Jack

Jack always walked the school hallways like a shadow: silent, distant, with his headphones on even when no music was playing. No one really knew what he was thinking, and he seemed to prefer it that way. His cold gaze was enough to keep most people from trying to approach him.

Judith, on the other hand, was impossible to ignore. Her laughter filled the hallways, her energy drew attention, and her way of speaking to everyone made her as visible as a lighthouse in the night. She would say that "silence is for cowards," a phrase Jack considered ridiculous.

They hated each other without needing words.

The clash was inevitable the day the professor paired them up for a final project. Jack clenched his jaw. Judith rolled her eyes so hard they almost made a sound.

"Please," Jack murmured, "tell me it's a joke."

—Believe me, if I could choose, you would be last on my list—Judith replied, crossing her arms.

From the very first minute, their working together was a battle. She talked too much; he, hardly at all. She proposed colorful, risky ideas; he dismantled them with surgical precision. Judith said that Jack was an emotionless statue. Jack said that Judith had “a pathological need to make noise.”

But the worst part was that, deep down, they were both right.

One day, Judith exploded.

"You know what? I don't understand how someone can live being a walking iceberg!" he shouted, throwing the project sketches onto the table.

Jack stared at her, without blinking.

—And I don't understand how someone can talk so much without saying anything —he replied in his low, sharp voice.

There was an awkward silence. For a moment, Judith thought she saw something behind Jack's cold eyes, but it vanished so quickly she couldn't be sure.

Even so, they continued working, reluctantly, with constant arguments and such palpable tension that the rest of the class preferred to keep their distance. The teachers said that otherwise they would end up with a brilliant project.

cold