Chapter Fourteen Keely
Chapter Fourteen
Keely
Keely stared intently at Dr. Goff the Wednesday following her and Max’s weird showdown at the shelter, studying each individual eyebrow lift or jerk of her mouth, every subtle nod. How fast her eyes jumped across the page and when she flipped to a new one.
This was Keely’s third attempt at an essay for the scholarship application, and she already knew it wasn’t going to cut it. She sat back and waited for the blow.
“Better,” Dr. Goff said eventually, dropping the paper back on the desk.
“ ‘Better’ doesn’t win scholarships, Linda,” Keely sighed, shoulders slumping. When Linda gave her a pointed look, she tacked on a rushed, “I mean, Dr. Goff. Respectfully.”
The counselor peered at her. “Your application overall is strong. And the addition of your new community service will look great alongside your campus involvement.”
The essay was still terrible, was what she didn’t say.
“I don’t know how else to write it.” Keely rubbed at a knot in her neck. “It’s missing something, but I don’t know what.” Unease stirred in her belly.
Though if Keely was being honest, she’d been a little uneasy all week, waiting for Max to retaliate.
Or was it still her turn? Wires were getting crossed, failed attempts merging with successful ones until the entire thing was a mess.
It was too big to write on her checklist, too many colors to label as any one thing.
“If I can speak frankly. . .” Dr. Goff clicked her red pen open and closed a few times on her desk.
It drove Keely crazy. She didn’t want her essay to warrant a red pen in the first place.
“I think your essays—all three of them—” she coughed “—have been fine enough, but what they’re lacking is passion.
And that’s the entire point of the scholarship. ”
“I have passion. So much!” Keely tried to smile, but it felt waxy and forced, and it showed in the wince Dr. Goff couldn’t stifle quickly enough.
“I love science. I love the potential. It’s the study of life at its most basic form, finding ways to improve upon what centuries of people before us have learned and discovered. ”
She should write that down.
“I believe you, but I’m not on the committee.
And the people who are will only see this.
” Dr. Goff tapped the paper. “If you have the chance, you should ask to read Max Simmons’s essay.
It’s the strongest part of his application, and I don’t want to freak you out, but it alone puts him in contention. ”
Well that was horrible news.
“What I’ll do is mark this up more thoroughly for you, pull out some areas you can expand on your passion for science, learning and discovery. All the things you told me about just now.”
More essay edits. More sleepless nights. More checkboxes in her planner, with no additional time to check them.
“Thank you.” Keely’s phone beeped with a calendar reminder for study group. Quickly, she pulled up her texts. The one she’d sent her mother last night: do you have time to talk?, her mother’s response of I’ll call you later, the call that never came.
Blowing out a breath, Keely gathered her things.
Dr. Goff watched her. “I mean it.” The essay was slid into a desk drawer out of Keely’s view. She immediately wanted it back. “Talk to Max. Learn from each other.”
The snow outside had all but melted, only dirty gray clumps lingering in the shadows, but Keely still wanted to tell her there was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
She spent the next several hours bouncing around campus. Somewhere between classes, study groups, and fighting with the sample incubator during her thesis work block, she also decided she absolutely did not need to read Max’s essay.
Keely was passionate. She was so passionate it kept her awake at night, made it so her brain didn’t turn off and wouldn’t stop ruminating on issues until they’d been solved.
If she weren’t so passionate, her heart wouldn’t ache with the threat of failure, and her stomach wouldn’t twist with the possibility of her life not working out the way she had planned since she’d learned what planning meant.
She needed to buckle down, try harder, concentrate more, focus on Max Simmons and his infuriating face less. And if she did it well enough, she’d show Max and her parents and Dr. Goff and everyone—maybe even herself—she was meant for this after all.
So, hours later, after the janitor had practically picked up Keely’s feet to vacuum under them, she trudged back home.
She loved this apartment. It was one of her safe spaces, alongside her designated table in the library and her bedroom back home—until recently, at least. She and Zoey had moved here for their sophomore year and never looked back.
While it was humble (and always smelled vaguely of dust, no matter how many clearance-section candles they burned), they’d taken care to decorate it as best they could with cheap thrift store finds, gifts from birthdays or holidays.
They were still scientists at heart, though.
