About her

Nora woke up and searched for her phone, half asleep, she found it and looked at the time, it was twelve. "Five more minutes." She murmured and went back to sleep.

She woke up again and looked at the time, "Fuck." She bolted upright, "It was supposed to be five minutes not three hours." She shouted and got out of the bed. She grabbed the spare clothes from her bag and headed to change.

She directly went to the table, running, "Hi." She said reaching there.

"Good morning." Rachel said sarcastically.

"Sorry." Nora murmured.

"Never mind. I'm starving, going to get the lunch. You want to have your breakfast Nora?" She mocked.

"No. I'm fine." She said with an awkward smile.

"I'm up." Joseph said.

"Later." Luke said.

Nora relaxed as soon as Rachel and Joseph left. "You slept for quite long." Luke said.

"Yupe. Very long." She said. She put her bag on the table, "My work, is it fine?"

"Yes. You did a good job." He said rubbing his temple with his fingers.

"Anything I can help with?" She peeked into his laptop.

"This bug, it's eating me up." He pushed the laptop towards her. "Find it for me, will you? Then I'll be done too."

"Sure." She took the laptop. "You go have your lunch." She added. He nodded and got up.

Nora scrolled through his code, "That's some beautifully written code." She murmured.

"What the..." She said. "No..it's fine." She was talking to herself.

A few minutes later, Luke was back with a water bottle and a chocolate bar in his hand. "You're on the table again?" He pointed.

"Oh yes." She said with a smile.

"You found it?" He settled down in the chair closest to her and looked at the laptop in her lap.

"Almost." She said. "Anyway, you're good at it, I must say."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Writing the code, I mean. It's super perfect." She said.

"Thank you. But the bug first." He pointed at the laptop.

"Yes." She nodded.

A moment of silence, when Nora shouted happily, "Aha."

"You got it." Luke leaned in.

"Here you go, it's done." She handed the laptop to him. "You missed an exception and there was a bug in your threading."

"You're good at this." He said going through his program.

"No. I'm better." She smirked.

He looked up at her and nodded, "I can give you that." He shut his laptop and placed it on the table, "I'm done too. You want one?" He gave her a chocolate bar from his pocket.

"Sure."

"Tell me something Nora. What's with you sitting on the table?" He asked.

She let out a little chuckle, "Don't know. One of my weird habits, I guess. Anyway how's everything going?"

"According to plan. Rachel needs an hour or two and Joseph, he is almost there, he's too concerned about the way his code looks." He shrugged. "But you my friend, you did everything, even added the features that were supposed to be for the end."

"Yeah, I did. Now we can help each other and win this." She moved her fist through the air.

"Sure we can." He nodded. "And you really are much, much better than Mr. James said."

"Mr. James said? What did he say?" She took a bite from her bar.

"That you're really good at this and hard to handle, and he's right." He looked at her, "By the way, I am curious, how did you get into the university? I mean, it's hard getting in, and you're the youngest candidate as far as I know, everyone is at least 20 something. Also Mr. James said you built an app or something." Luke asked.

"You're quite interested in me." She said suspiciously. "Anyway, yes I did. It was about dealing with mental illnesses, you know depression, anxiety, PTSD and all."

"You know about these things?" He asked amazed.

"No, my father's a psychiatrist. He was talking about it once, I suggested building an application. It was a joined cooperation. It somehow got the much needed attention, and I got an acceptance letter from the best university, University of Nuezelea. The rest is history." She finished off.

"How old were you when you made that?"

"16." She looked at him.

"Still why did you choose this university? There are many dedicated universities out there, you know for computer technologies."

"There are, but they are too expensive." She sighed.

"But ours is more expensive." Luke added.

"I know. The only reason I was able to make it here was the scholarship, the university is paying all of my expenses. I couldn't have afford it without the scholarship." She took another bite.

"I see. Last question, when did you start coding?" He asked leaning onto the table. "Tell me truth."

"Hmm. Around 11, I suppose." She said.

"11? So you were a nerd." He laughed. "What about friends? Did you have any?" He smirked and looked at her.

Nora's face lost all of it's colors. "Hey." Luke called out.

"Huh.. yes.. I uh.. I was.. fascinated by it." She said nervously.

"Are you okay?" He asked gently.

"Yes I am. You tell me, how did you get in?" She diverted the topic.

"Me? I came in like a normal kid, gave the exam, qualified it and managed to get a scholarship. Nothing exciting as yours." He looked at her, she was fidgeting with her shoelaces.

"I told you I am better." She shrugged, not letting go off her laces.

"Yeah." He said with a small smile.

Luke looked at her, she was now busy with her laptop, still sitting on the table.

"They're back." She said. Luke came back to his senses and looked at Rachel and Joseph who were returning from the cafeteria.

"Now get off the table. Will you?" He looked at her.

"Oh yes. Almost forgot." She jumped off and settled on the chair beside him.