Chapter 9
Jaylin winced when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He gently prodded the darkened splotch on his neck, and even that touch made him wince again. Stupid Brent with his stupid teeth–
There was more than one mark on his neck, and way too many on his shoulders and collarbone, but the neck was most pressing. Jaylin muttered curses to himself for a few more moments before he heaved a sigh. He was getting worked up over nothing. It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter.
He had other things to worry about anyway, what with midterms right around the corner.
Those were a completely different beast.
Jaylin had been trying not to let himself get too worked up about the oncoming tests because he knew that wouldn’t actually help him, but it was hard considering the fact that he had never tested well.
Logical-Jaylin had been trying to remind him that things were different now, but Anxious-Jaylin couldn't stop whispering what if.
What if his teachers decided to forget about his accommodations?
What if he failed all his tests and wasted all his hard work so far?
What if he disappointed Aditi, Diego, Hiro, who had all done so much to help him?
The week leading up to midterms passed in a blur of anxiety, studying, realizing he didn't have anything left to study, and more anxiety. He knew the stuff backwards and forwards, but couldn't shake the internal voice that kept screaming at him how tests are a big deal and you’ve never tested well–
It was a lot.
Even Brent backed off a bit, giving Jaylin some actual space to pace circles into his apartment flooring as he worried.
Then it was testing week.
Serena gave him a tight smile when Jaylin met her for private office hours—his special accommodation for his astronomy test. Jaylin tried not to let it get to him as he sat down across from her.
He didn't really have a read on Serena, but he could tell there was something about him that put her off.
But at least she was still doing her job. “Ready, Mr. West?”
Jaylin nodded, face heated, but he was as ready as he’d ever be. “Yeah.”
“You are aware that I will not tolerate any attempts of cheating of any kind,” Serena said, voice a little snippy.
“Uh, yeah.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but Jaylin answered anyway. “Of course.”
“Okay, let’s get started.” Serena looked at her computer screen. “What are the two most abundant components of the sun?”
“Hydrogen and helium,” Jaylin said without missing a beat.
She flicked a glance at him. “What are the three main parts of the sun’s interior?”
“The core, the radiative zone, and the convective zone,” Jaylin said easily. He barely had to think. The answers were right there, in his head.
Serena gave him a longer look. “How do we measure a galaxy’s distance?”
“Usually by measuring redshift and extrapolating from there,” Jaylin said, before realizing he was probably supposed to expand on that. “Should I, uh, explain redshift?”
“If you’d like,” Serena said, watching him.
Wow, okay, that was no help. But it was probably better to over-answer instead of under-answer, right?
“Okay, so, uh, redshift is the degree to which the universe’s expansion has stretched its light heading toward Earth.
We then use independently measured numbers like the Hubble parameter, to infer how far away the galaxy was when it emitted the light we see now… ”
He went on to explain the method in its entirety, and also threw in how some scientists also derived the distance from the galaxy’s luminosity or from its angular size–but how those were different approaches with their own caveats–just to be safe.
When he was finished, Serena’s expression looked a lot less calculating and a lot more open. Jaylin wondered if he was imagining the little flicker of a smile.
They moved on to the next question, and nothing had really changed, but the atmosphere in the room felt better, somehow.
***
When Jaylin stumbled out of his statistics midterm, he felt dazed, not quite sure if he should believe the clock.
He’d been giving permission to use his read-aloud and dictation gadgets to take his test—in a private room with supervision, of course—and what had been scheduled for a three-hour time slot had only taken one.
Now it was barely ten and Jaylin was done with midterms and officially on spring break, and he didn't know what to do with himself.
He walked past the testing room where the regular statistics midterm was still going on and peeked in. He could pick out Diego’s ever-present green beanie even with the way Diego was hunched over his test, so it looked like Diego was still in the thick of things.
Knowing Diego’s phone was on silent, Jaylin sent him a message telling him that he hoped Diego did well, and asking if he wanted to meet up later to talk over how they did. Then he pocketed his phone and leaned against a wall in the hallway, trying to think.