Below the TV, instead of a gaming system or DVDs, they’d stacked Keely’s biochemistry textbooks, Zoey’s multiple editions of Gray’s Anatomy.
The books they shared, advanced calculus and differential equations.
They referenced them regularly. One singular spider plant hung in the corner, above their anatomically correct model skeleton affectionately named Seeley Booth.
And above the television, which they had to wipe dust from on the off chance they turned it on, hung art prints of women in science, their icons and inspiration.
For Keely: Barbara McClintock, Dorothy Hodgkin, Katherine Johnson. Katherine’s book was on Keely’s nightstand, even if she hadn’t had time to read so much as a page since the semester had started.
For Zoey: Isabella Cortese, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Anna Morandi Manzolini, the Italian women Zoey looked up to and idolized from within her own Italian-American family.
For both of them: Marie Curie, the original badass Woman of Science herself, right in the center.
On the couch, Zoey hunched over her notes, but she straightened when Keely dropped her bag in a chair. “Where have you been?” Her words carried an unusual bite.
Keely had never been caught sneaking in after curfew, but she imagined it a lot like this.
“I had biochem lab until eight,” she said around a yawn. “I stayed after to work on my thesis for a bit.” And got next to nowhere. At this rate, it wouldn’t matter if she won the scholarship. Caltech wouldn’t take her if she couldn’t defend her thesis.
Zoey pushed her shoulders back, and her spine cracked like dry pasta. “I thought we were going to start planning the auction for Women in Science tonight.”
Keely’s stomach did a free fall. “What? That wasn’t tonight.” Had she—had she forgotten something? Something as important as this?
She pulled her planner from her backpack and flipped to this week’s spread. Sccchick. A paper cut on her middle finger. It didn’t sting as much as the threat of disappointing her best friend. “Oh, here it is. I wrote it down for tomorrow.”
Keely looked up to arched eyebrows and a pinched mouth.
“But you have thesis lab tomorrow,” Zoey said. “We can start now.”
A laugh flew from Keely’s lips. “Zo, it’s nearly midnight. I’m about to pass out. Can we do it tomorrow, please? We’ve got a WIS meeting at lunch anyway.”
Zoey slid the notebook on her lap shut. “Cassie’s presenting her picks for this year’s Nobel Prizes. She’s had it scheduled for weeks. Everyone’s really excited.”
Unticked checkboxes flashed in Keely’s mind, each one louder and bigger with every blink.
Box one: the fundraising for Women in Science’s spring auction.
It covered administrative costs and floated anyone who couldn’t swing the fees coming into a new semester.
It was how they were able to allow access to everyone, regardless of income levels.
They never turned anyone away, and the group was richer and more diverse because of it.
Keely had implemented it her first semester.
Box two: her thesis, which needed exponentially more hours in a week than she had access to.
Box three: her essay, which lacked passion.
What she needed was to lock herself in her room, put on her noise-canceling headphones, and hammer out another, much more passionate draft.
But there wasn’t time for that, either.
Keely persisted. “Friday night, then. I don’t have plans.” She dug for a pen to block out the evening.
“I’m flying home tomorrow after class. It’s Great Aunt Lucia’s birthday.” Zoey sighed, stretching her legs in front of her. “That’s why we decided on tonight, remember?”
How had Keely screwed this up so badly? Her arms fell limply to her sides. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Keel.” Zoey picked up her notebooks and computer. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Without further fanfare, she went down the hall to her room, throwing a half-hearted “goodnight” back to Keely, where she stood frozen by the table.
For about five seconds, before she swayed against it. If her back didn’t meet her bed in ten minutes, she’d fall asleep standing up.
Exactly nine minutes and thirty seconds later, she was out cold, the to-do list she’d been updating in her phone notes still glowing on her screen.
· · · · ·
The next morning, Keely woke with an angry headache from lack of sleep. By Saturday afternoon, her entire body pulsed with that same anger.
She’d shown up bright and early to Matilda’s, only to be greeted with a grunt. “I don’t need you anymore.”
Keely had blinked. Then she’d spread her smile wider, made sure it lit up her eyes and crinkled the skin of her nose. No one could resist that. “Of course you do. How else will you get your groceries?”
Matilda, it seemed, could resist. “I thought someone would have called you.”
Called about what? Keely had shifted on her feet. “Is something wrong?”