It’s easier to do nothing. To let the story fade, to pretend I’m not a part of it.
I lie down, hands folded over my chest, and stare at the black spot on the ceiling where the paint bubbled after a pipe burst last semester. I listen to the low hum of the vending machine in the hallway, the distant echo of someone laughing in the stairwell.
It’s a long time before I fall asleep. When I do, I dream I’m back in the closet—locked in the dark with someone else’s heartbeat, waiting for the light to find me.
Chapter 8
The first thing that hits me is the acetone. It’s not even eight a.m. and already the entire second floor of Halide Hall is a chemical fog, triple-distilled by the ductwork and condensed into the world’s most efficient migraine generator. The air in the lab is saturated: methylated spirits, fresh latex, the high whine of glass against glass. I blink against the fluorescence, count the number of students already hunched over their benches, and aim straight for my usual station.
Routine is a shield. I line up my glassware in order of predicted disaster: beaker, flask, burette, pipette. I take out my lab notebook and check the first line twice, as if the instructions might have mutated since last night. I’m only half aware of the shuffling bodies around me—familiar faces in the periphery, all rendered sterile by goggles and white coats. The only constants are the noise, a steady low murmur, like the ocean in a bottle, and the sting at the back of my throat.
Someone coughs, a short bark, two benches over. There’s a clatter as a pair of test tubes meet an untimely death, the splintering sound followed by a chorus of groans and “Dude, really?” I recognize Malik’s voice, and also his total lack of shame. Professor Collins hasn’t even shown yet, but everyone is already calibrating for maximum attention span and minimum error. I keep my head down and start prepping the reagents.
My hands move by muscle memory. I measure out 25.0 milliliters of the unknown solution, triple check the meniscus, and label it in my chicken-scratch. I want to believe I’m calm, but my heartbeat throbs in my ears, and I have to wipe my palms on my lab coat twice before the pen stops slipping. The gogglesdon’t fit right, pressing a groove into my nose, but I leave them on anyway. If nothing else, they make it easier not to look up.
Aaron is late.
Not “Aaron-just-wants-an-entrance” late, but real, actual, not-here-yet late. I keep expecting the door to explode open with his brand of energy, some boisterous crack about the weather or the pedestrian speed of the elevator, but it’s just the TA, rolling in a cart with boxes of disposable gloves. The room vibrates with the anticipation of a showdown that doesn’t happen.
At 8:07, I’m pipetting my third sample when he finally arrives.
He’s not wearing the Pi Omega hoodie today—just a battered Wilcox U tee under his coat, sleeves rolled and tattooed forearms bare. His hair is damp, and his eyes are slightly red at the corners. He walks in without a word, zeroes in on our table, and drops his backpack onto the bench so hard it rattles my beaker. He’s moving like his bones are on a delay, each step just a fraction too slow for the body that contains it.
I keep my head down, but the part of me that’s starved for punishment catalogues the rest: the way his jaw is clenched, the way he flexes his fingers before peeling a fresh pair of gloves from the box, the way his eyes flick to the clock every time Collins’ voice comes over the speaker. He’s here, but only in the most literal sense. It’s like he’s been replaced by a scarecrow made of muscle and leftover adrenaline.
He doesn’t say anything for a while. Just sits and stares at the instructions, as if he’s never seen them before. After a minute, he starts scribbling something in his notebook, the pen digging so deep it tears the page. I don’t dare look, but the silence between us is so dense it’s almost a substance.
The rest of the class orbits around us. Malik and his partner argue over who gets to pour the sodium hydroxide. A pair of girls three benches away quietly roasts the lab playlist(“Why is it always Imagine Dragons?”). Someone at the sink appears to run the tap just to have something to do. The entire room is alive with the same nervous, pre-exam energy, but it all feels like background radiation compared to Aaron’s stillness.
Finally, I venture a glance.
He’s staring at the flask in front of him, completely motionless. The light from above renders every angle of his face in stark relief—nose, cheekbones, the little scar above his eyebrow that he got from sliding into second in high school baseball. His lips are pressed together so tightly it looks painful.
“You good?” I ask, instantly regretting it.
He blinks like he’s surfacing from deep water. “Yeah,” he says, then clears his throat. “Just didn’t sleep great.”
I almost laugh. “You and the rest of campus.”
He looks at me sideways, as if trying to decide if I’m making fun of him. “Yeah, well. Some of us are more on the radar than others.” He pulls out the burette and starts fiddling with the stopcock.
I bite the inside of my cheek and try to focus on the task at hand. The experiment is a simple titration, something we’ve done a dozen times before, but the tension in the air has me second-guessing every step. I pour the indicator into the flask and swirl it gently, watching the color bloom into a pale pink. When I hand it to Aaron, our gloves brush, and it’s like a live wire straight to the back of my neck.
He doesn’t react. Just takes the flask, sets it in the clamp, and starts the slow, dropwise addition from the burette. He counts the drops out loud, but it sounds more like a countdown than a measurement.
“Eight. Nine. Ten…” He pauses at eleven, then glances over his shoulder at the rest of the lab. “You ever get the feeling everyone’s watching you?” he asks, voice so low I almost miss it.
I snort. “Not really my vibe, no.”
He laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “Yeah, I guess that’s my cross to bear.” He leans in, elbows braced on the counter, and fixes his gaze on the titration endpoint. “Malik’s been riding my ass all week about that party. Even my roommate’s getting in on it. And now this whole Natalie ruse. I mean, I probably deserved it.”
I swirl the flask, watching the color oscillate. “Sounds rough.”
He shrugs, one shoulder higher than the other. “I can handle it. Just… gets old, you know?”
He looks up, and for the first time all morning, I see something raw under the surface. It’s not the Aaron I’m used to—the guy who can charm his way out of a parking ticket or talk a professor into bumping his grade for “class participation.” This version is stripped of all the armor. I’m not sure what to do with it.
I want to say something—anything—but the words get stuck. Instead, I watch the swirl of the solution, the way it shifts from pink to a ghostly white with each addition of base. We work in silence, our hands occasionally colliding over the shared instruments. Every time they do, my pulse skips, then I double back as if trying to correct for lost time.
