Thursday arrives with the slow, deliberate dread of a ticking clock. All day, in all my other classes, my focus is shot. My mind is a million miles away in Dalton Hall, room 203. He’s there, a shadow in the back of my mind.
By 5:50 PM, my stomach is a tight knot of anxiety and anger. I don’t want to go. Every instinct screams at me to stay in my room, to lock the door and let him have his stupid five percent.
But I crush that instinct. That’s the fear talking, and I refuse to let him win by making me afraid.
I walk to Dalton Hall with my shoulders squared and my chin up. Each step is deliberate. This isn’t a walk of shame; it’s an infiltration. I am not prey walking into a snare. I am a hunter, entering enemy territory to learn its secrets.
Room 203 is precisely what I expected. An old, tiered classroom with worn wooden desks and the faint smell of chalk dust and floor wax. About twenty students are already here. I immediately categorize them into two groups: the Desperate and the Thirsty. The Desperate are hunched over their textbooks, a frantic energy coming off them in waves. The Thirsty are a gaggle of girls who clearly aren’t here for help with chemistry, whispering and fixing their hair, their eyes glued to the space at the front of the room.
I am neither.
I don’t sit in the back. Hiding is what he wants. I don’t sit in the front, either; I’m not here to be his star pupil. I choose a seat on the side, three rows back. A perfect vantage point to observe him when he’s focused on the students in the center. I pull out my notebook and a pen, arranging them with meticulous care on the desk. My hands are steady, my expression is neutral. I am a stone. I am untouchable.
At 6:01 PM, he walks in.
The room’s energy shifts palpably. The whispers die. The frantic page-turning stops. He isn’t wearing a jersey or a letterman jacket, just a plain black long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans. He drops a worn leather messenger bag onto the professor’s desk and turns to face us, leaning back against it.
“Alright,” he says, his voice filling the room without any effort. “Let’s talk about reaction kinetics.”
And just like that, he begins. He doesn’t use notes. He just uncaps a dry-erase marker and starts talking, his voicecalm and even. Where Dr. Albright makes the concepts dense and complicated, he simplifies them. He makes it look easy. Effortless. He draws diagrams, explains formulas, and fields questions with an unnerving patience.
I hate him for it. I hate that he’s not just some manipulative jock. He’s brilliant. The intelligence I saw in his eyes at the party is on full display, and it makes him infinitely more dangerous.
For forty minutes, I watch. I take notes on him, not on chemistry. The way he holds the marker, the way he pauses for a split second before answering a complex question. The way his eyes scan the room, never lingering on the adoring faces in the front row but sweeping past them, searching.
Once, his eyes meet mine. It’s not a smirk this time. It’s a long, steady, appraising look. A look that says,You came.
I don’t look away. I hold his gaze, my expression unchanging, until he’s the one to break contact, turning to answer a question from one of the Desperate.
About halfway through the hour, he stops mid-sentence and glances at the clock. “Alright, time for our first engagement quiz.”
A collective groan comes from the Desperate, a flutter of excitement from the Thirsty. I just watch, my pen held loosely in my hand.
He pulls a small stack of half-sheets from his bag and places them face down on the front desk. “Come grab one when you’re ready. It’s one question. You have ten minutes.”
The casualness is the most insulting part. I wait until a few other students have gone up before I rise and walk to the front. The question is simple, if you were paying attention in Tuesday’s lecture. It’s about calculating a rate law from experimental data. It takes me less than two minutes to write out the solution, my work neat and precise.
I stand up and walk back to the front desk, where an empty cardboard box now sits to collect the papers. He’s leaning against the whiteboard, arms crossed, watching the room. As I approach, his eyes track me.
I drop the paper into the box without a glance in his direction and walk back to my seat.
When the ten minutes are up, he dismisses us. I pack my bag, my movements calm and measured, and leave with the small crowd.
The cold night air hits my face, but I don’t feel the chill. All I feel is a new, cold clarity. He wanted me here, he has me.
But he has no idea what he’s just invited into his life. He thinks he’s the one observing.
He’s wrong.
Eight
West
The clock on my phone reads 6:01 PM as I push open the door to Dalton 203. The room goes quiet, the low chatter dying the second I step inside. I drop my messenger bag on the desk, the sound a dull thud in the sudden silence, and turn to face them.
My eyes scan the room. It’s a quick, practiced sweep. I dismiss the desperate faces in the front, the preening socialites near the aisle. I’m looking for one thing. One person.
And then I find her.
