Like Real People Do [🗸]

18. distance

Somehow, within the past few days I forgot just how large campus was. 

It's a big place with people doing big things, so much happening, so impersonal. I don't hate it, but I'm all too aware of how easy it is to get swept into it.

The freshmen haven't partied in a solid couple of weeks, everyone either worrying about midterms or performances. Even our makeshift group has been swept into their own universes. Basil came back on Monday and he's spent more time typing practice editorials than he has playing League of Legends, which I suppose is how it's supposed to be, but it's still an odd site nonetheless. 

"Kieran?" Esther. She's sat across from me in the library, textbook open on the arm of her chair and laptop resting on her lap. Esther has, in most senses, been the one to keep me sane these past few days.

There's an odd comfort in going through the exact same course as someone, with the same midterm coming up, the same joint stress. It helps. As usual, we've been filling any gaps the other person has, or at least, been trying too. 

Esther loves computer science considerably more than I do. It's something I like, of course, something with nostalgic ties to Scratch or other early coding websites, but Esther grew up in a family of computer scientists. It's like she was raised in the craft.

Growing up in a family of doctors has had its perks - doctor's notes were usually only a few steps or call away and my father was remarkably lenient in how he handed them out, much to my mom's displeasure - but it also meant that they didn't understand computer science the way that they understood medicine. 

But you can see it in her eyes, the way that Esther lights up when she works out the kinks in each module we've completed so far. She loves it, she loves the complexity and the sitting down for hours and working out every little problem that arises. 

I always thought that it was only people like Elliot or Aarya who could feel passionate about what they do because being passionate about the arts seems so much easier, but Esther, I finally notice, is just as passionate about something as obscure and complicated as computer science. 

To top it off, she doesn't even view it as obscure and complicated, she views it as a series of patterns, something to explore rather than something to just struggle with. 

I like it well enough but Esther, well, she loves it. What makes it even more hilarious is that she would never openly admit it. 

Esther's been highlighting some nuance in a module that we've completed, something extra to take note of. She's all focus and I'm trying to be. Every so often, we take sips out of the coffees we bought earlier today, hands clamped around the cup. 

I haven't called Elliot since the day after the kiss which means we've spent a week busy in our own worlds. I don't think we hold it against each other. Elliot's been in dance mode and I've been in Comp-Sci mode and we have exchanged, maybe, a few texts but we haven't yet gotten around to dropping by each other.