I write the last book's name on a piece of paper and stand from the uncomfortable wooden chair of the university's library and walk to the desk placed at the entrance of it.

The librarian lady looks up from her book. The light catches her glasses, shielding her eyes from me. A kind smile spreads across her face, highlighting the deep laugh lines and the forming crow's feet at the corners of her eyes.

"I need these," I say and place the small piece of note on her desk.

She nods and gets to her feet, "Will you be studying here?" she asks in a quiet voice.

I shake my head no. "I'm gonna take them with me if it's possible."

"Sure, wait here, I'll find the books in a few minutes." And with that, she makes her way to the long rows of books at the back of the library.

I sigh and lean to the nearby wall. From what I gathered while Mason told me about Wright, he's a guy who understands no language other than math. So, I'm going to speak with him in his own language.

I check my wristwatch, it's four-thirty; half of my Friday is gone already. The entire Saturday and Sunday, half of Monday and Tuesday are left for me to catch up with Professor Wright's course syllabus.

I rub my brow and eyes; it's going to be a rough five days.

A few minutes go by before the librarian returns with the books. My eyes widen and I hold back a gasp as she starts pilling them up on the top of her desk. She keeps going on, the height of book-tower keeps rising. Two stacks of fifteen-inch tall textbooks knock the breath out of me and the math learning neurons in my brain turn on the alarm for panic mode.

"I need your student ID card, to register these books under your name before I can allow you to leave with these."

Dazed, I nod and shrug one of my bag's strap off my shoulder and rummage around until I find the card and hand it to her. While she types down the required information, gingerly I pick the books one by one and shove it in my bag until it reaches near exploding state. Three books still left, I zip up my backpack, and adjust the straps on my shoulder. The cruel gravity pulls it down with such force that I just hope the gods of poor undergrads stuck in devastating situations will prevent any accidents, such as falling on my butt in front of the campus from taking place.

The lady returns my card and I slip it into my jeans' pocket. With a sharp inhale, I muster the strength needed and pick the remaining books.

I trudge out of the library while wondering how on earth will I be able to wrap this up on time. I have to impress Wright, convince him I'm smart enough, all the while seizing any opportunities for hinting at my interest in Reimann theory. Afterwards, I can move on to the second part of the plan, request or even persuade him to help me write a paper and become my thesis adviser.

Slowly, I descend the steps leading to the open air, while I construct my plan with more precision.

While searching for a topic, I'll accidentally stumble across this question and he technically shouldn't be able to stop me, because he hasn't solved the problem yet, nor does he own it.

I nod to myself and inhale the fresh November air. The sun is partly covered by clouds, but the sky is blue with no risk of a downpour. It should be good.

I move my finger over the edge of the books I'm holding. The plan is fine, but its timeline sucks.

My legs carry me to the Mathematics department's building.

Think, Gracie, think.

Suddenly an idea pops into my head. What if I ask one of the nerds to help me go through these books faster?

I climb up the stairs and enter the building. I need a nerd. I shake my head from the irony of it. What's become of me! I'm on a nerd hunting mission for crying out loud.

As I reach the first floor, my eyes land on Brian. The one and only! Guess it's my lucky day.

Brian Young, the geekiest nerd of our entire faculty. He's standing at the far end of the corridor, with his usual maroon coloured hoodie and dark blue jeans.

I bite my lower lip to stop myself from grinning. The previous semester, some of our classmates, to be exact, the only three girls except me in our group of fourth-year bachelor's, insisted that Brian had a thing for me. At that time, I was rich, taken, and way out of his league, so I paid no heed, but now the circumstances have changed and the time has come to check if they were right or not.

I draw myself to my full height and push back my shoulders. With a tired face, and probably deep dark circles under my eyes, there is a good chance, he's no longer into me.

Glued to my spot, I shuffle my feet and gulp down the non-existent saliva. I don't want to embarrass myself.

I glance at him, and he's with his five friends, all of them are maths major except two. One of the guys is the person I insulted in front of our entire class in our second year. I take a slight step back.

This is a bad idea.

But I need help to speed up the process of my plan.

The worst aspect of this entire situation is that I wasn't nice to any of them. Not even Brian. In fact, I hated his guts, because of his presence in classrooms, I was forced to study more to stay on the top and had to cut down the number of parties I liked to attend with Everly and Olivia, and spend less time with Alex. Now they're all gone, continuing to enjoy their ridiculously extravagant lifestyle and here I am.

The ironic thing about being rich is that you never consider one day you might lose it all. I looked down my nose at all of them.

I tighten my hold on my books, my shoulders ache from the weight of my bag. The confident Gracie dissipated the moment the notice from the bank came, stealing everything from us, blocking Dad, Mom and Mason's bank accounts.

I inhale sharply. I need this. To be able to continue to higher studies with a full scholarship opportunity, and earning a little money along the way, I have to do this.

I nod to myself, hyping myself up to place one foot after the other.

My heart pounds in my chest, the only sound I can hear is its drumming. With irregular breathing and sweaty palms, I will myself to calm down.

They stop talking the moment they spot me. I force a weak smile and wave with one hand, "Hey guys."

They eye each other before the same guy I had a fight with replies, "Hey."

I train my gaze on Brian. His brow is furrowed and he tilts his head slightly to one side, while his honey-coloured eyes are fixed on me as he pushes his hands into his pockets.

I sum up my courage. "I need your help with numerical analysis," I blurt out and instantly regret saying that. What if my tone offends him, he turns me down? I clutch the books harder.

His stupid friend scoffs and I turn to him and arch an eyebrow, levelling a glare at him, hoping my thundering heart isn't loud enough to be heard. After a long moment, I turn back to Brian.

Surprisingly his features have softened. "Wright's class?" he asks and I nod.

Drawing in a large breath of air, I explain, "I didn't study for his class, and now I need to catch up before it's too late, I was hoping if it'd be possible, you'd help me."

He runs his hand through his short dark hair and quickly glances at his friends. I follow his gaze and catch them either smirking or giving him an odd look.

So he did have a crush on me.

My eyes jump back on him right when he nods. "Sure."

I grin. "Thank you!" This went much better than expected.

I sense his friends' gaze on us and I can't stop the awful thought from popping up in my mind, forcing me to wonder whether they're judging my clothing. Or how worn out and cheap they look, and even how my shirt and jeans are a size too big thanks to my sudden weight loss after everything happened.

Brian fishes out his phone, opens and closes his mouth a few times until I decide to put an end to his struggles. "I'll give you my number, and we can work out the days we're both free and can meet up."

He instantly holds his phone out to me, and I hold back my smile. Angling the books in one hand, I get the phone, but my fingers brush his hand for the lightest and briefest moment. The way he freezes and his cheeks tint pink for the slightest don't slip from my notice.

I type down my number for him and hand it back to him. With a quick bye from both of us, I dash away from them, wondering if he still has a crush on me. If so, what does he even see in me? Having a crush on the Gracie before summer is understandable, but now? Not at all.

The girls were right, he has a thing for me, or maybe had. I'm sure he liked the old me, the rich, fashionable, confident Gracie. And I'm betting the only reason he agreed to help me, is because I remind him of his old, and now non-existent crush.

At least, on the bright side, I got what I wanted. With a bit more hope, I make my way to my small apartment.

∞ ∞ ∞

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it ^.^

Keeping up with these updates is surely hard xD but so far I'm glad I've been able to follow through for these recent 4 chapters =) I really hope I can keep up with it and wrap it up before my exams XD

Anyways, the next chapter will be up tomorrow =)

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Stay safe, lots of love, happy reading <33