Study Habits

By Veronica Buchanan, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

It was 11:30 am on the first day of the spring semester when Alex Parker walked into his university’s coffee shop to find that his spot had been taken.

It wasn’t like his name was on it or anything, but for the past three-and-a-half years, Alex had taken the two chairs closest to the pick-up counter from 1 to 2 pm every Monday and Wednesday, excluding holidays. The second chair was for his bag and his feet, which he knew, of course, was very rude, especially during the lunch hour when there were never enough seats to go around as it was, but being 6 feet of lean muscle wearing all black clothing meant that there was never anyone quite willing enough to call him out on it. And, more importantly, there was never anyone with the nerve to sit in his seats before he got there.

However, this was his last semester before graduating, and that meant that he had no choice but to submit to certain necessary changes - one of his required courses was only offered during his usual lunchtime on Mondays and Wednesdays, which meant that he had to take his lunch hour one class block earlier than before, which meant that none of the people in the cafe at this hour would know that those were his seats.

Which meant that someone was sitting in them.

The man, reading a battered paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice, had dark brown hair that was much too long, and was wearing pajama pants, flip flops, and an oversized hoodie that said “I Don’t Want To Be Here.” He looked young, with a round face and large brown eyes - he couldn’t have been older than 18. There were no other empty seats in the cafe except for the one next to him, and Alex stood there, trying to decide how he wanted to go about dealing with this.

He took too long. The man looked up and realized Alex was glaring at him. “Did you want to sit there? Go ahead,” the man said, before returning to his book.

At a loss for words, Alex sat down. It was only for one day - he could handle that. To no one’s surprise but his own, it happened again on Wednesday.

Alex didn’t ask permission this time and sat down without a word. The brunet leaned around his copy of Northanger Abbey and looked at him. “You’re back,” he said. It was a neutral observation, free of judgment or dislike.

Alex nodded and sipped his coffee, looking at his phone. He desperately missed being able to put his feet up.

When Alex sat down the following Monday, the man waved at him.

“You didn’t tell me you were in my anthropology class,” he said, putting a bookmark in his copy of Emma and closing it.

Alex blinked. “I am?” There were well over a hundred people in that class, but he would have surely recognized the person he was going to have to share his space with two hours of the week.

“That’s the class you just got out of, right?” the man asked, and Alex nodded. “Are you an anthropology major?”

Alex shook his head. “Mechanical engineering.”

“Let me guess, you need three science credits?”

Why did he have to ask so many questions? “Yes.”

“So do I.” The man held his hand out. “I’m Kevin, I’m an English major.”

They shook hands. “Alex. You’re an Austen fan,” Alex said, looking at the book Kevin was holding.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” Kevin glanced at the book as if he just remembered he was holding it. “I’m taking a class on Austen, and I’m trying to get the reading out of the way early on so I don’t have to do it later.”

Oh god. He was one of those. “And you’re going to remember everything you’ve read three months from now?”

Kevin shrugged. “I’ve read these before, so I’ll probably do well enough.” He noticed Alex glaring at him and pouted. “What? These are classics, everyone already knows the deal with them. Fine eyes, the beautiful and the sublime, noblesse oblige and all that. I could take this class with my eyes closed.”

Alex felt physical pain somewhere in his chest. He was well aware that most freshmen were poor at studying, to put it mildly, but this one seemed determined to plumb depths of academic laziness that were previously undiscovered.

“I hope you’re not planning on continuing those study habits,” Alex said, trying not to let too much irritation show in his voice. “After your first year, your classes are going to get more difficult.”

Kevin tilted his head in confusion. “What? Oh, I’m not a freshman. I’m 22. This is my last semester.”

Alex stared in horror. “How do you pass your classes?”

Kevin shrugged. “I read through the textbooks in the first two weeks. And then I just remember everything. Easy peasy.”

This was too much for him to handle. He closed his eyes and waited for the lunch hour to be over.

