Thursday 26 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 7. Sandwich Wench

It was here! Finally! The last exam!

I'd booked my train for this evening so I could go straight home. I couldn't wait - all the excitement I'd been holding down over the last few weeks had finally broken free and I couldn't sit still, couldn't concentrate.

After a few hours of me fidgeting and twitching, Bob had had enough.

"That's it, we need a lunch break!" He slammed his notebook shut and stood up, stretching.

"Are you sure? Do you not want me to go over the tutorial answers a few more times?" I asked worriedly, not wanting him to go to the exam unprepared.

"Definitely! It's probably the exam I'm least worried about... Either that or I genuinely can't care about them any more..."

"Probably the latter!" I agreed, grinning.

"Besides, you're so twitchy today, I can't concentrate. We need to go do something fun for an hour."

"Well, what do you suggest? Game of Thrones is finished, and you refuse to play that weird street fighting game with me any more..."

After finishing Game of Thrones, Bob had introduced me to this strange fighting game with characters from various comics/cartoons. Without fail he'd thrashed me for days, until I'd accidentally stumbled upon an attack I could button mash to death that he couldn't beat. After that one loss to me, Bob had flat out refused to play any more.

"Well, you're going to laugh at this, but Gary got me into Fifa last night... want a game?"

I stared at him in fake shock. "You? Football?! Oh my god, what imposter are you?!"

"Yeah, yeah, are you coming or not?"

"Of course I am, this is a game I might actually beat you at! Not missing this for the world!" He smirked and mussed up my hair as he passed my chair in reply. Giving it a quick shake (one benefit of letting it dry naturally was that it always bounced straight back into a semi-normal shape), I followed through and claimed my usual space on the sofa.

As the game loaded up after choosing our teams, I suddenly realised that I'd never played on a PlayStation before.

"Bob, what buttons do what?"

"Uh, no. You told me that you were beating me at this. I'm not giving you any help."

"Hey, not fair! I've only ever played on Xbox!"

"And that's my problem how, exactly?" As I protested loudly, his grin just grew wider. "Oh, and didn't I mention? We're playing Fifa Apology Rules..."

As my stomach sank, the whistle blew and Bob's player immediately ran past mine. Pressing what I thought was the sprint button, a giggle escaped as my player completely wiped out Bob's with a horrendously dirty tackle.

"Oh really, Jane? Well, if that's the way it's going to be, you're going down..."

Five red cards, twelve goals and ten minutes later, I had to admit that I might have actually been better at the street fighting game, despite my unintentional expertise with the dirty tackle button.

Bob leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin. "I don't even know what the Apology Rules are for losing twelve nil! What happened to 'this might be the game I beat you at', hmm Jane?"

"Well clearly, you didn't tell me what the buttons were. Blame the software, not the player..." I tried to defend myself, but knew it wasn't worth it.

"As the very clear winner, I feel you should look up your punishment!" He proclaimed, waving his hand at me regally.

"Don't push your luck..." I muttered under my breath as I quickly googled the rules. Skimming through, I paused awkwardly at number twelve.

"Go on, what is it? What entertainment do I have as my prize?" Bob asked smugly.

I looked up at the ceiling, refusing to meet his gaze. "Um... well, apparently... I'm meant to play the next game naked."

There was a moment of excruciatingly painful silence as we looked anywhere but at each other.

"Nope, not doing that."

"Yeah, that's not happening."

Our simultaneous rejections of the rule spilled over each other, both of us laughing nervously as we finally looked at each other.

"OK, well as reigning victor, I shall create a new rule - as my losing football wench, you must make me a sandwich!"

"Fine, I guess I can cope with that one!" I sighed, silently relieved it wasn't anything worse.

"So... up for another game?"

I squinted suspiciously over at him. "Can we not do the Apology Rules?"

He shook his head sadly. "No can do, I'm afraid, those are the rules and the rules can't be broken!"

I shook my finger at him dramatically. "I know your game, good sir, you just want free sandwiches!"

"Damn, my evil plan is discovered! But the real question is, can you foil it..." He cackled evilly, setting me off into a laughing fit with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I zipped up my backpack, I couldn't keep my massive grin off my face. The exam had been an absolute gift, I'd even managed to leave half an hour early. Knowing that most of my friends would stay in until the end and then immediately go on a bar crawl, I'd headed back to mine to crash for a little bit before I had to head to the train station. I really hated goodbyes - even if just for a holiday - and I'd rather run away and celebrate the end of exams in my own way rather than face the hundreds of hugs and promises to catch up over the New Year (when I knew I wouldn't be moving from in front of my parents' fireplace for anything less than the nuclear holocaust).

Strolling through to double check I'd emptied the fridge of anything potentially stinky over the next few weeks, I was surprised to hear the flat buzzer go off. Dave had already headed home, and I wasn't expecting anyone else over. Thinking that it was just someone pressing the wrong button, I pressed to open the door to the stairwell without even listening to the speakerphone.

A minute later, I almost screamed as mystery arms picked me up from behind and whirled me around. Heart pounding, I suddenly recognised the very familiar voice laughing in my ears before he gently put me down.

"And that is an excellent lesson of why I should keep the flat door locked at all times!" I breathlessly managed, leaning against the wall as my heartrate slowly began to calm.

Bob looked down into my face, grinning happily. "Don't know why you thought you could escape me, I wasn't going to let you go without saying goodbye for the holidays!"

My stomach melted a little and I smiled goofily. "Oh, and also, you forgot your charger!" I poked myself mentally as I took the cable off him.

"Ah, good thing you noticed that, I hadn't even realised I'd forgotten it. Thanks for bringing it back for me."

He followed me through to my room as I went to put it in my bag before I forgot. Grabbing my bag, I shooed him out the door before locking it.

"I'm off to the station already, I can't face another day of missing Christmas at home." I smiled happily at Bob, the excitement of the holidays filling me up again.

"I know, you and your Christmas madness. I hope they've saved you a few decorations to put on the tree!"

"They'd better have, else I'm just taking a heap of them off to put on again!" Bob laughed as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Well... I guess that's me off..." I smiled awkwardly up at him, not sure whether to go in for the hug or not.

"How am I going to cope without seeing you every single day now?" He grinned warmly down at me, before smirking. "Oh wait - it's what I've been dreaming of, it's going to be amazing!"

"Ha!" I poked him in the side then swiped the back of his head as he crumpled over. "See, serves you right for being so mean to me!"

He wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug and held me, arms trapped, until I stopped struggling. "Stop it, you hobbit, I'm trying to give you a proper hug before you go!" He muttered, smiling.

"Funny way you give proper hugs, I feel like a sardine in a tin." I muttered back, but couldn't help laughing. "I'll miss you too, you nutcase. Have an amazing Christmas - you definitely deserve it after this semester."

