Page 79 of Under Pressure

She pauses at the bottom of the stairs, but doesn’t look up at me. “Not couldn’t.Wouldn’t,” I hear her say before she pushes open the door leading outside.

Have I turned her into someone as cynical as me? Did I crush her Hufflepuff spirit?

I sway in the direction she just left, then force myself to march back up the steps, making my way into our room in the Stress Lab. No one else is scheduled after us, so I have all night to work on the data if I want. I should have been doing it while she was meeting with her biofeedback people, but I was too distracted by the sound of her voice, the glimpses of her out of the corner of my eye when I thought she wasn’t looking.

God, I’m pathetic.

I settle in at my desk, pulling up my spreadsheet and begin inputting data from the results today. Afterward, I look it all over, reaching for my phone more than once to text Mia, remembering the times we’ve done this after our participants had left, examining everything, each of us with insights the other didn’t see at first. Though I never would have thought it initially, we actually make a good team.

But if she doesn’t want to write our paper together, I’m fairly sure she doesn’t want to review these numbers with me.

I’m used to doing things by myself anyway.

* * *

The hush over the computer lab is absolute, the week of midterms finally upon us. Usually, it’s just the library that’s this quiet, but it’s seemed to extend its way across campus to here too.

It’s fine with me, though, as I still need to study for this dumbass Geology exam. Ask me anything about psychology and I can tell you no problem, but explaining the different effects of metamorphism in rocks? My mind goes completely blank.

A girl approaches the help desk and asks in a normal tone, “Where does my print job—”

“Shh!” Oscar loudly shushes her. “Can’t you see everyone here is trying to study?” he demands in a whisper so loud, he might as well be talking.

“Your print job shows up over there.” I point to the printer in the corner. “Just swipe your student ID.”

Thanks, she mouths, unwilling to risk Oscar’s wrath again.

“You gotta cool it,” I tell him in a low voice. “The pressure’s making you crack.”

“If I don’t make an A in Organic Chemistry, my dad will disown me.” He feverishly scribbles equations in a notebook, none of which make the least bit of sense to me. Then again, I’m not a science major, as evidenced by my extreme lack of interest in rocks.

“Isn’t that the class that everyone fails? Accept the reality that you won’t make an A in it.”

He turns to me, his eyes wild and bloodshot behind his glasses. “My dad’s a chemist! I have to make an A.”

I gently disengage his fingers that somehow found their way to grip my shirt. “How about you take off early? Go home and grab a power nap? I’ll cover the rest of your shift.”

He rubs at his eyes, gazing at me strangely. “That’s nice of you.”

I turn back to my page about metamorphic rocks. “Okay.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him still staring at me. “Why are you being nice?”

I slam the book shut, startling nearly half the computer users, but I really don’t give a fuck. “I can’t be nice?”

“I mean you can, but you don’t.”

I sigh. Miss Hufflepuff’s rubbing off on me again. I don’t even have to speak to her anymore for her to have an effect on me. “Do you want to go home or not?”

“Yes,” he whispers, frantically grabbing at his things to stuff in his backpack. “I owe you.”

“Damn right you do.” See? It was in my own self-interest to do him a favor. Nothing altruistic about it.

Except, it did feel good to help, knowing how much he’s been stressing about his midterms.

Damn it.

It’s smooth sailing for the rest of my shift and I lock up when we close at eleven, though I still need to finish studying for my Motivation midterm tomorrow. Just a few last key concepts I’m unsure of, to make sure I know them backward and forward.

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