When Jenny first opened her eyes, she was greeted by a half-muffled light. Confused she blinked the sleep from her eyes and found that she had fallen asleep with a book on her face, covering her eyes like a sleep mask. She released a small sigh of aggravation at this as she pushed the book from off of her face.

She didn’t even remember falling asleep.

What the hell did I expect? She had pulled another late night at the library, and the toll of so much studying had finally caught up with her. It was only the first week of school and her roommate, Nichole, had said that she was already putting too much effort into her academics.

This was only one of the differing points of view that she and Nicole shared. It wasn’t that Jenny was overly obsessed with her studies, but organic chemistry required a large amount of dedication. To fall behind a day was as bad as falling behind for a week and there was still so much that she didn’t understand about it, hence the necessity for large amounts of studying.

She looked at the book that she had fallen asleep with. The pages were slightly crinkled from having lain upon her, but there was no other damage. Despite this, she tried to smooth the pages out with her hands and in doing so, she saw the exact same spot she had fallen asleep while reading.

Not bad, she thought somewhat bitterly, I made it further in this chapter than I thought I would have. Inwardly she berated herself for having fallen asleep at all. She had hoped to finish this one chapter before going to sleep, but she had barely made it halfway through.

She rolled her head and saw her alarm clock. It wasn’t 8 AM yet, she’d only been asleep for a few hours, but it was Saturday. She’d still have plenty of time to make up for lost study time.

She sat up and pushed the heavy book, New Chemical Theory it was called, from off of her and found her body felt stiff. She hadn’t budged in the slightest while she had slept, she had been so tired. She set the book aside and threw off her covers and stretched.

Her eyes turned slightly upwards to the bunk bed above her head and listened. The small dorm that she shared with Nichole was quiet. There wasn’t even the slightest hint that there was anyone else in the room. Not that she had noticed, given the way she had slept she wouldn’t have noticed a howitzer going off. Maybe she was alone? That was highly probable, given what she knew about her roommate, whom she barely saw half the time.

She stood up and looked at the bunk, expecting that it would be vacant and without any sign that it had been slept in at all.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the figure lying there.

It was most certainly not Nichole.

A man lay in the bed there… and a very naked one. His eyes were closed in a soft slumber and the smell of alcohol, beer it smelled like, was still potent upon him. His hair was short and sandy-colored, and he wore a depleted beard. He was well-built, full of muscle and in all of the right places, with a broad chest, bulging arms, and from what she could see under the sheet that only partially covered him his legs were thick. There was some kind of a tribal tattoo down the center of his chest and down his left arm. A necklace with a tiger, shaped in the manner of the school mascot, was draped around his neck. He looked to be about her age, maybe a little older, and though she was shocked to see him like this for a brief moment she thought that he was – at the least – handsome.

She gasped at his nakedness and tried to cover her mouth with her hands. The sound of her flesh striking against her chin was like a clap of thunder in the quiet room. And evidently it was thunder that was loud enough to wake the nude man in the bunk above hers.

His eyes popped open at the sound, and she felt like a victim of Medusa under his gaze, suddenly becoming mute and unable to move. He blinked his eyes quickly, and when he saw her, a small smile formed on his lips.

“Hi,” he said, his voice sounding a little groggy as he pushed himself up onto one elbow, running a hand through his lightly mottled brown hair. “I’m Rick… and you must be Jenny?” He extended a hand as if to shake hers, but her hands remained clasped around her terrified jaw.

Frozen with her fear, not to mention the implication of what must have happened three feet above her head while she’d slept, Jenny couldn’t think of how to reply. She had never seen a naked man in her life outside of the movies and even then, never like this. And yet he talked as casually to her as if he had done it a thousand times before.

“Uh…” was all she could manage to say.

He smiled and sat up, looking at his unshaken hand as if there was something wrong with it. Satisfied that there wasn’t he let his dangled his legs over the edge of Nichole’s bed and jumped down, standing fully naked in front of her. Her eyes went over his figure again, and she saw how well defined his body really was. She was aware of why Nichole would have been interested in this one right off the bat.

“Sorry,” he said simply, making no effort to conceal his nudity or sounding at all genuinely apologetic. “Nichole must have gotten up while we were asleep… I thought she’d be here when I woke up.”

Mortified, Jenny simply turned her back on him and went to her wardrobe. Her hands fumbled for something… anything… any excuse not to have to stand there and talk to the naked man in her dorm.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!

Her eyes fell upon her salvation. She saw her shower caddy sitting inside her wardrobe like a waiting angel ready to deliver her. Seizing the small plastic basket she turned, deliberately keeping her eyes low so as not to look at the naked man in her room. Even so, her eyes took in the sight of his thick thews and even the tip of his cock which just managed to hang inside her view.

“Uh… I’m… I’m just… going…” she said, her free hand reaching the handle to her door and fumbling with it, her fingers clumsily trying to open the door which added to her desire to leave.

Like a blessing the door opened, and she stepped into the hall beyond, thankful to be free of the irksome confinement of her room and the man therein. Closing the door behind her, she felt a welcome sense of relief that imploded almost instantly as she took her first step, straight into Nichole.

“Oops, sorry,” Nichole said as they collided.

Jenny regarded her roommate. Her hair was flaming red, her skin was fair, and she was wrapped in nothing but a towel. Her hair was thick and mottled like she had just gotten out from the shower. Her own shower caddy in her hand, Nichole smelled sweet of honeyed shampoo and some kind of fancy soap that Jenny couldn’t readily identify.

“Morning,” Nichole said casually and with a sweet smile on her face.

Her cheeks red, all Jenny could do was utter a string of incoherent words. She wanted to speak of her discomfort of waking up and finding a naked boy in her room… of how she felt sickened to think that Nichole and he must have had sex while she was asleep… but the words failed to form in her mouth.

“I take it that you met Rick?” Nichole said, a small amused grin growing on her face. The grin changed, becoming wolfish and Nichole flushed, like a young girl suddenly realizing that she had caught the attention of a boy for the first time and that she couldn’t believe her luck. “I met him the other night at the sorority rush… God, isn’t he hot?”

Jenny couldn’t form the words but shot an uncertain look over her shoulder at the closed door. Then she looked back to Nichole who looked flushed with renewed hormones.

“He’s on the football team,” Nichole said, the words boastful, like she again couldn’t believe her good fortune. “It shows, doesn’t it?”

Jenny only remained silent.

“Take your time in the shower,” Nichole said with a wink as she walked around her and to the door. “We might be a while.” She knocked on the closed door and after only a moment it opened. “Good morning, handsome,” Nichole said as she stepped in. Jenny had just enough time to see her roommate’s towel drop from off of her body, exposing her bare back and a perfectly formed ass as she closed the door behind her.

Jenny stood dumbfounded in the hall as the sounds of soft chuckling reached her ears, and a mild disgust rose up in her heart. She looked down at her shower caddy, suddenly grateful that she had it because now she felt like she truly needed a shower. But her heart sank as she realized she hadn’t grabbed her keys… or any of her books… or even a change of clothes… all were locked on the other side of a door that she had no desire to pass through.

“Shit,” she muttered as she leaned against the wall, lightly thudding her head against the bricks there.

So much for study time.

By the time Monday rolled around, Jenny felt at least half-recovered from her ordeal. She had tried to think of ways to speak to Nichole about her habits and how it should and shouldn’t affect their living space. But the thoughts she’d had simply wouldn’t translate into words. In the end, it didn’t matter too much as Nichole wasn’t around long enough for her to have any uncomfortable discussions.

She didn’t care for Nichole and her social situations. That Nichole was looking to climb the ladder or campus popularity, she had already known. Since she had met Nichole, her redheaded roommate had already tried to drag her to a dozen frat parties and just as many sorority rushes, and it was only the second week of school now. And while a desire to be popular was forgivable, bringing a boy back to their room – especially when Jenny was still inside – had been a new low.

She tried not to think about it.

In any event, Nichole had been absent from their room half the time anyway and after Saturday morning Jenny was willing to bet she knew the reason why. But if Nichole was out spreading her legs for her boyfriend… what was his name? Rick? Whatever… if he kept Nichole out so that she, Jenny, could study in peace then so much the better. She would have the chance later to talk to her fiery roommate about her sex habits later. Right now, she had more important things to muse on.

As she walked into her O-chem lab, she felt prepared. Last week had been brutal and had necessitated much of her over-the-weekend reading, but now she felt ready. The professor had said that he had a project coming up and that a deeper understanding of rudimentary biology would be required, and she had wondered what that project could possibly be.

Despite the embarrassment of Saturday, she had managed to get a good amount of studying done. There had been no other embarrassing or awkward situations, and that was owed largely to the fact that Jenny had sequestered herself in the library where she was free from such diversions and immersed in a nice and quiet environment. And with such time she had been able to catch up on her studies.