"You too, little one." He let me go and patted me on the head, before heading back up the road. I stood there watching him, smiling but feeling a little sad at not having our crazy conversations every day for the next two weeks. Halfway up he turned around and caught me watching.

"Get going, you creeper!"

Laughing, I hoisted my bag higher up my shoulder and turned the other way. Finally, I was going home.

Tuesday 24 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 6. The Final Countdown

As my alarm went off, I groaned out loud into my pillow. It was the day of the first exam, and as it was a morning one Bob had suggested getting round to his for 6am for some last minute cramming. Personally, I hated cramming - I always felt if you didn't know it by the morning before, then there wasn't much chance of you learning it then.

However, I knew that Bob was really stressed about these exams so I figured if I was able to help him calm down by doing this, then it was worth it. At least, it had been worth it before I realised how much getting up at half 5 would hurt...

After showering and getting dressed in record time, I crept across the hall and tried to open the front door as silently as possible.

"For fuck's sake, Jane."

I muffled a shriek and spun to see Dave standing in his door.

"Jesus, Dave! Don't do that, I'd have thrown something at you!"

"Like I'm not used to you throwing things at me by now." He gave me a half-grin. "But seriously, what the hell? It's before six!"

"Well, Bob suggested last night that we should do some early morning studying before the exam at nine..."

"Oh, sure he did. You only got back in at eleven last night, Jane! Do you jump every time he clicks his fingers now?"

I couldn't help it - the stress of exams, my exhaustion, and the fact that Dave thought now was a good time to accuse me of being any man's puppet - I couldn't hold it back any longer and I exploded.

"Oh really, says the guy who's girlfriend has him wrapped around her finger. You considered not even going to America because she told you to! And actually, I'd do this for anyone, you know I'll go any distance for my friends to help them out. Or have you forgotten how many times I've been there for you when Jess has messed you around? How much time I've spent helping you find accommodation and plan for America? Do I jump for you too Dave, or are you just jealous that it's not just you I'd do that for?" I whispered savagely, taking an angry pleasure in seeing him flinch.

He stood there silently, looking like I'd slapped him. Which in a way, I had.

I slammed out of the front door and stormed down the stairs, furious. I was halfway down the street when I felt something drip onto my hands. Looking up at the clear skies, I suddenly realised tears were pouring down my face.

I didn't even think about it - before I knew it I was back at our building and flying up the stairs, careering around the curve of the stairwell and almost running smack bang into Dave chasing after me. Our apologies immediately started running over each other.

"Dave, I'm so sorry, I'm just so tired and stressed about these exams, I didn't mean to take it out on you-"

"No, Jane, I shouldn't have said that, I know you care about your friends, it was wrong of me to make that into a bad thing-"

"And I just can't deal with arguing with you too on top of it all, you're my best friend-"

"I'm so stressed about America, and leaving you and Jess and everyone behind, and not knowing anyone, and I've barely seen you at all in the flat these last two weeks-"

"It's been these exams, you know what I'm like, I have to do well, I can't let anyone down. I'm a revision robot, nothing else matters. And wait - you know I'm visiting you before you go abandoning me for America, right?"

That made him pause. "Wait, what? As in you're coming to Lancashire?"

"Yes! You spoon! I know I'm a nightmare to be around at the moment, but I wasn't letting you run away without some proper quality time together before you go!"

A massive grin spread across his face as that sank in. "Besides, it's a fantastic excuse to finally meet your dogs, and make them love me more than you so they'll come home with me." I added, teasing.

"Well, that makes everything much better. And you can have the dogs, they're a pain!"

"Don't go making promises that I'll take you up on... But I'm sorry, I'd completely forgotten to tell you that I'd come visit. If that's OK with your parents, of course?"

"Don't be silly, Jane, they adore you. Is there any chance you'll get home at a decent time sometime this week so we can sort out dates and things?" He smiled as he said it, making sure I knew that wasn't another dig.

"I'll be back around lunchtime after the exam for a few hours today if you're around? I'll be revising late afternoon and evening for the exam tomorrow, but I'll need at least a little break after today's."

He nodded and said he'd be in all day, and promised to have his signature lunch dish of fish finger sandwiches ready for me when I got back from the exam. Giving him a grin (as we always had a joke of being one of the few friends in our group who 'didn't do hugs'), I turned and properly headed over to Bob's this time.

As soon as I sat down, he noticed my red eyes. "Hey, are you OK? What's wrong?"

"You are far too perceptive for this time in the morning." I grumbled to myself. "Nothing, it's fine, just the exhaustion and stress getting a bit too much for me."

He nodded, looking exhausted himself. "You're telling me. I could barely sleep, I ended up reading past papers at half three this morning. There's just so much I don't know Jane, I don't feel ready for this at all, every year they ask this weird bizarre question that I'm certain wasn't even in the notes..."

"Shhh, it's OK, I have a plan." I tried to calm him down as his voice rose higher in panic.

"So, each paper has three questions. There's the standard one that repeats each year, a slightly harder one that still seems to repeat in variations of three or four different approaches, and then, as you noticed, the insane one. Don't even worry about the insane one - that only counts for 30%, and unless you know the course back to front or are very lucky, I wouldn't focus on that one right now."

He gave half a laugh. "The crazy question - also known as, the one that only Jane will be able to answer because you have a photographic memory. It really winds me up that we've spent exactly the same time revising and you're still ahead of me on every course!"

I blushed slightly. "It's not photographic, I'm just really good at remembering patterns... and as I said, going to the lectures and tutorials at the time helped! Anyway, let's focus on getting the method down for that first question, there's no reason for you to drop any of the easy marks..."

Two hours later, I'd coached Bob though the methods for the first and second questions, or at least as I'd predicted them.

"OK, and then after we differentiate, what do we do...?" I trailed off, raising my eyebrows at Bob.

"We stick the limits in! Um... the limits being..." He paused, frustration creasing his face.

"It's OK, just think. Is this a quick or a slow reaction?"

"Oh! Yes, it's what we said, it's a quick one and zero to thirty seconds is quicker than zero to an hour, so that reminds me that the limits are 0 and 30, but if it had been a long one, the limits would have been 0 and an hour, which is 3600 seconds. And then we 'put it in a box', which means that that we have to multiply the three values I have together like working out the volume of a box, and then I imagine yelling at you at that window -" He stopped, laughing briefly, before continuing. "- but instead I'm yelling 'THE UNITS ARE WRONG', which reminds me that I need to convert it back into per second instead of per day which it's currently in."

He looked at me for confirmation, and I grinned. "You've got it! Perfect!"

He grinned broadly. "You know, you'd make the weirdest but most amazing teacher. I don't even know how your brain links all of that together, but it's working!"

"Like I told you, I'm good at patterns - it's all about making the patterns memorable!" I looked at the big clock on the wall and realised that we only had ten minutes before we needed to be heading out.