To say that Alex was organized would not have been an understatement, nor would it have been an overstatement; it was no more or less than the truth. He didn’t go overboard with it, at least in his estimation - the notes he took weren’t color-coded, he had never used a post-it note in his life, and if something were out of place, he could continue with his day just fine - but even so, everything had a place, and he preferred it when things were where they were supposed to be.

His schedule was as follows: on Mondays and Wednesdays, he attended classes from 8:30 in the morning until 11:15, when he took his lunch break, and then resumed classes from 1:00 in the afternoon until 5:15, at which point he walked the half-mile from campus to his apartment. He had no classes the rest of the week, and his time on those days was divided between studying and his part-time job at the university library. Not every minute needed to be accounted for, necessarily, but there was an order to it, a natural progression of activities that accomplished the dual goals of giving Alex a sense of stability and ensuring that all of the things that needed doing got done.

It must have been this same sense of obligation, then, that kept Alex coming back to the coffee shop for lunch two days a week, even as the weeks passed. He belatedly realized that it would have been an easier solution just to start eating lunch somewhere else, but it was too far into the semester to change his routine, so he endured it.

Kevin existed in a way that challenged Alex to his very core. Every conceivable thing about them was as different as it could possibly be: their choices in coffee (Kevin always ordered an iced drink that was more milkshake than coffee, while Alex took his coffee hot with exactly two servings of creamer and two packets of artificial sweetener); their clothing (Kevin never wore anything that didn’t look like it could be, or had been, slept in, while Alex always wore a black turtleneck, black jeans, and black combat boots, which wasn’t professional per se, but it was sensible and comfortable enough); the way they took notes in class (on the days Kevin bothered to show up, he spent most of the time on his phone, occasionally scribbling a few words in a shabby three-subject notebook, while Alex had perfect attendance, turned his phone off at the beginning of the lecture, and kept extensive notes in a neat notebook he used only for this class); and, of course, their study habits - or, in Kevin’s case, lack thereof.

As the semester progressed, so too did the ways in which Kevin proceeded to further test Alex’s patience. Kevin finished all of Austen’s novels in the first two weeks, followed by a week browsing the pages of a book about American literature, and lastly, a handful of days skimming their anthropology textbook. After this, he spent his lunch hour playing games on his phone, with a day every once in a while where he would be hurriedly typing an essay on a small laptop he kept in his bag.

“When is that paper due?” Alex got up the nerve to ask on one of those days, bracing himself for the answer.

“In…” Kevin looked down at the bottom corner of the screen. “About 45 minutes. Don’t worry, it’s only six pages.”

Alex closed his eyes and did his best to maintain his composure. “And how many pages do you have finished?”

There was a long pause. “One and a half,” Kevin admitted. “But I’ve only been working on it for 10 minutes.”

To some extent, it was almost endearing. Alex began to look forward with morbid fascination to his lunch hour, just to see how thoroughly and obnoxiously Kevin could use that time to procrastinate. They established a rapport, of sorts. Kevin would inevitably be rushing to finish an assignment at the last minute, and Alex would make a dry comment about it, and Kevin would laugh, and Alex would hope that he had imposed even a small sense of responsibility on him, but it never happened. When Kevin received his six-page paper back with a grade of A-, Alex began to understand the kind of person that he was. In some respects, he could easily be considered a genius.

However, that genius didn’t seem to extend to all subjects. That Monday, their anthropology professor handed back the graded scantrons from their first exam. This was no surprise to Alex, who had already seen his grade posted online the night before, but at lunch, he found Kevin at their usual table in the coffee shop staring at his scantron with a furrowed brow.

“Hey, what did you get on the test?” Kevin asked him, not looking up.

“An 89,” Alex replied. “It was a difficult test,” he added after a few seconds, trying to be sympathetic.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Kevin said, glancing between the scantron and the test questions. “I thought I understood everything, but…”

“What did you get?”

Kevin bit his lip. “37.”

An emotion washed over Alex that he was unable to describe. It felt somewhat akin to the feeling one might have upon seeing a kitten abandoned on the side of the road, or a child that had lost their mother in a crowd. Kevin looked helpless just then, almost adorable in the way his large brown eyes gazed forlornly at the test in front of him.

When he sighed, put the test and scantron in his bag, and pulled out a Nintendo Switch from the front pocket of his hoodie, it broke something in Alex.

“Study with me.” The words fell out of him before he could fully process their meaning.

Kevin looked up, blinking several times. “Really?”

Alex nodded. “I understand the material pretty well. I could help you get a better score on the next test.”

“You’d do that?” Kevin seemed genuinely surprised.

“Of course.” What had he gotten himself into? “Are you free on Thursday nights?”

Alex had never been to Hell, but if he’d been asked to guess what it would be like, this would come pretty close.

They met in Kevin’s dorm room since he had no roommate, and, to put it mildly, the room was a complete and utter disaster. The floor was covered in clothes and papers, the desk was crowded with books and empty water bottles, the bed was messy and unmade, and there was no flat surface that had room to set anything down (Alex was thankful to note that at least the trash had been taken out, and it didn’t seem like there was anything perishable in the room). The walls were covered in video game posters, and a large rainbow pride flag hung above the bed. Kevin seemed fond of the color blue - the bedsheets, many of the clothes, the towels, and most of his other possessions were varying shades of blue.

“I tried to clean up a bit before you came over,” Kevin said, kicking some dirty laundry under the bed.

“...Thanks.” What on earth was he supposed to say to that? “Do you have your textbook and your notes?”

“Yep, they’re right here.” Kevin kicked off his shoes and hopped up onto the bed. After a moment of hesitation, Alex removed his boots and climbed up, sitting cross-legged on the comforter.

“We started on Chapter 5 last class,” Alex began, opening his own textbook to the correct page. “Have you looked at it yet?”

“Um... I skimmed it a couple weeks ago?”

“Then you’re going to read it now. And take notes. Write a two-sentence summary of each section, as well as the definition to every vocabulary word listed on the front page.”

Kevin squinted at his notebook. “All that? Are you serious?”

Alex summoned his best glare. “Yes, all that. Get started.”

It was rough going for the first half hour. Kevin grumbled and sighed under his breath as he slowly worked his way through the pages, balancing the book on one knee and writing in his notebook on the other.

“You know,” Kevin said, breaking the silence. “This would be easier on a flat surface…” He gazed forlornly at the desk, which was still covered in books and empty water bottles.

Alex raised an eyebrow, glancing between Kevin and the desk. “Then you should clear it off.”

“Will you help me?”

Alex rolled his eyes but obligingly stood up. Kevin handed him a plastic bag to hold open as he filled it with water bottles, one by one. After tying up the bag and lining the books up neatly along the wall, the desk had more than enough room to write, and Kevin eagerly put his textbook and notebook on it and got back to work.

Unfortunately, the peace could only last so long. “So,” Kevin said fifteen minutes later, swiveling around in his desk chair. “I feel like we’ve done enough for today and we have the right to goof off now.”

“And how much of the chapter did you finish?”

“You know, that’s not important,” Kevin said, typing on his phone and avoiding Alex’s glare. “What’s more important is, uh…” There was a pause as he scrolled through whatever was on the screen. “What’s your favorite movie?”

Alex sighed. “Are you looking at a list of icebreakers?”

“C’mon, dude! I’ve known you for weeks but I don’t know anything about you other than you’re a STEM nerd and I think a goth? I feel like I should know more about you by now.”

It was hard to stop himself from grinning, for some reason. He was angry, but he wasn’t. “Fine,” he said. “It’s Death Becomes Her.”

Kevin’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Actually, no, that sounds about right. Mine is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Alright… Who’s your favorite band?”

“Fall Out Boy. Yours?”

“Kero Kero Bonito. What rule do you think they should add to your favorite sport?”

Alex thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I have a favorite sport.”

“Honestly, me neither. But I also think hockey would be much improved if they played with three pucks.”

Their conversation continued, with Kevin asking increasingly outlandish icebreaker questions (“What unconventional food item do you think would taste good on pancakes?” “If raccoons could talk, what would they say?” “If you had to invent a color, what would you call it?”), when he accidentally mentioned their anthropology class and reminded Alex of what they were supposed to be doing.

