When you’re a college student, many things can cause you incredible frustration and pain, like midterms despite still paling in comparison with finals. I have had a lot of writing to do since this semester; all my midterms were essays. Nova and Eloise had midterms as well. So we decided to study together in the library after eating our lunch. As I said before, I prefer to work independently, but Eloise has a midterm in her anthro class, and she needed a little help reviewing. I won’t be helping her the entire time anyway since she will be helping Nova review for her math midterm. 

“Which floor of the library should we go to?” Nova said as we headed to the library.

“Why don’t we check out the fourth floor, and if it is too packed, we can go to the fifth,” I said in response.

The fourth and fifth floors were packed, so we went to the sixth floor.

“I will go look to see if there are any empty tables beside the bookcases,” Eloise said as she walked away.

Nova and I looked and saw that most of the front tables were occupied by single students with textbooks spread out. Eloise then returned three minutes later with a slightly confused face.

“Eloise, what’s wrong?” Nova asked

“Oh nothing, I found us a table,” Eloise said

“Then why do you look confused?” I said as she was still scrunching her eyebrows.

“Because I just saw Ramon, Anais, and Maki at the table beside the one I found,” Eloise said

“Really, what a coincidence,” Nova said

“Do you not want to sit near them?” I asked

“No, it’s cool. I was just surprised; let’s go,” Eloise said as she started to walk back towards the study tables beside the bookcases.

As Eloise said, Ramon, Anais, and Maki were sitting at the table next to the one she found and had books and papers spread out. Since they were studying together, it was safe to assume that they got comfortable with each other like Nova, Eloise, and I have. I have not seen them in person before, either, so it was a little awkward. 

As we began to get ourselves settled, Ramon realized our presence, “Oh hey, guys!”

“Hi,” I said, trying my best not to act startled.

“Hello,” Nova replied in a similar fashion.

 “Hey, so you guys are studying for your midterms too?” Eloise said as she glanced at their books and papers.

“Yeah,” Ramon responded, pushing his hair back in slight frustration.

“Are you okay?” I asked in response.

“I’m fine. It’s just my midterm essay for HIST 152 is getting me a little frustrated,” He signed.

“What’s the subject?”

“Technological advancements during the industrial revolution.”

“I took that class when I was a sophomore. If you want, I could take a look at what you have written so far while I am helping Eloise and doing my own work.” I said after some quick consideration.

“That would be great. Do you guys want to push the tables together so we can all just study together?” 

“Sure,” I said in response after Eloise and Nova nodded in agreement. We all then got up and moved the tables together. After the rearrangement, I was now sitting on one side with Ramon and Maki while Eloise, Nova, and Anais were on the opposite side. We then went back to studying and working on our midterms. 

After an hour, the two bottles of water I had drank earlier began their attack. Unfortunately, the bathroom on the sixth floor was out of order, so I had to make my way down to the fourth floor since there was no bathroom on the fifth floor.

I was about to exit the bathroom when my phone rang. I saw that it was Nova, confused but none the less, I picked it up.

“Sup, and why are you calling me?”

“Where are you? You need to come back right now.” Nova said in a rather serious tone.

“Why? And how come I hear yelling?”

“Anais and Eloise are arguing…”

“I was gone for almost ten minutes. What the hell happened?”

“Well, I was confused about a statistics problem, so Eloise was helping me. Anais noticed this, said there was another method, and explained. Yet, I was still confused, and Eloise said her approach was better and started talking over Anais. Then Anais mumbled an insult in French, thinking none of us would understand, but Eloise heard her and argued back. I don’t know French, but I could tell that they were insulting each other. Ramon is trying to calm them down, but they are still going at it.”

“Wow, and has anybody else noticed their little tiff?”

“Uhm, a couple of other students have noticed us, but nobody has called one of the librarians to kick us out yet.”

“Okay, take a deep, and I will be there in a minute.”

Once Nova hung up, I started to make my way back. But unfortunately, I was forced to wait a bit since classes had just let out, so there were many more people to maneuver through. After maneuvering through others and rushing up two flights, I was out of breath. I made my way back to where everybody was. The scene that greeted me was just like Nova described. Eloise and Anais aggressively argued in French while Ramon and Maki were trying to get them to calm down. At the same time, Nova was standing off to the side with her eyes darting back and forth in panic. I would have been laughing if they weren’t getting progressively louder, and I desperately needed my inhaler.

“Will you two calm the fuck down before you get us all kicked out,” I said, still wheezing from walking back upstairs. My out-of-breath state temporarily snapped them out of their anger.

“So, can you tell me what the hell is going on?” I quickly realize my mistake when my question makes them resume their argument. While I was trying to think of a way to get them to stop arguing, I noticed the time.

“Well, it was nice meeting you guys, but Eloise, Nova, and I have to go since our next classes are starting soon,” I said as I quickly stuffed my things into my backpack and ushered Eloise and Nova to do the same. Once they had their belongings together, I rushed us out of the library.

Two days later, Eloise and Anais exchanged half-hearted apologies and promised that they would no longer argue with each other. A promise that I am pretty sure they will break at some point.