"Time to get everything together! And I'll keep running all of those processes through with you as we go to the exam, so you've really got it down in your head." I started gathering all my things together, running through my exam checklist in my head. Calculator, student card, two pens plus third emergency pen, emergency pencil, ruler...

"Jane." His serious tone made me look up. "I really, really appreciate all this help. I just wanted you to know."

Embarrassed, I tried to brush it off. "Look at you getting all serious on me. Let's wait until after the exam before you start thanking anyone, OK?"

He laughed. "Actually, great point. But I have faith you've prepared me well. I know you sacrificed your sleep to come help me when you're normally sleeping before an exam, and it's really decent of you."

I blushed harder. "Seriously, stop it! Who are you, and what have you done with the Bob who spends his life being mean to me?"

"I think the exam stress sent him into hibernation... but don't worry, he's been thinking up heaps of great insults, he'll be back to brighten up your life soon enough!"

"Fantastic. I can't wait." As Bob went through to find his student card in his room, I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly. I knew I was prepared for this exam - time to empty my mind of everything non-exam related, and get out there and kick this exam's ass.


Sunday 22 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 5. Lies & Confusion

On Sunday morning, we were back studying bright and early. BBC3 was running a repeat of The Voice, so we had that on in the background and were critiquing each act as they auditioned.

"I think I'd definitely go with Tom Jones as my judge." I commented as he turned for a teenage girl with a powerhouse of a voice.

Bob frowned, considering. "Really? I think will.i.am would be the one to go for..."

"He doesn't even sing though!" I exclaimed. "Tom Jones is an absolute legend, just think of what he could teach you."

"Legend, yes, but in touch with the current music industry? Tom might be able to teach you about singing, but will.i.am has the contacts and knowledge to make you a real star, you need more than just talent."

I was about to argue back when we heard Gary's door open. Turning round to tease him about being up so early on a Sunday, the words stuck in my mouth as a tall, leggy blonde sauntered past the kitchen door wearing nothing but a short towel.

I turned back to Bob, eyebrows raised. "Looks like someone had a good night last night!" I whispered, hoping that the girl couldn't hear me.

"You're telling me!" He whispered back, shutting up quickly as the girl walked back and into Gary's room.

"Although one thing astounds me - how do girls see his room and not run a mile?" I mused back at normal volume.

Bob just gave me a look. "Well, I don't expect she was entirely sober when she came back..."

I giggled. "Very true!"

I turned back to the TV as the next contestant came on. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Bob staring at me with a strange expression on his face.

"Staring's rude, you know." I commented, keeping my gaze on the TV.

"Ah, sorry, I wasn't meaning to. Just... are you OK?"

I glanced over, confused. "You mean about Gary sleeping with that girl? Don't be silly, of course I am. We never even went out."

"No, no, not about that - I knew you weren't that invested in him. I more meant, even though you two weren't really together, it doesn't bring back any bad memories? If you're not up for revising or anything, don't try and hide it, just let me know."

Properly bewildered, I sat up and looked straight at Bob. "OK, I have no idea what you're talking about. What bad memories? Have I lived an alternate life I know nothing about?"

Now I wasn't the only one looking confused. "Well... I meant Lee - about him cheating on you, I thought seeing Gary so soon with another girl might have brought all that up again? I never saw you upset over it but I know you're good at hiding that kind of thing, so I just wanted to let you know it was OK. Round me, that is, it's fine to just say if you're upset."

I burst out laughing, much to Bob's consternation. "Cheated? Lee never cheated on me! At least, not that I know about, and I'm fairly certain he never did."

"But... you always said, the reason you broke up was because he lied to you... I just assumed?"

I gave Bob a wry grin. "Well, you know what they say about assuming!" Looking down at my hands in my lap, my grin faded slightly.

"He did lie to me. But not about another girl... you know that he was resitting first year?"

Bob nodded.

"Well, he had to take some extra classes to make up credits, and none really fitted, so he had to take geography. He knew nothing about it but it was the best of a bad bunch. And I know nothing about it either, but I spent the entire year trying to help him study, learning things myself so that I could help him better. We made revision plans, I helped him study around my own exams, I spent hours and hours each week helping. And when it came to the exam, I got him up early and made him breakfast, wished him luck, and cycled off to uni."

My voice took on a harder edge. "So after uni, I called him to find out how the exam had gone. He said it hadn't gone well, so I decided to treat him, bought him steak, cooked his dinner, was an all round sympathetic girlfriend spoiling her boyfriend... And that was all I thought of it, until exam results came out."

I paused. The next bit still angered me, even now. "I knew his log in details, because he used to get me to check things for him on his uni homepage. And I shouldn't have done... but when I knew results were out, I thought I'd check for him, and message him his results. So I looked... and thought I'd seen it wrong. He'd failed, but he hadn't got less than 40%. He'd failed because of non-attendance at the exam."

Bob groaned at this and shook his head. He knew how seriously I took helping my friends with exams, and how seriously I took education in general.

"So I phoned him and confronted him about it. He was just silent on the phone, which told me everything. Eventually he started talking, and apparently he'd just waited until I passed him cycling to my lectures, then turned around and gone straight back to bed. He hadn't even tried. I tried to move past it, to forgive him, but after a few months I realised I hadn't, and that I didn't like the person it was turning me into. And that's when I ended it."

Bob shook his head at me. "Trust you to end a relationship over lies about exams! Only you, Jane!"

I grinned ruefully. "That's me, you can cheat all you like but no lying about your grades or that's it!"

He laughed out loud at that, whilst I quickly added, "Although I would actually also be upset if my partner cheated on me, I just want to clarify that!".

"If you weren't upset at something like that, you'd be beyond your usual boundaries of oddness, don't worry." He laughed under his breath. "Well, now I understand why you looked at me like I was crazy when I started going on about Gary!"

"What about me?" Gary appeared at the door of the kitchen, sounding as rough as he looked. Bob wasted no time teasing him as he stumbled over to the sink and started downing water. They bantered back and forth (with noticeably more enthusiasm from Bob) for a few minutes, before Gary headed back through to his room. At the door he paused slightly, peeking at me a bit uncomfortably.

"Jane, um, I..."

"Oh, for God's sake!" I exploded as Bob started sniggering in the background. "Gary, we very amicably concluded things before they ever started, so I am absolutely fine! Go back to your girl before she starts thinking you've disappeared!" I exhaled exasperatedly as Gary stood frozen in the door.

"Uh... I was just going to let you know that the dish you brought lasagne over in the other day, uh, well, I broke it... But I'm going into town today and I'll get you a new one. That's... that's really all I was going to say."

"Oh." I sat there, feeling my cheeks glow red hot from embarrassment. "Uh, thanks for letting me know. And for getting me a new one. It was just a standard baking dish from Tesco, don't go spending on anything fancy. And, uh, sorry about that..."

He grinned at me slightly. "Ha, no worries, also good to know that's all fine." He shuffled back off to his room as I turned back to the table where Bob was dying laughing.

"Don't say a word."

