The papers splattered across the floor were about as organized as Winnie’s thoughts. No matter how long she stared at her notes, she didn’t understand anything. The words began to blend together and it wasn’t long before everything started to look like gibberish. It’s how she had been spending most of her time in the past weeks - sat in the center of a tornado of papers, barely keeping her head above ground. People had always warned her about how much studying Pre-Med was, but she always brushed them off. She was a good student - got all A’s in high school without studying nearly as much as she has been now - so she didn’t understand how she was struggling so much.
She threw her head back against the wall with an exasperated sigh. The creak of the door opening barely registered in her worn out brain. Her expression remained lifeless as Christian came into view with a smile that spread through his ocean eyes and a bag of take out from her favorite Thai restaurant.
“I brought your favorite,” he sang, raising the white bag up triumphantly. Winnie barely nodded, too busy looking over the packet in her lap to pay attention to the pleas of hunger coming from her empty stomach. Christian made his way towards her, toeing his shoes off in her direction.
“Wait!” Winnie yelled, the sudden urgency in her voice alarming Christian. She let out a long, shaky breath before beginning again, “You can’t…” she started, eyeing all of the papers he was about to brush to the side to sit with her, “Don’t touch anything, it’ll get all messed up.” The blond boy laughed - the papers were thrown in every direction, the room already looked like a war zone, how could moving a few things over possibly mean anything? Winnie’s face remained serious, pleading even, and his unreciprocated laughter slowly faded out.
“Alright, we can just eat on the couch then,” he said, offering his hand to help the girl up. Winnie pinched the brink of her nose, her eyes squeezed shut, as she shook her head.
“I need to study,” she objected, her focus still trained on the vocab in front of her.
“No, you need to eat. You haven’t left that spot since I left two hours ago,” Christian reasoned, hand still outstretched for her to take.
“I need to study,” she exclaimed, her eyes briefly breaking from the paper in front of her to meet Christian’s. He barely recognized them in the quick flash; the golden specks had faded out leaving her stare barren.
He gave her a defeated nod and carefully navigated around the papers to place a kiss to the top of her head, in which Winnie responded with a nondescript noise, before he went off towards the couch. Winnie’s focus remained glued to her notes, her fingers tightening their grip on the paper every time she heard laughter coming from the other room.
***
That test had come and gone and Winnie received a B. Christian thought this deserved a nice dinner in celebration; Winnie thought this served as a slap in the face that she needed to study more. Which is just what she did as her next test was already quickly approaching. Christian was sure that she never went more than a week without a different test or essay to write, which meant that there was rarely a time that Winnie didn’t hold herself up in her room, studying until she fell asleep.
“Winnie?” Christian asked gently, careful not to move any of her papers as he knelt down next to her.
“What?” she asked sternly, fingers tracing into the musty carpet as she tried to work out the problem in front of her. She’d quickly gone through the the blank pages in her notebook, most of them balled up and thrown in the general area of the trash can in a fit of anger when she couldn’t get the problem just right.
“We should go out to dinner. We can even get smoothies after,” Christian coaxed. Winnie almost never passed up smoothies — the first time they meet was in line for smoothies at the cafeteria, Winnie forgot her money and Christian quickly jumped in to pay — and he would do anything to get Winnie out of the apartment. A part of her wanted to say yes, go out and relieve some stress. Still, she couldn’t let herself get distracted, she had to do well in school. So, once again, she pushed it aside.
“Christian, you know that I can’t,” she stated, fingers tugging at the strands of her hair. She could see the look of disappoint in his eyes, but she shrugged it off.
“Come on, it’s only one night. It’ll do you good to get out of the house,” he pleaded. He reached to brush the hair away the hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. Winnie dodged his touch and fixated her eyes on the equation.
“Alright then,” Christian said defeatedly, “I’ll see you later.” Winnie listened to him grab his keys, throw on his shoes, and ruffle through the closet to find his jacket. Finally, as she heard the door shut behind him, she let out a breath of air she hadn’t known she was holding.
Christian wouldn’t return home until the sky began to lighten in anticipation for the sun. He silently moved about the small apartment trying to find his way to the couch to crash on, almost stepping on Winnie along the way.
“Jesus,” he muttered to himself, examining how the girl had fallen asleep on the floor with her head buried in her notes. It was his turn to let out an exasperated sigh, his eyes softening as he saw her in this disheveled state. He gently lifted up her head to slip a pillow underneath it and placed a blanket on top of her while being careful not to move her papers.
***
The weeks had come and gone, Winnie feeling more sleep deprived and irritated as each one past, and spring break had finally come. The majority of students planned on going on extravagant vacations or back to the coziness of their own home, yet all Winnie wanted to do was sleep all day - and maybe get ahead in some of her classes. However, on the first night it didn’t look like either of this was going to happen. Christian insisted, rather persistently, that they had to go out to dinner and celebrate. Celebrate what? Winnie had no idea. It felt like she had barely survived these past months, what was worth celebrating about that?
Yet there she was; sitting across the table from Christian at a crowded restaurant. She swirled the contents of her drink around, entranced in the miniature whirlpool the liquids made. She didn’t realize Christian’s eyes trained onto her until he cleared his throat.
“Are you alright?” He asked, a look of concern laced into his features.
“Yea, why?” Winnie replied, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“You’ve just seemed… a little off,” he explained, eyes intently watching Winnie.
“I’ve just been tired,” Winnie stated matter-of-factly, as if it was the sole reason for her irritation lately.
Probably because you haven’t slept in months,” he answered sarcastically.
“That’s because I’ve been studying,” she retorted defensively.
“I know, that’s all you’ve been doing,” he shrugged off, ignoring the tone of her voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she questioned him, not bothering to try to hide the irritation in her voice.
“Nothing… Winnie, let’s just enjoy dinner,” Christian said after a moment, a frustrated sigh falling from his lips.
“No, really. What did you want to say? I’m not going to apologize that I’ve been studying, if that’s what you expect? I need to study if I want to pass my classes, don’t you get that? I can’t just have fun like everybody else” Winnie could see a few heads turn towards the direction of their table, but her mind was spinning and she didn’t know how to stop, “trust me, I’d rather be hanging out with my friends, but I can’t. I need to get good grades if I want to get my scholarship. Not that I’d expect you to understand that. You don’t have to worry about anything as long as you’ve got your parents' wallet to fall back on,” she saw the hurt on Christian’s face before she had even processed what she said.
His mouth dropped open like he was about to say something back, but he remained silent. And, God, Winnie wished he would just say something, anything, even yell at her. It felt like the first time Winnie could see clearly and it only made her want to be yelled at more, she deserved to be yelled at.
Her eyes softened as she searched his wounded blue ones; it was unbearable for her to see the pain she caused, but she couldn’t spare herself to look away. She tried to find the words to take back what she said, to make him forget it all. Yet all she could do was sit there frozen in her seat.
After minutes of silence, Winnie gently placed her hand on top of his, as if his bones were paper thin and even the slightest touch would break him. The warmth of his hands already began to run through her cold ones. He didn’t flinch away, but he didn’t relax into her either.
“Christian, I-” she began, not knowing where the sentence would lead. She didn’t get a chance to find out; he started to leave at the sound of her voice, taking the warmth he emitted with him.