“You still have to finish that chapter,” he told Kevin sternly, though it was hard to finish the sentence without laughing.

“What? Oh, I was just fucking with you. I already finished it.”

Alex was only halfway done with his own work. He tilted his head and looked Kevin in the eye for several seconds. “You’re impressive,” he finally said. “A madman, but impressive.”

Their weekly study sessions continued, and Alex was pleasantly surprised to find that he actually looked forward to them. Kevin would always finish taking notes in record time and then ask him endless questions, the two of them trading meaningless trivia about themselves for hours at a time. Alex even found himself persuaded to watch the entirety of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which he had to admit was better than he expected. And, of course, their lunches in the campus coffee shop continued.

“Hey, what the hell does ‘diurnal’ mean?” Kevin asked him at their table one Monday, sipping his iced coffee.

“It’s the opposite of nocturnal.”

“They need a word for that?” Kevin wrinkled his nose and set his notebook down in favor of pulling out his phone.

Alex shrugged. “If it exists, they need to name it. Biology is just like that, I guess.”

“Isn’t this anthropology?”

“Biological anthropology.”

Kevin grumbled. “Biology is not my greatest subject.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

It was Kevin’s turn to glare. “Very funny. If I fail this next test, it’ll be your fault.”

“Says the person who ‘just remembers everything.’ If you fail this next test, it won’t be because you didn’t try.”

As the weeks passed, Alex found himself feeling strange. In the past four years, he had never once been less than perfectly content with spending his free time in his apartment watching whatever movies or TV shows caught his eye. He rarely talked to anyone outside of class, work, or phone calls with his parents, and he very much preferred it that way, but lately he felt… He wasn’t entirely sure. Sad, maybe. Dissatisfied. He would scour his bookshelf, looking for something that interested him, but even books that he had been looking forward to seemed dull in comparison to… What?

Once in a while, when he saw something he thought was funny, he caught himself wondering what Kevin would think of it, and several times had to actively resist the urge to text him about it. Of course, Kevin had no such reservations, and messaged him several times a day. For whatever reason, Alex couldn’t bring himself to be irritated. He tried, but the feeling just wasn’t there.

They took their second anthropology exam that Wednesday, and Kevin seemed very optimistic about the results.

“It went way better than the first test,” Kevin told him the next day during their usual study session as they lounged around in his room not doing anything in particular. “There’s no way I didn’t get an A.”

“You know what they say about hubris.” Alex lay face-up on Kevin’s bed, arms behind his head.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. At least now I’ll have time to start volunteering for the GSA again.”

“The GSA?”

“The Gender and Sexuality Alliance. It’s for LGBT students.”

Alex’s foot twitched involuntarily. He’d seen Kevin’s pride flag, why was he surprised about this? “So you’re in a lot of clubs?”

“Oh yeah. I’m very ‘engaged’ and all that. I just kinda go to whatever I’m feeling like: art club, theater club, French club…”

“You’re French?”

“No. But they show French movies sometimes.”

Of course. Kevin seemed to be the type of person to make friends easily. Alex felt something strange in his stomach, but he tried to ignore it.

“So like, what do you do in your free time?” Kevin asked, rolling his desk chair closer to the bed.

Alex shrugged. “Read, watch movies. Clean my apartment. Not much, really.”

“You’re not in any clubs or anything?”

“No. I’ve never really bothered.”

“Why not?”

Alex didn’t have an answer for that. Or rather, he knew what the answer was, but it was very difficult to put it into words. “I just… I don’t think I have anything in common with them.”

“With who?”

“I don’t know… People in general?”

“That’s definitely not true. There are plenty of engineering majors, and there are plenty of people who like black clothes. I mean, I’m not in either of those groups but I feel like we have a lot in common.”

Alex stared at the ceiling. How odd it was, how opposite their ways of thinking were that he could feel so completely different to Kevin and yet have Kevin tell him that he thought they were similar. But it seemed true, in a way he couldn’t place. There were so many things he couldn’t place when he thought about Kevin.

“You okay?” Kevin leaned over him, looking worried. “I’m sorry if that sounded like an insult.”