Friday 20 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 4. I Am The One And Only

We were making great progress with revision so far. We'd done our bubble charts for the first four exams and put them up all around the kitchen, despite Gary's complaints that he was accidentally learning more chemical engineering than he ever wanted to.

I started the first of our last set, Environmental Engineering. The first module was all to do with water pollution and toxin concentrations, so of course the central bubble should represent a puddle, complete with reeds and a frog. As I carefully coloured in the bulk of my beautifully drawn froglet with the green highlighter, Bob was doing similarly for the air dispersion module.

"Jane, stupid question, but which way round do you draw the cartoon version of birds? Like a stretched out 'w' or a stretched out 'm'?"

"Umm..." I quickly sketched out both on my notes and stared at them. "I think... it's the 'w'?"

Bob flipped my notebook round and examined them. "Are you sure? The 'm' looks more birdlike."

"No, I'm pretty sure it's the 'w'."

"But surely that would be a falling bird? As with the 'm' it has the wind under its wings? Otherwise the 'w' is like a falling dying bird, plummeting to earth..."

I laughed a little. "I can't believe we're actually debating this for a set of revision reminder sheets that only we are going to see. Choose your favourite and stick with it!"

He started drawing in a mixture as I shook my head at him, smiling. A few seconds later, I jumped a mile as a horrendous screech sounded outside the open window. I was about to go look when Bob groaned loudly.

"Oh no, they're back!"

"Back?" I asked questioningly.

"Yeah, it's the kids from the neighbouring flats... Every Saturday morning they all go out and scream constantly for about three hours. Puts you off ever having kids."

"Ha, you'll be such a grumpy dad one day. 'There shall be no screaming of any description in this household - you shall all be as quiet as mice!'" I teased Bob. He looked up, eyebrows raised.

"Have you ever actually heard mice?! They're not quiet at all, I had one running round my bedroom a few weeks back waking me up in the middle of the night as it somehow managed to get stuck in my rubbish bin."

I giggled at his outrage. "So what did you do with it? Release it back into Gary's room - after all, that's probably its natural habitat..."

He grimaced. "I should have done, I swear that's why we're getting all these mice at the moment. No, I threw it out the window."

I stared at him. "You... what? Actually threw it out the window? Did you touch it?"

"Ew, no! I just picked up the waste basket it had somehow got stuck in, opened the window and turned it upside down. That'll teach the mouse to wake me up in the middle of the night!"

"I imagine the two storey drop made that lesson pretty clear!"

I was shaking my head laughing at him when more shrieks emanated from the window. Getting up from my chair, I walked over and leaned out of the window, smiling at the four kids playing happily on the trampoline.

Paying no attention to what Bob was doing, I yelped and jumped as a loud deep voice yelled from behind me.

"HEY KIDS! I LOVE WATCHING YOU ALL THE TIME! I JUST LOOOOOVE LITTLE CHILDREN!!"

I froze in horror before spinning to stare at Bob.

"You - you - what - why would you do that?!" I managed to squeak at him before spinning back and frantically trying to yank shut the window. Looking down I saw all four kids had stopped and were staring up at me with suspicion on their faces.

"No - that wasn't me - I wasn't watching! Not like that! It's my idiot of a friend, he - ugh!" I started trying to explain myself before giving up on the window and stalking over to where Bob had crumpled over in hysterical laughter against the fridge.

"You!" I growled, poking him in the chest with my finger. "You, you monster! That was awful! Those kids think I'm some kind of creep!" He began to get control of himself as I started prodding him with both fingers, but dissolved back into helpless giggles at the last sentence. "I - don't - like - you - right - now!" I half-yelled at him, punctuating each word with a finger to his chest. Still laughing, he grabbed my forearms to restrain me from attacking him any more. I struggled to continue, but he had me fast. We both stilled for a moment, staring at each other in a silent challenge, before I turned and pulled free with a frustrated grunt.

"That may have been my favourite ever moment. Like, ever. I don't think anything will surpass that." Bob said breathlessly as he sat down again, still recovering from his laughing fit.

"Yeah, not how I'd describe it..." I muttered grumpily.

"Oh come on, you have to admit that was funny! Your face!"

I looked up and met his gaze. "Ask me a day or two maybe, and yes, I might admit it was a tiny bit funny. Actually, maybe make that a week or two, because that was awful! But right now, I'd just beware of any answers you ask me to explain because I am seriously tempted to teach you the wrong ones."

Bob grinned unashamedly and was about to respond when his phone pinged. Swiping it open, he quietened as he read the text. "Ah, I need to go phone Frankie quickly, she needs advice on something. You good for fifteen minutes or so?"

I half-smiled at him. "It's hard to believe, but I think I'll survive fifteen minutes without you in the room. Considering what just happened, that's actually probably a good thing for me to calm down and stop wanting to murder you. Go on, disappear."

Frankie answered as he walked out of the room, and I could hear him immediately start telling her excitedly about what had just happened. I couldn't help but feel a little part of me tighten uncomfortably inside - I don't know why, but I'd assumed he didn't really tell Frankie about our time together. It felt stupidly like he was sharing something private, when I had no right to anything private with him. And if he was telling her everything so openly, he must feel that there was nothing to hide, that there was nothing wrong about our friendship - which was right, I told myself. The way it should be.

Sighing, I slowly banged my head lightly on the table. This was not what I needed to be focusing on with a week until the first exam. This was not going to help me get a better grade, and overall a better degree, and a top job. More importantly than just 'better' grades, this wasn't going to help me come top of the class and get that £200 prize for top chemeng student that I'd been eyeing up this year. Guys come and go, but your grades are forever, I chanted silently. Your grades and your achievements are what you can rely on. If I worked hard and stuck to my morals, I could rely on the fact that at least I'd never let myself down, no matter how many guys did.


Wednesday 18 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 3. A Lion No More

"Shhhh!"

"But it's just a battle scene!" I protested.

"Yes, but it's a really epic battle scene, and I need to fully appreciate it's awesomeness!"

I laughed under my breath and leaned back in the armchair. We'd fallen into a routine of watching an episode of Game of Thrones during our lunch breaks, and as someone who had devoured all the books and watched all the series, I was quite happy to comply. Bob was still only on series 2 though, and it was taking every ounce of my self control not to ruin anything for him every time he commented on a character or a plot point. Watching the series knowing what was going to happen was a completely different experience - there were so many throwaway comments and apparently innocuous scenes that had me silently squirming in my seat thinking of what they led to.

As the episode finished, I couldn't resist any more.

"So, just out of interest, who's your favourite character?" It was my favourite question to ask people who hadn't read the books, figuring out what misery lay ahead for them.

Bob frowned slightly. "That's a difficult one. Dany is obviously awesome because she has dragons. I quite like Robb... but I think my overall favourite has to be Tyrion, he's hilarious."

"Hmmm." I stroked my chin and nodded sagely, giving nothing away. Bob's face dropped.

