Isabella’s college, London, UK.
The institution was a splendid fixture of the Canary Wharf estate, nestled within one of London’s most technical quarters. It was a landscape of modern evolution, a sharp departure from suburban life, where ideas thrived and moved with the same frantic energy as the traffic beyond the campus gates.
The weather was fickle. Only minutes earlier, a heavy shower had lashed the grounds, washing the concrete clean. Now, the clouds had parted to allow a generous spill of sunlight that turned the campus into a mosaic of reflections: sparkling steel railings, wet glass windows, shimmering pavements, and vibrant, sodden grass.
The light caught the copper statue of a man molding a giant gear—the grand emblem of the Faculty of Automotive Engineering. Leaning wearily against its plinth was a young woman, her pen flying across a notebook as she scribbled mathematical expressions complex enough to make a layman dizzy.
Isabella remained bent over her work, tucked into the cool patch of shade provided by the statue’s bronze shoulder. She was dressed in a sharp orange blouse and black tailored trousers; today was a formal day for the convocation. All around her, her coursemates were dressed in the same uniform, though most had found rebellious ways to tweak the style to their own liking.
A group of third-year girls sauntered past Isabella. They wore the mandatory orange and black, but they’d managed to make it look like high-street fashion—sleeves rolled just so, trousers cinched with designer leather.
"Look at her," one whispered to her friend, not quite low enough. "The dutiful little engineer. Still pretending that a degree matters when she’s already secured the only trophy that counts."
"Please," the other scoffed. "It’s an act, and we all know it. ’Oh, I’m just a girl who loves engines.’ Does she expect anyone to believe that? If Luca were a footballer, I’m sure she’d suddenly have a burning passion for jersey designs and merchandise instead."
Isabella’s pen stuttered for a fraction of a second, the ink bleeding into a thick, dark blotch on her calculation for torsional rigidity.
The girls were deliberately loud, and they knew she knew it. But Isabella forced her hand to stay steady, focusing on the variables. She let them gossip their fill, their laughter rattling like broken glass before they moved toward the main hall.
Finally, Isabella looked up, her gaze following them for a moment before shifting back to the copper statue. She wasn’t faking the math, and she wasn’t faking the smudge of graphite on her thumb. Let them say what they wanted; it wouldn’t change reality.
She sighed, the heat of the sun finally reaching her skin as the statue’s shadow shifted. She looked back down at her notebook. The equations were a mess now, ruined by that one blotch of ink.
Irritated, Isabella closed her notebook and stood. Her watch told her it was one minute until her best friend’s final lesson ended.
Perfect.
She began the walk toward the "7-in-1" auditorium, the massive structure that gave the campus its identity. Two years at this college and Isabella still didn’t feel fully at home, though she liked it in a strange, sharp way. The constant discomfort kept her alert to fake friends, social climbers, and intellectual tourists. It was a lonely way to live, but it ensured her circle remained small and unbreakable.
By the auditorium entrance, she leaned against the wall and waited for Deborah to emerge so they could end the day together.
After a short wait, Deborah emerged. She was a brunette with a constellation of a thousand freckles across her nose. She was slightly taller than Isabella, though both of them were pear-shaped. Still, Deborah lacked the kind of appeal that turned heads, but at least, her clumsy unpretentiousness made her approachable and warm.
United against the rest of the world, the two friends fell into step as they wandered toward their usual after-school activity. They bought ice cream from a vendor before sitting at a free bench in the school’s love garden, reliving their day and sharing their own collection of gossip.
"Alright, I’ve done the heavy lifting," Deborah eventually said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a crumpled sheet of notebook paper. "I have officially compiled the definitive list of why you’ve been falling apart this week."
Isabella watched her, unable to help but find the whole thing comical. She had been sick for just a couple of days—a bit of morning nausea and a fever that made her feel like a radiator—but Deborah had treated it like a medical emergency of the utmost importance.
"Deborah, it was vomiting and a bit of a fever. I almost didn’t die."
"Silence! The doctor is speaking," Deborah countered, adjusting imaginary glasses. She cleared her throat and began reading with dramatic gravity. "Option one: Acute PMS. Your hormones are currently waging a civil war. Option two: School-induced psychosomatic collapse. Basically, the PHY 107 final is literally poisoning your brain. Option three: Food poisoning from that questionable prawn linguine last Tuesday."
She paused, her expression shifting from mock-serious to dangerously gleeful. She leaned in closer, her freckles seemingly dancing. "And... Option four. The big P. Pregnancy."
"Preg... nancy?" Isabella asked slowly, in disbelief.
Deborah’s mouth began to run at a hundred miles an hour. "Think about it! You first see signs before you see wonders! You’re glowing, but in an ’I might throw up on my shoes’ kind of way. It’s the Luca factor! The math adds up!"
Isabella stared at her best friend for a long beat, her face a mask of deadpan exhaustion. "Did you smoke something today?"
Deborah eased back, suddenly becoming uncharacteristically earnest. "Didn’t you say you and Luca had a... good time? Two weeks ago?"
Isabella felt a sudden, sharp heat climb her neck that had nothing to do with the sun. She looked down at her half-eaten ice cream, watching a bead of cream drip down the wooden stick. "We did. But I don’t exactly expect a life-altering event to come out of it, Deb. He was only in London for twelve hours. It was barely a day."
Deborah wasn’t convinced. She leaned in, lowering her voice, explaining how a lot could happen in a very small window—how, biologically speaking, twelve hours was an eternity.
After all, it only takes one rogue lap for the whole race to change.
Isabella groaned. The mention of "the big P" combined with the lingering nausea made her stomach do a slow, sickening roll. At this point, the humor had drained out of the conversation.
"You’re actually making me feel worse," she muttered. "I think the ’psychosomatic collapse’ is winning. I just want to go home and sleep for a century."
"Fine, fine. Subject dropped," Deborah said as they stood up. "But don’t say I didn’t warn you. You better see a doctor, young lady."
~~~~~~~
In her lodge that evening, Isabella battled the nausea that kept rising as she tried to prepare dinner. She told herself that ignoring it would make it disappear, because doubt only grew when fed.
Ultimately, her effort ended when the sound of her own voice echoed against the bathroom tiles. She made a face when she saw the ugly color of the puke.
Wiping her mouth, she straightened up, stubborn even in discomfort.
The soup, she concluded, hadn’t been cooked properly, which was why she vomited. It was the soup, or perhaps the sheer mental duress of Deborah’s badgering—it was anything except symptoms or sickness.
RING! RING!
Back on her bed, her phone buzzed insistently.
After cleaning up, Isabella reached for it.
Caller ID: Manuela.