CHAPTER 45 #2
At the brush of my ankles, I knelt down to give Bane a quick pet, grateful for his sweet little greeting on such a shitty day, and I approached Professor Bramwell to see it was a moth he had spread out on the extra wide stage plate of the microscope, its thorax sliced open to reveal the organs beneath.
He lifted a long, skinny black worm up into the air, where it wriggled and thrashed around.
Professor tipped his head and grabbed another set of forceps, which he used to hold one end of it still while he examined the parasite. “Son of a bitch.”
“What is it?” I asked, intrigued by the awe in his voice.
“Another one with teeth.”
“Teeth?”
He laid it beside the moth, restraining the end of it, and when he shifted it beneath the lens, I peered up at the small square viewing screen to see tiny fang-like structures snapping at the forceps. “It seems they’ve evolved.”
“You’re telling me those things …” The thought of it curled my guts. Probably didn’t help that I’d skipped both lunch and dinner after what had happened earlier.
“Yes. They can apparently latch now.” He lifted the worm and plopped it into a jar of clear fluid and placed a cap over it. From beside him, he lifted the burning candle, holding it over the moth as if looking for more of the worms.
At the angle he held it, the flame flickered over his knuckles, and I frowned as it seemed to have no effect on him. He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch, as if he couldn’t feel it.
“Professor!” I lurched toward him, and he startled, knocking the jar with the worm onto the floor, where the glass shattered. The worm wriggled across the tiles toward a drain.
“No! Shit!” He jogged toward it, sliding over the slick tiles, but caught himself and planted his shoe over the drain. The worm slid up onto his shoe, lifting its upper half, which it tapped against the leather’s surface. “Hand me the forceps!”
I sprang toward the bench and swiped up the forceps, slipping on the small bit of water like he had moments ago.
He leapt back toward me, catching my arm before I fell and pulled me upright.
Momentarily stunned, I stole a moment to catch my breath, and at the same time, both of us snapped our heads in the direction of the worm, only catching its tail end as it slipped down the drain.
He let out a sigh. “Fuck.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …” Perhaps it was exhaustion coupled with hunger, and add in the fact that I’d just disappointed him, but my voice shook and I blinked away tears.
As if realizing he still held my arm, he frowned and stepped back, stuffing his hands into his lab coat. “What’s wrong with you?”
I shook my head, not wanting to tell him, because telling him would’ve definitely made me cry, and I was not crying in front of the man. “I’ll clean up this mess.” As I stepped in the direction of the utility closet, he sidestepped and blocked me.
“Lilia, tell me what’s wrong.”
A strange feeling stirred in my chest on hearing him say my name, and when I lifted my gaze to his, saw the concern brimming in his eyes, I couldn’t hold back the tears.
“I can’t.”
“Tell me. Now.”
Why did I protect Gilchrist? Had she given me even a fraction of consideration when she’d said those things earlier?
No. In fact, it probably tickled her black heart to know how much her words had crushed me.
The way she’d somehow seen right through me and reached down into the deepest pits of my self-doubt.
“Gilchrist accused me of cheating on an exam. She gave me a fifty-six on it.”
His eye twitched, jaw hardened. “Did she now?”
“I don’t know if she plans to pursue the cheating accusation, but if she does, then that will ruin everything. I’ll be kicked out, and I won’t be approved for next semester.”
“Relax. She would need proof.” While the confidence in his tone cut through my worry like a jagged blade, it didn’t settle it entirely.
“She accused me of cheating off Spencer. She’s threatened to fail Spencer before. He’s not going to tell the truth for my sake.”
He snorted. “As if Spencer held a candle …” He trailed off in a grouchy grumble.
I didn’t know why that half comment filled me with satisfaction and withered some of the mire in my head. Maybe because the man rarely threw out compliments. Or perhaps it was because I felt like he was on my side.
“It takes tremendous effort to prove a student has cheated, and I don’t think even she has the energy, or motivation, for that.”
The relief I felt in telling him just that small piece of my day left me wanting to offload everything, every miserable detail, until I’d purged and emptied myself of it, but I wouldn’t. He didn’t need to know my financial woes on top of everything else.
The man probably had more money than he knew what to do with.
The fact that I owed thousands for Bee’s tuition, with a mere ten bucks left in my account, would’ve probably seemed absurd to him.