When she sat in her lab, she noticed that there were only eleven people in the room, including herself. Last week there had been nearly twenty, and likely some of them had dropped the class after realizing how difficult it was going to be.

Just as well, she thought. Not everyone was cut out to be a scientist.

She had just settled at her desk and opened her book and notes when the professor walked in. He was a tall and elderly man, bald as an egg on top, with thick glasses and a wearing the stereotypical sweater vest and red bow tie. That he was something so predictable was reassuring. She was fond of the old look of men of intellect. The lab coats… the bowties… that kind of old-style made her feel good.

“Good morning everyone,” he said happily as he stood in front of the dry-erase board and looking around at the assembly. His face lightly fell, “Strange… I knew that we’d had some folks drop out, but I thought I was supposed to have twelve in this class.”

“Number twelve, right here,” said a voice that drew everyone’s attention to the door.

Jenny’s eyes went to the source of the voice and she very nearly yelped when she saw the one who owned it. In an instant she felt like she was suddenly turned to ice in her chair, the chill that went down her back was so intense.

Rick was standing there.

He was donned in more clothing than when she had seen him last, thankfully. He wore a tight t-shirt with the school football team logo on the front that hugged the contours of his body perfectly, along with a pair of ragged old looking jeans and a pair of muddy shoes. Slung over one shoulder was his schoolbag and under his left hand was a textbook that matched hers: Organic Chemistry 101.

No… she silently pleaded. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. Not him. Not here. In a school filled with more than 5,000 students, the odds couldn’t be that bad that he would be enrolled in her class.

“Ah, good,” the professor said warmly.

“Sorry, I’m late… I couldn’t find the room,” Rick said, eliciting a few chuckles from the others in the room.

Typical jock, Jenny thought, can’t find a room in the smallest building in the middle of campus.

“Come in, have a seat,” the professor instructed.

Rick entered the room, and his eyes combed over the other faces in the class… then came to rest on her. Her heart struck a chord of fear as a familiar smile formed on his visage as he walked over, planting himself in the seat beside her, throwing her a small wink as he did so.

If she had turned to ice at the sight of him, Jenny felt like she could have melted into a puddle of goo just being so near to him. Her cheeks flushed, and she tried hard not to meet his gaze as he hung his backpack over the back of his chair and opened his book.

“Now,” the old professor went on, “I hope you all had a chance to catch up on the reading because we’ll be getting back to our lab from last week…”

She was barely able to listen, feeling her cheeks growing hot sitting near Nichole’s new boyfriend. Unbidden into her mind came the memories of seeing him naked… the curves of his muscles… his casual attitude towards nudity…

“It’s nice to see you again,” Rick whispered under his breath.

She felt her breath come slowly into her lungs. Again, she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she kept her eyes forward. She tried to listen to the professor… tried to remember the reason that she was here.

“Jenny, right?” he asked.

She cringed inwardly trying not to acknowledge him and feeling herself flush to an even deeper red. She stared ahead at the professor and tried to listen to his words, but her heart was pounding so heavily that she couldn’t hear a thing he was saying.

“Are you always this quiet?”

She didn’t answer him. She did her best to focus as the lecture went on, though only half of what the professor said sunk in. She only managed to hang on to every other word as he spoke and she tried to write it all down as she went.

“…process… chemical formula… undifferentiated…”

Her hand couldn’t seem to catch up to what the elder man was saying. It was like she was suddenly in a fog and everything wasn’t clear to her anymore. It felt like she was blind to everything else that was going on around her and she alone seemed to be caught up in the strange mist.

“Mr. Tigh,” the professor said, looking at Rick. “Do you know the answer?”

Jenny, looking to the boy sitting beside her, watched with interest. She felt lost again for the second time in as many minutes. She had lost everything that the older man had said. She hadn’t even heard the question.

Neither had Rick, apparently, as he answered with, “Sorry?”

Her eyes fell to the boy’s, Rick’s notes. What she saw there made her want to laugh aloud. He hadn’t been taking any notes at all. He’d been doodling, and not very well at that. Most of what she could see on his notepad consisted of poorly drawn naked women.

Typical jock.

The older man took a short breath and a slightly elevated voice replied, “What is the process by which plants generate oxygen called?”

Jenny watched Rick, waiting for him to give the answer. She felt a small wave of nostalgia washing over her at the question. She had learned it in third grade, and anyone who had taken the basics of science should have known the answer to this.

“Uh…” the jock responded, “no idea.”

What??!! She almost smiled at his response. The question was so simple that it bordered on hilarious that the professor should ask it. And once again, Typical jock, she thought. And she was content to lean back in her chair and watch as Rick looked dumbfounded in front of the whole class.

The professor looked crestfallen. Jenny couldn’t blame him. “You don’t? It’s a fairly simple question… and possibly the easiest question that you could be asked in my class.”

Rick looked unconcerned and simply shrugged, indifferent to the question’s importance. “Sorry.”

Jenny looked back to the professor, the fog that had settled upon her senses seemed to have lifted, and her spirits had gone up with it. She had gauged that Rick was an idiot, and correctly at that. Now it seemed that the whole class could see it.

“Unfortunate… I can see that I’d better assign you a good partner for this lab then,” the professor said. Jenny almost snickered. There wasn’t enough brilliance in the world to help Rick if he didn’t know the answer was “photosynthesis.”

“Ms. Tyll,” the professor said, looking at her, “I hope you’re equal to the task. It looks as though Mr. Tigh is going to need all the help that he can get.”

Jenny’s eyes widened at the older man’s words. For a brief moment, she felt like she must have heard him wrong. There was no way… it wasn’t possible…

“Me?” she asked, “His lab partner?”

The older man confirmed with a nod. “Yes… you,” he said, folding his arms. “Will that be a problem?”

She began to stutter a response, “But… professor… there must be…”

“Yes, there are,” he said as if he already knew what she was about to say. “But I think that you’ll be his best chance if he’s going to pass this course.” He smiled as if she would welcome this chance greatly. “Now that I’ve said that… let me assign the rest of you, your partners.”

Before she could protest, the older man turned and began assigning people to their new partners for the lab. Every bone in her body was protesting this outrage. She couldn’t be stuck with him for this class. It wasn’t right… it wasn’t fair! Sure, she had blushed to embarrassment when she’d seen him naked, but this was something else!

Jenny writhed inside, staring daggers at the old man and carving a hole right through that sweater vest that she had admired and mentally cutting his throat right above that bow tie that he wore. Any admiration that she had held for the elder fellow had gone.

“So… looks like we’re going to be working together,” Rick said, his voice amused.

She turned a baleful stare at him.

The rest of the period passed in a kind of rage-induced blur and Jenny found that she hadn’t taken a single note for the remainder of it. And by the time the period was concluded she gathered up her book and notes in a high dudgeon and sped her way for the door.

She hadn’t gotten two steps beyond when she heard Rick’s voice again behind her. She tried to ignore him.

“Hey! Jenny!”

She didn’t stop but kept walking.

“Hey, what’s the hurry?”

She got the overwhelming feeling that he wasn’t going to stop until she actually talked to him… and in complete sentences this time. Against her better judgment, she stopped and turned to look at him.

He too had gathered up his book and notes in a hurry and had them tucked under one arm and slung his bag over one shoulder. But unlike her, he looked positively delighted by the new arrangement that they had found themselves in.

“Well, isn’t this interesting?” he said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I wouldn’t have thought that this was possible when I signed up for this course.”

She only stared at him, her silencing sharping her stare like a knife.

“Listen I…” he began.

She held up a hand, silencing him. He looked taken aback by the motion, but he was quiet long enough for her to speak.

“You listen,” she said, a hint of malice in her voice, “we’re stuck together on this… I can’t do anything about that, apparently. But this class is really important to me, and I’m not going to let an idiot like you ruin it for me.”

The insult seemed to have struck a nerve in him, and his look of casual interest shifted, looking more affronted. It was like no one had ever spoken to him like this in the whole of his life. She sensed a small victory in that and used the momentum it offered and kept talking.

“I can’t make you do any of the work, but I sure as hell am not going to do the whole thing for you. Now you’re a football player, right? That means you know how to contribute to the team effort, right? Well if you don’t help me with this lab, I swear to god I’m going to make you sorry! Get it?”

His face was hard to read. It looked like a blend of shock and bewilderment, but there was something else in that as well. It seemed to be… acceptance?

“Right,” he said, his voice less jovial and more serious. “I won’t screw this up for you. I promise.”

She felt good hearing that… she felt ever better just saying what she had felt. “Good.” She turned and walked away.

