For a minute, all I can hear is the distant thump of closing doors and the motorized hum of the soda machine down the hall. No one’s around to see me lose it. I let my head fall back, eyes closed, and count the flickers in the overhead light: six per second, never syncing, never letting me forget where I am.
I should be running analysis on our failed experiment, prepping the lab report, anything except rerunning the last hour on infinite loop. Every time I try to focus, I see Aaron’s eyes or feel the ghost of his hand against my arm. I can’t tell if I want to scream or dissolve.
I pull out my phone, hands shaking. The chemistry department homepage loads slowly, as if it knows what I’m about to do and wants to give me time to reconsider. There’s a link right at the top: “Request Section Change.” I click it, and the form pops up, simple as a confession.
Reason for change:
I leave it blank, thumb hovering above the keys. It should be easy. I could make up an excuse—scheduling conflict, family obligation, roommate drama. But I can’t even type the words.
Instead, I stare at the form, and the longer I look, the more I see the outline of my life pressed up against the inside of the screen. Always running, always hiding, always letting someone else make the first move.
I bite the inside of my cheek, then slam the phone face-down on the floor beside me. I let my head drop forward, hands fisted in my hair, and force myself to breathe. In, out. In, out. Like I’m measuring titrations, but for my own stupidity.
I try to imagine the alternative. What if I stayed? What if I let myself be seen, really seen, even if it blows up in my face? The idea makes me nauseous, but also—something else. Something like hope, if hope was radioactive and probably fatal.
Here in the vast emptiness of the hallway, I think about texting Sara. I could ask her what to do, but I already know what she’d say: Own it. Or, at least, stop lying to yourself.
I stand, knees shaky, and pick up my phone. I don’t close the form. I just leave it there, unfinished, a Schrödinger’s disaster waiting to collapse.
I look at the clock on the wall. Three minutes until my next class. Three minutes to decide if I’m going to keep hiding, or if I’m going to do something insane and honest.
The lights overhead flicker, the hallway goes cold, and I start walking. No plan, no answer, just the certainty that I can’t do nothing anymore.
Somewhere down the corridor, a door slams, and I flinch at the sound.
But I keep moving.
The next experiment is about to begin.
Chapter 7
Each time the bell rings, Halide Hall heaves itself full of bodies, surging toward their next scheduled disillusionment. I wedge myself into the current, backpack plastered flat against my spine, hoping to ride the human riptide through to the exit. Halfway between Chem and Psych, my phone buzzes so hard it feels like my thigh bone is about to vibrate out of existence.
At first, I ignore it, focusing instead on the way the light ricochets off the buffed tile. My breathing is shallow, but at least it’s regular, and if I time each inhale to my footfalls, maybe I can outpace the panic.
But the phone won’t stop. It stutters against my leg, pulse after pulse, like a distress signal. I clench my jaw and keep walking, but the sweat blooming under my arms tells a different story. At the end of the corridor. I duck into a patch of shadow behind the “Student Success” corkboard and yank my phone from my pocket with shaking hands.
Six new notifications from Hunter. Two from Sara.
I take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the onslaught, and read Hunter’s first.
BRO
You need to see this.
[image attachment: a blurry screengrab of the Wilcox U subreddit]
[link to YouTube]
You are trending, my dude.
[screenshot of what looks like Aaron’s Instagram]
Sara’s is more subtle:Hey, call me when you see it?
And then, a few seconds later:It’s not as bad as you think.
I want to throw my phone in the nearest trash can and walk into traffic, but instead I open the first link. The page takes an eternity to load, every second stretching the drum-tight skin of my scalp until I’m sure it’ll split.
