Bump Start (Northern Roots: Atlantic #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

The sounds of sighs, restless shifting, and the scratch of pencils fill the room as I lean back in my chair and stare out the window.

My gaze follows the subtle movement of bare branches, just beginning to bud, as they sway in the breeze.

Sunlight filters through them, spilling across the room in uneven patches of gold, and my fingers flex on instinct as the warmth brushes over them.

And I release a sigh of my own.

How fucking mundane.

I sweep my gaze over the roughly forty third-year physics students, hunched over their quantum mechanics midterms and looking like they’re halfway through a collective existential crisis.

Why do they choose to do this to themselves?

Better yet, why do I? There’s a whole world out there…

but every Thursday, I continue to come to this room and walk them through Hilbert spaces and Schrodinger equations like they won’t forget every bit of it by the time they graduate.

I swear half of them don’t even want to be here.

Myself included.

A hand goes up, and I already know who it is before I look.

Janine. The student who wants to be here too much.

I let out another sigh, quieter this time, and make my way towards her.

She offers a nervous smile and angles her exam towards me.

“Sorry,” she whispers, already wincing at my expression, which I’m apparently not doing a good job of hiding.

“I just wanted to clarify here, in question twelve. When you say ‘expectation value,’ do you mean in the context of the position operator or the general observable?”

I glance between the question and Janine, and wonder if she’s being serious. She knows this. She’s the brightest student in my class, and looking over the work she’s already written out for this question, I can see she’s right on track. But she’s anxious and constantly second-guessing herself.

That’s annoying.

“You’ve got it,” I say flatly, nodding towards the paper. The question is clearly about ?x?, not a general observable, which is obvious if she took the time to read it. “Read it again.”

Her eyes widen, but she nods and drops her head to reread the question to herself.

I’m about to leave when I pause, looking down at her again. “Just… think about what’s being asked,” I add, keeping my voice low. “Trust yourself.”

Janine gives me a shy smile and a small nod. “Thanks, Dr. Cormier.”

I nod once and walk back to the front of the room, threading between rows of bent heads and twitching knees.

The tension is so thick in here it could collapse into a singularity.

All this stress, and all this effort… for what?

A shot at a future where they’re either overworked in academia or underpaid in industry?

But I can’t say that out loud. Because my job is to teach them, and to shape the next wave of physicists, theorists, and lab rats… whether I want to or not.

The only reason I’m here at all is because the university is giving me what I need for my research.

Lab access, funding, and the freedom to chase problems no one’s solved yet.

My work on quantum thermodynamics the snow is now gone, and the green grass is clawing its way towards the surface.

Laughter echoes across the campus, with students sprawling across benches like it’s summer, and two guys in shorts are tossing a frisbee like we skipped straight to July.

It should feel like something.

I take a deep breath of the cool spring air and let it fill my lungs.

And still… I feel nothing.

The world is waking up, and I’m just… here.

So I head for my car.

And I head for the pub.

If I’m going to feel numb anyway, I might as well do it with a drink in my hand.