[center][h3]Barney Rynsburger[/h3]
[b][i]10:10 AM[/i][/b][/center]

Even if they couldn’t break his bones, words could still hurt, and Barney needed more time to recover from the blow Felipe’s tasteless joke dealt him than the incoming students gave him. Once forced to pack up his stuff, surrender his seat, and leave the classroom for the next bunch to suffer through. He paid no mind at all to the professor taking the aide aside before both made their way out, and turned singlemindedly to finding a new, more private refuge. If he hurried, Barney knew, he could find a study room before each one in this wing got occupied, and if he did he could be assured of all the privacy he could ask for, thanks to a basic rule of college life.

Even in the relatively short time Barney had spent here at Barclay Waterfront, he’d observed that just about everyone tended to keep everyone else at a distance. Of course everyone wanted to spend time with their friends, but when it came to anyone they didn’t know so well, it was the unspoken rule to stay away. When seated in the auditorium, bleachers, chapel pews, cafeteria, you name it, people would stick to opposite ends of the rows, and if they couldn’t, they’d put at least a couple seats in between themselves and anyone else. Only when obliged to by lack of space would they come together. At mealtimes it was common to see just one or two people per round table, and during a shortage one college visit day Barney had been shocked to see people putting two chairs together and eating in their laps rather than asking to sit with strangers. The average student preferred to find another bench than sit on one with someone else. And of course, if someone came upon a study room -little more than a nook, with two tables max, a couple chairs, and a single whiteboard- they’d be happier to sit out in the hallway than cohabitate.

It was a lonely paradigm, although for someone who wanted to be alone, it could be useful. Often enough Barney found himself wondering exactly why this seemed to be the norm, and the best answer he could come up with was stress. In college everyone had a whole lot on their plate. Classes, homework, projects, degree plans, work, debt...each person Barney saw struggled under the weight of an invisible burden, bending their minds rather than their backs. A clock hung over every one of their heads, their hands ticking steadily down. This was a place where people wagered their money and their lives in hopes of a better future, and for your average Joe it took a lot of work. In a situation like that nobody needed to open the can of worms that was human interaction. Better to mind your own business, and give everyone else the space to mind theirs. Nobody wanted to be bothered. In a way it was a behavior borne from mutual understanding, politeness, and even sympathy. And nobody, as far as Barney could tell, deserved more sympathy than himself, who having made it link by link and yard by yard, labored under a ponderous chain indeed.

So it was that after he found himself a miraculously unoccupied study room and collapsed onto the table like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Barney expected nobody to disturb his brooding.

But disturbed he was. At Harriette’s first word he jolted awake from his stupor with a grunt of alarm, and seeing none other than the teaching aide from Principles of English Composition shocked him even more. However, his surprise turned to embarrassment almost immediately, enough to turn him almost as red as her hair. “Oh, uh, no. Just...taking a break, is all. And ah, please, go right ahead.” In an instant Barney receded entirely from the table to his chair, leaving his visitor the whole space to work with, only to realize his mistake. If he wasn’t studying, what was he doing? It was a miracle anyone would want to come in here with him already present in the first place, and if there was nothing to occupy him, his presence might get uncomfortable, and fast. He slid a hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, and that was that.

Of course, he didn’t even read what came up on the screen. Instead he started overthinking things. Though normally not really self-conscious, the events of the day already left him raw, so much so that even a little humiliation left him scrabbling to put himself together. How lame it must look, he thought, for a big guy like him to be scared so badly by so little. It felt a lot worse than usual to look pathetic in front of someone like her, too--someone so composed, unflappable, professional. Although by no means one of his degenerate classmates who he knew spent a little too much time thinking about this lady than was healthy, it would be dishonest of him to deny her charm. Though technically a student herself, she spoke, taught, and even moved with a certain measured elegance. Coolly composed and even a little aloof, she gave the impression of someone in total control of her life, a cut above all the struggling freshmen. Since Barney started college late, he was only slightly younger than but there really was no comparison between the two of them. Adding in her style, she was practically a noblewoman, and he a peasant, grubbing in the dirt. And since for some unimaginable reason she had decided to come here, his number one goal was to not make himself look any worse.

That said, his embarrassment burned inside him as the seconds passed. No doubt Harriette came to speak to him about his participation in the class, which anyone could see was lackluster. In her politeness she no doubt meant to approach him without causing him too much distress. Thinking objectively, Barney could fathom no other reason why she would break the unspoken rule of college life and shorten the distance between them. He decided to try and make amends. Even in tenuous circumstances such as these, Barney Rynsburger was no shrinking violet. He could speak firmly and honestly, just as he wanted to live his life. As such, after a few moments went by, he cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Uh, hmhm. Sorry about that a moment ago. I’m just a little on edge at the moment. I also wanted to go ahead and apologize about how I’ve been doing in Poe Comp,” he said, using the popular abbreviation for the class. Pausing for a moment, he thought about how to best phrase his next bit, so as to not sound like he was trying to make excuses. A little vulnerability, a little humanity, might garner him some sympathy. “I’m not normally one to make excuses, but things really have been rough lately. It’s just one thing after another, after another. I might have to retake Calc One at this rate, but money’s super tight as it is, you know?” He gave a wry smile. As he looked at Harriette, though, his eyes narrowed slightly. Something wasn’t quite right, and after a moment he realized what. “Er...sorry to just drop this on you, but I think there might be a little...smear. On your face.”

He brought up a hand to gesture to his own face and indicate the area around and below Harriette’s right eye. After a sudden splash of juice and a hasty top replacement in the cramped confines of her car, her freshly-applied makeup had smeared, and ‘a little’ was a polite understatement on Barney’s part. A heaping portion of distraction had conspired to keep her from noticing, and though Barney made sure not to stare, he could clearly make out what looked like a dark circle of accumulated fatigue beneath the eye of the invincible aide. Maybe, he suddenly realized, his rambling about things being rough had been preaching to the choir.

At that moment, Barney became aware of someone else in the room. She’d arrived while he had his face buried in his phone and gotten Harriette’s approval to seat herself for the sake of a brief respite. Now that Barney actually glanced at her, she seemed very familiar, too. Half a foot shorter than Harriette but pretty in her own right, she was the girl who he sometimes heard whispering to her friend for a calculator in his Calculus class. Neither really knew the other, and even her name escaped Barney at the moment, but right now she served as an ample reminder that he’d missed today’s big Calculus test, and in so doing proved that he would never succeed in college.

Barney also realized that he’d probably been disturbing the peace she sought to sleep in with all his talking, too. Plus, if it turned out that Harriette didn’t actually have business with him, which suddenly seemed much more likely to be the case, then he’d definitely screwed up again. The image flashed in his mind of a bunch of people at a party all staring at the camera with expressions of confusion and disgust. “Uh, anyway,” he began, getting to his feet. “Reckon I oughta be going, to get ready for my eleven o’clock. So long.” Rather than give into panic and bolt away, however, he took a moment to compose himself and depart with dignity. If it turned out that anyone did have business with him they could stop him, but otherwise he could make himself scarce before he messed up again.