Heart | N.H.

twenty three - aficionado

There was a knock on my bedroom door. I shot to my feet and made my way to open it--or at least, tried to. I ended up stubbing my toe on the edge of my bed, stumbling against my backpack, and finally tripping over my chemistry textbook and sprawling out on the floor.

The door was flung open and Niall rushed in. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, my face suddenly remembered it had a rendezvous with the carpet." I got up and groaned loudly. "I hate finals."

"So you've mentioned," Niall said, nodding.

"It is the twenty-seventh of December, Niall. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF DECEMBER. WHY AM I STUDYING FOR FINALS?"

"Christ, there's no need to yell. You're studying because you're paranoid and don't trust yourself."

I tugged at the roots of my hair. "That's 'cause if I wait, I won't study. I know I won't. God, why does St. Stephen's have finals after winter break? It's called a break for a reason! I don't want to study on our time off, and definitely not before New Year's."

"Well, if you are planning to actually study, you made a wise choice calling me over. I'm an aficionado regarding all things academic, so I'll be the perfect tutor." Niall flashed me a toothy smile.

I studied him skeptically. "I only invited you over because you're distracting and we won't do anything productive or studious at all. You know that."

He shrugged unabashedly. "It was worth a try to appear like a good guy. And by distracting, you mean that I'm distractingly good-looking, right?"

Snickering, I said, "You just keep trying with that, hon." Resuming my stressed-out attitude about everything, I began pacing back and forth, somewhat inhibited by the fact that I had to step over the school supplies scattered all over my floor. "Why do I always do this? I forget to try all semester, and then suddenly before finals I remember that I have to get into freaking medical school." I slapped my forehead with my hand. "Ow, that actually hurt."

Niall shook his head in bemusement. "Kitten, you'll be fine. Grades aren't everything."

When I merely stood in the middle of the room repeatedly hitting myself in the forehead, he grabbed both my hands. His voice was serious but the twitch of his lips suggested that he was trying to hide a smile. "Miracle, stop. You're a genius. You're going to do great."

"And you're a very good liar. But compliments won't satisfy Mr. Martin. That guy is hellbent on failing me this semester. Do you understand, Ni? If I fail, my life will be over. I will have to go live in a box by a gutter and you guys will have to bring me ham-and-cheese sandwiches and I won't even be able to eat them because I'm a vegetarian so I'll die next to a pile of rotten ham and everyone will-"

"Miracle," Niall said, sighing and patting me on the head. "Sit down. Take a deep breath. And shut the hell up."

I frowned. "Okay. Maybe Mr. Martin won't fail me if I study really hard."

Niall gave me an encouraging smile.

I returned the smile for a split second, then continued panicking. "But what about Mrs. Nawbridge? I don't even know the difference between a coordinating conjunction and a conjunctive adverb! I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail, I'm going to-"

"-give yourself a heart attack and die before you even have to take the test?" Niall supplied in a casually helpful tone.

Seeing the contemplative expression that came over my face, he groaned. "No way. You're not fatally injuring yourself to get more time to study."

"But Niall, maybe just like a broken leg-"

"God, no. You injure yourself walking down stairs. I don't want to even think about what you'd do if you were trying to get hurt," he said.