Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

fifteen

By the time exams arrived I felt confident enough to arrive in college the day of the first one without being too anxious. Even if a small part of me was incredibly scared of failing every single one of them.

I used to get really bad anxiety when it came to tests and exams in school, to the point I couldn't get myself to even start one without going into full blown panic. All the years of therapy helped me with that too, I guessed.

I hadn't really seen Sam for more than a few minutes in those days, mostly because I was busy with studying. And I hoped the reason behind her not really reaching out was because she imagined I'd be busy.

"Good luck, I know you'll do great" was the last thing Mei told me as we entered the classroom.

"Thanks, same for you" I smiled at her.

Two hours went by quicker than I thought they would, but I was overall satisfied with what I'd done, and Mei was too, from what she'd told me.

We had an hour to have lunch and then had our second exam, Medieval literature. Which was less appealing to me, so harder to study. But I felt like I did a good job in that too.

Sam's exam was the following morning. I spent the whole evening waiting, or at least hoping, for at least a 'good luck' text from her.

I ended up falling asleep early because I was exhausted, and being stressed only made it worse, but my phone was in my hand until the very moment I closed my eyes.

The text arrived the morning after, as I was getting on the subway, resulting in me bumping into an extremely tall man who didn't look too pleased about it.

I got to college realizing that I felt less on edge than I did an hour before, which made me feel ridiculous because it meant I was stressed about not having received a text from Sam, and not for the exam itself, and didn't even realize it.

As Mei and I sat in our seats, exam papers already on each desk, I looked up to see Sam, who was busy handing in the paper when I'd first entered the room, presumably waiting for my gaze to meet hers.

I vaguely smiled at her, trying to make her understand everything was okay. From the way she nodded right after I guessed she'd gotten the message.

Just by reading the exam questions once, I realized how she'd emphasized those topics a lot more than others when helping me study, so even if she hadn't explicitly told me what the questions were going to be, she did.

I once again looked up and she was still looking at me, probably waiting for me to notice. A smirk appeared on her face as soon as I did, and I had to contain myself from laughing.

That was the most confident I'd ever felt while doing an exam, even though I felt somewhat guilty for having such a big advantage. And the feeling got worse once me and Mei had lunch together and she told me she didn't do as well as she wanted to.

"I'm sure you actually didn't do as bad as you think" I said trying to console her, as I walked her back to her place, since she'd asked me to.

"I don't know, man" she sniffled. I knew she'd been on the verge of tears for the past twenty minutes, and I really was trying my best to make her feel better.

"What counts is that you did the best you could. You know that, right?" I hugged her.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so" she faintly smiled, hugging me back.

"You sure you don't want me to come upstairs?" I asked as we approached the building her flat was in.

"I'm good. Maybe I need a bit of alone time. But thank you for everything, really"