Jenny was still fuming from the injustice of her lab by the time the day ended. She had managed to wrangle her sense of focus again and had gotten through her other classes without any difficulty. But the gap in focus for her lab weighed heavily upon her mind, and she began wondering if there was anyone else in the lab that she might be able to ask for a little help… and maybe find a way to get a new lab partner.

How? The old professor had seemed pretty set on her and Rick being partners for the term. How could she convince him otherwise? Rick was a jock… worse than that he was a joke. The teacher had to be able to see that Rick wouldn’t do his share of the workload. She shouldn’t be punished for that. Maybe she could make her case?

Maybe, but that would have to wait until this coming Friday when they had their lab again. In the meantime, she had other things to worry about. And she had the dorm to herself and was determined to make the most of the solitude.

She immersed herself in her book, Developmental Formulas when the door to her room opened. It opened with such force and suddenness that she would have thought that a SWAT raid was on. She nearly fumbled her book as a blur of figures came pushing through the door.

Two forms, she saw, one of them was Rick, and the other was Nichole. They came through with such speed that they nearly fell upon the floor. Laughing and moaning, Jenny felt a sickly feeling crawling over her skin that made her feel like she needed another shower.

Nichole had her leg wrapped around Rick’s, and his hands were clutching firmly upon her ass. Nichole moaned loudly as her mouth widened to accept his tongue and he grunted with delight as he did so, fumbling with the simple jacket that Nichole was wearing and pushing it from off her shoulders into a heap on the floor.

Jenny almost vomited at the sight, wondering if this same thing had happened Friday night when she’d been asleep and silently thanked God that she had slept through it if that had been the case. But after her talk with Rick today, she was grateful that she had found the courage to speak what was on her mind when she felt she was within her rights to say so.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice forceful.

The passion that had been brewing between Nichole and Rick ceased like a flaming brand dropped into a bucket of water, and the eyes of both her roommate and her boy toy turned to her. Nichole looked a bit embarrassed to have been caught in this situation. Rick didn’t look at all like he was bothered.

“Oh!” Nichole said, suddenly realizing that they weren’t alone in the room. “Sorry, sweetie… didn’t know you were here.”

Jenny began to say something but held it back. Nichole was obviously a sex-driven kind of college girl and unless a miracle happened then that wasn’t going to change. And seeing her half-wrapped around Rick like she was told her that their mutual intention was clear.

“It’s okay,” Jenny said, changing gears at top speed. “I was just leaving.” She scooped up her books and notes and dumped them into her backpack and gathering up her keys she started to push her way past them towards the door. “Have fun, crazy kids,” she said with a note of false joviality in her voice.

She pushed her way past the half-tangled pair of people and had just started to round the corner when she heard Rick’s voice, stopping her for the second time today. “Hey, Jenny!”

She stopped at the threshold of her room and turned to look at him. Though he hadn’t relinquished his grip on Nichole’s ass, and she was lightly kissing his neck, he looked at her intently. The weight of his stare made her feel uncomfortable. “I was wondering… what are you doing tomorrow night?”

It was a question that she wasn’t expecting. But somehow she didn’t think that he was going to ask her what time she wanted to meet for them to begin their O-chem work. She arched an eyebrow and replied the best way that she knew how “Studying.”

He smirked. “Well, if you want to take a break… there’s a party at my frat house tomorrow night. You should come. I think it’d be good for you to have a little fun.”

She could almost taste the bile in her throat and suppressed it with a shake of her head. “Thanks, but I don’t do frat parties… and I wouldn’t trust you of all people to know what’s good for me. I can make up my own mind.” She turned and walked away, hearing Nichole giggle behind her.

Her roommate added, “I told you she’s not any fun. Just let her go to her books… we have the whole place to ourselves tonight.”

The words were simple, but a little hurtful. Jenny had never been one of the partying sorts of people, not ever in her whole life. But she didn’t want people to think badly of her either. She shouldered her bag and kept walking, hearing the door to her room closing behind her.

As the weeks went by Jenny had managed to find a good equilibrium, both with her studies and with Nichole’s constant escapades. Nichole had seemed to finally realize – and understand – that Jenny didn’t care to be around whenever she brought Rick over for the night. As a result, they had worked out a kind of silent system of alerts.

Nichole, whenever she intended to bring Rick home, would lay out her evening attire and leave it there for Jenny to see. She was able to interpret the warning signs easily enough. If there were a thong and a matching bra present, then Nichole intended to show such undergarments to someone… namely Rick. At this, Jenny knew to come home only after the library had closed, by which time Rick would usually be gone. If there wasn’t a set of matching underwear present, then all was well, and she didn’t need to worry.

Disgusting as it was, the system seemed to work. And they had learned to stay out of each other’s way. It was as close to mutual respect as the pair of them came, but Jenny had learned to live with it. Nichole didn’t bother her while she was studying and she didn’t bother Nichole by being around when she and Rick were busy defiling their mutual living space.

As a consequence, Jenny had become overly familiar with the many shelves of the library whenever she needed a study sanctuary for the night. Weeks of the same routine had yielded to her the many books she needed for her classes. Oldest… newest… theory… practice… she was familiar with it all. She had become so familiar with the library that she didn’t require help from the librarians any longer when she needed something.

Much to her astonishment, she found that even Rick was pulling his weight in their lab. The work he’d done hadn’t been terrible, but it hadn’t been astounding either. But neither has mine, she thought.

This was proven by the paper that she was looking down upon even now. It was a single sheet of paper with a simple word problem written upon it. She had always known that chemistry and biology were going to be hard, but now she was beginning to see just how hard it could be.

She looked at the wording again, only some of it registering as she went. “…possible outcomes… requiring the differential… genetic makeups… dormant cells… regenerative processes… mitosis… immature cells… different cell types…”

“Ugh!” she said, rolling back on her bed and throwing her head upon her pillow. It was aggravating. She’d been staring at this same problem for the last two days, and she was nowhere near figuring it out. And this particular problem piece had to be turned in by Monday.

It’s due tomorrow, she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. She rubbed her eyes with her hands and let out an aggravated sigh. Maybe she had overlooked something? She’d been over the corresponding chapters in her book three times now, and she hadn’t seen the solution staring up at her. This, she knew, was what the professor liked to call an exercise in creative thinking.

Maybe there is no right answer? It was an appealing thought, because if that was the case, then anything she wrote down would be the right answer. This week’s lab had been about genetic theory, after all. And the theory was just that: ideas that weren’t proven. And if there was no proof then any answer she gave would technically not be incorrect. But even so, she didn’t like the idea of giving an answer that wasn’t the right answer.

“Can this get any worse?” she asked the walls of her room.

There was a knock at the door.

She stood up and answered. Rick stood there.

Yes, it can, she thought, rolling her eyes. “Nichole’s not here,” she said, knowing that there was no other reason for him to come to her room. He didn’t even come over to study, especially when Nichole was the only thing he’d been interested in examining.

“I know,” he said, his voice was somber and genuinely so.

That gave her reason enough to pause. In recent weeks she had only ever seen him as his usual boyish self, laughing at everything and treating everything that he was supposed to be taking seriously with mild neglect. But he had always been upbeat and good-hearted about it all.

Now, he wasn’t.

“Uh, can I come in?” he asked.

Curiosity prodded at her. Something was different about him. She looked him over. He was wearing the same things that he usually wore; his form-hugging t-shirt, ragged jeans, tennis shoes, and his necklace with the school mascot were all firmly in place. He’d shaved since she had seen him last and his hair was neatly combed. The only thing that seemed different about him was his mood.

“Sure,” she said, stepping aside and allowing him to enter.

He did so, keeping his hands respectfully in his pockets as he did so. She felt strange as he walked in, wondering if maybe this was some kind of a trick on his part, but her curiosity overrode her caution.

When he entered, he slipped into one of the desk chairs that the room had come furnished with and sat facing the bed, where her books and notes had been spread out. She settled back onto the bed, facing him, watching him for any signs that he was just being an ass.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He was silent a moment, rubbing his hands together. “Uh… I’m… not really, no.”

She watched him, sensing no deception in him. This didn’t seem to be any kind of a ploy. He looked genuinely distressed about something. She waited.

“Has Nichole… said anything to you lately about me… or about anything, really?”

Jenny furrowed her eyebrows. “No… why? Is something wrong?”

He leaned back in the chair. “Oh, God… I don’t know. She’s… she’s just been different lately. She’s giving me a headache. I feel like I don’t know what to do about her anymore.”

“Well, what’s she doing?”

He pressed the heels of hands against his eyes as if he was trying to bar some horrible image from surfacing in his mind. “She’s doing everything… and it’s driving me bat shit crazy. One minute everything seems good between us, we’re holding hands and kissing, and then the next she’s all over one of the other guys on the team. And then the other night we were out having dinner, and she thought I was looking at the waitress the wrong way and then she was shouting and…” his voice trailed off, and he groaned. “Christ, I don’t know what she’s thinking.”

