Infinite Cashback: My Wealth Rebate System

Jason didn’t expect Nadia to be the only one waiting when he pushed open the study room door the next afternoon.

She was already there, laptop open, three different colored folders stacked with military precision at her elbow, and she looked up the second the door clicked shut behind him, immediately assessing.

"You’re early," she said, like this was a mild anomaly worth noting for the record.

"You’re always early. I figured I’d match the energy for once."

"Interesting choice of day to start." She turned her laptop slightly, angling it toward herself again, already back to whatever she’d been working on before he arrived. "Vivian’s not coming. Family thing again."

"Again?"

"That’s what she said." Nadia didn’t look up, typing something fast, the sound of the keys sharp and efficient. "Bree texted five minutes ago. She’s got a lab practical she forgot about until this morning. Won’t make it either."

Jason stood there for a second, processing the sudden and now-familiar shape of the afternoon rearranging itself around him. "So it’s just us."

"So it’s just us." She finally glanced up, unbothered, gesturing at the seat across from her with the same brisk efficiency she brought to everything. "Sit. We’re not wasting a session because two people had scheduling conflicts."

He sat, dropping his bag beside the chair, and watched her for a moment as she continued typing, her focus absolute, the same intensity she brought to breathing exercises and mock exams alike. Up close, without Vivian’s constant commentary or Bree’s quiet asides filling the space between them, Nadia’s energy felt different. Less abrasive than it read in the group. More like watching someone run a machine they’d built themselves and trusted completely.

"What are you working on," he asked.

"Study schedule. For the remaining seven days." She turned the laptop toward him without hesitation, revealing a color-coded spreadsheet broken into hour blocks, each cell labeled with a specific topic, a specific review method, even estimated time-per-question benchmarks calculated down to the decimal. "I’ve mapped out every remaining day until the exam. Topic coverage, review intervals, spaced repetition timing based on actual research, not just vibes."

Jason stared at it. "This is insane."

"This is optimized." She said it without any defensiveness, entirely matter-of-fact, like the distinction between insane and optimized was obvious to anyone paying attention. "I built something similar for my MCAT prep last year. Worked. I’m just recalibrating it for this exam’s specific format."

"You’ve taken the MCAT? You’re a sophomore."

"I took a diagnostic. Not the real thing. I like knowing where I stand early." She said it the same way she said everything, brisk, unbothered, no room left for follow-up questions she hadn’t already anticipated. "Anyway. Since it’s just us today, I actually want to run something by you. Off the group agenda."

"Go ahead."

She closed the spreadsheet, folding her hands on the table, and for the first time since he’d known her, something in her posture shifted slightly, less commanding, more measured. "You’re better at this material than you let on. I noticed it during the mock exam yesterday. Your reasoning on the framing section was actually sharp. Better than Vivian’s, honestly, and she’s been in this program longer than you."

"I wouldn’t say sharp."

"I would. I don’t say things I don’t mean." She held his gaze steadily, the same unflinching directness she used to shut down every argument in the group. "So my question is why you were so convinced two weeks ago that you were failing this class."

Jason considered the question longer than it probably warranted, turning it over the way he turned everything over. "I don’t know. I think I’d just decided I was bad at this stuff a long time ago and never actually checked whether that was still true."

"That’s a stupid reason to underperform."

"Thanks."

"I mean it as a compliment, actually. Or a diagnosis. Both, probably." She tapped her pen once against the table, thinking. "I do the same thing, except in reverse. I decided a long time ago I was good at things, and now I’m terrified of finding out I’m not, so I overprepare for everything until the fear becomes irrelevant."

Jason blinked, genuinely caught off guard by the admission, delivered with the exact same flat, unbothered tone she used to announce breathing exercises. "That’s a lot of self-awareness for someone who assigns punishments over group chat threats."

"I contain multitudes." She said it dry, almost bored, and then paused, catching herself. "Vivian’s line. I stole it. Ignore that."

"Everyone’s stealing everyone’s lines in this group. I’ve stopped tracking the source."

"I track everything. Occupational hazard." She reopened her laptop, though she didn’t return to the spreadsheet, letting it sit dark on the desk instead. "Anyway. I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to help me with something, separate from the group. A project. Extra credit for our seminar. It’s not related to the midterm, technically, but it would help my grade significantly, and I think your reasoning would actually be useful for it."

"What kind of project."

"Behavioral case study. We’re supposed to design a small experiment demonstrating a cognitive bias in a real-world context, then present the results." She said it fast, clinical, the way she described everything, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, "I already have a design in mind. I just need a second person to actually run it with me, since a control group of one isn’t statistically meaningful."

"When’s it due."

"Six days after the midterm. Plenty of time if we start now." She was watching him carefully now, gauging his reaction with the same precise attention she gave everything else, and Jason had the distinct sense that agreeing to this would mean considerably more time spent one-on-one with Nadia than the study group alone had required so far.

*Interesting.* He filed the observation away without acting on it, the same clinical detachment he applied to the system’s own notifications. "Sure. I’m in."

Something in her expression shifted, brief and almost imperceptible, a flicker of genuine pleasure quickly folded back beneath her usual composure. "Good. I’ll send you the design tonight. We can start collecting data this weekend."

"Efficient."

"I’m always efficient." She was already typing again, something in the notes app this time, and Jason watched her work for a moment, the intensity of her focus almost hypnotic, entirely unselfconscious about how fully she committed to whatever task sat in front of her.

"Can I ask you something," he said.

"Depends what it is."

"Why’d you actually start this study group. You could’ve just prepped alone. You clearly don’t need anyone else’s help based on that spreadsheet."

Nadia stopped typing, considering the question with the same seriousness she gave everything, which by now Jason had come to expect regardless of how small the question actually was. "I like being around people who are trying. It’s motivating. If I study alone, I get bored and start overpreparing for things that don’t matter, tangents, extra sources, whatever. Having other people in the room forces me to stay on task, because I don’t want to be the one who’s obviously behind."

"You’d never be behind."

"I know that. But the fear works anyway. Fear doesn’t care what’s actually true." She said it plainly, no self-pity in it, just fact, delivered the same way she delivered everything from breathing exercise instructions to grading corrections. "Also, if I’m honest, I don’t have a lot of people in my life who actually push back on me. Most people just agree with whatever I say because I say it fast and confidently. You push back. So does Bree, when she actually commits to an argument instead of just writing it on a note and handing it to someone."

Jason felt something land slightly off-center at that, the same way it had with Bree’s honesty a few days earlier, though the shape of it was different this time, less charged, more genuinely disarming. "That’s a very specific compliment."

"I don’t do vague compliments. Waste of language." She shrugged, already moving on, closing her laptop fully now. "Anyway. We should actually use this time productively since it’s just us. Pull out your notes. I want to test your reasoning on something specific."

"Test how."

"I’m going to give you a scenario, and you’re going to talk me through your thinking out loud, and I’m going to interrupt you the second your logic gets sloppy." She said it with total, cheerful confidence, already reaching for a blank sheet of paper to sketch something out. "This is how I actually learn best. Watching someone else’s process and picking it apart in real time."

"Sounds brutal."

"It’s efficient. Different word." She slid the paper toward him, a scenario written out in dense, compact handwriting, and Jason read through it, working through the logic slowly the way he approached everything, laying it out like chess pieces the same way he’d laid out the facts about Sarah’s departure weeks ago.

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