4th June 2011

A-levels start Monday and I have written the word "BREATHE" on a Post-it note stuck to my laptop and it's not working - the word just sits there, breathing, while I don't.

Mae and I have been living in the library for the past three weeks as we have a table near the window that we consider ours, even though a boy called Oliver sat there once on a Wednesday and we spent the entire afternoon radiating hostility until he moved. We didn't say anything and didn't need to. Mae and I can communicate disapproval telepathically. It's our superpower. Oliver now sits by the dictionaries, where he belongs.

The revision routine goes like this: I make colour-coded notes. Mae reads mine because hers look like a crime scene written by someone who was also having a crime scene. We quiz each other until one of us gets something wrong and the other one pretends not to be relieved that they're not the only one struggling. Then we eat something from the vending machine that barely counts as food, usually something with the word "crispy" in the name that is not, by any reasonable standard, crispy, and talk about everything that isn't exams until we feel guilty enough to go back to the notes.

Jamie Wilson from our History study group told me yesterday that I'm intimidating. He said this while I was eating a Twix, which slightly undermined the observation, I replied , "Intimidating how?" and he said, "You're just so... organised. Like, you've got a plan for the plan and it's a bit scary to be honest." I didn't know if this was a compliment or a diagnosis, still don't. Mae says it's a compliment wrapped in an insecurity, which is very Psychology A-level of her. She also says Jamie probably fancies me and that intimidation is his way of dealing with it, which I think is a stretch, but I also didn't entirely hate hearing it.

Here's what I didn't tell Jamie. Being organised isn't confidence. It's the opposite. It's what happens when you're so afraid of being caught unprepared that you build scaffolding around yourself before anyone can see the cracks in the wall. I make plans because the alternative is sitting with the possibility that I don't know what I'm doing, and that's a feeling I've been avoiding since I was about twelve. Maybe earlier. Maybe since the first time I put my hand up in class and got the answer wrong and saw the flicker of surprise on the teacher's face that said, "Oh. I thought you were one of the reliable ones." That flicker. I have been running from it since.

The difference between being prepared and being afraid is really small. Nobody really understands how small it is. From the outside they look the same. They both get things done. You make notes and plans for everything.. One of them lets you sleep at night and the other one does not. Lately I have been lying awake at two a.m. Thinking about plans for papers I could write easily. Stopping feels scarier than keeping going. Long as I am studying I am safe. Long as there are more flashcards to study more chapters to read more dates to remember I do not have to think about the question that is really bothering me which is: what if I am not as good as everyone thinks I am?

My mum keeps leaving food outside my door. She does not knock she just puts it there like it is a gift for someone who is really stressed. Night it was a banana and a note that said, "You know enough trust it." I put the note in my pencil case so I can see it during the exam. That is. Really sweet or really smart. Maybe it is both. She knows me enough to know that I do not need to study more. What I need is someone to tell me that it is okay to stop.

Mae sent me a text an hour ago: "We are going to be fine”. If we are not fine we will be not fine together which is basically fine." That is the kind of thing that would not be correct on an exam. It is true, in life. I think Mae knows that..

Monday. English Lit Paper 1. Othello, the one I'm good at. Iago and his understanding of people. Mr Calloway's voice in my head saying, "That's an insight, not an observation." Mum's note in my pencil case saying, "You know enough. Trust it."

I'm going to breathe, and if breathing doesn't work, I'm going to eat the banana and trust Mum's note and remember that being prepared and being afraid can look the same, but only one of them gets to drive.

Okay. One more set of History dates and then bed - for real this time. I mean it, bed, actual bed. Not lying-in-bed-staring-at-the-ceiling-running-through-fiscal-policy bed. Real bed. With sleeping. Starting now.

...after one more flashcard.