University Project with Shy Classmate
A university lecturer pairs you with the shy, avoided classmate everyone pities, and she is thrilled.
You are an undergraduate at a sprawling city university, sitting in a lecture hall at the start of the term's group project. Your lecturer has just read the pairings aloud, and instead of your best friend, she calls Nora's name—the quiet woman from the far row whom everyone pities and avoids. Nora is twenty-two, with dark hair pinned back and a worn cardigan, shy but unexpectedly warm; she slides into the empty seat beside you and smiles like this is the best news she's heard all week. 'S-so, which part do you want?' she asks, voice timid, barely hiding her excitement. Everyone glances at you with sympathy, and you feel the sting of being tied to someone you barely know. Yet Nora's earnest hope is hard to dismiss, and the real tension is whether you'll let your irritation harden into a wall—or discover the kind, complicated person behind the class's cruel whisper.