Suddenly, being absent from Nichole’s comings and goings sounded like the smartest thing that Jenny had accomplished since term had begun. She didn’t care to be caught up in the dramatic trappings of others’ lives, and it was for reasons like this that she knew she had done the right thing.

“I’m sorry,” she said, uncertain of what else to say.

“I thought it was my fault at first,” he said. “Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to her something… that’s why I was kind of hoping that maybe she had said something to you.”

Oddly enough, Jenny suddenly felt bad that she had nothing better to offer. “No, I’m sorry… we, uh, don’t really talk much.”

He didn’t look shocked to hear this. “I guess I’m partial to blame for that, aren’t I? Otherwise, you two would be having like some kind of a sisterly bond, right?”

Jenny laughed at that. “Nichole and me, like sisters?” The idea sounded as ridiculous as finding ice cream on the surface of Mars.

“Not that close, huh?” he asked, a small smile crossing his face.

“No,” she assured him.

He nodded. “I guess I should have realized that. I see her at every party… I only ever see you in class… or know that you’re at the library when you’re not here.” He rubbed his chin. “Yeah… the differences are plain, now that I think of it.”

She was kind of impressed to hear him speak like this. He was exhibiting unusual behavior… there was something normal about him. More impressive than that, he was actually displaying traits of a scientist by being observant. There was something very humanizing about that.

“What’re you working on there?” he asked, pointing at the paper on her open book. He tilted his head sideways and looked closer. “Oh, that…”

She sighed and nodded. “Yeah… I can’t figure it out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I help?”

She wanted to laugh at that too. Him… help her? She almost did, but she held at the last second. He had come to her tonight with an honest problem, and she’d been unable to help. It would have been rude to laugh at him for offering to help her with her school work.

“No,” she said, “that’s alright… I have to figure this out on my own.”

He nodded. “Right, sorry… I forgot you don’t need much help for anything.”

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s not that I don’t need help from time to time… I just like trying to figure things out on my own, is all.”

He looked back down at her blank paper. “And how long have you been trying to figure that out? Since Friday, I guess, since you haven’t scribbled a thing on that paper?”

She measured his words. They weren’t meant to be hurtful or demoralizing. She believed that he was actually trying to be humorous, and in a good way. She managed to give him an honest smile. “Yeah… just about, but I’ll have it figured out by tomorrow. I just need to re-read some of the books… something will come to me.”

He nodded and got back to his feet. “I’d better let you get to it then.” He looked around and found a sticky notepad sitting on the desk. He scooped it up and using a pen he found next to it he scribbled a quick note, folded the small piece of paper and passed it to her. “Will you do me a favor and give this to Nichole when she comes in?”

She took the small piece of paper in her hand and though she didn’t feel very comfortable getting in the middle of other people’s problems, she didn’t see the harm in delivering a simple note. She could just leave it on Nichole’s pillow and be done with it. No harm, no foul.

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” he said. He was just about to replace the sticky notes and the pen when he stopped; his eyes rolled in their sockets for a second before he scribbled a second note, folded it and passed it to her as well.

“Another note?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he replied as he opened the door. “But that one’s for you.”

She was confused by his words and it must have shown because he winked at her as he closed the door behind him, “See you in class tomorrow.”

Alone in her room again she looked down at the second piece of paper in her hand curiously. She began to sense that there might have been another prank involved in this and began to think that maybe Rick’s momentary lapse of humanity had faded.

Just when I had a moment of thinking he wasn’t so bad, she thought irritably as she unfolded the piece of paper. When she looked at it, a short message was written across the surface.

Let this be one time you need help.

Pluripotent.

- R

She stared at the small message, her confusion growing until at last it dawned on her. The obviousness of it all hit her like a Mack Truck at top speed.

That’s it… that’s the answer to the damn problem! It was so simple it was beyond obvious! It was almost childish that she didn’t know the answer. It was like that day in class when Rick hadn’t known that “photosynthesis” had been the answer to their teacher’s question. But now she was the one who looked childishly foolish.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, looking at the closed door and the figure that no longer stood there.

He knew… he knew the damn answer! Did that really just happen? Did I imagine it?

She looked down at the small note in her hand. No…, that simple scrap of paper, was proof enough for her that what had just happened was real. As real as listening to Rick talks about how Nichole was giving him shit and that he was upset about it. It didn’t seem real… it was like a dragon had just entered into her room and played “Johnny B. Goode” on a xylophone or something.

She could only sit there on her bed, amazed.

Jenny walked into chem lab the following morning with a curious sense of apprehension. The same thought kept circling in her mind the same way buzzards circled over a carcass.

Rick knew the answer to the homework issue!

She still couldn’t wrap her head around it. From what she had learned of Rick in past weeks, he had been an ass hat to the umpteenth degree… but at least he did his work. He never did his work this well, but at least he had something to turn in by the end of it all. But this… it was like finding out that one of those smart monkeys that could type Shakespeare had just gotten a degree in advanced biology. Even she hadn’t been able to figure out what the solution to their homework had been, and she was one of the top contenders in the class. But Rick Tigh, of all people, had literally given her the answer as casually as if he had been passing a note in class.

It was almost… brilliant?

Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch… but then again, maybe not. She had considered the possibility that Rick had simply gotten lucky. Maybe he’d read something in their text that she had missed… or asked someone else in the class for help? No, that didn’t seem likely. Rick barely asked her for help, and the only thing she’d seen him do with his textbook was to use it for a pillow once or twice when they were supposed to be studying.

But his answer to the problem, pluripotent, was actually insightful. It was a solution that she hadn’t even considered. She knew that they hadn’t read about such things in their text, and she hadn’t seen any notes given on it in class. The only explanation that held any plausibility was that Rick had actually thought about it and figured it out.

Even now, with the entire night and most of the morning to think about it, it still amazed her. And that made two instances in half as many days in which Rick Tigh had managed to impress her. First was what she had seen for herself to be a moment of genuine emotional vulnerability and the second had been some genius-level academic insight. If she hadn’t been there to see them both herself, she wouldn’t have believed that they actually happened.

She found that she was indeed looking forward to the lab today. They were supposed to discuss the homework issue in class and if Rick had been so inclined to share his thoughts… well, she was looking forward to seeing how well he worked with a little insight.

When he entered into class, tight shirt and all, she found herself stirring with a little honest excitement. When he sat down in his seat next to her, she felt a little… giddy? Maybe… but she wasn’t able to contain the smile that grew on her face.

“Good morning,” she said to him as he sat.

“S’up?” she replied in his usual jock-ish kind of way.

She felt her heart falter a little at that. She had expected something a little more normal than that, but she pressed on. “That was an interesting solution to the homework issue,” she said, anxious for a little more academic conversation from him.

He snickered. “You mean you actually did it?”

She nodded. “I never would have thought of it if you…”

“Good morning, everyone,” said the old professor as he walked into the room, depositing his old-fashioned leather briefcase on his desk and facing everyone with a warm smile. Everyone in class snapped to as the elder man spoke, books and notepads opening wide. “I hope you all had a good brainstorm over your assignment this past weekend. Let’s begin the discussions, shall we? Now, who here can tell me what the most likely solution is – biologically speaking – to the problem that I posed to you?”

Jenny knew what was about to happen and waited, almost excited to hear what was about to happen as the professor’s eyes came to rest on Rick. This was part of his usual routine since Rick was likely dead-last in the class academically speaking the old teacher liked to make an example of him to others. “Mr. Tigh,” he said, his voice filled with predictable anticipation, “what solution did you arrive at?”

Jenny looked at her partner and waited. She was eager for him to give the single word that would undoubtedly astound and amaze their teacher. Just to hear Rick utter the simple word would feel like a breath of the proverbial fresh air and fuel her hopes that maybe he wasn’t so bad and that their studies were important to him as well.

“Uh… cornstarch… some kind of syrup… red dye number 5 I think it was…” Rick began to utter, his eyes rolling as if he were plunging the depths of his memory and taxing his mind to great degrees.

Jenny frowned.

“Hold it right there,” the prof said, holding up a hand and stopping him. “What are you getting at, Mr. Tigh?”

“I was looking at the ingredients to the energy drink that I had this morning… it’s all I could remember.” He shrugged. “I thought it sounded smart.”

There was a small titter from the class, but the professor looked unfazed.

Jenny felt the familiar weight of disappointment settling down on her whenever Rick did something stupid that made her look bad. Only this time she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What? What the hell is he…?