“No, it’s not an insult. I just never thought about it that way.”

Kevin was quiet for a moment. “You know, there’s a carnival on campus tomorrow, and my friends are going... Do you want to go with me?”

Oh lord. A carnival? “How many people are going to be there?”

“Maybe a hundred?”

Alex closed his eyes and tried to guard against whatever was possessing him to consider saying yes to this. His desire to spend time with Kevin and inability to say no to him were warring with his better judgment, which calmly reminded him that he hated crowds and he hated Kevin.

Wait... Hated him? Did he hate him? He couldn’t remember. Surely there was a time when Kevin’s inadvertent seat-stealing and flagrant disrespect for time management had irritated him. He could distinctly remember that happening. But why did it feel like such a long time ago? The semester was barely half over.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Kevin said quietly.

He knew that Kevin meant it, but there was no way he could convince himself to refuse now.

“Yeah, I’ll go.”

“Are you sure?” Kevin fidgeted in his seat.

“I’m not a fan of large groups of people, but… I’ll try it.”

Kevin grinned, and Alex forgot all about his reluctance to go. Or at least, he wanted to.

The night was warm as Alex rounded the corner of Kevin’s dorm building. A slight breeze ruffled the t-shirt he’d cautiously chosen from his closet and made the hairs on his arm stand up. He honestly felt sick to his stomach. It was good to try something new, right? Kevin’s friends were going to be there. Kevin he was okay with, but these friends he was less sure about. He hadn’t talked with strangers since… Well, since he’d met Kevin.

As Alex approached the door, it opened, and Kevin stepped out wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. He wasn’t dressed up by any means, but it was a world of difference from the wrinkled pajamas he usually wore. Without realizing it, Alex stared openly at him. He’d never properly seen his silhouette before.

“You’re wearing real pants,” Alex said, fighting to keep the tone light.

“And you’re wearing short sleeves,” Kevin replied, raising his eyebrows and glancing a little too often at Alex’s arms.

It was impossible for Alex to keep a blush off his face as they walked quietly from Kevin’s dorm to the courtyard where the carnival was being held. Several other groups of people seemed to be heading the same way, but Alex barely noticed them, focused as he was on keeping his breathing steady and placing one foot in front of the other.

The carnival was loud, and crowded. Bass-boosted pop songs played from large speakers next to the DJ booth, and there were several carnival games set up around the courtyard, each one surrounded by a small crowd. It was clearly made on a student council budget - most of the games were either handmade or borrowed from a rental company. The refreshments consisted entirely of room-temperature cans of soda and popcorn served from a popcorn machine set up on top of a folding table being run by a volunteer. The main attraction of the event seemed to be a life-size board game set up against one wall.

When they arrived, Kevin immediately set on pulling Alex through the crowd to find his friends, eventually spotting them in the popcorn line.

“So you’re Alex!” said a girl wearing a leather jacket as they approached. “Kevin’s been telling us about you!”

Alex flushed with embarrassment, and Kevin made a choking sound behind him. “Anyway,” Kevin said, coughing, “these are my friends!” He introduced them all - there was the girl in the leather jacket, who was also wearing jean shorts and fishnets; a person in gym shorts with bright turquoise hair, holding a large cone of cotton candy; and a very short girl wearing a black skirt and pink stockings. Alex tried to remember their names, but they left his head immediately after he heard them. It apparently didn’t matter, though, as the others seemed to be deliberately keeping their distance from the two of them.

“Did I do something wrong?” Alex whispered to Kevin, gesturing to the several feet of space between the two of them and the rest of the group.

“What? Oh, not at all. It’s, uh,” Kevin said, looking away. “Y’know.”

Alex absolutely didn’t know, but he accepted this answer and tried not to think about it.

They decided to play the life-size board game first. The board, made up of a path of colorful paper squares about two feet wide, wound around in an S shape, taking up about a third of the courtyard. Their group crowded together on the starting square, which was thankfully much bigger than the others. One by one, they were each handed a giant stuffed cloth die, which took both hands to throw. The goal of the game was apparently just to get to the finish line, which was on the other end of the courtyard, at least several dozen squares away.

