Chapter 6 #2
He grins, the old cocky warmth back in full force. “Yeah, but most people suck at that.”
Aaron dumps the contents of his binder onto the table, scattering note cards and a bag of Skittles. “You haven’t by chance run into that Jessica Rabbit girl from the Pi Omega party, have you?”
I freeze, a microsecond too long. “Can’t say that I have.”
He pops a green Skittle and keeps going. “People are still talking about her.” He says it lightly, like it’s gossip, but there’s an undertone. “It’s like she just vanished sometime after the costume contest. Total mystery.”
My hands shake a little as I pour the sodium bicarbonate into the flask. “Yeah, I heard.”
Aaron leans in, elbows on the table. “Any idea who she is?”
“No idea.” My heart hammers. I focus on the next step: add sulfuric acid dropwise, swirl, watch for reaction. “She must’ve been from another school or something.”
He laughs, low. “Nah, I think she’s hiding in plain sight.” He looks up at me then, really looks. “You ever see someone and just, like, feel like you’ve met them before?”
I don’t answer. If I do, I’ll drop the pipette.
Aaron shrugs, still smiling, but there’s something behind it. “Whatever. Campus is full of weirdos. Anyway—what’s the next step?”
We work in silence for a minute, measuring, pouring, logging observations.
The only sounds are the gentle clink of glass and the murmur of the other lab teams. The routine of the lab settles into my bones, calming me, but then our arms brush or our hands reach for the same reagent, and it short-circuits the quiet.
He’s faster than me, but a little careless. He overshoots the acid by a tenth of a milliliter, and I correct it. My jaw tight, I risk a glance.
His eyes catch mine. “You’re not usually this tense in lab. Everything good?”
I force a laugh. “Just don’t want to blow anything up.”
He grins, then leans close, voice dropping. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you ever go to the gym?”
The question is so out of left field I almost snort. “Not really.”
He nods, like this confirms something. “You should. You’d crush it.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I write down our progress and focus on not shaking.
We’re halfway through the reaction when he circles back. “Seriously, though. If you ever hear about Jessica, you’ll let me know, right?”
“Sure,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
He smiles, softer this time. “I owe you one. For putting up with me.”
I almost tell him, right there. I almost say, It was me. I was her. I am her. But then he reaches behind me for the ethanol, his chest pressing against my back for a heartbeat, and my mind blanks completely. The smell of him—clean sweat, a trace of soap—washes out every thought.
I try to steady my hand, but my grip slips and the beaker tilts, sending a splash of solution across the table and onto my lab manual. It soaks the page instantly, blurring the print into blue veins.
“Shit,” I say, scrambling for paper towels.
Aaron grabs a handful and helps mop it up, laughing. “At least it wasn’t the acid.”
I nod, face hot, hands clumsy. “Sorry.”
He shrugs. “Don’t sweat it. Happens to everyone.”
We finish the experiment with a minimum of disaster, but the rest of the period is a blur. I clean our station three times just to avoid looking at him. When the TA announces the end of the session, Aaron packs up his binder and pauses.
He nudges my arm. “Hey, you good?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
He smiles, and for a second, I almost believe I can handle this.
“See you next week.”
He’s gone before I can reply.
I’m left in the empty lab, staring at the streaks of blue on the table and the memory of his touch ghosting down my spine.
I keep thinking of Sara’s half-life analogy for secrets. It really is a brilliant perspective. But mine is no longer decaying.
It’s now about to go critical.
—ΠΩ—
The echo in the hallway is the only thing keeping me grounded.
Every step bounces off the tile and comes back twice as loud, like the building is trying to amplify my panic.
I make it as far as the end of the corridor before I collapse against the concrete wall, breath ragged, heart whaling against my ribs.
For a minute, all I can hear is the distant thump of closing doors and the motorized hum of the soda machine down the hall.
No one’s around to see me lose it. I let my head fall back, eyes closed, and count the flickers in the overhead light: six per second, never syncing, never letting me forget where I am.
I should be running analysis on our failed experiment, prepping the lab report, anything except rerunning the last hour on infinite loop. Every time I try to focus, I see Aaron’s eyes or feel the ghost of his hand against my arm. I can’t tell if I want to scream or dissolve.
I pull out my phone, hands shaking. The chemistry department homepage loads slowly, as if it knows what I’m about to do and wants to give me time to reconsider. There’s a link right at the top: “Request Section Change.” I click it, and the form pops up, simple as a confession.
Reason for change:
I leave it blank, thumb hovering above the keys. It should be easy. I could make up an excuse—scheduling conflict, family obligation, roommate drama. But I can’t even type the words.
Instead, I stare at the form, and the longer I look, the more I see the outline of my life pressed up against the inside of the screen. Always running, always hiding, always letting someone else make the first move.
I bite the inside of my cheek, then slam the phone face-down on the floor beside me. I let my head drop forward, hands fisted in my hair, and force myself to breathe. In, out. In, out. Like I’m measuring titrations, but for my own stupidity.
I try to imagine the alternative. What if I stayed? What if I let myself be seen, really seen, even if it blows up in my face? The idea makes me nauseous, but also—something else. Something like hope, if hope was radioactive and probably fatal.
Here in the vast emptiness of the hallway, I think about texting Sara. I could ask her what to do, but I already know what she’d say: Own it. Or, at least, stop lying to yourself.
I stand, knees shaky, and pick up my phone. I don’t close the form. I just leave it there, unfinished, a Schrodinger’s disaster waiting to collapse.
I look at the clock on the wall. Three minutes until my next class. Three minutes to decide if I’m going to keep hiding, or if I’m going to do something insane and honest.
The lights overhead flicker, the hallway goes cold, and I start walking. No plan, no answer, just the certainty that I can’t do nothing anymore.
Somewhere down the corridor, a door slams, and I flinch at the sound.
But I keep moving.
The next experiment is about to begin.