Things hadn't been going well for the newly formed group.

Grace had decided to throw a full on temper tantrum by refusing to cooperate with the project, all in a prideful display of displeasment for Cal being included in the group. Cal recalled all the times that Grace accused her of being childish or told her to grow up. She certainly didn't practice what she preached.

They had to come up with a topic and outline within two weeks of it being assigned, and it had already been one week of zero progress. Grace didn't participate in making plans to meet up for the project, and she mostly flat-out ignored Cal and Dana in class.

It was really starting to get on Cal's nerves. It's not like she had a say in any of this either. She would've preferred to work just with Dana or even by herself, but she was looped into it. Now Grace was treating it as if Cal was at fault for the situation.

I mean, I want a good grade too, Cal thought during another awkward sixth period where Grace was ignoring her. But neither of us are going to get that if she keeps acting like this.

This was getting out of hand. A week of throwing a fit for something so trivial? Cal just about had it.

She decided she needed to do something about this situation now, so when Grace hurried out of the classroom as the bell rang, she stood up and rushed after her. Cal heard Dana say something like "What are you doing?" behind her, but the taller blonde didn't look back or respond.

She was basically running after Grace now, but it didn't take long for her to catch up to the girl in one of the old hallways that made up the second floor of the east wing.

"Hey! Hold on!"

When she shouted, Grace jumped a little and stopped in her tracks. But she didn't immediately turn around to face Cal.

"What do you want?" the brunette asked brusquely.

"I'm sure you can guess," Cal replied. "Don't you think you've been sulking long enough?"

Grace whirled around. "Why do you care what I'm doing? Just go do the assignment with Dana."

Cal raised and eyebrow. "You're not worried about the grade?"

Grace's mouth opened to present an argument, but nothing came out, so she clamped it shut once more. She fixed Cal with a glare. "Whatever. Just leave me alone."

Cal sighed. Things couldn't keep going like this. They were going to be in a class together whether they liked it or not, and bickering all the time and hating each other wasn't going to make the situation better. Nothing was going to progress at this point.

"Look," she began. "I know we're on bad terms, but it's too late for us to switch to another group, and we're not being allowed to move classes. For the sake of our grades and our sanities, don't you think it's better to just try to tolerate each other? We don't have to become best friends or anything, but let's just, you know...cooperate?"

Grace was silent for a couple of moments, thinking about it. Finally, she let out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Thank you," Cal said, actually a little surprised that Grace gave in so quickly. Well, a whole week wasn't exactly quick, but the honor student actually listened when she was directly confronted.

"But I'm only doing this for my grades," Grace added quickly, careful not to let her icy mask slip for even a moment.

"I know," Cal replied. "So...tomorrow you'll help us plan when to meet up for the project?"

Grace let out yet another sigh.

"Yes, I'll help."

--

The group decided to meet up for the first time outside of class that Friday after school. They reserved a study room in the library which caused Cal to remember when her and Grace did the same for the tutoring sessions.

We had no idea back then that we'd start dating, Cal thought nostalgically. Or that we'd break up soon after.

And here they were again, sitting in a study room, with almost the same level of animosity between them as almost five months prior.

"Alright, let's start with a topic," Dana said once they were settled into their respective chairs around the study room table. Cal opted to sit next to Dana while Grace sat across from them.

"There's a list of ideas on the instructions sheet," Grace said, holding up the sheet of paper to read it. "Value consensus, social stratification, structural functionalism...how does he expect us to choose a topic when we haven't even gone over most of these yet?"

"Well, I think he figures that knowing the gist of them is enough." Cal responded, looking over the instructions sheet herself and comparing the terms to the glossary in her textbook. "What about cultural pluralism? I feel like there'd be a lot of options on different groups to use as examples for that."

"Cultural what?" Dana asked, confused.

"A lot of options means that it might end up being more work," Grace argued. "It's too broad."

