Heart Racer

Chapter One Keely

Chapter One

Keely

Sometimes, Keely Sinclair preferred to think about life in terms of atoms and cells.

They had perfectly definable expectations, ones she could look at and know instantly: pass or fail.

Atoms expected to remain whole, or to get that way as quickly as possible if they weren’t.

Cells expected to grow, to multiply and divide in their natural cycle.

Atoms made cells, cells made vitamins, and vitamins were going to be Keely’s life’s work one day.

Her entire thesis revolved around artificial energy—namely how to have more of it when you needed to study late in the evening, and less when it was midnight and you had to be up at five the next morning.

Atoms. Cells. Vitamins. Easy. Predictable.

People were. . . less so. She didn’t know why Jeremy Chen had missed Theory and Application of Computational Chemistry this past Tuesday, when it was still so early in the semester, but she’d offered her notes anyway when he emailed the entire roster in a panic.

Or why her neighbor Selina was going out of town midweek and needed someone to water her one single plant, but Keely agreed to that, too.

She didn’t like not meeting expectations.

While the chromatograph ran, Keely fiddled with her to-do list, written in her favorite Paper Mate Flair pen.

She liked it because it was permanent, no room for errors.

On the off chance she did make a mistake, she had to start over, as many times as it took to make it perfect.

And also, secretly her main reason, they came in fun colors.

Magenta for tests, blue for study groups, and the almighty Ruby Red for absolutely-important-do-not-forget tasks. Today’s list was filled with red.

Biochem II– review notes before study hall

Histology– Chapters 4-6

Thesis Work– book lab

TW– draw blood

TW– Check caffeine levels (use chromatograph this time?)

TACC– Send Jeremy notes

Selina– water plant on the way home

“Keely!”

Keely jumped, accidentally drawing a line straight through the last to-do on her list: go to bed early and re-run labs in the morning.

That was about right.

“Sorry, Lori.” Keely sat up, dropped her pen, and flexed her hand.

Her phone lay on the page, still glowing brightly.

She’d been syncing up her planner with her digital calendar, and a timer ran in the background, counting down the precious seconds to the end of her experiment.

She only had five to seven minutes to add the dye after the test stopped, and seven was pushing it.

She spun on the stool, giving Lori a full grin alongside her attention. “What were you saying?”

Her lab partner’s mouth was drawn into a straight line.

They didn’t have much in common. Keely’s default was smile, and Lori’s was frown.

Keely’s hair was golden brown, claw-clipped in a style that took her exactly twenty-three seconds to perfect each morning.

Lori’s hair was box-dye black, unbrushed, and it often fell in her eyes.

Lori had a hoop through her septum and Keely cried when she got her ears pierced at thirteen.

Whereas Keely lived with her best friend in a glorified closet masquerading as a two-bedroom apartment, Lori lived in a house off-campus with her boyfriend.

Keely was from the East Coast, grew up a little under five hours away outside Richmond; Lori’s parents resided in downtown Portland, Oregon.

More than that, Lori’s parents were still together. Keely’s were not.

But her and Lori’s final thesis projects were complementary, so their advisor stuck them together last year when they declared their biochemistry tracks.

Proximity had made them friends, but shared extracurriculars made it stick.

That was sort of how it went by the time you got to spring semester of senior year: the same faces, in every lecture, day after day.

“I’m heading home.” Lori swiped her student ID off the desk where she’d been working, then her scarf from the back of her chair. “It’s almost eight.”

Keely wiped at her eyes, wishing her final thesis cared about trivial things like clocks or bedtimes. She wondered if the vending machine on the second floor still had the caramel apple energy drinks stocked from fall. “I’ve got a few more hours left, I think.”

Lori’s mouth pinched, her septum piercing skewing sideways as her nose followed suit. “I can hang out if you want company.”

“No, no. You go home. Eat food that isn’t from a vending machine.” Cuddle with your boyfriend. Have a life outside the lab.

That garnered a small smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Lori slung her backpack over her shoulder. When Keely didn’t nod, Lori’s dark brows inched up her forehead as she tugged the zipper of her coat. “For Olympiad training at lunch?”

Keely nodded, subtly flipping to tomorrow’s page in her planner. “Of course. I’ll be there.” If it was written down—and it was—Keely was legally obligated to not only attend but to give it her all.

