The exams are at the door and they are the only thing I try to focus on. Of course I'm not very successful in that endeavor, but I do my best to ignore the amount of changes my life went through these last few weeks.

The house is in full study mode, with Olivia and I maneuvering our way through the exams, each battling to surpass the hurdles our professors choose to put in our way. The fact that we don't have the same study habits leads us to only see each other in the night when I arrive home to get some sleep, at which hour Olivia is only starting her day of studies. Since she prefers to study during the night I don't even get to see her in the morning, because when I get up my roommate hasn't been in bed for longer than an hour.

The routine is exhausting, but weirdly comforting. I get up early in the morning, make the small walk to campus, only stopping on the way for a quick coffee, before spending the entire day stuck in the library, except for the half-hour I take a break for lunch. When Mrs. Croft closes the library and literally kicks me out, I return home, have dinner and review what I studied during the day. Go back to bed close to mid-night and start again the next day.

This routine breaks when I have an exam that day. I still get up early, even because I force myself to go to bed at the same hour (not that I can get any sleep). If the exam's not until later I take the opportunity to go over once more what I've prepared, but once I'm done I take the rest of the day off and spend it with Olivia, if she's also free or just relaxing on the couch, watching the worst TV show I can find. Basically, I dumb my brain.

I do see Cosima once during all this, when I'm getting ready to start the exam before the last I scan the room behind me and see her seating in the last row, but I quickly turn my head straight again and tell my brain it's better to ignore her presence, remembering what happen last time I was under testing and she was present. I'm not saying she's responsible for my bad performance, but she was a factor. If Cosima is there, she'll always be a factor, because there's something in her, I don't know what, that pulls me to her, not physically - or well, not always - but emotionally. And I can't absolutely get into that now.

I endure the exams and am actually very proud of myself for managing to look back only once, seeing Cosima's head down, the hand that's holding the pen moving at an impossible speed and yet I can't imagine how can it possibly keep up with the velocity in which her brains works. When I'm done, still with time to spare, I deliver the answers sheet and look to where I know Cosima is... Or was, since she's not there anymore. She finished first and left without I ever noticed.

I leave the room and walk slower out the building, even make a brief stop at the bathroom, hoping to see her there. But no, she's definitely gone and so should I, enjoy rest of the day, because tomorrow it's time to start to get ready for my very last exam before the break.

In a way I'm sort of relief, if I did have the chance to talk with her, there's no saying how it could go... This is how I reason with myself, trying to keep the ache away. She probably didn't even see me, although if she had and had indeed waited for me or something like that, I'm not sure if it would've been with good intentions or just to get another go at me.

It consumes me the rest of the day: had she saw me and decided to ignore me, because she really never wants to talk to me again. Well, if that's the case it will make my time in the PhD program that much harder... Or is it easier? Certainly if that's her resolution it will make it easier for me to forget about her. Right? Right?!

I'm sure my face is the mirror of my concerns when Olivia arrives home and sees me, pass the hour of my bed time, still in the couch staring blankly at the TV, the bowl of popcorn forgotten in my lap.

"Are you okay, Del?" She asks me, passing one hand in front of my eyes.

"Huh?" I look up at her, blinking a few times. "Oh, yeah, yeah... Everything's fine!" I assure her, because she has an exam tomorrow and I don't want her to lose focus due to my shit.

She plops herself on the couch next to me. "I can't wait for this crap to be over." Olivia signs loud, than moves around a little so that she places her legs on my lap, once I put the bowl on the coffee table. "How did yours go?"

I start to take her shoes off, along with the socks, which I trow to her face, earning a groan of protest. "Good! Almost there."

"If you're gonna have me barefoot, might as well rub them." She informs me, raising one of said feet close to my face.

"But they smell so bad." I whine, looking at her.

"Don't give me those lost puppy eyes and work, bitch!" We laugh a little and I think I can give her what she demands. "Oh... That's the stuff... Yeah, right there..."

"You're lucky you have an exam tomorrow or I would twist one of your toes in such a way you wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow." And I give her a harder squeeze to her big toe.

"Whatever... I like it rough." She snorts. "Are you gonna spend your summer in France?" Oliva asks after we were quiet for a while.

"Yeah... I leave once the grades are out." I tell her.

"I'm gonna miss your massage skills."