“That’s it?” Alex asked the student council member who was running the game.

“That’s it,” she replied in a bored voice. “Listen, I’m just here to get my volunteer hours.”

He and Kevin went first. To their luck, they both ended up in the lead, and things began to get competitive when they were less than half a dozen spaces away from the finish line.

“Ha! Natural skill. I love winning,” Kevin taunted from two squares ahead of him.

“Pure arrogance,” Alex replied. “I’m an engineering major. I know exactly how to throw the die so that it lands on the number I want.”

“Okay, asshole, then do it,” Kevin said, tossing the die at him with both hands. He rolled a two.

Kevin howled with laughter as Alex shamefully walked two spaces forward. Now they were standing together on the same square.

He was suddenly aware of the several inches of height difference between them. Kevin looked up at him with a grin. “Thanks for setting me up to win next turn.” He reached up and patted Alex on the shoulder.”

“Um. No problem.” His lungs had forgotten how to work. The square was barely big enough for the both of them, and they had to stand very close together. They both blushed and looked away.

And then it came Kevin’s turn to roll again, and the moment passed.

The rest of the carnival was a blur - Kevin won a very cute cat plushie for his victory at the board game, and promptly named it “Jelly Bean” and gave it to Alex; they ate cotton candy while Kevin’s friends regaled them with the tale of how the previous year’s carnival had been shut down after someone poured an entire can of Red Bull on one of the speakers at the DJ booth; they played a game of bean bag toss that Alex very narrowly won (“See? I told you I’m good at throwing things”); and at last, they found themselves sitting on the staircase that led from the courtyard to the student union, looking at the stars and bantering about whatever came to mind.

“I think we should go,” the girl in the jacket said abruptly, gesturing to herself and the two others. “I have to wake up early tomorrow.” She looked pointedly at Kevin.

“Oh! Okay then,” Kevin said, confused. Alex frowned. Wasn’t tomorrow Saturday?

The others wished them good night and took off, leaving them alone on the stairs.

“Do you wanna come to the dining hall with me?” Kevin asked. “I’m starving.”

Alex looked at his phone. It was 11:20 pm. “Is it open this late?”

“Yeah, they always do this late night breakfast thing on Fridays.”

They walked in silence together. When they arrived, Kevin swiped both of them in at the door, and they grabbed plates of assorted breakfast foods and sat down.

“Did you like it?” Kevin asked through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “The carnival?”

Alex shrugged. “I had a good time. But I don’t think I’m ever going to be a fan of crowds.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to be.” Kevin smiled. “I’m glad you had fun, though.”

“Your friends didn’t like me, did they?” Alex said, forlornly pushing a few pieces of pancake around his plate. “They barely talked to me the whole time.”

“What? They definitely liked you,” Kevin said, pulling out his phone. “They just texted me, actually, saying that-” He read whatever was on the screen and coughed. “Uh, they said you were cool.”

Oh. They didn’t like him after all.

Kevin noticed the expression on his face and patted his hand. “Trust me, dude. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

Alex wished he could believe him.

On Sunday night at 11 pm, Alex sat listlessly on his couch, trying and failing to pay attention to the 2007 film production of Persuasion that was playing on his television. A calculus assignment that was due tomorrow was sitting on his desk, but he couldn’t be bothered. His chest hurt. What was wrong with him? He’d tried taking a break from studying. He’d tried indulging his sudden inexplicable desire to read Jane Austen novels. He’d even tried going to that carnival with Kevin, but nothing seemed to help. He couldn’t deny he had fun, but now that it was over, he felt even worse.

He picked up his phone to see a notification for an email from their anthropology professor. Oh, that was right, the grades from the last test had been posted. Ignoring the

notification, he logged into his online student account to see his test grade; it was a 92, which didn’t surprise him.

He was just about to go back and open the email when a phone call from Kevin popped up on the screen.

“Hey, can you come over?” Kevin sounded like he was crying.

Alex’s heart began to pound. “What happened?”

