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final exam in Middle Eastern Politics. The bookcases stood like giant
trolls turned into stone, watching me. The clock on the far away wall
tick-rocked away the time I had left to cram for the test. The only lights
still on in the library were my desk light and another one directly across
from me.

I was the only one left in the library at 3:30 in the morning,
except for one other student, a girl, a gorgeous girl. She was face deep
into one of her textbooks though, rapidly turning the pages as if she
were scanning the words straight into memory. I angled the desk light
a little away from my papers and towards the other side of the hall so I
could get a good look at her. She was beautiful. Her long, luminescent
hair hung down her shoulders. Her blue eyes shined in the dark. How-
ever, her face was very pale and her eyelids were a little droopy from
exhaustion.

Seeing my movement, her head turned up towards me and I
pulled the desk light back to my papers in nervousness. I tried to hide
my face in my books.

I didn't have time to distract myself with silly thoughts of girls.
Pushing my immaturity aside, I returned to my studies, lettingmy pencil
scrape against my notebook paper, quietly echoing across the library. If I
didn't ace this exam, I would get a B in the class and that was completely
unacceptable. Even though this course wasn't in my field of expertise, it
was inexcusable for an engineering student, let alone a proud member
of the Waki family to do less than the best. My parents might even have
considered taking away the small allowance I had to buy food every
week.

I let my finger slide down to a section titled "Pakistan-Iran
Conflict" and then turned to the corresponding pages in my textbook.
Suddenly, I heard the scraping of chair legs against the hard wood floor.
She must be going to the bathroom, I thought. Now I can just focus.

But no sooner did I think she was gone, that the footsteps
got louder and soon I felt the soft touch of her hand on my shoulder. I
looked up to see her smiling at me as if she had woken up from a long
sleep. All of the exhaustion was gone from her face. Left behind was
only the beautiful pale of her cheeks and her flush red lipstick. I pulled
off my giant, black rimmed glasses and rubbed my eyes, almost in disbe-
lief and surprise. Then, resting them back on my nose, I confirmed her

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