More Than Chemical

Chapter 1 Girl Meets Boy

One

Girl Meets Boy

I wondered if anyone in the dining hall would notice if I passed out, face down, on top of my breakfast, right in my half-eaten pancakes sitting in a pool of syrup. It could happen. It almost had. Even the smell of fried bacon wasn’t keeping my head from bobbing.

“Ade.” My dorm friend Emma squeezed my shoulder. “It’s time to go.”

I blinked, the insides of my lids like sandpaper scraping my corneas. “But I’m so tired.”

“No problem.” Her cheeks turned from a pale pink to a warm blush, camouflaging the spray of freckles across her uptilted nose. “We’re about to take the polar plunge. It’ll be the perfect way to wake you up.”

Across the table, my roommate, Priya, slurped orange juice through a reusable straw. Her dark eyes sparkled against her amber-brown skin.

I hunched over. Insomnia. It wasn’t funny.

It was a curse. A terrible, horrible curse.

And frigid water was never going to fix me.

Usually, when a person got tired, they slept.

Not me. I was constantly fatigued, twenty-four seven, but I couldn’t fall asleep and stay that way.

My control-alt-delete command had stopped working.

Emma swept away my tray.

I nabbed my energy drink just in time and finished it off. Caffeine and glucose. The only things that gave me a boost in the mornings.

“At least we won’t have to go all the way underwater.” Priya folded the silicone straw into a carrying case. “Only up to our chests.”

“Wonderful.” My body was already shivering, my teeth chattering.

Emma returned from disposing our trays, #MinnesotaUPride typed across the front of her shirt.

This was probably bad timing, but I think it was finally the moment I should let her know how I really felt about jumping in a frozen lake.

“Emma,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I know that you and the dorm advisory board worked really hard at organizing this charity plunge, but the thing is…”

I paused. It was hard to form the words. Mostly because she was so enthusiastic about everything related to dorm life.

“Is what?” she asked.

“I don’t think I can go through with it.”

She frowned.

For a moment she did nothing. Didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But then she grabbed my black Adidas duffel bag off the floor. “You have to. There is no choice. You’ve raised the money. Now you have to follow through with your end of the deal and jump.”

I glanced away. Guilt. It got me every time.

So I dragged myself up, pulled on my green winter jacket, and followed them through the lobby to the front doors. I should never have signed up. Never have taken a day off from my Saturday shifts at the Minnesota University Bookstore for this.

We tried to squeeze past a group of residents with bulky shoulder bags, but we got stuck.

“Four years of probation, postseason bans, and scholarship reductions,” said one of the guys. “That asshole Coach Bianchini ensured the hockey program will never recover.”

My ears turned hot. My breath shortened. We needed to keep moving, and quick, before I was forced to listen to strangers speak ill of my dad. Or worse, find myself trapped in a discussion with Emma and Priya about the scandal once again.

I thrust the girls toward the windows on the far wall.

Emma glared back at me. “Jeez, Ade. No need to push our way through.”

She didn’t understand. Neither did Priya. Because they didn’t know the truth about me. They had no idea I was the daughter of the once well-loved former head coach of Minnesota University’s prestigious NCAA Division I men’s hockey program.

Last summer had been a terrible scramble for me.

First, I’d tried to find an alternate school with an engineering program to attend other than the same one from which Dad had been terminated.

Somewhere far away, in some corner of the country where no one had heard of him.

But the cost of out-of-state tuition was too much.

And then it turned out only a few of my classmates from my suburban high school would be going here, a university with a student population of thirty thousand.

So, instead, I changed my name from Bianchini to Blankin.

That way I could start anew, incognito, as a college freshman.

No past to burden me. No scandalous father to ruin my chances for success.

Of course, my mom had been upset at the name change, but I’d told her that Blankin was the English form of our Italian last name. I was sure Ellis Island immigrants had done the same thing over a century ago.

We made it to a spot out of earshot of the gossip. I closed my eyes and waited for my heartbeat to slow. That was close. Too close.

Priya peered out the window, which was layered in January frost. “Wow, look at all the buses. Three of them, I think.”

“We had to reserve that many because one-third of the dorm is going,” Emma said. “About two hundred people signed up.”

Unbelievable. We were ridiculous, all of us. I mean, we were kind, of course, for raising money for the Special Olympics, but foolish for participating in a challenge that could give us hypothermia.

We were ushered outside, and I winced as freezing air burned my face and the hairs inside my nose turned into icicles.

I tugged my fake-fur-lined hood over my head and snapped it under my chin.

There must be a way to get out of this without hurting Emma’s feelings.

I was not jumping into thirty-two-degree-Fahrenheit water. Only absurd people did that.

Our bus was nearly full, so we sat in the last open spots, next to a vent blowing hot air onto our legs. Emma and I were on a bench seat together with Priya in front of us. The buzz of conversation filled every inch of space around us.

Then silence spread like a shock wave all the way to the back. I looked up from under my hood. Everyone’s attention was on a guy in a fleece beanie moving down the aisle.

The tips of my fingers tingled. Not from the cold, because they’d warmed up.

But because I was so glad I wasn’t him. If I’d walked onto the bus and everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared at me, I’d have died.

Seriously died. I hated attention of any kind.

The anonymity I’d established on campus this year needed to be kept that way.

He passed us.

“I didn’t know he signed up to take the plunge,” Emma whispered.

Priya leaned over the seat back. “Who is he?”

“He’s the guy in our dorm rumored to have slept with thirty girls since the beginning of the school year,” Emma said.

I perked up. I wasn’t sure if the energy drink had finally kicked in or if Emma’s words had done it. My grogginess lifted as if it were smog, and I could finally breathe again.

