Miscommunication (boyxboy)

Chapter Eighteen

~ Adam ~

Adam's perturbation was growing with every word he printed hastily into one of many spiral notebooks. Blue ink was beginning to bleed, words blurring together on the page as Adam's weariness caused his right hand to tremble.

It was past three o'clock in the morning. His brunette strands were tangling into a thicket from the amount of times he'd run his hand through it, shaking as his heart tripped over itself in his chest.

The single light in Adam's bedroom cast a pale hue over the white sheets of his bed where Adam was currently sat cross-legged in the middle. Pens, highlighters and notepads were strewn around him in a chaotic mess, textbook lying open on the pillow.

Adam let out a low growl as the pen's ink ran in a thin stream again. He shook it roughly before returning the tip to the page and pressing harder. A solid dot of ink appeared before soldiering onto another bullet point outlining genetic processes.

Adam got five sentences in before his body emitted another growl, this one coming from his stomach. He'd only eaten some off brand granola bar this morning before hurrying across campus to his Advanced Bioprinting class.

From there, it had been straight onto three afternoon classes, tutoring, then work. Adam finally got home at two in the morning and had spent the last hour rushing to complete his last set of revision notes before class the next day. Hunger was nothing but a familiar yet tolerable ache in his gut.

Ignoring his body's demand for food, Adam stuck a highlighter between his teeth and skimmed through the next page of his textbook. He only had this page and two worksheets from another class to finish before meeting his pillow.

Two minutes of silence passed before Adam's stomach growled again. He let out a frustrated groan and tossed the pen aside, hand returning to his hair as he gripped it anxiously.

"Two more tasks," he chanted in mantra, eyes grazing over his daily planner. "Then I can focus on chapter revisions for the rest of the week."

Studying late wasn't normally an issue for Adam but his tutoring session with Cole that afternoon had set him back. He only preyed his neighbour didn't start his bullshit tonight because Adam could only deal with so much when he was hungry and sleep-deprived.

Thankfully, the house next door was silent. No car had been in the driveway when Adam rode up either.

Another frustrated sigh escaped Adam's lips as his pen's ink ran thin again. He threw it down on his page and slammed the textbook closed, tossing it to the side when a hint of colour beneath caught his attention.

Pulling out the purple folder from the corner of his pillow, Adam's hand smoothed over the cover of his Foundational Mathematics binder. He'd tossed it aside earlier and forgotten about it.

The binder was from his first year, when the unit had been mandatory. What he didn't understand was why Cole enrolled in the unit.

Political Science undertook a heavy workload but Foundational Mathematics was not part of the course's mandated units. Even if Cole was taking the class for extra credit, there were plenty of appealing options before one that wasn't part of his course outline.

Adam didn't linger on the thought very long. There were plenty of reasons Cole could be taking the class. It could benefit his main education in the long run, or maybe it was just genuine interest. Either way, it was none of Adam's business. His role was only to show up and assist.

The idea got Adam thinking. Maths was a complex subject but many of its concepts were simple enough in theory that people usually had a basic idea. That didn't seem to be the case with Cole.