Cal was a bit put off, but she figured that she was already lucky enough that Grace was willing to work with them in the first place. She bit back any signs of annoyance.

"Okay then, let's see what else," Cal continued, "Oh, victimless crimes might be interesting to cover."

Grace scoffed. "Sounds like it might get a little too philosophical. Seriously, how can social sciences call themselves 'sciences' if they're all completely subjective?"

Cal bristled at that – after all, social studies was here favorite subject. "Well, gee, I'm sorry that the class you decided to take isn't scientific enough for your superior intelligence."

"You think I wanted to take this class?" Grace fired back. "I was placed there at random. Were you even paying attention when we were at the counselor's office?"

"Well, regardless, you're going to need to cooperate a little so we can at least get somewhere with this project!"

"I'm not going to half-ass this project when it's such a big part of our grade!" Grace was standing up now, leaning over the table with her hands flat on its surface. "So it's understandable to be a little picky about the topic of it!"

"Picky? You're not even willing to find out what any of the topics are about!"

"Because we haven't even learned them in class yet!"

"Who cares? Just look them up in the fucking glossary!"

Why was Grace always like this? Difficult, abrasive, rude...she never seemed to care about other people's needs or motives.

Gosh, it just made Cal want to kiss that stupid glare off of her face and –

Wait, what was that?

No, no. Cal did not want to kiss Grace. Especially not right now, in the middle of her favorite subject being insulted, while fighting over a topic for a project. Only a crazy person would want to do that sort of thing with Grace in the first place.

Well, you were that sort of crazy person a couple months ago, the logical part of Cal's brain told her. But even so, she'd surely been cured of her insanity since then.

"Hey, hey, ladies!" Dana said, standing up with the other two girls who had both made it to their feet at this point. She put a hand on both of their shoulders. Grace irritably brushed her off. "We're gonna get kicked out of the library if we start a shouting match. So let's just sit down and cool off a little, yeah?"

Cal and Grace had a stare-off for a few moments before sighing and sitting back down in their seats.

"I'm surprised the librarian hasn't come to yell at us already," Grace commented. "I'd die of embarrassment."

Cal bit back a few snarky comments and folded her arms, calming herself down. She couldn't continue to let Grace get to her – they'd be seeing a lot of each other from now on.

"We agreed to a truce, remember?" she said. "So let's both try to get along."

Grace nodded. "That would be...for the best."

The room went quiet after that, both girls catching their breath from their overdramatic argument. Something in the air felt strangely thick, and strangely familiar. It was similar to how they argued during their tutoring sessions, where there was a strong, suffocating tension. But Cal was convinced she was overthinking it, and convinced that the sensation was one-sided anyway.

"What about the Thomas Theorem?" Dana said, suddenly breaking the silence as she looked over the instructions sheet and opened her sociology textbook.

"The what?" Grace asked.

"The Thomas Theorem," Dana reiterated. "According to the textbook, it says 'situations that are defined as real become real in their consequences'. What does that mean though?"

"It sounds kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy," Cal replied. "Like, if someone labels you a certain way, then you end up acting like that label and then the label becomes who you are."

"Oh, that makes more senses," Dana said, "There's a pretty good section in the textbook about this stuff. It's got this chart."

"It's not too broad, but there's also enough there to make a full project out of." Cal scratched her chin thoughtfully. She looked up at Grace who hadn't said anything yet. Surprisingly, the brunette had opened her textbook to the same page as Dana and was scanning over the section. "What do you think, Grace?"

Grace paused for a moment, still reading, but she eventually nodded a little and looked up. "It might not be a bad idea, I guess."

Cal couldn't help but crack a smile. She almost felt a sense of pride of being able to capture Grace's interest with the subject, even just a tiny bit.

"Should we do it, then?" Dana asked.

"Well, it's probably better than any other dull subject on this list," Grace replied.

Cal took out a blank sheet of notebook paper, writing their names on the top.

"Then let's get this outline done, shall we?"