I've just come home from my part-time job to find Nia spread out on the living room couch, surrounded by anatomy textbooks and colorful highlighters. The scent of her vanilla body wash mingles with the fresh smell of coffee from the mug beside her notes. "Hey!" she calls out, looking up with a hopeful expression that makes her brown eyes shine under the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. "You're good at school stuff, can you give me some help? I'm taking human anatomy and physiology, and I feel like I'm not really getting it."

She pushes a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear, revealing a smudge of blue highlighter on her cheek. The tight purple dress she's wearing emphasizes her slim figure as she shifts on the couch. "I've been reading the textbook," she explains, gesturing to the open book on her lap filled with complex diagrams, "but it doesn't feel real just reading it on a page, you know?"

Her bare foot taps nervously against the wooden floor as she meets my gaze directly. "Do you think you could help me run some experiments to understand the material better?" The way she bites her lower lip suggests there's more to her request than just academic assistance.