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Chapter 22 - can we talk?

Jess

"Did you understand a word of that? I was practically falling asleep throughout that lecture." A girl on Jess' course who went by the name of Steph complained.

They had just walked out of a statistics lecture and they knew that their whole year was in agreement that it was the worst module. When most of them had applied to do a Psychology degree, none of them had really read into the 'statistics' side of things. However, once they had started it, it felt like they were being physically tortured.

"Nope, I didn't understand a thing." Jess laughed, feeling like she needed to lay down. "There was way too much to process."

"If I wanted to learn that stuff, I would have picked a statistics degree, not Psychology."

Although it was an intense module, it was essential for their training so they just had to suck it up and get over it. However, everyone insisted that having a good complain about it after each lecture or practical made them feel a little better.

"Where are you going now? To the library?"

"Um, no I was going to grab some food first. I'm starving!"

"Good idea! I brought stuff with me so I'm going to go straight there." Steph replied, knowing she couldn't waste anytime considering they had a deadline just around the corner.

The first half of a semester was always so quiet when it came to deadlines however, the moment you hit Week 7, they all came at you one by one with very little time in between. This meant that not only was everyone stressing like crazy but the library was always packed. Grabbing a spot to work quietly proved nearly impossible and Jess sometimes found herself sitting in whichever canteen or cafe had a few spare tables. It wasn't ideal but she failed to hold as much motivation working from home than she did in uni.

"Okay! I'll speak to you later."

With that, Jess began making her way down the empty corridor; already noticing the reduction in people making an effort to turn up to lectures. As she headed for the canteen, she stopped in her tracks as she noticed Jack waiting outside a lecture hall. She suddenly felt like she couldn't move her feet as she fell into panic of how to react. She didn't want him to see her but she couldn't turn around, she needed food.

After last night, she just wanted to try her best to avoid him so the awkwardness would not become even worse. However, fate seemed to have other plans and had once again brought them into the same place.

Continuing to walk, Jess was mentally hoping he wouldn't see her but apparently he was more aware of his surroundings than she thought. As she was passing the group he was stood with, keeping her head down, she noticed a hand stretch out to touch hers.

"Jess." He called her to a stop and peering up she was met with his warm eyes looking back at her.

Jess was trying to avoid the many other eyes now looking her way as the group of guys he was stood with turned to look her way too.

"Hey." She forced a smile before trying to continue along her path but Jack had other ideas.

"One second, can we talk?"

Biting down on her lip in thought, Jess knew this was probably a bad idea but knowing she couldn't exactly just walk away and look insanely rude, she nodded her head.

"Sure."

Following Jack off to the side, Jess felt extremely under pressure as she knew his group of friends had their eyes on them. This wasn't exactly a private conversation even though the gesture had been to make it that way. Instead, it just felt uncomfortable and as though she was on show meaning she had to refrain from saying anything potentially embarrassing.