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Adam should have known, when his professor hands him his paper with a sneer, that it isn’t going to be good. He takes one look at the back page, swallows, and shoves the paper as deep into his backpack as it’ll go.
Students stagger out of class, flipping through their graded essays with increasingly hopeless expressions. Adam hurries past them all, phone shaking in his hands as he presses “call.”
He spent hours on this 10-page history paper. He met with the professor, he used 5 more sources than was required, he went to the writing center, he wrote and edited and rewrote and edited some more into the earliest hours of the morning days before it was even due. He did everything right. Everything you’re supposed to do. And yet...
“He gave me a 70%,” Adam says before Ronan can even say “hello” (or, “the fuck is up, shithead.” Same difference.)
“That fucker,” Ronan says, static warping his deep, rich voice into something robotic and cold. Adam is a few dropped calls away from buying a smartphone just so he can hear the real Ronan when they talk on the phone instead of this shitty imitation.
Adam wants to throw a plate against a wall, or yell into a pillow, or kick a tree until it falls over. “70%. I did exactly what he wanted. I wrote the exact points he said in our meeting. And he gave me a 70-fucking-percent.”
“What a dick.”
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you.”
“Not exactly. But anyone who gives Adam Parrish a 70% is automatically a fucking dick.”
Adam exhales and inhales and exhales again. It doesn’t make him any less angry.
“Is this Professor fuck-a-girl?” Ronan says.
“Farager.”
“Close enough.”
“He’s impossible. I don’t understand how I could go and talk to him about this stupid paper and he tells me it’s fine and then give me a damn 70%! And the dude next to me who’s about as smart as a dish sponge got an A. An A. How? How the hell did that asshole give that dumbass an A?! It’s blatant favoritism.”
He swipes into his dorm, throws open the door, and stomps up the stairs.
“Fucking academics,” Ronan says. “Think they’re such hot shit and can do whatever the fuck they want.”
Adam’s reception is crackling in and out; he knows it’s his fault, because he has the cheap, crappy phone and the cheap, crappier plan, while Ronan is 1) rich and 2) probably dreamed his phone and only a moron would dream themselves a phone with cell service issues.
He’s going to lose Ronan during this conversation, which is, even preemptively, absolutely fucking infuriating.
“And of course he’s got tenure so not like anything I do is going to change anything,” Adam bites through gritted teeth, unlocking his dorm and slamming the door behind him. He lets his bookbag fall from his shoulder, shitty laptop be fucking damned. If it can’t help him get above a 70 on a fucking American history paper when he spent two fucking years searching for a dead fucking king then what good is it?
“You’re angry,” Ronan says, like he’s just now tuning into the conversation.
“No shit, dumbass,” Adam snaps.
“No, I mean, I knew you were pissed, but you’re, like, pissed about this.”
Adam scoffs. “Of course I am.”
“Can’t you rewrite it or some shit for credit?”
“Yeah, but the grade will only increase by 1 letter, max. And what the hell else am I supposed to do with this? I did everything he wanted the first time and he still hates it. He hates me. And that’s the problem.”
“So go all Dick Gansey III on him. Pretend you’ve got some old money charm. Go talk to him and suck his dick a little bit and rewrite it.”
Adam groans. Or growls. Maybe both. He’s pacing the length of the room, rubbing his hands through his hair over and over, heart pounding so hard and so loud he can’t think straight anymore.
“This could tank my grade. This could ruin everything,” he says.
“Parrish, it’s just a paper. Back off from the ledge, man.”
“It’s not just one paper.”
“Yes, it is.”
“ No, it’s not . It’s one paper that’s a third of my grade .”
“Okay? And? Get As in the other shit and you’re fine.”
“You don’t fucking get it!” Adam shouts, and his voice breaks.
Even the constant static goes quiet. Ronan doesn't say a word.
“It’s not just this stupid paper,” Adam continues, voice low and trembling. “It’s 5 tests and a midterm that are impossible to pass. No one in my class is passing them. He just...makes up questions that aren’t in any of the study materials. He says we’ll be fine if we read, and I do, I read every fucking chapter for this goddamn class, like, four times, and the questions he’s asking on these fucking tests aren’t there.”
“Dude--”
“What if I lose my scholarship, Ronan? I need to keep above a 3.2 and I already have two A-minuses, so one C automatically brings me down to a 3.3 assuming I keep those grades, which, who the fuck knows after this.”
“Hold on--”
“I have no margin for error. I could get straight As next semester and still only have a 3.6 for the year. One more bad grade and I’m done. They take my scholarship. I can’t go here without a scholarship. I can barely swing it with a scholarship. The fuck am I supposed to do without it--”
“Parrish.”
“He’s...it’s fucking rigged . Reckon I’m gonna fail out of my first fuckin year because of fuckin intro-level history seminar I should be able to pass in my goddamn sleep because this professor gets himself off on power trips and makin people feel like shit."
"Adam, hey--"
"And, and I'm spendin all this time on this history shit that I can't spend time figurin out my physics equations and I'm five chapters behind in Lit and Philosophy is like another fuckin language and I feel like I'm drowin and all these other kids are just...they're all so fuckin smart and I feel like I'm behind in all my classes and I can't bullshit anything so I get called on and just...sound like an idiot and I...I'm gonna fuckin fail an intro class. And when I fail out, what’d you reckon I’m supposed to do? Live in a trailer like a fuckin failure like everyone fuckin said I’d be? Go home and prove all them right? I can’t do that. I don't want to leave here, Ronan. I can’t go back. I can’t...”
