Chapter 34
Dakota
“You don’t do neon research anymore,” I commented, half-questioning, idly flipping through Dr. Killshaw’s bound dissertation. He didn’t stop his work on the distillation column as my voice cut through the quietness.
I kicked my feet, the soles of my boots hitting the metal stool in a quiet rhythm.
The column had been running for almost three hours at this point, and I was feeling a bit antsy.
Some of our downtime had been spent going through those textbooks I’d checked out from the library, Dr. Killshaw helping me a lot more then the printed words, but I’d finished that assignment now.
We would probably stop work to get lunch soon—or so I assumed.
“No,” Dr. Killshaw answered. “I used to, in school. I’ve since moved on.”
“To sustainability,” I surmised.
“Sure.”
He turned back to the computer, adjusting things on a variety of programs. There had been less work for me to do today, since it was a true full-day run, which had allowed me to spend more time working on my assignments.
This run would give results he really needed for his research.
It was a trial he wasn’t going to give me any chances to screw up.
Unlike last time, when I botched the separation and then got flustered trying to answer questions afterwards.
I tried not to think about that.
There was a knock at the door, and my head whipped in the direction of the sound.
“Come in,” Dr. Killshaw called, adjusting a knob on the column.
Nick, his graduate student assistant, stood in the doorway with a brown paper bag. His eyes flickered to mine for a brief second, then settled on Dr. Killshaw.
“I got the bagels,” he said, crinkling the bag. Lunch?
“Thank you for doing that. Set them on the table outside,” Dr. Killshaw instructed, motioning with his free hand.
Nick disappeared momentarily, dropping the bag of bagels off on a table just outside the lab, pushed against the wall.
I’d noticed it before, but I hadn’t assumed there was an actual purpose for it—until now.
It was for eating. No eating in the lab.
Nick reentered the room, propping his hands on his hips while he stood at the distillation column, watching.
The two men started conversing about the day’s run and I felt more and more useless by the second, my lack of chemical engineering experience sticking out like a sore thumb.
I couldn’t join the conversation, because I could hardly follow it.
Despite this being my major, it sounded like they were talking in code.
Their familiarity with each other, and the lab, and the distillation column couldn’t have been more obvious. Nick didn’t need anything explained to him, because he already understood everything.
Why am I even here? I don’t help him in any meaningful way.
I turned on my stool, facing back to the table, and busied myself with going over the assignment I’d already finished earlier, just to look busy.
“Dakota,” Dr. Killshaw said, not one minute after I’d turned away. “Do you want to eat?”
“Um, sure.” I fidgeted, aware of Nick’s eyes on me.
“Help yourself to the bagels out there.”
Is he dismissing me? Trying to get me to leave without being rude?
My face flushed with that thought, but I tried to hide it as I walked quickly out of the room, clutching my phone and my earbuds in one hand.
I opened the door, then let it swing shut behind me, plopping myself down on the single plastic chair at the table.
I fumbled with the paper bag, digging out a plain bagel and strawberry cream cheese.
Earbuds in my ears, I slathered on the pink spread, using a napkin as a plate, then ate my bagel with YouTube as my only companion.
While I chewed, an idea formed in my mind: I could pretend I was having some sort of personal emergency, then use that as an excuse to leave lab early.
I didn’t want to be the hindrance slowing them down, the annoyance sitting in the corner, sucking all the light out of the room.
The relief that came with my decision was laced with a quiet, yet familiar, type of sadness.
After finishing my bagel, I spent a moment steeling my nerves, then opened the door, prepared to spew my lie.
“Hey,” Dr. Killshaw greeted before I got a chance to speak. “Could you prop that door open? It’s getting warm in here.” He pointed at a door-stopper on the ground, so I moved to jam the wedge under the door, my momentum and confidence lost.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom really quick,” I said, pointlessly. Nobody responded.
I spun and walked rapidly down the hall, my pulse loud in my ears. If I could get another second to regroup, to organize my thoughts…
The bathroom was empty, the automatic lights off when I walked in.
I waved my arms around until they clicked on, then locked myself in a stall, hating how hard my heart was beating.
Anxiety made my stomach turn. Outsider. There’s no reason for me to be here.
They’re just looking for polite excuses to get me to leave.
