Psychology classes weren't something she usually looked forward to. She never really enjoyed studying the human brain under that light, never enjoyed talking about stuff like subjectiveness, cognition, counciousness. God forbid this teacher starts talking about Freudian slips and shit every time I make a mistake (she knew she'd make a bunch of them), she'd thought back then, right before the first class. Delphine thought everything about Oedipus complex was rather outrageous. We are our bodies and that's it. We are our brains and the enzymes and the neurons.

But Cosima thought otherwise.

They shared that class, too. But there they were not partners— Some of Cosima's siblings attended Psychology as well and she sat with Tony (Helena and Sarah right behind them) since the beginning of the year. Felix and Alison attended something else at the same time so Delphine's partner was a (quite nice) girl called June Darvis with whom she spent some time with once or twice, but wasn't really her friend. Just an acquaintance.

Anyway, back to Cosima.

Cosima thought otherwise because she was into evolutionary development and it included caring about epigenetics and evolutionary Psychology. She loved discussing the nature versus nurture topic and most of the Psychology classes were occupied by her voice, pulling out words in an excited tone, getting into plausible arguments with the teacher, Rilke Donovan (a 30 year-old man who was the type of teacher every straight girl had a crush on, mainly because he called students by their first names instead of going for the formalities other teachers went for, and also because Donovan was sort of handsome), as her hands wandered in air.

Delphine didn't really care about anything she was saying but loved that Cosima participated that much. She'd much rather watch the dreadlocked girl have the same discussion at Biology class; it'd be even better if they - the teacher and her - just talked about Neuroscience instead. But Cosima enjoyed Cognitivsm and Social Psychology and Behaviorism. Delphine could bear Skinner but she really did loathe Deleuze and Guattari. Cosima didn't mind them. How could she-?

"Hey, hey, guys— Tony, would you please stop braiding Helena's and Cosima's hair together?", Donovan said as he walked into the room. Delphine sighed in amusement as she heard Cosima's groan from behind "FUCK, TONE! Now THAT's why you were playing with my locks?!". Tony was sort of a prick, yes. But the nice kind of prick.

"Cosima— Language, yeah?"

"Dude. You were braiding my locks to our sister's hair. You must eat shit if you think you're allowed to, like, call me out for saying fuck—", Cosima snorted. Delphine dared turning her head a bit and catched the smaller girl making a funny face at her brother. She chewed her lip to suppress a smile as her cheeks turned red. It is getting ridiculous, she thought, you can't even face her.

"Hey, hey! Stop it, will you? It's class time, you two. You don't really want me to be the mean teacher here, do you? I kind of appreciate being the nice guy 'round", Donovan said. He was nice indeed. And, according to what people said in the hallways, he was also banging Sarah. "Um, anyways— I'd like you guys to write a scientific article about falling in love accordingly to one of the following theories: Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism and Gestaltism. If you are Cosima or Cosima's partner, I guess you can write about it under the light of Evolutionary Psychology because she won't write it under any other light. You can divide yourselves by alphabetic order; as I've got four Niehauses in this class, that means you're going to go for your first names in the search for your new partner."

"Cool. I got Sarah anyways", shrugged Tony, high fiving his sister with a sly smirk.

"Oh no. I got Helena", June frowned, half because she really enjoyed working with Delphine, half because she was a bit afraid of Sarah's twin.

1. Alice F. Dumitrof
2. Arnold Behrens
3. Brittany J. Meyer
4. Brooke R. Kilvert
5. Caroline Bent
6. Cor Bridewell
7. Cosima Niehaus
8. Delphine Cormier
9. Faber W. Beck
10. Harry Irving N. Adams
11. June Darvis
12. Helena M. Niehaus
13. Oliver F. Prescott
14. Maia Ferguson
15. Robert M. Freeman
16. Robert Wolff
17. Sarah M. Niehaus
18. Tony S. Niehaus

"Hey Delphine— It looks like we're working together again. Awesome, uh?"

Toothy grin. Tilted head. Half a head smaller than Delphine herself, Cosima Niehaus stood in front of her, all smiles and wonder, waiting for her to start planning what they'd do.

Delphine could not decide if fate was being generous or very, very mean to her.