Chapter Forty Keely
Chapter Forty
Keely
It worked.
Her endless refresh cycle had miraculously produced an email in the minutes between apps.
More than that, the email it produced had been positive.
Dear Miss Keely Sinclair. . . pleased to offer you the Pursue Your Passions scholarship. . . Extracurriculars and academic resumé, in addition to your essays. . . Field was extremely competitive. . .
She finished reading the email and burst into tears, right in the middle of the library, and not for the reason she ever would have guessed.
Max.
Max had lost and Keely had won, and it wasn’t supposed to feel like this. None of it was right. His dreams, the dreams of his dad and his family, had turned to dust because of her.
She still sat at their table in the library. Still held her breath every time footsteps came up the stairs. Still looked for him around every corner, on every square inch of this campus.
They’d made it three and a half years without running into each other; no wonder it was so easy for him to pretend she didn’t exist now.
Keely wasn’t that skilled yet. Wasn’t ready to pretend they hadn’t happened in the first place. Her heart—something she rarely let take the lead—wouldn’t let her.
Wiping her face on her shoulder, she pulled her Finals Week To-Do List in front of her.
Pick up cap and gown
Histology Final Tuesday @ 9:00a.m.
TACC Final Wednesday @ 12:00p.m.
Submit thesis paper
Results of PYP submission
With a shaky hand, holding her breath until her eyeballs pulsed, she crossed off the last item with a green pen.
This was everything she’d wanted. It was all going exactly as she’d planned.
So why was there a nagging tug in her gut that told her something was horribly, massively wrong?
She skimmed the email again.
In addition to your essays. . .
Keely blinked, a tear dripping onto the page of her planner as her head tilted. She hadn’t caught that the other dozen times. Essays, plural?
It must have been a typo. Academic professionals: they were people too. Lord knows Dr. Goff’s recent emails were riddled with extra punctuation and grammar mistakes. The one Keely had received this morning had no body text, and the subject line simply read COM C ME ASP!
It wasn’t sinking in yet that she had won.
Maybe when she told someone? But who did she have left to tell?
She and Zoey were barely speaking. Sam, Maya, and Jeremy all had their own finals to study for, and their plans had been sorted.
There was no sympathy to be had in the scientific field. She was used to that by now.
She couldn’t tell her parents, even though this entire convoluted scheme was for them. She hadn’t ever told them her funding was in jeopardy. Bringing this up now—days before graduation—would open Keely up for more worries, criticism she wasn’t sure she’d ever harden to.
And Max was, obviously, out of the question.
She pictured his face, the exact opposite of how he’d been in her bed. Waking her up with slow kisses down her spine or putting her to sleep with tender ones on her forehead.
He’d get the crimp between his eyebrows the way he did when she wasn’t explaining something well enough. His mouth would pinch, his strong shoulders would hunch. Let out a little puff of air from between his rosy lips.
Keely wanted to stand in the sun and see if it touched the chill that settled in when Max had walked out her front door.
She’d just walk by the track. If he was there, she’d apologize for how it had ended. Offer him luck at his upcoming races, well health for his dad. A more natural conclusion than the jagged edges and unanswered questions that existed there now.
The sunshine warmed her face but little else, and she tugged her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands. Max’s sweatshirt sleeves. He’d left it bundled at the foot of her bed the night of the essay-a-thon and had ignored all her attempts to return it.
She pulled it up to her nose now, inhaling the scent that had, at some point this year, started soothing her more than mints or coffee.
She hadn’t planned for it. For anything that had happened to her this semester—Max, most of all.
So what did it mean that she got the same swoop in her stomach when Max looked at her as when she nailed a convoluted equation, or when one of her students at school got the answer she’d been leading them toward?
Was there room in her plan for surprises?
Keely came to a crossroads in the winding paths across campus. She’d walked them hundreds of times now, could draw a map in her sleep.
Davidson was to the left, labs and lecture halls as familiar to her as her own mind. She’d honed her mind in those very walls, decided the path that would please and help the most people.
Other parts of campus, like the athletics buildings, the education building, hadn’t existed on her radar until this semester.
Once again, she had Max to thank for that.
As Keely stood in the middle of the path, a student rushing to a final bumped into her. The breeze blew her hair in that new, unknown direction.
She’d almost secured the teaching position. A matter of timing, the woman on the phone had said.
Keely could do it, right? Completely change course and rewrite the rest of her life, with no instruction manual, no to-do lists?
Who was she kidding—she was Keely Sinclair. The founder of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Science Olympiad, President of AMU’s Women in Science Society, total biochem badass. Of course she could change paths.
She turned away from the gym and went to pick up her cap and gown instead.
· · · · ·
The admin building crawled with students either squeezing in last-minute counseling appointments or picking up graduation regalia. Everywhere Keely looked, green and gold fought for dominance. She had a headache.
The gowns were deep emerald, AMU’s seal in gold stitching. Keely would have several cords, a few each for participating in and being leadership for WIS and the Olympiad, plus a gold stole, an outward reflection of all Keely’s hard work. Graduating with honors—in the wrong major.
She bit her lip, because despite the horrible prospects of her post-grad life, she kind of wanted to laugh.
A few administrative faculty members stood to the side, answering questions already answered in the dozens of mass emails sent over the previous two weeks.
Dr. Goff stood behind the table for students with last names P–S, and she waved as Keely riffled through the cellophane bags.
“How are finals going for you?” Dr. Goff sipped out of a Q-branded disposable coffee cup.
Keely noted the tea bag pinned under the rim. Huh. Maybe Keely should switch to tea.
“They’re fine.” She threw a smile up as her fingers skipped over Price, Ruiz, Simmons—
Simmons, Maxwell.
A little breathless laugh slipped from her mouth. It was probably for the best that she’d forgotten his full name this time around. She’d have been thinking about Maxwell’s equations the entire time. No wonder she was magnetized to him.
She lingered for longer than was wise. Her pinkie snagged on the tag and left a little smear of ink behind.
“Great, actually,” Keely amended, plucking her own bag from behind Max’s with hot cheeks. “I submitted my thesis paper a few days ago.”
“Did you solve the world’s problems?”
“No, Linda.” Keely gave a one-shoulder shrug and a sad, tight smile. “Not even close.”
Dr. Goff spun her tea in her hands. “I heard the scholarship committee sent out their acceptance. It’s unprecedented how fast they decided. Apparently, there was a clear winner.”
Keely’s heart knocked against her chest. Right beneath the spot where Max had touched her so sweetly on the track. Where he’d kissed her as he came.
“Have you checked your email lately, Keely?” Based on the gleam in her counselor’s eye, she already knew the answer.
“Actually, I—”
“There you are.” A voice came from behind Keely, and she spun.
“Tricia?” Shelter Tricia. Dog-print-bandana Tricia. Total hardass for everything with two legs Tricia. “What are you doing here?”
“Well.” Tricia grinned and held up a travel coffee container. “I thought I’d bring my wife some caffeine, but it looks like she couldn’t wait.”
They shared an intimate look. Keely’s gaze ping-ponged between them. Had she known this? There were the photos on Dr. Goff’s windowsill with that amorphous other person, but they’d been too far away to make out clearly.
She must not have hidden her shock well.
“I told you.” Dr. Goff slipped an arm around Tricia’s waist. “You have to let life surprise you, Keely. See where you end up.”
Shining black hair at the other end of the hall stole Keely’s attention.
Zoey.
“I have to go,” she blurted, hustling after her best friend. Former best friend? Future, forever best friend, if Keely had anything to say about it. “I’m really sorry.”
Up ahead, Zoey ducked around the corner.
Keely took off after her, catching up as the admin building spit them out into the blinding sunlight.
“Zo!”
Zoey looked over shoulder, saw it was Keely, and kept on walking.
“Wait, Zoey, please!”
With a frustrated sigh Keely only usually heard in the context of a K-drama cliffhanger, Zoey adjusted her backpack on her shoulder and checked her phone.
“I can’t talk long. I’m supposed to meet—” She cut herself off, but by the flushing of her cheekbones, Keely had a highly educated guess.
“You’re with Nolan.” She brushed her fingertips over the outside hem of her shorts. “If it’s supposed to be a secret, you’re not doing a great job.”
It was a testament to their friendship that Keely still recognized Zoey’s tugged earlobe as hidden excitement—and a sign of how far they’d drifted that the frown returned with a vengeance.
“Do you have time for coffee?” Keely said.
Zoey’s jaw slackened. “Do you? Since when do you get spontaneous beverages?”
