He talked her through it, and true to her word, she interrupted twice, sharp and immediate, pointing out a gap in his reasoning on the second interruption that he had to admit, once she’d actually laid it out, was a real flaw rather than a nitpick.
"See," she said, satisfied. "That’s useful. You’d have carried that mistake into the actual exam."
"You’re annoyingly good at this."
"I know." She said it without arrogance, just simple fact, the same way she said everything. "It’s why I’m premed. I like being right about things that matter."
They worked through two more scenarios like that, the session settling into a rhythm entirely different from the group’s usual chaotic energy, more focused, more direct, Nadia’s corrections landing fast and precise, and Jason found himself, somewhat to his own surprise, genuinely enjoying the intensity of it, the same way he’d genuinely enjoyed the quieter, slower rhythm of his walk with Bree days earlier. Different registers. Both somehow working.
An hour in, Nadia finally set her pen down, checking the time on her phone, and something in her posture eased slightly, the relentless focus softening into something closer to satisfaction.
"That was a good session," she said. "Better than most of the group ones, honestly. Fewer interruptions."
"Vivian would be offended to hear that."
"Vivian already knows. I’ve told her directly." Nadia began packing up, her movements as efficient as everything else about her, folders stacked, laptop closed, bag zipped in one continuous motion. "I appreciate you actually engaging instead of just nodding along. Most people just want the answer. You actually want to know why the answer is right."
"That’s just how I think about most things."
"It’s a good way to think about things. Keep doing it." She slung her bag over her shoulder, standing, and paused for a second, studying him with the same assessing look she’d given him the very first day, though something in it had shifted since then, less evaluation, more simple recognition. "I’ll send the project design tonight. And Jason."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for staying today. I wasn’t actually sure you would, once you found out it was just the two of us." She said it plainly, no vulnerability performed in the delivery, but the honesty underneath it landed anyway, the same way it had every other time she’d said something unguarded in the middle of an otherwise brisk, businesslike conversation.
"Wasn’t really a question. You said sit, I sat."
"That’s a very obedient way to describe deciding to stay."
"Call it what you want." He stood too, gathering his own things, and they left the study room together, the hallway outside quieter now that most of the building had cleared out for the evening.
They walked together as far as the library’s main entrance before Nadia peeled off toward a different route than the one Vivian usually took, her building apparently somewhere on the opposite side of campus.
"This is me," she said, gesturing down a side path lined with dorm buildings. "See you tomorrow. Full group session, probably, assuming everyone’s schedules actually cooperate for once."
"Assuming."
"I’ll assign consequences if they don’t." She said it with total conviction, and Jason huffed a short laugh, watching her walk off with the same brisk, purposeful stride she brought to everything, no wasted motion, no hesitation, the exact opposite of Bree’s careful uncertainty or Vivian’s chaotic warmth.
Three completely different people, he thought again, walking the rest of the way home alone, the evening settling in cool and quiet around him. Nadia doesn’t perform anything. Doesn’t deflect, doesn’t dress things up. Just says the true thing and moves on to the next task.
He thought about Sarah’s honesty at his door two nights after the party, the same quality in a different key, unafraid to just say the real thing instead of managing around it. He thought about Bree’s careful precision cracking the second someone actually looked back at her properly. He thought about Vivian’s easy, chaotic confidence that somehow never once wavered no matter what got thrown at it.
Seven days. The number sat there, patient as always, and Jason let himself sit with the full shape of the problem for once instead of shoving it aside the way he usually did. A study group full of women I actually respect, actually enjoy being around, each one interesting in a completely different way. A girlfriend I meant every word to. A neighbor who keeps finding excuses to talk to me. And a system that wants me to turn one of them into a transaction before the clock runs out.
He reached his building, climbed the stairs, and let himself into his apartment, the quiet settling over him the same way it did every night now, a low hum of unresolved pressure sitting just beneath the surface of every ordinary interaction.
He dropped his bag by the door and sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, staring at nothing in particular, running the day back through his head one more time.
Nadia doesn’t perform. Bree reads everyone but can’t handle being read. Vivian’s warmth is real, not strategic. He turned each fact over slowly, methodically, the same clinical process he applied to everything, except this time there was no clean conclusion waiting at the end of the reasoning, no chess position resolving itself into a clear next move.
I like all three of them. For completely different reasons. And I have no idea what to do with that, especially not on a ten-day clock that doesn’t care whether any of this is fair.
He stayed there until the room began to feel too quiet, then finally reached for the water bottle on his desk. The movement was automatic. His thoughts weren’t.
The problem wasn’t that the system had given him a target. That part was simple. It was that the targets had stopped feeling like targets.
At first, he’d treated every registered woman as a condition to satisfy. Complete the requirement. Collect the reward. Move on. It had been easier that way, because people could be reduced to objectives when he refused to look too closely.
That strategy was getting harder to maintain.
He’d spent an hour with Nadia discussing academic problems and walked away respecting her more than he had before. Not because she had flirted with him or shown any particular interest in him, but because she hadn’t needed to. She’d challenged him, corrected him, and trusted him enough to expect him to keep up.
That mattered.
So did the fact that he’d enjoyed it.
Jason leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe that was the part he had been avoiding. The system had made everything feel like a countdown, but the people inside that countdown were still people. They had their own choices, their own expectations, their own lives. Sarah had trusted him. Bree was slowly letting herself be seen. Nadia had begun treating him like someone whose judgment she genuinely valued.
None of that fit neatly into a system notification.
And yet the notification remained.
Seven days.
He exhaled slowly and rubbed a hand over his face.
There had to be a way forward that didn’t require him to become someone he didn’t recognize. He just hadn’t found it yet.
The thought should have been reassuring.
Instead, it made the pressure behind his eyes tighten.
Because if there was no clean solution, then sooner or later he’d have to make an ugly choice.
And Jason had always been good at delaying ugly choices until they became unavoidable.
There was no message waiting that could solve this for him. No convenient answer hidden behind a notification. Whatever happened next would be his decision.
That realization sat heavier than the countdown itself.
For once, Jason didn’t want the system to tell him what to do.
He wanted to know what he would choose if the system disappeared tomorrow.
The question followed him into the silence, stubborn and uncomfortable, refusing to give him the easy answer he wanted more than anything else tonight.
His phone buzzed on the mattress beside him.
Sarah: hey. missed you today. everything okay?
Jason stared at the message for a long moment, the guilt arriving quiet and immediate, settling in alongside everything else he’d been carrying since the notification first appeared.
He typed back slowly, choosing the words with more care than the question probably required.
Jason: yeah. just a long week. i’m okay
Sarah: okay. love you. get some rest
He read it twice, the same easy, unguarded honesty she’d offered him the morning she left wearing his shirt, and something in his chest tightened at the contrast between how simply she meant it and how complicated everything currently was on his end of the conversation.
Jason: love you too
He set the phone down, and for a long time he just sat there in the quiet of his apartment, the countdown ticking somewhere in the corner of his vision, patient and unbothered by the fact that he still, seven days in, had absolutely no idea what he was going to do about it.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter