Level of Joy

"I bombed everything. I just know it."

Alyssa reached out to gently nudge Zoe as they and Elias sat at a small table in the university's café. It was finally Friday.

All exams were done with, and they were waiting on their final grades to drop. They were due to be posted in the next ten minutes, and the group waited anxiously to see their scores.

"You did just fine. We all passed," she told them firmly. There was a lot of anxiety and negativity going around, and she was trying to reel it in as best as she could before it got out of control.

She believed in all of them because they put so much hard work into studying and preparing for their exams.

"We'll see soon enough," Elias said as his knee bounced rapidly under the table. He kept refreshing the page on his phone with his current grades before the exam scores went in, waiting for them to change.

Alyssa chewed on her bottom lip as she watched her own phone. She was hoping for the best.