What should he do now? He’d scheduled himself to work at El Guanaco for all of next week, but when he’d asked for hours for Thursday through the weekend, he’d been told, firmly, that he was supposed to rest after midterms and he could stand to take the weekend off.
Which, fine, but Jaylin was used to being busy.
Sometimes he’d been so busy and tired that he could hardly stand it.
Now, all this free time was a commodity he still wasn't sure how to utilize.
Some of it had been taken up by work and socializing, the latter of which was wild, having time to have friends, but that still left him several hours a day to just putter around.
He glanced back at the testing room. He’d like to wait for Diego, but he had no idea how long his friend would take to finish up. Probably best to just go home in the meantime.
Jaylin started down the hallway, heading out of the building and trying to brainstorm about what to do when he got home. He didn't even have anything in his apartment to clean, because he’d been anxiety-cleaning all week in an attempt to get his mind off his midterms.
He had the sudden urge to send Hiro a message and see what the man was up to.
Also maybe to let Hiro know Jaylin was thinking of him?
It was ten on a Thursday though, which meant preparation for the Friday rush before the weekend.
Hiro would probably be way too busy to reply to Jaylin’s silly message.
By the time Jaylin got home, he had convinced himself to at least wait to contact Hiro until it was closer to six, when the workday was over. Not that Hiro didn't take his work home with him like most salaried lawyers, but Hiro tried pretty hard to maintain a decent work-life balance.
He’d been making time for Jaylin, after all.
Thinking of Hiro gave Jaylin an idea though.
He had all those colored pencils now, as well as a couple sketchbooks with different paper weights—also courtesy of Hiro—who had given them to Jaylin so Jaylin could “figure out what he liked best.” Another thoughtful, touching gift Hiro had given Jaylin-the-person, someone with personal tastes and interests.
Yet another direct contrast to Brent, who gave Jaylin things that were only expensive, and that came with a series of terms and conditions.
Jaylin really needed to stop comparing Hiro and Brent. If nothing else, it was a huge disservice to Hiro.
Pushing Brent out of his mind, he grabbed a sketchbook and sat down at his little kitchen table with his tin of colored pencils and, without a real plan, started to doodle, trying for something fun and lighthearted. Something that he hoped would make Hiro smile.
He wasn’t a stellar artist or anything, but with more time to spend on drawing, Jaylin had been seeing improvement in his sketches.
This time he ended up with a little cartoon figure of a character that could possibly be considered based on Hiro, going by build and hair alone.
Jaylin gave him a sleek-looking futuristic outfit and, after some thought, also gave him Jaylin’s best rendition of a rocketship.
Things sort of spiraled from there.
By the time Jaylin remembered that his phone was still on silent from his test and that he should probably check to see if Diego had messaged him back, he was grinning stupidly to himself over the comic he had drawn out to accompany Hiro’s cartoon persona.
He had taken to calling it The Adventures of Captain Hirohito Miyazaki, Explorer of Deep Space in his head.
There weren’t any words, just bubbles with images in them to act as dialogue, but Jaylin had definitely gotten his own narrative going.
It was silly and ridiculous and fun , and he was actually even pretty sure Hiro would like it too. Jaylin had no idea how he’d show it to Hiro without combusting with embarrassment, but that was a problem for Future Jaylin.
Present Jaylin wiggled his phone out of his pocket, eyebrows shooting up when it told him that it was already noon. He glanced back to the comic and at how much he’d managed to draw. Yeah, okay, noon checked out.
There were two voice messages waiting for him, one from Diego sent at 11:30… and the other from Hiro from just a few minutes ago.
Jaylin forced himself to listen to Diego’s first.
“Hey man! Glad to hear your test went well. I think I did okay? I mean, I hope so! I’m pretty sure I did.
Like, I know this stuff backwards and forwards.
I just get nervous, you know? And okay, sorry, I’m babbling–yeah, I’d love to hang out!
I’ve got my business admin test at four but I’d be so down to like, get lunch or something and try to distract myself until then. Let me know!”
Hiro’s message was a simple, “Hey Jaylin. I think you should be out of your last midterm by now, so congratulations on being halfway through the semester! I’d love to see you tonight and celebrate if you’re free, but no pressure if you’ve got other plans.”