand told him to sit down and read it, he’d get to his feet twenty-four hours later, the task accomplished.

Suddenly, I knew what Jayden—and probably the rest of us—needed.So call for a study break.

His eyebrows rose, and I watched as his fingers tapped rapidly on his phone.I forgot all about that. How does it work again?

You can call one any time after 90 minutes.I couldn’t even remember who’d started it last year, but the rule was that if we’d been at it for over an hour and a half, any one of us could call for a study break, and we’d all have to take one. We could grab a drink, stretch, or take a quick walk around the library’s lower level—anything except push through.

“Time for a study break,” Jayden announced, with a wink toward me.

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