“Did you say thirty?” I asked.

Emma nodded. “Gross, isn’t it?”

The large number made me think of the article I’d shown Priya and Emma the other day. For weeks now, I’d been trying to find a drug-free remedy for my inability to sleep. Eye masks, deep breathing exercises, chamomile tea, tryptophan supplements. Nothing had worked, and I was desperate.

The internet suggested one last thing. Sex.

If the rumor was true and this guy had slept with that many women, that would be more than two girls—two different girls—per week.

“It is gross,” I agreed. “But I’m still jealous. With all that sex, he must be the Yoda of falling asleep.”

“Oh right. Your sex-cures-insomnia theory.” Priya craned her neck to follow his progress down the narrow aisle. “Maybe he’d be a good candidate.”

“Priya.” Emma frowned. “Don’t give her any ideas.”

I kept my eyes straight ahead. The neurons in my brain pulled on my shoulders, begging me to watch him, but I gripped the seat back in front of me and resisted the urge. The last thing I wanted was to shower more attention on the dorm’s Playboy of the Year.

The noise in the bus picked up again.

Priya fell back in her seat. “Well, he is hot. I’ll give him that. What’s his name?”

“Dallas,” Emma said.

Priya lowered her chin. “As in Dallas, Texas?”

“That’s right.”

My stomach shook. I sputtered a laugh.

Priya’s brows knitted together. “What’s so funny?”

“His name is perfect.” I sat back in the seat. “What comes to mind when you think of Texas?”

“Football,” Emma said.

“Cowboys,” Priya suggested.

“Good guesses.” I nodded. “But I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Everything’s bigger in Texas,’ if you know what I mean…”

We all giggled together.

“Um.” Priya’s voice hummed like the radiator in our dorm room. “Here he comes again.”

He brushed by, heading for the door. Probably to find a different bus with open seats.

This time, I checked him out as best I could.

Weird that we’d lived in the same dorm for an entire semester and he didn’t look familiar to me.

Just for fun, I scrolled down my list of requirements for the kind of guy I’d consider having sex with to fix my sleep problem.

Number one: appearance. Texas had a good shoulder width, a trim waistline, and a strong profile. But he’d moved so fast, it was hard to get a complete assessment. I might not have enough information to determine whether he actually fulfills the appearance section of my list.

Number two: attraction. I didn’t feel any butterflies fluttering, so there was no instant pull, but again, I didn’t have enough data.

However, I knew for certain he’d never pass the rest of my requirements.

Number three: personality. If Texas’s reputation was any indicator, he’d be one of those self-absorbed guys. The kind I had no time for.

Number four: social skills. He’d been alone on the bus with no friends, which might mean he had no sense of humor either.

Number five: intelligence. This one was the most difficult to satisfy. This and number two—attraction—were rarely, if ever, packaged together. I should know. Most of Priya’s and my engineering classmates were male, and all of them were smart. But could I find one I was attracted to in the bunch?

No.

I raised my chin. Priya was wrong. Texas was not even close to being a good candidate for Operation: Get Laid.

Campus was located in the heart of Minneapolis–St. Paul, and it took the bus only fifteen minutes to drive to the plunge site in an urban neighborhood.

Lake Nokomis was surrounded by pedestrian and bike paths that had been converted into cross-country ski trails for the winter.

When we pulled to a stop, my stomach tangled like a ball of string.

I still didn’t want to do this, not at all.

Maybe with so many people, no one would know whether I plunged or not.

Emma found us a spot in a warming tent and peeled off her jacket. “When we get up there, the three of us should hold hands and go in together. It’ll be awesome.”

A pang shot through my chest. Forget about getting lost in the crowd. Emma wasn’t going to let me out of her sight.

Soon we were on the wooden boardwalk leading out over the ice to the hole. A thermometer showed a balmy six degrees. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The only things between the ice-cold water and me were my fleece joggers, tennis shoes, and shirt.

My stomach churned. While others around us shouted and cheered, I focused on me. The thought of what we were about to do was making me sick.

“When this is over,” I said, “I’m going to cocoon myself in bed for the rest of the weekend.”

“Don’t forget about tonight.” Emma hooked her arm through mine.

“What’s tonight?” I asked.

“Our floor is going to that house party,” Priya said.

Great. The first party night of the semester. I’d stress about how much alcohol I should or shouldn’t consume, and then, when we got back home, my anxiety would mushroom. When everyone else passed out, I’d still be wide awake.

Suddenly, we were there—on the platform. Below us, an EMT in a wet suit stood chest-high in black water. Behind us, people waited for their turn. I could still make a run for it, straight across the ice and into the tents.

Emma grabbed my hand and smiled.

She and Priya jumped, and I was forced to follow.

I hit the water and froze solid. My heart seized. My lungs squeezed so tight I couldn’t even scream.

The soft lake bottom made me stumble. Water rose past my shoulders and numbed the lobes of my ears.

The EMT pushed me to the ladder. Another person hauled me out of the water, my clothes plastered to my body. I started shaking so hard it was like I was standing next to someone jackhammering a sidewalk.

My legs wouldn’t move. They were made of one-hundred-pound ice cubes.

I looked up…and there was Texas, standing in line and looking straight at me. His chocolate-colored eyes made direct contact with mine and fused. I couldn’t glance away. Couldn’t stop staring. As much as I tried, my gaze remained frozen to his. As if a Fudgsicle held us together.

Priya was right. He was good-looking.

He flashed me a young Heath Ledger smile. The kind from 10 Things I Hate About You, where the muscles tug up at the corners of his mouth and form half-moon creases.

Ugh. It was official. Texas passed my appearance requirements.