"He doesn't die, right?"

I shrugged.

"No, seriously Jane, he doesn't die? Oh my god, he dies! Tell me if he dies!"

I sighed dramatically. "Well, since you asked... Yes. He does." Bob stared at me in horror as I paused. "But at the same time... he doesn't. Well, he possibly could be dead. Or there's a fair chance he's still alive and kicking. Personally, I think that he's a lion no more, a Lannister deceased, an ex-dwarf... whilst at the same time being perfectly safe and causing all kinds of trouble across the realm as he so loves to do. So I think I'd summarise that as yes, no and a definite maybe all at the same time."

I grinned over at Bob as he stared back flatly.

"You know, sometimes I don't know why I let you into my flat. You're a horrible person."

"Aren't I just!" I smiled sweetly as I swanned past him into the kitchen and back to the waiting tutorials.

"I should just stick you in the hobbit hole and have done with it." He muttered as he put the kettle on and pulled out the coffee jar.

"How many times do I have to tell you! I am not a hobbit!"

He started listing off on his fingers. "Oh really? Well, one, you're tiny... two, you call your home county 'the shire'... three, Dave has confirmed that your feet are indeed horrifically hairy... I'm afraid the evidence is irrefutable, you're definitely a hobbit!"

I scowled at him, before suddenly picking up on what he said before. "Wait, what did you say? A hobbit hole?!"

"Wondered if you'd notice that." He grinned evilly and pointed above the kitchen door. "Gary and I were talking about how we've never opened that little hatch up there... and then we decided that it's because that hole is not for us mortal humans, it's clearly only the right size for tiny little hobbits like yourself. I don't know why you've been living in a human-sized flat all these years when you've got a perfectly good hobbit hole up there!"

I tried to swat him on the arm whilst keeping my train of thought on the tutorial question, and somehow managed to catapult the pen across the room. Grumbling to myself, I pushed my chair back to go and retrieve it. "That's such a stupid idea. For one, if I'm so ridiculously tiny, how am I even going to get up there in the first place?"

As I bent down, I suddenly felt arms around my waist before I was hoisted into the air and Bob joyfully yelled "Because we would THROW you up there!" in my ears.

"Ahhh! Bob! PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!" I flailed wildly, trying to force him to drop me whilst he just laughed. He squeezed me tighter until I gave up.

"Have you stopped trying to kick me now?" He asked reprovingly.

"Yes. But if you don't put me down then you are getting kicked somewhere extremely painful!"

"Noo, that's not the answer I was looking for..." He warned as he began to swing me back and forth slightly towards the direction of the hobbit hole.

"Fine, fine! I won't kick you!" Bob stopped swinging me and dumped me unceremoniously back on my chair.

"See, that wasn't hard, right?" I ignored him as I sorted myself back out and started figuring out where I'd been in the tutorial question.

Bob just laughed at my silence. "Well, I got 99 problems, but being kicked ain't one..."

I glanced up briefly, confused. "Mm hmm."

I could feel him staring at me for a second, before smiling broadly. "You don't have a clue what I just referenced, do you?"

Feeling my face warm up, I kept resolutely looking down. "Of course I did, don't be silly."

"Oh yeah? What song was it then?"

Damn. I had no idea. But he had said song... "Umm... Nina's 99 Red Balloons?"

He burst out uncontrollably laughing, holding on to the table for support. "You are so out of touch at times, it's adorable. Where have you been living?!"

I looked up, smiling but embarrassed. "What? You know my permanent radio station is Absolute 80's! Reference Take On Me, or The Power Of Love, and then expect me to get it. Anyway, how did you know I didn't know?"

He grinned smugly. "You did your nose wrinkle."

"My what?"

"Your nose wrinkle, you do this really quick little nose wrinkle when you don't have a clue what someone just said. Or when you don't agree with someone but don't want to say, but then it's a bit of a longer nose wrinkle."

I sat there, a little speechless that he'd picked up on that.

"It's like when you touch your nose after you've done something embarrassing, like your nose is a magic time machine button that'll let you go back and erase it."

"I don't do that!" This time I was fairly certain he was making things up.

"Oh, yes you do! I'm pointing it out every time you do it now."

I started wrinkling my nose, realised what I was doing and tried to stop halfway through, then started automatically raising my hand to rub my nose.

"Arggh! My own body is betraying me!" I sat on my hands to get them to behave, fighting the urge to rub my nose. He was right, I'd just never noticed myself doing it before.

"See!" Bob said delightedly. "I told you! Ha, this is going to be a fun new game, you're never going to be able to do that unnoticed again..."

Groaning out loud, I freed one of my hands to pick up my pen. "Any more out of you except tutorial work in the next half hour, and I promise I'll tell you for certain whether Tyrion lives or dies!"

Bob sat up straight at that one, miming locking his lips and throwing away the key. I mimed catching it and carefully placed it in my pocket, before pointing at his tutorial sheet. Dramatically miming a sigh, Bob picked up his calculator. Smiling slightly, I finally turned back to my answers and started concentrating properly.



Monday 16 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 2. First Day

When I arrived at Bob's flat the next day, he was still making breakfast. I claimed my seat at the table and started pulling out my notebooks, highlighters, calculator and various other revision essentials. Bob leaned back against the kitchen worktop, a piece of toast in one hand, as my notebook pile reached impressive heights.

Seeing his raised eyebrows, I nodded at them. "See, this is what it looks like when you have notes from all of the lectures..."

He smirked back at me and turned to a giant tub of some sporting supplement powder. I wrinkled my nose behind his back.

"How can you even drink that stuff? I can't even manage Beecham's powders when I've got a cold, never mind that stuff every day."

He shrugged. "It's not that bad after a while... plus, I'm still not quite at playing fitness for rugby yet, so I need all the help I can get bulking back up."

Shuddering slightly to myself, I turned back to my revision tower. Pulling out a blank notebook, I started making a rough revision plan. Five exams to revise for, plus 12 days until the first one... so, if I worked in half days, and expected to get through at least half of a course in a half day... Working it out in my head, I quickly sketched out a plan I was happy with.

"Looks good to me." Bob's voice behind me made me jump, I hadn't noticed him walking over to inspect my plan. "So, how do you normally go about starting revision? I know everyone does it differently."

"I normally make myself read over all the lecture notes first and jot down areas that I'm comfortable with and problem areas that I'll need to focus on. Just a brief read over - I don't need to understand it all, I just need to remember all the modules within the course." Bob was nodding, so I continued.

"Then I usually move on to tutorials, and work through them with the answers as worked examples. I find it a lot easier to work backwards from the answers and work out why certain equations or methods work for that situation, and then that usually helps the theory behind it click into place. After that, I move on to past papers and use them to test how well I've understood all the areas. At that point I should only have a few problem areas left, hopefully, so I can spend the rest of the time really working away on those. Finally, in the day before the exam I create little bubble diagrams of key info and lists of important equations and test myself on them until I know them all off by heart."