To all the students who attended this university, too.
I’d yet to meet one weighed down by their finances, the way I was.
“Sometimes, I think coming here was a mistake. I just feel like everything is stacked against me all the time. There’s no winning. ”
“And so, what? You go back to Covington?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to, but …” Even if I paid Bee’s school the two hundred Bramwell had agreed to give me every week, it’d still take over two months to pay everything back.
And that was assuming Conner kept up his half to bring the account current.
“Everything just feels so heavy sometimes.”
“So, your solution is to quit school. Forego your scholarship.”
“As I said, I don’t want to do that, but–”
“But nothing. You may be smart, but you sure as fuck say foolish things.”
I could’ve given him some benefit of doubt, not knowing what was going through my head right then, that Gilchrist was only one of many worries, but his response still pissed me off.
People with money somehow always pissed me off, and I hated myself for that, but goddamn it, sometimes they acted like their problems were on par with everyone else’s.
What would he have thought, had he known that I’d uploaded a fucking porn video to a website just to pay for my sister’s tuition?
Would he have judged me for that? Lectured me on virtue and human decency?
“Since when do you care? I’m sure you’ll appreciate going back to your quiet lab, where no one breaks jars and lets specimens escape down the drain.
I don’t belong at this school, with students who drop hundreds on dresses for one night.
Who can afford their fancy latte coffees in cute little cups with the gold dragon logo,” I said, giving a snobby flip of my wrist. “Who don’t have to think about anything but their grades and studying.
I’m tired of stressing about things that never cross their minds. ”
“So, going back to Covington is going to relieve you of all these struggles?”
“Of course not. But everyone in Covington struggles. At least I’m not some freak outcast there.”
“Yes. Brilliant. You’ll be thrown into some shit job that you’ll hate and resent for the rest of your life.”
“What does it matter to you if I stay, or not?” I searched those usually apathetic eyes for some explanation for why he suddenly seemed bothered.
“It matters.”
“Why?”
“Has anyone treated you like scum here? Has anyone thrown your lack of money in your face?”
Gilchrist came to mind, her comment from earlier that’d apparently sunk its claws into me, given the way I was feeling right then, but I didn’t bother to mention it. Instead, I kept my lips shut, which he apparently took as a response to his question.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You sound ridiculous.”
“I sound ridiculous? Why? Because I don’t share the same problems as the rich elite?”
“No. That you bother to compare yourself to them at all is ridiculous.”
“Ah, yes. I almost forgot they were in a different league. Thank you for yanking me back down to reality.” Tears formed in my eyes as I dared to confess what had ground at me all afternoon.
“Perhaps Gilchrist was right when she said the underprivileged aren’t meant for a proud and dignified institution like Dracadia . ”
Scorn darkened his eyes. “She said that to you?”
As much as I regretted having said it aloud, it felt good to have told someone.
To offload some of the humiliation still chipping at my pride.
“Yes. After she accused me of being entitled, based on my circumstances. So, tell me again why I sound ridiculous. Why I have no right to compare myself to my fellow students. Why I shouldn’t go back to where I belong . ”
His jaw shifted, lip curled in disgust. “Because you’re better than them.
Stronger. And unfortunately, you’ll have to fight harder for what you want.
But you have an understanding of things beyond their comprehension.
You’re exceptional, Lilia. And by God, if you waste that intellect on the ignorant words of an envious shrew like Loretta Gilchrist, it will be the most egregious offense you’ve ever committed. ”
Heat burned my face red-hot. My arms shook with the urge to throw them around him and kiss him. Instead, I stared, focusing on the unsteady breaths that sawed in and out of me.
The suffocating tension between us threatened to ignite on one bold move, a single strike of a match. His hand curled around the bench where he leaned, and it was then I noticed the glossy red mark and inflamed skin where he’d burned himself with the candle.
“Oh, my God.” I reached out for his hand, and he jerked it away, holding his fist at his chest. “You’re burned pretty badly. You need to clean and wrap that.”
“I know what I need.”
“Right,” I said, taking a step back. Of course, he’d probably done clinical rotations in the ER and burn units at some point in his life. “Can you not feel, at all?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I can’t imagine how awful that must be. How terrifying not to feel.”