“Can I tell you when you get here?”

“I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

Alex considered himself fairly efficient at getting ready, but the speed at which he threw on his boots and shoved his keys and phone into his pockets put his previous records to shame. He also didn’t consider himself a runner, but that didn’t stop him from giving serious consideration to sprinting the entire half mile to campus (he had to be satisfied with a jog, given that although he was reasonably active, a full run was unrealistic). The time it took to reach Kevin’s dorm building seemed endless. Had commuting to campus always taken this long? He could feel every footfall on the concrete, every inhale and exhale from his lungs, the warm air that seemed to push against him as he ran. What could have happened to make Kevin so upset? He’d seemed fine at the carnival. He was ashamed to admit that knew so little about Kevin’s life that he had no guesses as to what had gone wrong.

The security guard at the front of the building recognized him and let him in. He sent Kevin a text when he reached his room: I’m here. The door opened immediately.

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, Kevin threw his arms around him and broke down sobbing. Alex froze.

“What’s wrong?” he tried to ask, but Kevin was too distraught to answer. He forced himself to relax, and simply stood there and hugged back.

“Come here,” he said after Kevin’s sobs quieted, gently pulling him to the bed. He sat down and Kevin climbed into his lap.

“They’re gonna kill me,” Kevin said, staring miserably at the wall. “My parents are going to kill me.”

Alex felt a sinking feeling in his chest. “Why?”

“My test grade. I got a 71.” Kevin sniffled. “I don’t even know if I’m going to pass this class.”

Alex frowned, trying to come up with something. “You could always retake it over the summer.”

“No, that’s… You don’t understand. I’m not allowed to fail classes. I’m not supposed to get anything except an A.”

Oh dear. He had those parents. “They won’t understand if you have to retake one class?”

Kevin shook his head. “Definitely not. Especially since it would delay my graduation. I don’t know what they’re gonna do to me if that happens.” He started to tremble. “I don’t want to find out,” he said quietly.

“You’ve never gotten a B before?”

“I have. Twice. I got grounded for a month both times.”

“Grounded? You’re an adult, how can they ground you?”

Kevin shrugged. “Because I live with them when I’m not in the dorms. And because I don’t have a car or a full-time job.”

Alex didn’t know what to say to that, but it seemed as though Kevin wasn’t expecting a response. It became clear to him that he had judged Kevin far more harshly than he deserved. Going into engineering had been his choice, and he enjoyed the work well enough, but he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if that kind of perfection was expected of him constantly. He’d gotten his fair share of lower grades before, and he considered himself to be just as smart as Kevin. No wonder that Kevin avoided his work so much. Academia was probably very painful for him.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispered.

“For what?”

“I misunderstood you.” He paused. “Your parents are being very unfair.”

“Yeah,” Kevin sighed. He absentmindedly pulled out his phone and began halfheartedly browsing through it. “Oh look. There’s an email from our professor. Should I bother reading it?”

“Yes. Tell me what it says, I haven’t read it yet.”

Kevin tapped his phone a few times, then bolted upright, almost falling out of Alex’s lap. “Dude! Holy shit! He’s dropping our lowest test grade!”

Alex’s breath caught in his throat. “So if you get a high enough grade on the last test-”

“I’ll pass the class! Holy fuck!”

He could have cried. Kevin hugged him again, squeezing so tight he thought he might suffocate. Although there was probably another reason he felt that way…

Neither of them spoke. The silence that had seemed so slow and melancholy before was now electric and full of potential. Belatedly, Alex realized how strange of a scenario this was, to be sitting on a friend’s bed, holding him in his lap, all over a test grade in anthropology. And then it struck him, all at once.

“I really like you,” Kevin said quietly, leaning his head against Alex’s shoulder.

“I, um,” Alex said eloquently. He could barely breathe. “Yeah, me too.”

Kevin’s arms tightened around him. “I thought you hated me the first few weeks.”

“I thought I did.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I don’t know.”

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to each other breathe.