Bob's eyes lit up at the mention of bubble diagrams. "Yes! Wait here, one second..." He ran out of the room. When he didn't immediately reappear, I flicked open my Unit Ops notes and started highlighting key sections. A couple of minutes later, he rushed back in and flung a pile of A3 card onto the table.

"Bubble diagrams!" He exclaimed proudly.

"Um... They're a bit big for the kind of last minute bubble diagrams I was talking about..."

He shook his head impatiently.

"No, this is how we should go through the lectures! Creating a bubble diagram per module, and then we can put them up on the wall to remind us when we're working through the tutorials and past papers. Plus, making giant bubble diagrams is far more fun than just highlighting notes! Notes which I may have not finished copying up yet..."

I laughed along with him - his enthusiasm was infectious. I picked up my green highlighter and drew a big cloud in the middle of the top piece of paper.

"Module one - distillation!"

Bob grinned mischievously and started doodling something in the corner. "Well, I'm not going to complain about starting with the strippers..."

I groaned out loud and whacked him lightly on the arm. Distillation columns were split into a bottom section called a rectifier, and a top section called a stripper. Hilarious when we first started the course (and admittedly, telling Alyssa and Peter that I'd spent the morning studying strippers never grew old), but four years on the joke had definitely outgrown itself.

Looking over, I realised Bob had started drawing the decidedly un-chemeng version.

"What? No, stop that! Bob, you can't put that on our revision!"

"Hey, it'll help us remember it, right? And as you say, anything that helps you remember should always be used..."

"Fine. And stop quoting my words back at me, you know I hate that when you do it to prove me wrong. I should only ever be quoted when I am 100% correct, have I taught you nothing over the last four years?"

He smirked at me, and mock dusted his hands off as he finished his 'masterpiece'.

"Seriously Jane, stop just watching me, I can't do all the work here! Start writing down equations!" Shaking my head, I grinned and did what I was told.


Saturday 14 February 2015

The Revision Vignettes: 1. Bring It On

~ Author's Note: The next set of posts are all set over the revision period, and to try out something new I've decided that instead of a couple of weekly posts (by which point you'd be as bored of revision as I was!), I've turned it into a number of short posts focusing on one day at a time. As these will all be much shorter than my usual posts, I'm planning on posting one every two days over a two-week period. Hopefully you enjoy! 

Secondly, I know the timing of these is completely out of whack with the present. I thought about trying to catch up but figured I'd rather write the posts as I have them in my head instead of trying to force anything and lose the quality of the posts - apologies for any Christmas withdrawal symptoms induced! ~


I couldn't believe a whole semester had passed already. It had flown by so quickly - but equally, I felt like I hadn't relaxed properly in months. And the stress wasn't about to pass anytime soon - we had just under two weeks of revision before we had five exams in four days. As usual (because I was convinced the exam board hated chemical engineers), our final exam was on the afternoon of the last day of the exam period, meaning that I wouldn't get home until the 23rd of December.

I was already craving home - I was missing so many of our family traditions, from decorating the tree, to making the cake, to putting on crazy amounts of weight comprised almost entirely of my mum's amazing home-made mince pies. I just wanted to lie down in front of the fireplace, with the dog curled up in my legs, my family snuggled up on the sofas around me, with some awful TV movie on as the snow fell down outside. I wanted it so badly. Instead, I had my ever-present buddies of critical exhaustion and stress to keep me company for the next fortnight as I tried to make sense of three months of lecture notes.

The night after our final lectures, I was half watching Embarrassing Bodies with Dave (one of his many weird guilty pleasure TV shows) when my phone started buzzing. Scrambling to find it amongst my stolen mound of cushions, I picked it up to see 'Bob' on the screen. Wandering out the room so I didn't distract Dave, I clicked answer.

"So despite spending the whole day with me, have you finally realised you can't bear another minute without my glorious company?" I greeted Bob, hearing him chuckle on the other end.

"Definitely not, first thing I did on getting home was hold a 'Getting rid of Jane' party, it was fantastic. You should have been there - oh wait, you not being invited was kind of the point..."

"You're absolutely hilarious. Just listen to my uncontrollable laughter - although it being non-existent, you might need to listen for a while."

"I'm going to quote you on that someday. I'll just have a giant poster of my face and 'BOB' across the top, with a quote below going 'Five stars from Jane - 'absolutely hilarious... uncontrollable laughter...'"

"Yeah, I'm fairly certain you can't do that, I'll just get Gary to use some of that law degree on you, and then we'll get you locked up and never have to see you again! Best solution possible!"

"Oh Jane, you wound me so! Such hurtful, hurtful words."

Snickering, I shook my head grinning. "Ha, you spend enough time with me, you're used to it! Anyway, did you actually have a reason for phoning apart from our delightful verbal sparring?"

"Funnily enough, I did. I was going to ask, are you starting revision tomorrow?"

"I thought about taking the day off, but I'm so stressed about these exams I don't think I could relax if I tried. So, I'll probably be heading down to our usual room at uni at about half 8, you want to join?"

"Actually, I have another proposal. Instead of wasting time walking back and forth between uni every day, do you want to come study at mine? I always find it's much better revising with someone else, plus it means we don't have to spend a fortune in the uni cafes every day..."

I thought about it for all of half a second before agreeing. Bob agreed that half 8 was still a good time to start, and after we decided that we hung up. He was right, I had always revised better with other people. I pick things up very quickly, so I then usually spent a lot of time teaching the concepts to others. It challenged me to come up with simple but memorable ways of demonstrating the ideas, which in turn helped massively with remembering everything myself. Feeling slightly better about the impending revision weeks, a nugget of determination settled in my chest. I'd survived this much of the nightmare year so far, what were two and a half more weeks? Bring it on!

As I settled back into my cushion mound, Dave glanced over.

"Was that Bob?"

"Yup, he's suggesting we revise at his instead of trekking it over to uni every day. Looking at the upcoming weather forecast, sounded like a pretty decent idea to me."

"Hmph." Dave grunted noncommittally and turned back to the TV. Narrowing my eyes at him, I stared at him silently until he noticed.

"What?"

"Don't what me, what yourself! What was that?"

He paused briefly. "Nothing." 

I gave him The Look. "Mr Dave, I haven't lived with you this long without picking a few things up. Do you not like Bob?"

He squirmed under my gaze. "Uh, it's not exactly that I don't like him..."

I picked up a cushion, preparing to throw. "Dave..."

"Fine! I just think he acts inappropriately around you, that's all. Especially with his girlfriend being long distance and all. If I was her, I'd hate you."

Taken aback, I went to protest but he cut me off, noticing the hurt clearly visible on my face. "Jane, I'm not accusing you of anything. I know you'd never do anything with a taken guy, not after Lee. You could basically be a nun with that guilt complex you have going on. Just... spending hours and hours with him, every day? Watch your boundaries, that's all."