She really hoped tonight’s experiment would tell her how to do that, over and over again.

Maybe she’d discover some incredibly rare phenomenon where she could multiply herself, do everything she needed, then merge back. Cells did it all the time, no problem.

Oh, to be a cell in a biochemistry lab.

After Lori had left, Keely checked the countdown on her phone. It’d be close, but she could run and grab something from the vending machine to tide her over.

Davidson Hall was built to accommodate massive lecture rooms, and since the college wasn’t big enough—or endowed enough—to have a separate lab building, her thighs suffered every time she needed to be on the second floor.

A few other students lingered, escaping from late-night labs or huddled in study groups, the first major tests of the new semester on the horizon.

“Keely, hey.” Sam Mabry, her friend from Inorganic Chemistry, waved her over to a table tucked in the alcove behind the vending machines. “My savior. Please help me. Do you remember where this coefficient goes when the special conditions are met?”

Keely glanced at Sam’s notebook, though she really shouldn’t ask. Her test had maybe five minutes remaining when she left, and she’d used two of them already. Plus she could hardly breathe from the impromptu StairMaster exercise.

“What are the special conditions?” she asked anyway, because it mattered, and because she couldn’t leave someone in the lurch. That was an expectation, and well—

As Sam explained his predicament, she reached in her lab coat pocket to peek at the timer. It was empty, save an old peppermint wrapper. Her phone must still be tucked between the pages of her planner.

She didn’t love handing out the answer, but time was of the essence. She scanned his paper more thoroughly. “Oh, this is a trick question. There’s no heat factor here.” She pointed at the variable. “So it wouldn’t react anyway. The entire coefficient becomes zero.”

“Oh, duh. That was the last chapter, wasn’t it?”

“Two chapters ago, I think.”

“Thanks, Keel.” Sam held up his hand for a high-five. She returned it, along with his genuine smile. She really did love helping people. It gave her a little. . . boost. “Hey, are you going to Jamie’s party this weekend?”

“I’m not sure yet. We’ll have to see how this lab goes.” She grimaced. “We should get coffee soon, though.”

Maya Maldonado, a friend from Keely’s multiple science-based extracurriculars, leaned over the arm of her wheelchair to grip Keely’s elbow. Her study materials took up the other half of Sam’s table. “Please. We can go after Olympiad practice tomorrow?”

“I’ve got yours, Keely,” Sam chimed, grinning. “For saving me with this analysis.” He sent Keely on her way with a two-finger salute to his temple.

She ignored the little voice in her head saying, if you go to sleep right now, you’ll still only get six hours and thirteen minutes. And the vending machine was, in fact, out of caramel apple energy drinks.

The chromatograph wasn’t spinning when she came back, her phone chiming with the alarm alert between the pages of her planner.

She ran over to it, even though rushing now was futile.

She shouldn’t have stopped to help Sam but couldn’t bring herself to regret it—at least she would have achieved something today.

After silencing her alarm, Keely dropped the dye in half-heartedly. This experiment was as good as failed.

Yet, despite her pessimism, as she watched and waited for the results, blood rushed to her cheeks.

Her fingertips tingled. Her toes too, no matter how much she wiggled them in her shoes.

She always got this way right before an experiment finished, jittery with anticipation and adrenaline. Who needed caffeine, anyway?

Keely’s brain spun like the machines tucked along the wall, running overnight tests for other students.

Was there weight behind that random thought?

Adrenaline? Is that what she’s been missing in all her previous research?

That made sense. Adrenaline had a crash like sugar or her beloved caffeine, but was also naturally produced.

She grabbed her phone to jot it down, for poring over later when she inevitably couldn’t sleep.

An email preview waited on her screen, and it derailed her train of thought. Her everything.

Your most recent loan application status

Keely was onto something with the adrenaline thing, because she didn’t hesitate to open it, the way she normally did with important emails. This time, she ripped off the Band-Aid.

And started bleeding out.

Dear Keely Sinclair,

Thank you for your recent application for a continued education loan with Valley View Bank and Trust. After careful review of your application and supporting documentation, we regret to inform you we are unable to approve your loan at this time in line with our internal credit policy, and your application has been denied.