My nails dug into my palms. I wasn’t sure I’d ever grow out of this insecurity.
It took me a minute to return my pulse to some version of normal, my mind full of numbers while I consciously counted out the seconds of each inhale and exhale. I shook out my hands, then left the bathroom, walking slowly back towards the lab.
As I approached, I heard voices.
“Dakota never talks much, does she? Kinda hard to read,” Nick said.
I froze in the hallway, humiliation making my stomach sink.
Tears instantly pricked my eyes, my face on fire.
It’ll always be this, won’t it? Nobody will ever notice anything about me, other than how quiet I am.
My gaze slid over to the window cut into the wall, peering through the slits in the blinds. I was hardly breathing. Both Nick and my professor were facing away from the window. I remained stuck where I stood, afraid to make my presence known now.
“She’s not hard to read,” Dr. Killshaw answered, neither of them looking away from what they were doing. “You just have to pay attention.”
“Well, yeah. I just mean she’s pretty quiet.”
There was a slight pause, tension lining Dr. Killshaw’s shoulders as he shifted his stance. “Quiet doesn’t mean absent. She notices more than most people,” he responded, his voice sharpening, cutting.
Silently, I backed away from the room, nearly tripping over my own feet as I went back to the bathroom, pressing my sleeves to my lower lashes to dry my tears before they could fall.
This was so stupid. I’m so stupid. Breaths tripped in and out of my chest. Nick wasn’t even being rude; he was simply making an observation.
A true observation. Any normal person wouldn’t get their feelings hurt by that.
But it was the same wound that’d been slowly bleeding me dry my entire life.
I had no armor for this vulnerability.
Dr. Killshaw’s words seeped into my memory, and I couldn’t figure out why he would say that. Was he defending me? Was I misreading this again? What if—
Stop.
I stared at myself in the mirror, a lump in my throat and my eyes slightly red, but I was determined to stop my spiraling. I had to go back into that room no matter what, even if just to get my stuff. It was unavoidable, so I needed to pull myself together long enough to do that.
As much as I wished I could disappear, make time stop for a little while, avoid all this, I couldn’t.
When I walked back into the lab, my pulse a drum in my ears, my fingers trembling, I found that Nick was gone. It made me pause.
“Nick had other responsibilities to tend to,” Dr. Killshaw explained, that same hardness in his tone. Almost like he was angry. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“I…”
He turned. “Did you?”
“I guess so.”
“Why don’t you sit down. We can do some exam review.”
I couldn’t move, though. Indecision had stolen all the space in my brain.
“Didn’t you want to do that?” he questioned, fully facing me.
“We don’t have to. I should’ve probably just gone to office hours,” I said. “It would be unfair.”
“Sit. Get out your exam review.”
His commands made it easier to get my body to move again. Following orders was doable. I sat on the same stool as always, then grabbed my laptop, balancing it on my knees.
“We’ll start with P&IDs. Fair?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Killshaw scribbled something on the whiteboard, then faced me expectantly, apparently wanting me to identify the symbol. I looked at the figure, then back at him, at a loss. After a second, he glanced back at what he’d drawn.
“That looks like shit. Sorry.” He smeared the side of his fist over the streaks, erasing and redrawing the symbol more neatly.
I pressed my lips together, a surprised laugh building in my chest. “Pressure relief valve.”
“Attagirl.” He sketched something else.
“It’s either a butterfly valve or a gate valve.”
“See, this is why I’m not drawing the exam. It’ll be printed.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. “It’s a gate valve, but yes, that line looks pretty diagonal. How about you draw them? Get up here.”
I hopped off the stool, a small smile pushing at the corners of my mouth.
Dr. Killshaw handed me the marker, but he didn’t let go of it.
My breath hitched quietly. Every molecule of my body wanted to lean into him, to succumb to the gravitational pull of him.
He was so warm, and it felt like he might actually care about me in a way nobody else did.
With food and sleep and help studying and research opportunities and his rare compliments.
His eyes lowered to my lips for a moment.
Nobody knows how to take care of you, do they? And you’ll never let anyone try.
In my mind, I became the deer from my memory, standing on the cusp of something that felt like safety because nobody would be able to find me once I went past the threshold. The darkness of the forest. A place to lose myself.
“What should I draw?” I whispered, inhaling the pine scent of him so close to me.