“It wasn’t just a hookup, man. I can’t explain it,” Aaron says. “I keep thinking I’ll just get over it, but every time I go out, I look for her. Like she’s just going to show up again.”
His other friend cackles, “You’re losing it, bro. You need to get laid.”
Aaron sighs. “Maybe. Or maybe I am just losing my mind.”
The friends start laughing again, the sound echoing up the stairwell. Aaron tries to laugh with them, but it’s not convincing.
I should leave. I should just turn around and go the long way to class. But I can’t move. My fingers go numb around my phone, the air growing thick in my lungs. A part of me—a huge, shameless part—wants to walk into that stairwell and say: Here I am. It’s me. I’m the girl you’re looking for, minus the sequins and the makeup. I want to see the look on his face. I want to see if he recognizes her in me.
But I also want to run until I can’t hear my own name anymore.
Someone shoves the door open behind me and I jump, almost dropping my phone. It’s a girl with a backpack bigger than her torso, earbuds jammed so deep I’m not sure she could hear a fire alarm. She doesn’t even see me, just pushes past and up the stairs, right into the middle of Aaron’s group.
They go quiet for a second, then start talking about basketball instead. The spell is broken, but my heart is still thumping against my ribs.
I slip inside, keeping to the wall, and take the back route to the basement lab. The corridors are nearly empty except for a lone custodian mopping near the bathrooms and the faint, mechanical drone of the vending machine. I slow my pace, trying to catch my breath, but it’s no use.
It’s not just that Aaron is still obsessed. It’s that he sounds wrecked over it. Like he’s been marked and can’t get un-marked.
I know the feeling, and I realize I can’t keep this up much longer.
I think of Sara’s words: Secrets have a half-life.
Mine is decaying faster than I thought.
—ΠΩ—
The chemistry lab is the only room on campus that feels like it belongs to me, and even here I can’t escape my ownnervous system. The air is cold and sharp, over-circulated to keep the fumes down, and the lights overhead are so intense they bleach all the shadows out of your face. Every surface is scrubbed sterile, but it still smells like burnt ethanol and wet rubber gloves.
I’m the first one in, and I claim the best station—the one farthest from the windows, closest to the emergency shower—then line up my glassware in a neat little parade: Erlenmeyers, pipettes, burettes, all the fragile tools of the trade. The experiment is standard: Synthesis of methyl benzoate, a lab I could do in my sleep if I hadn’t been awake since 4 a.m. replaying Aaron’s words in my head.
As I’m measuring out the sodium bicarbonate, Aaron walks in, backpack slung off one shoulder, hair still damp from the gym. He grins when he sees me, sliding into the stool at my right.
“Morning, Montgomery. Early as usual.”
I nod, not trusting my voice, and double-check the volumes on my graduated cylinder. “Just wanted to get the setup right,” I say, and even I can hear the tightness in it.
Aaron pulls on his lab gloves—blue, two sizes too small—and starts reading the procedure.
“I’m glad you’re my partner for this,” he says, not looking up. “You actually know what you’re doing. Unlike some people.” He jerks his chin at the table across from us, where two frat types are already arguing over the difference between a boiling chip and a boiling point.
The edges of my mouth twitch, but I hold it together. “It’s just following directions.”
He grins, the old cocky warmth back in full force. “Yeah, but most people suck at that.”
Aaron dumps the contents of his binder onto the table, scattering note cards and a bag of Skittles. “You haven’t bychance run into that Jessica Rabbit girl from the Pi Omega party, have you?”
I freeze, a microsecond too long. “Can’t say that I have.”
He pops a green Skittle and keeps going. “People are still talking about her.” He says it lightly, like it’s gossip, but there’s an undertone. “It’s like she just vanished sometime after the costume contest. Total mystery.”
My hands shake a little as I pour the sodium bicarbonate into the flask. “Yeah, I heard.”
Aaron leans in, elbows on the table. “Any idea who she is?”
“No idea.” My heart hammers. I focus on the next step: add sulfuric acid dropwise, swirl, watch for reaction. “She must’ve been from another school or something.”
He laughs, low. “Nah, I think she’s hiding in plain sight.” He looks up at me then, really looks. “You ever see someone and just, like, feel like you’ve met them before?”