“Mr. Tigh,” the professor said, his voice neutral as if he had anticipated this very response from Rick, “did you even do the homework that was assigned to you?”

Rick shook his head. “No, sir… I was busy with practice this weekend.”

For a moment, there was a tenseness that hung in the air, but Jenny didn’t have the heart to break it. She wanted to smack Rick across the shoulder and make him tell the truth. She wanted him to be that insightful and emotional person that she had seen in her room last night. But it seemed that that person – whoever he had been – had gone.

“Disappointing, but not unexpected,” the prof said, looking to her. “Ms. Tyll, I’m sure you fared better than your partner. Would you care to share your insights with the class?”

For a moment she felt a new weight upon her, this one settling upon her and making it feel as if she had the whole class standing upon her chest. For a second the word would not form in her mouth until she took a short breath and responded, “Pluripotent.”

The professor’s eyes brightened and his old wizened teeth shown with a look of unmistakable glee. Out of her periphery, she could see others in the class looking down at their own homework papers in disappointment and then look at her as if she had had a stroke of brilliance that none of them had considered.

“Yes!” the professor said, his voice filled with awe. “That… is a very clever solution, Ms. Tyll. Hypothetically speaking, yes, pluripotent would serve very well indeed!” He gave an astonished gasp. “I must confess, even I had not considered that option… I’m impressed Ms. Tyll. Why don’t we start with that today?”

Jenny felt like her lungs had just been filled with tar and then set ablaze. She was thankful that the professor turned his back to her and quickly rushed to the dry erase board and began to write out the definition of a pluripotent and its various attributes because she couldn’t bear to look at the older man for a second more.

She did, however, look to Rick.

He looked as unconcerned as ever and opened his notebook. His pen began to move in lazy shapes on the page, drawing more naked women.

Her fist tightened around her own pen as she forced her gaze forward, watching the professor as he kick-started their class discussion.

Jenny sat alone at a table in the dining hall that night. She followed her usual routine of waiting until the dining room had cleared out so that she could sit and study while she ate. When she waited until the dining hall was nearly empty, well after the dinner rush, she found that the large room was actually quite serene. It made for a perfect study place.

She had found a table where she could sit alone and was busy re-reading a chapter from chemistry when the familiar voice of the biggest ass hat that she knew drew her attention away from her book.

“Can I sit with you?”

She froze, not bothering to turn around. She felt her fist tighten around her fork and rather than answer she took another spoonful of the gravy-laden mashed potatoes into her mouth and chewed softly and silently as if she hadn’t heard him speak. She didn’t want to be near him right now. She didn’t even want to look at him after what he’d said – or hadn’t said – today.

After only a few seconds he circled around to the side of the table opposite her and settled down, holding a tray that was laden with a serving of the same food she was half-finished with.

She wasn’t able to hold her silence. “I didn’t say it was okay for you to sit down.” She kept her eyes forward and glued into her book, watching him only peripherally.

He shrugged. “My dad says that sometimes it’s best to take unilateral action. Sometimes it has results that one doesn’t expect.”

You don’t say, she thought sarcastically, and she nearly scoffed at him. “Unilateral? That’s a big word for you to use.”

“Yeah?” he asked, stirring his gravy into his mashed potatoes. “You think so?”

“Yes,” she replied, unable to hold back the venom that was building up inside of her. “But do you know what would have been a more impressive word for you to use today?” She paused, allowing the silence to build tension. “Pluripotent.”

He chuckled as he took a mouthful of his potatoes and began to cut a small piece of the beef brisket that he’d gotten. “Yeah, that would have been impressive, wouldn’t it? Especially coming out of me… who would have believed it?”

She couldn’t answer that. The truth was that the only person who would have believed it would have been her, but only she would have known the reason why. And if he had said it then everyone would have assumed that she had been the one to tell him the answer. That was getting to be the routine that she and he fell into while they were in class. But up until today, she had been able to honestly take credit for the more interesting insights.

But today… it felt like she had cheated. The feeling made her stomach churn.

“You’re such an asshole,” she said through gritted teeth but still didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes forward, but she wasn’t able to continue reading. She stared at the page blankly, not taking in another word of what was written there.

He slowed in the carving of his meat for only an instant, like her insult had actually given him pause, but then his pace returned to normal as he took his cutlet into his mouth. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so,” she shot back and unable to help herself she finally looked him in the face. His eyes were watching her, the dark brownness of them was almost captivating, and his depleted beard made him look… distinguished somehow. “That was a brilliant idea you had… why didn’t you tell the professor the truth? We both know that it was your idea!”

He looked down at his plate, a small look coming over his face that resembled… shame? “It’s complicated.”

“Then un-complicate it!”

He sighed as he cut a second piece from off of his meat. “My dad.”

She furrowed her brow. “That’s your complicated reason for not letting everyone see that you can actually think about something other than football and naked women?”

He nodded. “Pretty much,” then he paused and looked at her. “You don’t know who my dad is, do you?”

She kept her face neutral. She had no idea who his father was.

He grew a small smile. “Well… that explains a lot.”

She shook her head uncomprehendingly. “What does your father have to do with any of this?”

“Oh, my ‘father’?” he asked, his voice amused. “I like the way you say that… it makes him sound so important. Of course, that wouldn’t be far from the truth.”

“You’re still being an asshole,” she retorted.

The second insult seemed to pierce him again and after only a moment he sighed. “My dad is kind of a big deal… you might have heard of him. NFL superstar Neil Tigh.”

Jenny had no idea who that was. She didn’t follow sports in the least of ways when there were plenty of other names in the world of science that she had to keep straight. She shook her head again. “I don’t get it.”

He took a sip of water from his cup. “Well, allow me to try and… what did you say… un-complicate it? I’m pretty sure that you’ve reasoned it out already that I’m here on a football scholarship. My dad was too, he laid the whole game plan out for me; as long as I do the bare minimum and keep my grades at average, I can focus more on ball than anything else. If I play dumb in my classes, the Profs go easy on me and don’t expect a whole hell of a lot out of me.”

Jenny almost wanted to laugh. It sounded like the kind of thing that a father on a sitcom would tell his son to do. But just as she had the previous night, she couldn’t detect any sign of a lie from him. He was telling the truth.

“But… I’m sorry if I embarrassed you today. I really am.”

That took her by surprise. Of all of the things that she had expected that he might say, she hadn’t thought he’d apologize for being stupid. Or rather that he was pretending to be stupid. “Huh?”

“I saw you flush,” he said casually, “when the old fart looked at you to give him the answer. Your cheeks turned red. Haven’t seen that look on your face since…” he paused; looking a little embarrassed himself, “since the morning that you and I… met.”

Again, she couldn’t detect that he was lying. And again she was impressed to hear such a detailed observation come from out of him. Yup… he was definitely pretending to be stupid.

“And for the record,” he went on, “I do think about other things besides football and naked women.”

“Speaking of which,” she interrupted, looking at her watch, “where’s Nichole? I thought you two had a party to go to tonight?”

He took another drink from his cup. “No.”

“No?”

“No. It’s kind of awkward to go to a party with someone when you’ve just broken up with them.” He looked across the table at her. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in that situation, though, have you?”

She froze, looking curiously at him. “You broke up?”

“This morning… right before class.” He said it so casually it was like he was telling her that he stepped on a cockroach on the sidewalk.

She was stunned. Again, he had managed to surprise her with his words. Rick Tigh had always seemed to her like a stingy kid who refused to share his toys. And for him to have a plaything like Nicole and suddenly let her go…? The ideas didn’t even sit together inside of her mind.

Unless, Nichole was the one who broke up with him? That seemed more likely. She remembered what he’d been saying the previous night about how Nichole was filling his life with the kind of excitement that he didn’t like. Maybe her redheaded roommate had finally reached her limit?

If that was so, then Rick seemed to wear his rejection as easily as he wore their teacher’s bereavement of his intelligence. Maybe there wasn’t a beating heart underneath all of that muscle after all.

“I’m sorry she dumped you,” she said simply.

“No, I dumped her,” he said. Again, his words were so casual it was like he was telling her the color of the shirt he was wearing. And yet again, she was surprised to hear him say so. But before she could say anything he pressed on. “I was tired of her shit, and she’s getting bat-shit crazy.” He paused, “Besides, my dad doesn’t want me to get – shall we say – too attached to any one girl.”

Jenny only stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. “Why?”

He shrugged. “If they get too attached to me, I’m supposed to unload them. My dad had three ex-wives before I was born. He only stuck to my mom until after I was born. He tells me that having women won’t be a problem when I get drafted by the NFL.”

He rolled his eyes at that and Jenny couldn’t help but detect a modicum of disdain that he had for his words. It was as if following in his father’s footsteps held no appeal to him at all. But she didn’t have the heart to interrupt, and she kept listening.

