Flowers

20

I was on the brink of succumbing to a waterfall of tears.

When he had begun quizzing me, I had felt like I had it all covered. I had gone over this before, and had felt confident in my knowledge. Now, after half an hour, I felt completely lost and like I knew nothing.

"What year, Camille?" Michael repeated for the third time.

I squeezed my hands in my lap and shook my head, "I don't know... I'm sorry."

"1815," he gave me the answer with furrowed brows, "I know you know this. Just relax."

I gazed at him for a moment and let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. I had to ace this exam.

"I've studied this, I really have, I just... I don't know," I told him pitifully.

Michael cleared his throat and leaned his elbows onto his knees with my history book in his hands, "you won't remember shit if you study when you're stressed, you get that?"

I brought my knees up to my chin and nodded, frowning to myself. I felt like I was being scolded by an authoritative figure, even when I wasn't and he surely didn't mean to come off that way.

He sighed and scanned over the page he was now on once again. I bit my lower lip and waited anxiously, not wanting him to feel disappointed in me. It had been a bad idea to ask him to quiz me, as it turned out he took it very seriously.

"And when was he born?" Michael asked after a moment, casting me a glance.

When I realised I knew the answer to this one, I basically squealed it out, "1769!"

"Yeah," he couldn't help but chuckle at my reaction in amusement, but hid it quickly and continued.

"Tell me something about his influence on legal systems."

I fell silent again, my smile vanishing, "oh..."

"You got this," his eyes stayed on my book while he encouraged me slowly.

"I—" I felt a lump in my throat, feeling terrible again, "like, what, exactly?"

"Legal systems. His impact on 'em," he rested back against the couch we were sat on and raised his brows at me expectantly, "tell me."

I hugged my legs to me tighter and frowned again. Michael sighed and reached over to take a gentle hold of my ankle, not knowing just how much it comforted me. He then looked back down at the book and scanned it over a few lines.

"Like, he did all those fundamental liberal policies," I began unsurely, "meritocracy, property rights and equality before the law, right?"

"Fuck yeah," he nodded in all seriousness, and I couldn't help but smile at how cute it had been, "the man was a beast."

I laughed quietly and managed to inch a little bit closer to Michael's side.

"You got this, sweetness. I think we're done," he spoke, still going over the last page, "just don't forget education, religion and all the financial parts, yeah?"

"I won't," my smile widened, extremely relieved we had gone through it all. I then remembered how I had barely got any of his questions right and sighed to myself almost dramatically.

He reached over to place the book on his coffee table before beginning to stand up. I was quick to grab his arm and tug him back down to sit next to me.

"I feel like I'm going to fail," I told him exasperatedly, my feet sliding under his thigh a little to get even closer to him.

Michael wasn't one to show many emotions, especially now when I needed him to. I wanted him to tell me I'd do fine and everything was alright.