“I’ve never…” Alex began again, struggling to find the words. “I’ve never really wanted to be around people. And people have never wanted to be around me. I don’t know what it is about me, but… I don’t know. You didn’t push me away, you wanted to know me, it made you happy when I was there. I thought I would be angry having to spend so much time with someone else, but I wasn’t.” He wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

Alex felt the pads of Kevin’s fingertips gently brush away a tear from underneath his eye. When he looked up, their faces were scant inches from each other. Their eyes were locked. Kevin’s face was red and blotchy from crying, but at the moment, Alex thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For the first time, he saw flecks of blue and green dotted in the brown of Kevin’s irises. How had he never noticed those before?

“Can I kiss you?” Kevin asked, his voice almost a whisper.

As easy as breathing, Alex leaned forward, and their lips met.

For the first time in many months, something finally made sense. It seemed so simple. It was new, and it was terrifying, but something deep in his chest told him it was right.

They parted after a while, and before they knew it they were both laughing. “We’re ridiculous,” Kevin said, trying to catch his breath. “I can’t believe it took us that long.”

Alex didn’t say anything, and leaned back to let Kevin curl up against him. Thoughts were running through his head much faster than he was able to process them, but he decided they weren’t important and did his best to relax and revel in the moment.

“Can we do this more often?” Kevin mumbled into the side of his neck.

“Yes. But you still need to study.”

Kevin groaned and rolled out of his lap onto the bed. “No. Absolutely not. Not tonight.”

Alex couldn’t help himself but laugh. “Agreed. Not tonight,” he said, stretching out next to him.

How odd. He hadn’t realized how tense he was until he was finally able to relax. It was almost scary, how light he felt - he was half convinced he would float off the bed at any second. When had he gotten that stressed out? It must have happened slowly, over time. But there was no reason for that now - a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Life was good, actually.

“My friends really did like you, you know,” Kevin whispered from beside him. “They were just trying to give us some time together.”

“Oh.” That made sense, in hindsight. He’d misjudged them, too.

“You could come hang out with us, if you felt like it.” Kevin was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want you to be alone anymore.”

Alex didn’t reply. A tear rolled down the side of his face.

Kevin held his hand underneath the covers, and, eventually, they both fell asleep.

“Positive selection,” Alex said, holding up an index card with one hand and sipping his coffee with the other.

“Uhh, selection that favors new genotypes?” Kevin set his Switch on the table and leaned back in the cafe chair.

“Correct.” He pulled out another index card. “Pastoralists.”

“People who herd cows?”

“Close enough.” Alex shuffled the cards together and put them back in his bag. “I’m impressed.”

“It’ll be totally fine. Absolute piece of cake,” Kevin said, although he was rubbing his thumb and index finger together in a way that Alex knew meant he was much more anxious than he let on.

Alex reached across the table and took his hand. “It’s a shame you finally learned how to study during the last semester you’ll ever be in school.”

“Eh, I might go to grad school. Major in philosophy or something.”

“You know, you’re supposed to have these things planned out ahead of time.”

“I’ll get to it when I get to it,” Kevin said, leaning over to kiss him. “Come on, we have to go pass this test and then you have to help me pack.” He zipped up his backpack and started putting it on.

Alex rolled his eyes, but did the same. “I’ve been helping you pack for the last week.”

“Yeah, but I still have to move out of the dorm by the end of tonight. And you’ll get to meet my parents!” They exited the coffee shop and began walking towards the building their final exam would be held in.

Dear lord. He’d forgotten about that. “Do I have to?”

“Yeah, we might as well get it over with. The good news is that they’ll love you - you’re an engineer and you wear turtlenecks, so you’re basically their dream son.”

“I’m an engineering student. It’s illegal and unethical to call yourself an engineer until you’re licensed.” He held open the door for Kevin.

“See? You’re everything they’ve ever wanted, trust me.”

“Do they know you’re gay?”

Kevin stopped in his tracks right outside their exam room. “I may have forgotten about that.”

“I take it I’m going to have to be ‘just a good friend’ for a while.”

“Yeah, probably. But I’ll figure it out when I get around to it. Now come on.” Kevin gave him one last kiss on the cheek and pulled open the door to the lecture hall.