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“Sure, if you’re making.” She disappears into the bedroom
with her pile of books, as I attend to our daily dose of caffeine.
She emerges in a new set of clothing, auburn curls twisted up
into a messy bun, yawning, and begins picking up the books
off the table. “Lord,” she says, “I’m tired.”

“Easy solution,” I say, handing her a mug. She takes her
coffee with cream and sugar, sweet; I take mine black. “Get
more sleep.”

She sticks her tongue out at me. “Easy for you to say. I
don’t know how you manage it, honestly, you’re so much
more put-together than I am.”

This is blatantly false, and we both know it, but outright
contradictions have never done much for arguments with
Elia. “You’re only saying that because you haven’t heard me
trying to learn Latin,” I retort instead. “Speaking of, don’t let
me forget, I have to go to my tutoring session for that this
afternoon.”

“You’ve got a Latin tutor now?” She raises an eyebrow at
me. My battle with Latin has been a major topic of
conversation recently. My PhD program is in medieval
history, which requires very strong language skills. I took
French and German as an undergraduate, and can read
passably in both, but since my little liberal arts school didn’t
have any real classics program, I never managed to get
around to Latin—and I’m paying for it now.

“Some guy named Calvin,” I say, “from the classics
department. We’ll see how useful he actually is. Medieval
Latin isn’t quite like classical Latin.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” she says. “Good luck. I hope
Calvin from the classics department isn’t a total asshole.”

“Yeah,” I say, “thanks, Ellie, real reassuring.”
“I’m sure he’ll be great,” she says, “but, hey, if you set your
expectations low, you’re more likely to be pleasantly
surprised, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

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