“Since I spectacularly screwed up.” Keely went to spread her hands, but she still clutched her graduation garb. She hefted the clear garment bag between them. “And I’m running out of time to fix everything.”
Zoey shifted on her feet, chewing her lip. She sighed. “Coffee and a Danish. Nolan was going to feed me.”
“A good man,” Keely murmured. She knew because Max was a good man. He wouldn’t keep bad company.
The Q was less crowded than usual, so after they got their coffee and snacks, Keely followed Zoey to her table of choice, a round two-seater in the corner. The plastic was sun-warmed. Keely’s thighs would stick to the vinyl.
She stabbed her paper straw through the lid, slushing her ice. “How. . . how have you been?”
“Fine.” Zoey’s words were as breezy as the trees outside, raining magnolia blossoms onto the sidewalks and against the glass walls.
Then, holding direct eye contact, Zoey tore her Danish in half.
Keely gulped.
She must have swallowed an ice cube, because her throat closed around her next words. “I’m so sorry, Zo.”
Zoey’s lips pressed from one side to the other. “For?”
“This entire semester. I slacked on my responsibilities and left you alone to organize everything.”
“For a man, no less,” Zoey mumbled around her Danish.
Keely gave her a sad smile. “I got wrapped up in all the wrong things. It was supposed to be the two of us.”
A quiet hum. “Was he worth it, at least?”
She still didn’t know, so she changed the subject. “You should take the women of science posters with you to California.”
A tight, confused expression pinched Zoey’s brows together. “You’re not coming with me?”
They must have been in a vacuum, because Keely couldn’t hear anything beyond the panicked beat of her heart against her eardrums.
But her gut was quiet, settled despite the ill-advised afternoon shot of caffeine. Even though it was scary, this was right.
“Not for biochem,” she whispered. “Maybe not at all.”
When she dared to look up again, fire lit her friend’s face. “Well.” Zoey dropped her Danish back in its paper wrapper, dusted her hands over it, and sat back in her chair. “It’s about damn time.”
Keely choked on air. “What?”
Zoey’s nose scrunched. “Be honest, Keel. Would you have done half the stuff you did in college if it didn’t go on your resumé? Or if you weren’t trying to avoid driving a wedge between your parents? A wedge that you had nothing to do with, by the way.”
A drop of condensation slid down Keely’s cup, and it splattered on the table alongside the truth. “No.” Her shoulders slumped.
Zoey nudged her foot under the table. “That’s because it wasn’t for you.
You were awesome at all that stuff, yeah, but that was because you are awesome.
At whatever you do. You succeeded at science, but it was only what you tried first. And I love that about you.
You inspired me to be better at anatomy.
” Her gaze dropped to the floor. The bag with Zoey’s graduation garb had slumped over on top of Keely’s, knocking them both over.
“Your work ethic is the whole reason I have a gold stole too.”
“That’s not true.” Keely jolted forward. “I didn’t do the work for you, Zo. You’re amazing at it all on your own.”
“I am,” she said, “and I proved that this semester. But I learned it from someone, Keel, and that was you.”
Keely opened her mouth but closed it when she realized she couldn’t tell if she was talking Zoey into or out of forgiving her.
“What do you want to do?” Zoey said instead. “Gut instinct.”
“Teach.” The word was out before Keely had even considered holding it back, but the unfiltered truth was so much stronger on her tongue than coffee.
Sweeter, even, than any kiss from Max. “I want to teach science to elementary school kids. Like how I’ve been reading to them at school. It’s my favorite day of the week.”
That and Sundays.
Well, Sundays when Max was still a part of them.
Zoey nodded, giving a small smile. “So you’ll teach. And be awesome at it. And we’ll get together once a month to commiserate and eat Cup Noodles because I’m choosing academia and you’re choosing education and, I’m sorry, babe, but Nolan can’t support us both and I’ve already called dibs.”
A laugh lifted Keely’s spirits. “Maybe we can room together in a year or two if I end up at a program near yours. I still have a lot to figure out, but I want you in my future. As my friend.”
Zoey slid the torn half of the Danish across the table. “I’ve always considered us more like sisters. Fight like hell and still show up when we need each other.”
Keely picked up her half and dinked it to Zoey’s. “You’re so right. I can’t believe I forgot you were a genius.”
Her best friend laughed. “Don’t let it happen again.”