Chapter 2
Two
Four Years Ago
Scarlett
18 Years Old
While Scarlett could face objectively harder things head-on, science classes always made her want to crawl into a hole and hide. Her career aspirations were far from set in stone, but the last thing she would ever be was a scientist. Anything that involved complicated math went in one ear and out the other. She tried to pay attention, but she just couldn’t imagine a single time in her life when she would ever need to use the equation for radioactive decay. Her father used to say there were two kinds of people: those who were good at algebra, and those who were good at geometry. She fell into the latter. Shapes, symmetry, distance—all were things she could easily portray on a canvas. Her father fell into the former category, and it was why she had nothing in common with him other than their shared trauma. They were on opposite sides of the coin when it came to that, too. Her father’s logical brain said that no amount of love was worth suffering that much, and he left. Scarlett had come to believe that if you could leave so easily, then you didn’t love in the first place. It was probably why she could so easily leave the AP Chemistry class her best friend Kashvi had convinced her to take to hide out in the art room. She didn’t love chemistry at all.
Today was different, though, because Scarlett’s mother had finally caught wind of her declining grade and read her the riot act for it before making her promise to try harder. Out of all the days to attend this class, this was probably the worst one. As Scarlett stepped into the classroom, Ms. Matthews locked eyes with her and waved her over. Scarlett was appropriately hesitant as she walked toward the desk in the corner of the room, her chunky wooden earrings swaying with each step and her hands smoothing over her center part to catch the flyaways. No news was ever good news when it came to this class, and Scarlett had a feeling that whatever Ms. Matthews had to say, it wasn’t going to be that she had somehow pulled a one-eighty with her grade and test scores.
“Scarlett, what a treat to see you live and in person again today,” Ms. Matthews greeted her. Scarlett did not miss the subtle dig at her formerly shoddy attendance record, but she had been religiously attending this class for the last month, so the comment seemed a little out of left field. Until, of course, she saw the piece of paper Ms. Matthews handed over with red ink at the top. The percentage scrawled out made Scarlett’s stomach bottom out. Twenty-three percent was quite possibly the worst she had ever done on a test before.
“I-I…” Scarlett blinked, stammering as she raked her eyes over her detailed answers. “I studied. I tried. I—” All of the hours she had spent poring over the textbook, desperate to understand, were to no avail.
“I know you tried.” Ms. Matthews gave her a sympathetic look and folded her hands on the desk. “I spoke to your counselor and confirmed that you still need a science credit to graduate. It’s too late in the year to drop this class and switch to a different one, but I think I have a possible solution.”
Still reeling from the possibility of not graduating, Scarlett eagerly bobbed her head. “Anything. I’ll do whatever. If there’s extra credit, I could?—”
“I’m swapping your lab partner.”
“And that will help my grade?” Scarlett glanced across the classroom at her usual lab table, where Kashvi was giggling with a guy from the baseball team. She had already gotten her new partner, apparently, and didn’t seem to be minding the arrangement. And that was when Scarlett realized what the switch meant. Her eyes darted to the back corner of the room and traveled up the tall length of…
“Colin Hartrick has the highest grade in this class.” Ms. Matthews tilted her head in Colin’s direction.
A dry swallow did nothing to alleviate the nervous energy that took over Scarlett’s body. Despite being in the same grade as Colin since she moved into town at eight years old, she knew virtually nothing about him other than that he was shockingly intelligent and elusive as hell. Girls in her class whispered about him and passed scandalous rumors because the mysterious energy he gave off coupled with his over-six-foot height, ocean blue eyes, and sandy blond hair gave Colin the want-what-you-can’t-have edge. That nerdy guy in every high school TV show that was inexplicably attractive? Colin Hartrick to a T. While Kashvi and other girls—and, okay, Scarlett herself—had whispered about his appeal, the boys in her grade used his antisocial tendencies as fodder and fuel to poke fun at him. Colin’s two younger siblings, also attending Archwood High, were the only people he spoke to apart from the precise answers he offered up in class. He didn’t seem to care about or even notice people’s feelings about him, and that made him even more of an enigma. Then, when news of the car accident that killed the Hartrick siblings’ parents hit the school, even the sexual commentary came to a grinding halt, because while high school kids were canonically assholes, there had been an invisible line drawn in the sand, and no one wanted to cross it.
No words sprung from Scarlett’s lips. She was rendered speechless, which was saying a lot considering whenever she was nervous she tended to ramble, and she was suddenly so nervous she might throw up.
“I think this could be a mutually beneficial agreement, if you make it one. He helps you understand this class a little better, and you… talk to him.” Ms. Matthews’ words fell flat, but the concerned look she tossed in Colin’s direction said it all.
While the car accident was common knowledge, so was Scarlett’s connection with grief. Her elementary school had held annual fundraisers for her brother’s cancer treatment, and her middle and high schools had fundraised every year after his passing for the memorial foundation that her family founded in his honor. It was why she knew that platitudes and attempts to talk to Colin Hartrick about his grief would be fruitless. She didn’t know him well enough to be digging into his suffering. They hadn’t had a single conversation before, and yet Ms. Matthews seemed to think that Scarlett was the perfect person to talk to him. While the dead relative club connected lots of people, grief support wasn’t as uncomplicated as simply asking someone how they were holding up.
“Okay,” Scarlett said. There was no use in arguing with her teacher or going into the complexities of grief and why it would be inappropriate to ambush Colin with a conversation while they completed their assigned lab work.
The somber expression left Ms. Matthews’ face, and she smiled. “Perfect. You can go join your new partner. I’ll allow you to retake the test after you spend a little more time understanding the material.”
“Thank you, I-I’ll figure it out. I promise.” The nerves bouncing off the walls of Scarlett’s body were making her childhood stutter come back. She had mostly overcome the speech impediment, but if she got nervous enough, it came back in full force. It was probably why she never got super far into the dating scene. She always clammed up. Not that she had ever liked anyone enough to get very far, but when her words started to dissolve on her tongue, it ruined any intimate moments she was a part of.
As Scarlett turned toward her destination, she braced herself for another awkward encounter she would no doubt have when she got to Colin’s lab station. Sure enough, when she got there, Colin barely looked up from his textbook, just shifted off to the side a bit to give her more space. She wasn’t exactly expecting a warm welcome, but a cold-shouldered brick wall was a bit much.
“So… I guess we’re lab partners?” she managed to squeak out. Colin didn’t respond, but reached for something to the right of his backpack on the connected cabinet countertop. Before she had time to wonder what was important enough to interrupt their introduction, he slid a waxed brown paper bag over to her. Scarlett furrowed her brow in confusion, but curiosity got the better of her, and she picked it up to peer inside. “A maple bar?”
Colin still didn’t meet her eyes, but he shifted his torso to somewhat face her. And then he finally spoke. “Happy eighteenth birthday.”