I nodded silently. He was right, as always.

"Anyway, that's your advice from Therapist Dave for the day, you can transfer my million pound fee direct to my bank account." A laugh escaped from me as the atmosphere lightened again in the room. Whatever happened, Dave could always make me laugh and feel better.


Saturday 7 February 2015

Don't Wake The Sleeping Monster

We heard dad come back into the chalet at around midnight. We'd all gathered upstairs in the bedroom us kids were sharing, managing to calm Alyssa down by watching some chick flick on my laptop together. As we all glanced at each other, mum slipped out the door to go speak to him. We braced ourselves for more shouting, but the building stayed quiet.

We'd just relaxed and started focusing on the film again when we heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Expecting mum, we all tensed as one when instead our dad came through the door.

"Jane, Alyssa, Peter... I'm sorry."

We all looked at each other wide-eyed - my dad never apologised, it was something we always teased him about. He'd realise he was in the wrong, stop being grumpy and cheer up, but whenever we told him to say sorry he'd always joke and deflect, never actually saying those words.

"I know things aren't always easy with my parents, but this weekend isn't the time to dig up those issues. This weekend is meant to be about us, and having a good time together. Now you're all grown up and at university I don't get to see you as much... Forgive me so we can enjoy the rest of the weekend?"

Without even looking at each other we all got up from the bed and rushed towards my dad, who opened up his arms to take us all in a giant bear hug. With one arm round my dad and the other round Alyssa, a piece inside me I didn't even know about relaxed. I hadn't realised how stressed I'd been about this weekend going well, and although I wasn't happy that there had already been an argument, at least it was over now. And for my dad to apologise... well, that definitely deserved forgiveness.

Later, when Alyssa and Peter had fallen asleep on dad on the sofa, I followed mum through to the kitchen.

"So, how did you manage to pull that miracle off? He actually apologised!" I smiled at mum, slightly teasing but with genuine questioning beneath it.

Mum sighed and ran her hands through her ear-length hair. "It wasn't me. I could see as soon as he came back in, he genuinely felt bad about it all. Maybe I rubbed it home how inappropriate it was to bring up the Twins during this weekend, of all weekends, but the apologising was all him."

I felt a bit of a happy glow in my chest at that - my dad had been getting more and more difficult to get on with recently, but maybe this marked a change back to the happier times.

"It's not all his fault though, you have to consider what he's going through." Mum continued, turning to put the kettle on.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"Well, with work and everything."

I knew my dad had been stressed with work recently. He'd been working away from home in England during the week trying to get this major project done on behalf of the company CEO, but he hadn't really opened up much more than that.

"Work...? Is the project not going well? Are they going to fire him?!" My voice rose as my imagination began to run wild, but mum quickly shushed me.

"No, no, nothing like that! But he hides from you how much he actually works... He flies down Sunday morning so he can be in the office by midday, and works until 9pm at night. He goes home to his empty flat, eats whatever he has in the cupboards, and goes to bed. He's then up and out of the flat by 5am, and works those crazy hours every day until he flies back up home on Friday evenings. He's reaching the point of being clinically exhausted."

I was silent for a moment as I let that process. I knew he'd been working hard, but that was just insane. No wonder he'd been tetchy recently - if I'd been running on that little sleep I dread to think what monster I'd be.

"But why is he doing it, mum? Why doesn't he just tell the boss it's too much?"

My mum smiled sadly and shook her head. "You know dad, once he takes on a challenge he'll get it done even if it kills him." She paused a second. "And also... if I tell you this, you have to promise not to tell the others, OK?" I quickly promised. "Well, the money is good. Really good. As in, in a month or two we'll have all of the university money saved up for all of you."

My parents had always insisted that they would pay our way through university so that we wouldn't have to take out loans or work during term time. There were conditions, of course - that we got a job every summer to earn our own 'fun' spending money, and we accepted that once we started at university we didn't get to go on big family holidays any more. It was more than a fair deal though.

Unfortunately, the idea had originally been based on the Twins promising to pay a fair chunk of the money to put us through our degrees. I'm sure you'll be shocked to find out that despite many, many promises, this money never actually appeared. However, my parents had made us a promise, so without us knowing they'd started saving up. My dad earned a decent wage, but putting three kids through university cost a lot, so it had been taking longer than planned.

Seeing my expression soften, mum gave me a hug around the shoulders. "I know he's not always easy to get on with - if anyone knows I do! - but he does all this for you guys, you know. Everything he does is for us."

Gesturing for me to pick up the other mugs, we rejoined the others in the lounge. Dad maneuvered himself out of the sleeping pile of Alyssa and Peter and moved over to sit between mum and I. Filled with a sudden burst of emotion, I leaned into him and hugged him hard. The corner of his mouth quirked up and he ruffled my hair.

"What's up, J?"

"Nothing, dad. I just love you." He laughed, and shifted so I could lean more easily against his shoulder.

"Love you too."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the weekend went so well, it was a real struggle returning back to the reality of 4th year. We spent Sunday morning racing around the local abandoned quarry on quadbikes, laughing at Alyssa as we repeatedly lapped her around the track (she had a real fear of going fast after an unfortunate incident when she was younger involving quad bikes and the neighbour's glasshouse... Luckily no damage occurred, but it was a very close call!).

Fortunately for me, I had something else to look forward to. Gary had been texting me pretty much non-stop since Sunday night, and tonight was our weekly Glee night session. I hadn't actually seen him properly since *that* night, and it felt like butterflies had taken up permanent residence in my stomach. I'd never really gone through the "proper" route of getting a boyfriend before (my experiences with Lee being a prime example of how you shouldn't get a boyfriend...), and I had no idea what to really expect. I just hoped we still clicked as well in person and no awkwardness got in the way.

After mentioning to Gary that I'd made a fresh batch of white chocolate icecream the other night (definitely my signature icecream dish), he bombarded me with pleading messages until I agreed to bring it over - but still leaving some for Dave, after he moaned about me stealing all his treats. I love all my boys, but when it came to food it was like keeping toddlers happy at times!

Speedwalking over to minimise the time the icecream was out of a freezer, I was over to their flat in record time. Their front door had been playing up, so Bob had to run down the stairs to let me in. We chatted easily as we climbed up, but before we reached the door he stopped and touched my arm.

"Look, I know you and Gary are talking tonight... I just wanted to say - don't raise your hopes too high, OK?"

I raised an eyebrow at him and waited for him to continue.

"Not because I don't think it will work or anything, I mean you're both two of my closest friends, you're both amazing people..." He stopped and sighed, flustered.

"Just... Gary doesn't have the best track record with this kind of thing. But what do I know, next thing I know I could be best man at your wedding..."

