One Roof

Chapter 17

"Midterms?"

Emily asked as I did my work.

"Yep. Took you quite some time to notice."

"You wanted me to notice earlier?"

"Not necessarily, but I assumed you didn't care."

"It's hard to not when that's all I've seen you doing."

Unlike other majors, film had most of its midterms in the form of take-home exams, with only the occasional one or two lessons that had offline tests. I loved these kinds of exams. You get the questions uploaded onto the university's site one week in advance, and depending on the lesson you may get a two-week time limit. If you were unlucky, at the very least, you would get a one-week time period to do your task.

I intended on finishing most of the exams by the end of the first week, with one or two lessons during the second week. It wasn't like I had anything else to do anyway, since I was stuck with Emily.

"Sure is nice having take-homes."

"Want to change majors?"

"No thanks."

Emily folded her hands and shook her head. She leaned onto the wall beside my table and continued watching me as I did my work. I felt weird having her stare at me like that. I glanced at her. She noticed my gaze and smirked.

"What? Don't want me watching?"

"No. But what's so interesting about me doing this?"

"I don't know."

She lifted her shoulders but continued watching. I was doing a drawing task. We were required to do our midterms on A3 paper. The exam asked us to draw a building with the use of perspective.

Emily watched as my hand made wide lines across the white paper. I didn't know if all the professors had the same rule, but mine banned the use of rulers. Drawing long lines became a pain without them. I myself didn't hate drawings, but I couldn't really call myself a fan either.

"What do you think?"

I held the half-finished drawing up toward Emily.

"It's... You do know I can't see a thing, right?"

"I was testing whether you're honest or not."

I jokingly said as I returned the piece of paper to my table. Of course, I knew that Emily couldn't see the thing I drew, I just thought she would say it was good out of reflex. Emily approached me and looked over my shoulder.

"Send it."

She said while tapping on my shoulders.

"Send what?"

She pointed toward the piece of paper. I had moved my hands' placement after returning the paper to my table, and they weren't aligned with the edges of the paper. It was a bit off to the right, resulting in Emily's hand, which pointed toward the center of the space between my hands, to be pointing toward the right section of the picture.

I still knew that she meant the picture, however.

"You know what. You can't tease me like that and not show it."

"What if I don't want- Ow Ow Oww!"

Emily's hand gripped at my shoulders with all her might, sending pain down my nerves. I reacted by twisting my body in a desperate attempt to let myself go.

"Fine, fine! I'll send it to you."

Emily heard my words and finally let go.

"That took quite a while."