“My dad tells me that one day when my knees are too shot to keep playing, or I’ve had too many concussions to keep playing safely, then I can worry about having a woman in my life but not before.”

She was at a loss for something – anything – to say. She simply sat and watched him, all thoughts of studying forgotten. He only cut his meat, drank his water, or spooned up his mashed potatoes as they sat there. She could only sit and wonder why he was so calm about his life being planned as it apparently had been.

It was like he was talking about a playbook that he had memorized and was quoting it word for word. Every move he would make… every action he could take… everything that he could ever say; all planned out for him like “X’s” and “O’s” and connected by arrows on curved lines.

It was incredible.

But still, that expression he’d worn just a short moment ago… that look of dislike for having his life planned out by his father. That his life would have to be a shadowy reflection of what his father had achieved and how it seemed to hold no appeal to him… that was fascinating.

That was interesting.

And that he could possibly rebel against such strict tutelage was… interesting?

She paused at that. Yes, it was… he was interesting.

The thought made her worry a little inside.

As the semester went on she began to notice a distinct change in Rick’s habits. She was unable to avoid thinking that these changes were an improvement on his part. He was less of an ass as time went on and she even noticed that his work took a definite upswing in class. Most of his essays had gotten wordier, his responses to class discussions made him seem less like a dumbass, and she had even taken to writing down a few notes when he spoke as he had some unique perspectives and insights. To her astonishment, he had even offered to come with her to study at the library every time that she went, a thing that he had never done before.

She had been surprised by that, and it had her feel a little warmer towards him. Jenny was not accustomed to having a partner with her when she studied. She had always been alone when pursuing academia. That was the way it had always been for her, and mostly by choice as she had never known anyone who had the same pursuits and desires as she’d had. But now, in college, when the stakes were considerably higher, it had felt strange having a study partner and a committed one.

It had felt good.

Rick’s performance in class even began to improve. The professor continued his usual bit of picking on Rick in class for one question or another, and soon enough their elder teacher had been surprised to find that Rick could offer some questions that even their professor could not answer. Much to her discomfort the old man usually attributed Rick’s improvements to the tutelage provided by his partner, her.

She had blushed a little at that. Their professor had complimented her, many times, on the improvement that Rick was showing. Though she knew that she had had little to do with Rick’s rising marks and that in truth, his insights had been entirely his own.

Odd as it seemed, she found that she was growing accustomed to having Rick around. They had begun to hang out even when not studying. He’d convinced her to come and watch a few of his games, which she had really only found mildly interesting at first but she had learned what it meant to get swept up in the mentality of the crowd when cheering for their own team and she’d enjoyed it. Once or twice they had attended a few lectures from guest speakers – each time it was Rick’s idea – and that had impressed her. They’d been to see a few movies together, shared a pizza once or twice, and sometimes they walked the campus simply talking.

She had learned a lot about him.

Mostly she learned about the kind of impact that his father had on him, and she was beginning to understand his slightly rebellious nature. He didn’t want to disappoint his father in his athletic pursuits, but he was also drawn to the idea of living his own life and the way he intended it.

“I always got good marks in school,” he had once told her. “I did the usual things that most brainy kids might do… Chess club… Mensa… I made the Honor Roll every year… four letters for academics in high school… you name it.” He’d put his hands in his pockets with a clear look of frustration. “None of it impressed my dad, though. Not until I tried out for my first ball team, he didn’t seem to care.”

“And that was important to you?” she’d asked.

He nodded. “He always seemed to… I dunno… ignore me, I guess. It was like he didn’t even notice that I was there, despite the fact that he was the one taking care of me. And then one day I decided to try out for a team, managed to make it, and when I came home and told him… he turned into a different person.”

Jenny was able to see a picture forming in her head. Rick’s father wouldn’t have cared for his son’s pursuits until they matched – or at least imitated – his own. Sports, it seemed, was the one thing that they had in common. And once Rick had achieved that, his father had finally taken an interest in him, and Rick would have noticed that. He would have kept up with sports following that just to keep his father’s attention, but she didn’t see the need to share that insight with him.

“So you kept playing?”

“Of course, I did. And I made every team that I tried out for… grade school all the way until now. I mean, how could I not make it? I’m Neil Tigh’s son. That means that I have greatness bred inside of me like a blue ribbon thoroughbred. And it’s only natural that I’m going to be drafted by the NFL as soon as I finish school… my dad’s been talking about me to every last person that he can in the NFL.” He scoffed, “Shit, I might end up playing for my dad’s own team after he retires. He’s got this fucked up idea about everyone in his bloodline playing for the same team and making it a family legacy.”

Jenny still didn’t understand much about the world of sports, but even that sounded more than a little unusual. Football players weren’t racing horses; they couldn’t be bred to carry on a family legacy. And just like horses, they could be bought, sold, and traded to people who had enough money. Even she knew that there was no guarantee that any one player would stick with the same team for the whole of their career.

“I’m sorry, Rick,” she’d said, “I can’t imagine being under that kind of pressure.” She felt a little guilty saying so. The truth was that her parents had always expected nothing less than a 4.0 GPA from her, and she had worked hard to achieve just that. But it had come at the cost of having good friends or anything that resembled a social life.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know… but what can I do? I’m here on a football scholarship. If my grades slip, I can’t play ball. If I don’t play ball, I lose my scholarship. And dad was proud of me because,” his voice changed, he imitated a man that sounded older and husky-voiced, “I’m so damned proud of my son… he’s got a full ride on a ball scholarship! Now that is something that I never was able to do!”

Despite herself, she laughed a little at his imitation.

Rick smiled at her. “I like it when you do that.”

She paused. “What? Laugh?”

“No… smile.” He smirked. “I think you’re pretty when you smile.”

She blushed again.

He made compliments to her like that off and on as time went by. She would have felt strange about it, considering that he had been dating her roommate when they’d first met. But she had settled into a new kind of equilibrium with her redheaded roommate as well. Often times Nichole was still nowhere to be seen and once or twice Jenny had had their room all to herself for whole weekends. When she did see Nichole it was usually only long enough for her roommate to stop in, change her clothes, and share a little gossip about some party she was going to and then she would disappear.

Nichole never asked about Rick and Jenny had seen no need to volunteer any of that information. Nichole seemed perfectly happy without him and, well, strange as it was, Jenny kind of liked keeping her strange little relationship with Rick a secret. There was something exciting about it.

When their chem lab began to get into the physical sciences portion of the semester, she and Rick stepped up their game. Part of their new project was to try and develop a new solvent that would dissolve certain kinds of amino acids while not harming others. It had sounded like a ludicrous idea when she’d first heard it, but the class had been assured that it could be done.

On the fortunate side of things, there were plenty of vacant labs available for them to try and solve the problem and there were more than enough chemicals available for them to experiment with. Additionally, there were plenty of beakers, Bunsen burners, thermometers, Petri dishes, microscopes, and most importantly their privacy. Their teacher had stressed that if there were too many similarities in the results between teams, then all of those teams would lose points off their final grade.

“I can’t afford anything less than a 4.0,” she had told Rick.

He had silently understood and told her that they needed to take advantage of the chem labs when no one else was around. “Fortunately for you, you’re partners with a guy on the football team who’s tight with the overnight security guard… who happens to be a big fan and will let us in for a little extra studying time,” he’d told her one afternoon with a wink.

She had smiled at the chance.

They had donned lab coats, safety goggles, and rubber gloves while performing their work. They had gone over every possible permutation that they could come up with creating a chemical compound that would attack – at least in theory – certain kinds of amino acids while leaving others untouched. God, it still sounds so stupid! She had shared that thought with Rick and to her continued amazement he had said that he believed that it could be done.

But they had yet to succeed after several tries over the last week and a half.

“Alright,” he said, measuring the temperature of their latest concoction inside its test beaker with a digital thermometer, “reduce the heat… we need to drop the temperature about ten degrees.”

She did the math in her head and dialed down the Bunsen burners’ flame, reducing its size by a little more than a quarter. She watched the liquid as it slowly boiled inside the beaker. It was a reddish liquid, reminding her of red wine she had once tasted, slowly reducing from a medium boil to a gentle bubbling like the carbonation of soda.

The change in bubbling gave her a twinge of worry. “I think we backed it off too much.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, his eyes glued to the digital thermometer in his hand. “We need to find the right boiling point. If we get the temperature just right… shit! No!”

Her eyes took in the disaster as it occurred. The liquid changed color, going from a wine-looking substance to something that was as thick as paint. The bubbling ceased almost instantly as the contents of the beaker almost seemed to solidify.

“Shit!” Rick said, spreading his hands out and putting his head against the tiled surface of the countertop. He groaned, “I thought for sure we had it this time.”