That broke my composure and I burst out laughing. "Uh, no, you don't have to worry about that anytime soon, if ever!" Grinning back at me, he quickly changed the conversation and led me into the flat. As he nipped through to the kitchen to put the icecream away, I pondered what that could have meant. Maybe Gary wasn't that keen after all? Or maybe... was he - jealous? No, it couldn't be, his girlfriend had called him when we were walking home from university today and you'd never heard such a loved up conversation. If it hadn't been socially inappropriate I'd have crossed to the other side of the road and put my headphones in at full volume, blegh. PDA didn't do it for me in any form, whether physical or verbal - keep it private, people!

I wandered through to Bob's room and found Gary already sitting on the sofa in his standard Hannah Montana blanket. I'd seen it and teased him enough to not bat an eyelid any more, so I collapsed down next to him and we easily started chatting about the latest episode. Internally I breathed a sigh of relief - it didn't feel awkward at all.

The hour passed quickly, filled with our usual constant chatter of Bob complaining about us forcing him to watch it, and Gary and I debating our favourite characters. During one of the advert breaks, Bob got up to go get the icecream, leaving us alone again. I started one of my usual rants on the hundreds of diet food adverts that seem to have taken over TV nowadays, but Gary put a hand on my arm to quiet me.

"So, after Glee's finished... Would you mind hanging around a bit? Just for a chat?"

I smiled and put my hand on top of his. "No problem at all."

We were still smiling at each other when Bob came back with the icecream. Rolling his eyes at us, he handed over the bowls and sat down himself before taking a spoonful.

"Jane - oh my god, my mouth is in heaven. This is amazing."

Gary nodded furiously. "It's just so smooth, how did you do this?!"

I laughed at both of them. "You're both ridiculous, all you need is an icecream machine, a bit of cream, milk, sugar, eggs and white chocolate, and you're sorted!" Secretly I was pleased though - I love feeding people, and seeing people happy eating my food is one of my greatest pleasures. Plus, this icecream was pretty damn awesome.

Before we knew it, the episode was over. Bob seemed to know we were off to talk alone, as he quickly settled down at his laptop and didn't follow us out of his room. Assuming that we were heading into Gary's room, I opened the door and took a half step inside.

Gary moved to stop me, but it was too late. I was frozen, staring at the bombsite in front of my eyes. I'd seen messy student rooms before, but this - this was beyond disgusting. Eyes flicking round the room, I realised I couldn't see a single inch of the floor, so covered as it was in clothes, crisps wrappers, plates - god, was that something mouldy in the corner?!

Gary reached around me and pulled me back as he shut the door. "Um, sorry about that... I was going to suggest we talk in the kitchen?" He shamefacedly led me through as I tried to instantly forget what I'd just seen. I'm not a clean freak by any means (except about dirty dishes, which I can't stand), but that room had genuinely made me want to vomit.

Realising I was a little shellshocked still, Gary quickly changed the conversation to the snow we had forecast soon. It worked, and again we were soon chatting away, but it felt like Gary was just leading up to something and I wished he would get on with it. Bob had reminded me that we had a 9am tutorial the next morning that I'd forgotten about, and I was just wanting to go collapse into my bed, watch another episode of Buffy on Netflix and still get my good 8 hours sleep. Every time the conversation lulled and I thought we were finally there, he'd suddenly change the conversation to something else lighthearted and frivolous. I could feel the grumpy tiredness monster inside me start to stir as the clock passed half ten, quarter to and started nearing 11pm. Frustration inside me reaching a breaking point, I'd almost convinced myself that I'd been imagining things and he didn't want to say anything at all - in which case, nothing was stopping me leaving to go to bed.

"So, I'm sorry to break up the conversation, but I really need to go sleep..." As I started shrugging on my hoodie, I could see Gary clearly fighting whether to say something.

"OK Gary, call me crazy, but I feel like you've got something to say, and you've been dragging it out all night. So, what is it?"

He glanced up at me, surprised. "Huh, I'm more obvious than I thought then?" I smiled wryly and nodded. "Oh, OK. Well. Um... well, we get on, really well - we've been chatting all night and it's been really really nice, and you're a lovely girl..."

"But?" I interrupted. I was tired and cranky, made crankier by the fact that he'd clearly just wasted an hour of my evening because he didn't have the balls to say where this was clearly going.

"But... maybe we should just stay friends. I'm not really wanting a relationship right now." He stopped and looked at me warily.

"No problem, I appreciate you telling me. Friends it is!" I smiled at him and started heading for the door. Out the corner of my eye I could see him do a double take before he followed me to the door.

"So... are we good? I didn't mean to lead you on or anything-"

"Gary, we're fine. Honestly. It was worth seeing if this was going anywhere, but I don't mind that it isn't. And right now, I really, really need to go sleep if I want to function at university tomorrow, so..."

"Oh, of course! Uh, well... see you next week for Glee?"

I nodded before turning and heading down the stairs. As I walked back to my flat, I was surprised to find that I actually was fine. OK, I'd been hoping that maybe something would happen... but in hindsight, it was more interest in dating in general than actually Gary, which wasn't exactly the best start for anything. Plus, any emergent feelings had definitely been killed by that horror of a room!

Plus... that traitorous little part of me that couldn't get over Bob had puddled into relief - after all, if anything happened with his flatmate, that was a bit of a closed door to anything ever happening between us without major drama. But no! I wasn't doing this anymore, I promised myself. Squashing that little bit of me down and down until it was virtually nonexistent, I finally reached my flat and my bed. Sliding under my beautifully soft duvet, I sighed as I fully relaxed and instantly fell asleep.

The next morning, Bob was already waiting outside as I wandered up past his flat. He glanced at me worriedly, but didn't say anything. Laughing silently to myself, I figured if I could be blunt yesterday then there was no reason why it couldn't keep going today.

"You knew, didn't you? That's what the warning was about?"

"Yeah... Gary had been saying he wasn't sure. But he does really like you as a friend, and he didn't want to hurt you."

"I get that, I do. And thanks for letting it work out as it did. But I'm not hurt, so it is all OK, honestly."

He gave me a side-look. "Are you sure? Gary said you were a bit... cheerful after he told you?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I can imagine it sounded a bit weird! If I'm honest... I'd kind of figured something like that was coming after the whole hour of filler conversation, and I was just delighted that I could finally leave and go to bed. This girl needs her sleep!"

Bob burst out laughing. "You are the weirdest person, have I ever told you that?"

"Every day!" I grinned back at him. "Oh, and I meant to say, what is with Gary's room? I'd call it a pigsty but that's a deathly insult to pigs everywhere, I wouldn't make my worst enemies live in that!"

Bob groaned out loud. "Don't even get me started, it's horrendous. We're going to get rats at some point, and believe me I am not the person who is going to be sorting that out..."

Our laughter rang out as we strolled towards university, teasing each other and sharing revision plans as we headed towards the final few days of lectures before the dreaded Christmas exam period descended. However, with a friend like Bob beside me? It didn't seem half so bad.