There’s a lump that’s been growing in his throat since he left the classroom, and now it’s too big to speak around. His cheeks are damp. His hands are shaking.
“Adam,” Ronan says gently. “You haven’t lost anything yet. You aren’t going to lose anything, okay?”
Adam leans against the door and slides down to the floor. He digs his fingernails into his scalp. If he’s quiet for long enough, his breathing might even out. But it keeps stuttering. Every exhale threatening to burst the sob that’s still caught in his throat.
“Did you eat today?” Ronan asks, ending the long stretch of silence
“No,” Adam mumbles and sniffs, scrubbing tear tracks from his cheeks with the heel of his hand.
"Did you sleep last night?"
"A couple hours."
“Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. Go eat a snack, take a shower, and take a nap.”
“I don’t--”
“Don’t give me a fucking excuse, Parrish. You’re done with classes for the day. You don’t work tonight. You can take an hour to pull yourself together, okay?”
Adam exhales. His head falls back against the door. He inhales and exhales one long, trembling breath. “Fine,” he croaks.
“Good.”
A car ignition purrs on Ronan’s end of the line. “Shit, were you headed out?” Adam asks. He buries his head in his knees. “Sorry.”
“Don’t even think about saying that word to me again,” Ronan snarls, all love and no malice. “I just have an errand to run. Nothing you interrupted. Now get off the fucking phone and go eat a goddamn Snickers or something.”
Adam huffs what might be a laugh. “Okay,” he mumbles.
“I lov--”
The connection cuts out. “Call dropped” his phone tells him.
Adam sighs, pushes his head against the hard, cheap wood of the door until it hurts, and throws the useless piece of shit phone of the bed. He counts the seconds until his breath stops hiccuping and his eyes finally dry. He drinks half a water bottle, eats a handful of peanut butter M&Ms, takes a shower, and takes a nap.
He still feels shitty and disappointed and angry when he wakes up at 4pm.
But he doesn’t have time for this. He’s got another physics test in two days, and has to post discussion topics for his Brit Lit seminar, read the next chapter for this stupid history class, and summarize The Turing Test and its impacts on modern philosophy. He can either wallow in self-pity and get nothing done, or fight through it and do his homework out of sheer spite.
He’s always been better at the latter.
#######
At 10pm, there’s a knock at the door.
Adam groans. His roommate has developed an unfortunate key-losing habit over the past month. And Adam is in no mood to listen to his excuses, or his violent video games and swearing, or his shitty underground noise-that-he-claims-is-music.
Adam scrubs his face, hard, and throws the door open. “Lose the keys again?” he grumbles, rubbing his tired, itchy eyes.
“No.”
That deep, rich voice. Adam’s hand drops from his face like a dead weight.
It’s Ronan.
Ronan is standing in his doorway. In New Haven, Connecticut.
Ronan, all sharp edges and piercing blue eyes, looking soft and careful and as bashful as someone with diamond-cutting cheekbones possibly can.
Ronan, holding a plastic bag full of cheap Chinese takeout with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
Adam doesn’t understand anything that’s happening.
Ronan puts the bags on the floor and pulls a King-sized Snickers bar out of his pocket. He holds it out to Adam.
“Realized you probably didn’t have fucking Snickers bars lying around your room, so...since I, you know, said you should fuckin’ eat one, figured I should...shit...come give you one, or something.”
Adam looks from the candy bar, to Ronan’s blushing cheeks, to the Chinese, and back again.
Ronan Fucking Lynch is at his dorm in New Haven. With food. And a Snickers bar.
Adam rushes forward and wraps his arms around Ronan’s chest as tight as he can.
Ronan presses a long kiss to his temple; his fingers rub gentle circles around the knobs of his spine.
They don’t stand in the doorway for long. Adam sniffs, rubs his teary eyes once more, and pulls Ronan by the wrist into his room.
“I still have homework,” he murmurs as he closes the door.
“Wanna eat first?” Ronan says, kicking off his boots and hopping onto the elevated bed.
“Let me finish this chapter.”
“Okay. I’ll be here.”
“Okay.”
But when your boyfriend surprises you at school with food and candy after hearing you cry over the phone, you can’t just….sit at your desk and read like nothing happened. Adam grabs his philosophy book and climbs onto the bed. Ronan lifts his arm, and Adam slips right into place, nestled into his side.
They share the Snickers bar. Adam gets through the chapter. They eat Chinese and Ronan makes him laugh and his roommate remembers his key for once; he takes one look at Ronan, mumbles an apology for, well, probably any or all of the shitty things he’s done that Adam would have told Ronan about, and goes to sleep at his girlfriend’s.
Tomorrow he’ll have to deal with the red-stained paper sitting crumpled at the bottom of his bookbag. Tomorrow he’ll come up with a plan to make sure he pulls through with an A in this godforsaken class. Tomorrow, Ronan will have to leave again, and they’ll be back to whispering “I love yous” through plastic phones and 430 miles of static.
But that’s tomorrow. Right now, he’s exhausted. And Ronan’s arms are warm and his grip is strong and sure, and his soft lips are tracing the tight tendons of his neck and shoulders, and he’s telling Adam how much he loves him without saying a word.
Everything else can wait. Everything else will be okay.