She tried to run the formula over in her head that they had come up with. Admittedly most of it was Rick’s arithmetic, and he hadn’t been wrong so far, and she had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But she only admitted to herself that she didn’t entirely understand what it was that he was trying to do. “Maybe we added too much…”

“No,” he said, cutting her off. “I fucked it up… I pushed the temperature too hard and then tried to cool it too quick. I thought if we boiled it first we’d fractionally distil the softer substances out, but instead…” he lifted his head up and indicated the beaker filled with whatever it was now, “we made toxic pudding.”

Despite their failure, she chuckled a little. She looked at her watch. “Look, it’s already after eleven, and we’re nowhere near figuring this thing out. And we still have two weeks to get it done. What say we just try again tomorrow?”

He sighed and turned the burner off. “Yeah, might as well… tired minds don’t plan well.” He looked at his own notebook that sat a few feet away and with a pen in his coat pocket he drew a big “X” across tonight’s notes; indicating another failure. “So much for attempt number eight… maybe attempt number nine prove more fruitful.”

She smiled at him and together they began to clean up their mess. She disposed of the mysterious contents in their test beaker while he put away the assortment of test chemicals that they had gathered to try and make their project work. When they finished, she couldn’t help but notice that he looked a little more dejected than he had the last few times that they had tried. Though she wouldn’t have believed it weeks ago, it seemed that these failures were starting to get to him. If there was one thing that she had observed about him, she knew that he didn’t care for losing.

“Hey, it’s alright,” she assured him. “No one gets it right the first time.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know… how many prototypes did cavemen go through before they perfected the wheel, right?”

She laughed again. That was a concept she had never really thought about. And that he would use science as a means of humor made him a little more endearing.

She was just about to gather up her backpack when she noticed that her hands smelled strange. She sniffed at them and found that there was some kind of a strange odor about them.

“What?” Rick asked as he put away his notes in his bag.

“My hands.”

“What about them?”

“They smell.”

He furrowed his brow and walked over to her, taking her smaller hands in his larger ones and examining them. He lifted them up to his nose, almost as if he was about to kiss them like a gentleman in one of those old movies. The idea sent a little flutter of excitement through her heart. But no kiss came, he only sniffed at her skin and his nose crinkled.

“Ah, I know that smell… I think the talcum powder inside your gloves was a part of a bad batch, it happens sometimes. Nothing a little soap and water can’t cure.” He guided her to the nearest wash sink and turned on the hot water. “Here, let me help you,” he said.

“Uh, I can wash my hands on my own, thanks,” she said, feeling a little irritated at his presumption.

“Fine,” he said, not freeing her hands, “but you’ll only spread it around if you do it yourself. It’s your call.”

For a moment she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but again she couldn’t detect that he was lying. She waited a moment and then finally just decided to give in. It was late, and she was tired.

“Okay,” she said, standing in front of the sink.

He smiled and wetted his hands and then pumped some soap from a nearby dispenser into his palms, rubbing them together. He lathered up his hands and then standing behind her he encircled her with his body, his hands running parallel to her own. His right hand gently cupped her right hand; his left did likewise with her left. Again, her heart fluttered at the strange proximity.

He guided her hands under the warm water and gently began to rub his soapy hands around hers. His fingers coaxed hers, rubbing at the webbing of skin between her thumb and index fingers. He gently massaged her knuckles… her palms… even the way he touched the tips of her fingers felt oddly delightful…

There was something incredible in the way he touched her. Something profound… something exciting… there was even something sensual about it.

She liked it.

He slowly began to rinse her hands, and she began to notice the other proximities that they shared. Feeling his chest pressed against her back, the way she felt cradled within his arms, that his head was so near to hers that their cheeks were all but pressing against each other… it was like magic.

Jenny was no stranger to the attraction. There had been boys she’d thought had been cute before now. All of them in high school when she’d first felt her hormones stirring, but none of them had ever been the types that would have looked at her, much less talked to or been attracted to her. Now that she thought of it, she had never been held by a boy like this before.

Rick shut the water off and pulled a paper for her to dry her hands with. As before, he did the work and gently folded her hands through the small piece of scrap paper. Her hands dried he tossed the scrap away.

“There, all better,” he said.

She only stood still for a moment, their hands hung suspended in the air between them. With her skin moist and the nearness of him, she felt a strange sensation rolling over her. She felt eager… anxious… like a mouse confronted with a piece of cheese too tempting to let pass. Without thinking about it, she reached out with her freshly washed hands and cradled his face.

He froze.

For an instant, she was afraid that he might pull away or shatter the silence that had descended upon them with questions that she had no care to answer. That was strange, too, she realized. Her sense of logic and rationality seemed to have shut off. She felt swept up in her emotions… something that, as a scientist, she knew she was not supposed to do.

She reached out and kissed him.

His depleted beard lightly scratched at her chin, but she found the sensation enticing. His breath was warm and sweet, he didn’t fight it, and the gentle hiss he gave off as he sucked in a breath added to the feeling.

After only a moment, she parted from him.

They stood together in the silence of the empty lab for what only could have been a short while, but the tension that she had brought upon them seemed to make that simple quiet last forever. She watched him as they stood. His eyes remained closed, his body lightly trembling though she still held his face in her hands. He licked his lips with his tongue and somehow she found that appealing. The heat in the room seemed to have gone way up, and Jenny found herself taking deeper breaths from the building excitement.

His eyes opened, slowly, as if he were waking from a dream. Those soft brown eyes seemed to drink her in, and she felt captivated by them like she never had before. His eyes weren’t watching her… not exactly… more like they were surveying her, measuring her intentions the same way she measured his words for lies. But after a moment she realized he wasn’t just surveying her… he was admiring her.

Without a word he slowly reached an arm out, offering her plenty of time to retreat if she wanted but she had no care to. He encircled her and brought her to him, planting his mouth on hers.

God, what am I doing? She had only time for this one thought before she was swept up in the moment. After that, nothing seemed to matter but him and her, and the privacy that this vacant lab offered them.

His hands traveled down to clasp her ass, and she felt him lift one of her legs up to hook over his hip, and he guided her arms to encircle his neck. She was electrified by this, not just how he seemed to manipulate her body but how he responded to her touch. With every stroke of her hands, with every flick of her tongue, he trembled.

With strength that naturally would have been a football player’s to command, he lifted her up off of the floor and set her on the counter that they had so recently been experimenting upon and a new experiment – one with better promise – began.

His mouth played at hers, his tongue gently flicking in and out of her mouth, driving her wild. She had never been like this with a boy before… not ever. Not even in her dreams and fantasies. Somehow the illusion seemed to pale compared to this. And the experience was more than satisfying.

His fingers lightly went to the hem of her shirt, and she felt the surge of adrenaline course through her as she realized what it was that he was about to do. Slowly, he pulled her shirt up, exposing inch after glorious inch of her bare skin. She had thought that perhaps she might feel self-conscious about such a thing; she had never thought that she had a body that anyone wanted to see. No one had ever complimented her looks. But that worry had never even crossed her mind now that she was with him.

They broke their kiss just long enough for her shirt to be pulled up over her head and again his eyes combed over her body. His eyes lingered on her breasts, held inside the simple bra that she wore, and that look of awe still danced in his eyes. She smiled as he bent over, his lips lightly kissing at the skin of her chest, his tongue teasing one breast and then the other.

She almost chuckled at how well he did so but held it in as his fingers lightly traced their way up to her shoulders, his thumbs hooking to the underside of her bra straps. Gently he pulled them aside, baring her shoulders, his mouth moved to kiss the skin there. His lips and his tongue were warm and magical upon her, sending fresh waves of excitement down her spine.

His hands traveled to her bra’s clasp just between her breasts, and the small click that the plastic made in the silence filled her with delight as her skin was exposed. Again her lack of self-consciousness was like a breath of fresh air like she had been underwater her whole life and was only now savoring the sweet smell of oxygen.

He bent over again and took her nipples into his mouth, each in turn, and a groan of animal-like desire left his lips. His hands joined the playfulness of his mouth, his fingers closing around her breasts firmly, but gently. She cradled his head in her arms, holding him to his playfulness.

She felt alive for the first time in her whole life. She had seen the movies, read the stories, and happened to overhear the boasts of those who had claimed to have had sex. And she found all of them now falling utterly short. This… this simple foreplay… was greater than anything that she had ever imagined. She couldn’t wait for the really good parts to begin.

He kissed and licked his way south between her breasts until his lips came to her jeans. With frantic hands, he unbuttoned her pants and slowly pulled them down, panties and all. The countertop on which she sat was cold, but the heat that coursed through her countered the sensation quickly. It felt as if nothing could touch her, she felt electricity dancing along every hair on her body.

