The summer getaway felt like a distant dream as October arrived in Sheffield with the kind of aggressive optimism that only the start of a new academic year could muster. Y/N stood in the queue at the university bookshop, arms full of architectural texts with titles like "Structural Analysis and Design" and "Building Physics: A Comprehensive Guide" watching her bank balance diminish with each scan of the checkout scanner.
"That'll be £247.50." the cashier announced with the cheerful indifference of someone who wasn't personally funding this educational bankruptcy.
Y/N handed over her card, mentally calculating how many packets of instant noodles this represented. Behind her, a group of first-years discussed their weekend plans with the kind of enthusiasm that could only come from people who hadn't yet experienced the soul-crushing reality of a structural engineering lecture at 9 AM on a Monday.
Architecture was nothing like she'd imagined. Where she'd hoped for creativity and artistic expression, she'd found rigorous technical constraints and endless mathematical calculations. Every design had to be justified not by its beauty or innovation, but by its structural integrity and adherence to building codes. After six weeks of study, Y/N had produced exactly zero designs she was proud of, and a growing collection of professors' comments that ranged from "lacks technical understanding" to "approach shows insufficient rigor." Worst of all was the gnawing certainty that she'd made a terrible mistake.
Her phone buzzed on the desk, a text from Alex.
Just finished in the studio. How's the model coming?
Y/N glanced at the disaster on her desk and typed back:
Great! Almost done. How was recording?
She hated lying to him, but the last thing she wanted was for Alex to worry about her on top of everything else. His schedule had become increasingly intense as the album's release date crept closer, late nights in the studio, constant meetings with the label, endless revisions and refinements to tracks they'd thought were finished.
Exhausting. Miss you x
Her heart squeezed painfully.
Miss you too x
When had their relationship become a series of text messages exchanged in the middle of the night? They'd started the term with such optimism, the road trip, both of them promising to make time no matter how busy things got. But reality had quickly intruded. Her architecture workload was crushing, his recording schedule unpredictable. Days would pass with nothing but brief texts and missed calls.
Y/N returned to her model, carefully measuring a piece of cardboard meant to represent the second floor. As she cut, the material slipped, sending the blade slicing across her finger.
"Shit!" she hissed, dropping both cardboard and knife as blood welled up from the cut.
It wasn't deep, more annoying than serious, but it was the final straw. Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes as she wrapped a tissue around her finger, watching the red stain slowly spread. She was failing at architecture, barely seeing her boyfriend, and now bleeding all over her already disastrous assignment.
A soft knock at her door startled her from her spiral of self-pity. At this hour, it could only be one person.
Alex had made a habit of crashing at her apartment, slipping in at ungodly hours with the spare key she'd given him months ago, back when the gesture felt like a natural progression rather than a desperate attempt to maintain connection. Y/N found it endearing, the way he'd try so hard to be quiet, fumbling with his boots in the dark and inevitably stubbing his toe on the coffee table with a muffled curse that never failed to make her smile into her pillow. On the nights when exhaustion won out over conversation, when he'd simply collapse beside her without bothering to change out of his studio clothes, she'd wake to find him curled around her, his breath warm against her neck and his arm heavy across her waist. Sometimes she'd catch him in the act, slipping through the door at 3 AM to find her already asleep at her drafting table, and he'd carefully move her work aside before pressing the softest kiss to her temple, a silent apology for another missed evening.
YOU ARE READING
The Bucket List // Alex Turner
General FictionIf you'd told Y/N a year ago that she'd be spending the rest of high school in a city where people ate beans for breakfast unironically, she would've laughed and then probably cried until her lungs collapsed. But here she was, standing in the kitche...
