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I blink once, and when I open my eyes, I find a cross-legged Ess, with her nose buried in a textbook. We're alone.
"Hi," she says without looking up.
Ess doesn't even blink as she scans the page full of diagrams and formulas. "Hey." Her foot taps agitatedly. "What are you doing?"
She rubs her neck roughly and her glasses slip down. "Studying. I've a math test coming up, and this is worth twenty five percent of my overall grade. I need to do well, otherwise I'm screwed."
I hum and fold my arms. We sit in silence for a few minutes until Ess lets out a sharp sigh. She curses under her breath. "Is everything okay?"
There's a cold breeze coming from somewhere, and it raises goosebumps on my skin. "Everything's good. I'm fin—"
She breaks out into a sob and slams her textbook shut. I flinch at her sudden movements but instantly hug her. She shakes in my arms, on the verge of hyperventilating.
"I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail," Ess chants while dampening my shoulder. So this is me. This is what I'm like during my study episodes.
"You're not going to fail, sweetheart."
She scrubs away her tears, her face red and her eyes almost puffy. "I am, because I can't understand this equation and I've forgotten all of the theorems we need to know and if I don't remember the theorems then I'm screwed, and I've three days left. I should've started studying sooner but—"
"Calm down. Breathe," I murmur.
The white space is closing in on us. Maybe it's a representation of how it feels when I try to study. I can only imagine how Ess feels. Feeling stupid because of not being able to understand a concept, or a question. The feeling of helplessness when it's the month of exams. Forgetting everything that was just learnt.
Ess sighs at her thick stack of textbooks and curls into her loose tracksuit. I push her messy hair from her face. "I need to study, but every time I try to, I can't take anything in." She sniffs. "I feel like I'm disappointing everybody when I get bad grades. Especially Mam and Dad. There's so much pressure being put on me to do well, from them and from my teachers. I know everyone just wants me to do well, but it's hard, especially when I don't feel like studying. I want to get good grades, I really do, but I just Netflix instead of studying.
"I don't know why I'm like this. There are some days where I get bursts of motivation, and I study for five hours straight, and I feel great. But when I come back from taking a break, I can't concentrate.
"Mam said that if this continues, it'll be tough for me in college. She means well. She wasn't able to finish college when she was my age, and so she wants me to go to a good one so that my life is set for me. She doesn't want me to be unemployed and attending college at 40, like she is.
"I just—" Ess's voice breaks off and she starts crying all over again. Her nails dig into my arm. She apologises when she gains her composure. "Sorry, I . . ."
"It's okay." I still haven't gotten used to this alien feeling. Having the emotions of an outsider and reacting to my own. I take a good look at Ess, at her tired face and chipped nails and sticky notes by her feet. Ess must be the embodiment of my stress. It would only make sense. Ess is drowning is stress. "It seems like you're doing all this because it's what everyone wants. What do you want, Ess?"