As it turns out, the grades are pretty much what I expected, more or less. And it's good that at least I still control one aspect of my life, it's nice to see the results of my hard work once again. Soon enough, I'm packing, as is Olivia, who will spend the summer in the deep ends of Mexico, which I'm afraid to ask exactly where it is, but I wish her well and tell her that I really hope she returns in one piece, since it will be hard to keep the rent on my own.

After the summer's over we'll get back and work in our PhD, which she manages to get in just barely... Really, like myself, however she was not as upset about it as I was. "Fuck this shit... I'm in! Fuck them all!" Olivia had scream when she got the news. She's a rebel, that one.

I arrive in France to the open arms of both my parents, waiting for me in Charles De Gaulle airport, only to pack again, because my parents have graced me with the trip to Italy that I remember asking them since I was a young girl and found out there's a world outside France.

I had hoped that being away from Cosima would be enough to ease my mind of her, but, boy, was I wrong. As we are walking the streets of several cities in Italy, I can't keep away the feeling that she would love this, the vibrant cities and - who would've thought - some people talk with their hands as much as the little brunette.

However, these feeling are not as clearer as when we spend a week in Florence. The narrow streets, the many Street markets, at every corner there's a little store promising to sell unique items and at every available parking spot a vespa is parked. I have the strangest sensation this is where she belongs. Cosima belongs in Florence.

My parents have noticed my disposition all trip and I manage to brush it off, saying that I'm just tired from the end of the year, but I can tell they are not buying it. They probably think it's because of my breaking up with Albert, which I've told them about when they asked if he was going to join us later in the summer, like last year.

"He was not good for you." My father's voice comes to me low, when we are enjoying a nice gelatto, by the Arno River with a beautiful view to the Vecchio bridge, in a futile attempt to chace the hot air away, like so many other tourists near us.

I look at him, surprised he's talking about it. My father was never the type to give me his thoughts on my relations, always gave me freedom to make my choices, no matter how much he disagreed with them. "I know that." I answer after a while.

"Good." My father's still looking at the river passing in a lazy tempo in front of us. "Because I hated the way you acted around him, always doing as he told you. That was not how me or your mother expected you to turn out when we shipped you to the States.

"As a young girl you were always kind of difficult." I watch my father as he laughs and gives his chocolate ice cream another lick. "When you set your mind to something it was a battle to change it. So, last year, when you introduced him, you can understand how worried we were."

I laugh lowly. "Hmmm... Yeah, I guess." It's all I have to offer.

"So, if it's not because of Albert, what's got you so thoughtful?"

I think for a while, eating my ice cream. "I guess..." I start, but change strategy mid way. "What if I'm not who you think I am?"

He frowns his brows, looking at me. "You were not who I think you are last year. So if something changed, it can't be that bad, right?"

I nod slightly. "I think so, but..."

"Delphine, you always had a knack to add but's to everything." He wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. "You think too much."

This time I laugh hard. "Yeah, you're not the first person to tell me that..."

Next I see my father open his mouth wide. "Your mother knows that there's a limit to what we can take back home, right?"

I turn in the direction my father's staring and see my mother carrying an enormous amount of bags, a big smile on her face.

The remaining of the vacation my father doesn't touch the subject again, but as we are saying our goodbyes back in Paris, he reminds me again, whispering in my ear. "Don't think too much, darling."

The many hours trapped in a plain makes me want nothing more than throw myself in bed and delay the unpacking for the next day, during which I'm still not recovered from the transatlantic and transamerican flights, the fact that I'm also suffering from a sever case of jet lag doesn't help. Maybe I should have come back sooner to the States, but I wanted to spend every last second with my parents and I would be coming to an empty house, because Olivia won't be back for another three days. So I, foolishly came back two miserable days before I had to present myself in campus.

The day in question I find myself falling back asleep after turning off the alarm and turn to the other side. When I have the presence of mind to look at the clock it's already 9.15 and I was due in school at 9. I throw back the covers and am out of the house in ten minutes, at the expenses of skipping breakfast and all the necessary personal hygiene apart from trying to make some sense of my hair and splash cold water on my face.

I arrive 45 minutes late, take a deep breath and knock on the door of the lab where I'm most likely will spend the next six months agonizing.

A/N: sorry for the lack of Cophine in this chapter, but my crystal ball tells me there will be plenty of that in the upcoming chapters.

Also, I don't think I say this enough, but I have the most amazing readers. So, THANK YOU!