Naked before Rick she leaned forward, putting her mouth on his again. His lips responded hungrily, his tongue coaxing hers into his mouth where he lightly sucked on it, eliciting a small moan from her. He used his lips like a magician used a magic wand.

Her hands reached out, taking his shirt and lifting it from over his head. Her eyes took in the sight of his torso. She recalled, with a slight blush, that she had seen him naked once before. But this was different… it was like she was seeing him for the first time. It was like he was hers… and she was his.

She had never felt anything like it.

He knelt before her, like a man at prayer, and pulled her to the edge of the countertop. To her amazement and complete delight he quickly buried his face between her legs. His mouth once more working its magic upon her she felt a new wave of energy surge through her. Had she been hooked up to electrodes she felt she could have lit the whole university for a month.

She arched her back as his tongue flicked in and out of her. Her hands shot out to her sides to steady herself, but they offered little support as his mouth both lent her energy and weakened her simultaneously. Her fingers became desperate for something to grab a hold of but the flat surface of the counter where she sat provided no refuge for her hands. Inadvertently she stretched her fingers into his scalp, running them through his hair, his head responding to the pressure and driving him further and further inside of her.

“Oh God,” she moaned as she leaned back on the counter, the coolness of the material kissing at the sweat that had begun to form on her skin. She widened her legs, and he took full advantage of her motion as his tongue licked her in ways that she had never imagined that someone could.

She lost track of how long he was able to maintain his pleasure, and it wasn’t until he stopped that she began to realize how fuzzy her head seemed to have become. The room seemed to be spinning, but not uncontrollably so. Her senses felt dazed but alive, and she craved that feeling more.

She realized she was about to get it when she looked down the length of her body and saw Rick standing before her. He fumbled with the buckle of his belt and the button on his jeans as he anxiously pulled his pants down. She took in the sight of his cock, hard and ready, the veins along his shaft throbbing.

I made him that way, she realized with pride.

Gently, he took her by the hips and guided her to him. She almost held her breath as he slid inside her, the pleasure that it created was dulled only by a brief moment of pain, and then that too was forgotten.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his hands gently crawling forward to cup her breasts. “You’re so tight… so warm…”

She drank his words in, trying to hold onto them as if she could grasp them with her bare hands but she was unable to do so as he began to thrust inside of her. He moved slowly, not rough and rugged like she had thought he would, but gentle. His movements were savory, and she could feel every last inch of him as he slipped in and out of her.

She felt her toes curling, her legs trembling, her hands went to his torso, her fingers plowing imaginary lines across the thickly bunched muscles that he had. It was like a dream, touching something so finely honed. She had dreamed of such things, but the reality swept them all away.

He held onto her hips for leverage as he thrust within her. She almost wanted to think that she was dreaming, but if she was, she didn’t care to wake up. She felt like she was finally being rewarded for her many years of study… of discipline… of always putting her academics first when she had so badly wanted something, anything, that felt normal. To have just one night to herself and live the life that other people took for granted… to feel wanted… it had been something that she had thought she would have to live without.

But it was not so any longer.

His hands reached up and took hers, his stronger fingers curling over her smaller ones. He held her hands, and she could feel his strength, it appealed to her in a way that she had never imagined. She had only ever thought of football players as thuggish brutes whose brains were in their biceps. But Rick had proven an exception to the rule. She had gotten to know him… spoken with him… worked with him… and following the pattern of her whole life she had learned about him and discovered something that interested her.

She was attracted to him. She supposed that in a way, she always had been. But she had never imagined that he – a famous football star on the rise – would ever be attracted to her. Not even for a little while.

His hands lending her strength he continued to move within her. She gasped as he moved, her gasps becoming moans, and her moans drove him to speedier thrusts. The sounds she made were like a conductor waving his baton to elicit beautiful music from an entire orchestra. Their movements were soft and low and then became loud as crescendos as their bodies danced to the music that they made.

Her fingers clenched tightly around his, her moans brought grunts from him that allowed them to keep time with one another. Their bodies settled into a rhythm, and when she relaxed her fingers, his thrusts slowed when she tightened them they intensified. It seemed as if she were playing an instrument that brought her more joy than any true implement could have ever given her.

Their rhythm changed. It intensified, becoming more powerful. She felt like the dynamos in those old movies where the mad scientist brought his monster or his savage robot to life; spinning and spinning to generate power to the point of sending out wild arcs of electricity to charge an entire atmosphere. She was enveloped by it as her hands tightened around Rick’s to the point where her fingers began to hurt. It felt like her bones might crack as they gripped each other so tightly.

His thrusts were powerful, overwhelming, intense, and they seemed to overtake her once… twice… three times before he seemed to begin to lose momentum. Her legs stiffened then trembled, her whole body felt as if it had gone limp. She felt beads of sweat forming on her body and running off as if she had just been under a fresh rain.

A new silence settled upon the room as he leaned forward, resting his head on her chest. He still kept himself inside of her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him there. Their breathing was ragged and came in short gasps as she tried to bring her senses back to bear.

The world was spinning before her eyes. As a child, she had stretched her arms out and spun and spun until she became so dizzy that she fell over. That same sensation washed over her even now. And she held onto Rick as an anchor, feeling herself spinning wildly out of control and he created the much needed solid ground that she could hold onto with ease and never let go.

After a short time, their breathing returned to normal, and Rick was the first to gather enough of his senses to speak. “This was your first time, wasn’t it?”

She felt a small pang of worry at the question. She had just had one of the most amazing and profound experiences of her life, but somehow his question seemed to mar it. She wanted him to think that she had been amazing… that perhaps she had displayed some manner of technique that he had never experienced before? More importantly than that, she didn’t want him to know that she had been a virgin. The idea seemed repulsive, even to her.

Don’t be stupid, she thought, her sense of rationality and logic settling in upon her. Of course, he’s had better… he’s a football player. He dated Nichole for God’s sake! That slut probably did more for him than I ever will! And of course, he knows this is your first time… it’s not like you’ve talked at length about all of your old boyfriends!

The thought complete, she found enough recourse in her heart to tell the truth. “Yes,” she said simply, fearful of the result.

He pushed himself up to rest on his elbows to look at her. She met his eyes with her own and expected to see shock or maybe even disgust there. But each expression was absent from Rick’s features. All she did see there was… satisfaction.

“I liked it,” he said simply.

Inwardly she beamed.

They walked arm-in-arm with each other back to her dorm and all the while she felt like she was walking on air. For the first time in her life, she felt… whole? No, that wasn’t the right word. In truth, she didn’t know what she felt, except to say that she felt better than she had when she first woke up this morning.

“I have to say,” Rick said, his cheeks flushing – which she found adorable – “I’ve never had this much fun in a lab before.”

She blushed as they walked, her dorm coming into sight, the lights of the lit windows – even at this late hour – ruining the shadows that concealed them. She suddenly felt her sense of self-consciousness beginning to assert itself within her and knew that they had to part soon. And though she gently tried to remove her arm from his, he wouldn’t allow it.

She bit her lip with silent pride at that.

When they finally got to the front door of her dormitory, he held onto her hands and looked at her. His demeanor, the way he carried himself, even the expressions that he had worn had suddenly seemed to change. It was a pleasant difference to see in him and that she was the one that had evoked it added pride to her heart.

“So…shall we try again tomorrow?”

She wondered if he meant their lab work or…? She laughed and said, “Yeah… I’m willing to trying again.”

He smirked and leaned in to kiss her a final time. When their lips parted, he rested his forehead against hers, and she felt the tingle in her limbs at their proximity again. They stayed that way for a short time, neither of them seeming to want to let the other one go.

“So, I’ll see you in class tomorrow?”

She nodded. “I can’t wait.”

When they broke apart, he waited until she was safely inside the doors of her dorm before walking off. He walked backward, always keeping her in his sight the whole time until at last the night seemed to swallow him.

Jenny stood there at the door, staring at the night where he had vanished and felt an incredible feeling fill her up. She had not felt this good about something outside of her academic pursuits in a long time. She felt like she had made an important milestone in her life… she’d had a social encounter.

And a damned good one, she thought.

Her pleasant thoughts carried her all the way to her room, and when she arrived there, she was surprised to see a crack of light shining under the door in the quiet hallway. She knew that she hadn’t left the lights on; it had been light outside when she’d left. That could only mean…

“Oh God,” she murmured, realizing that there was only one explanation. A sense of awkwardness crept over her as she realized that Nichole was home.

So what? I’ve been keeping the fact that I’ve been seeing Rick a secret from her for weeks… why is this any different? The answer was obvious: she had only been studying with Rick up until tonight. Things were different now, and she knew it. It’s okay… I just have to carry on like normal.

She composed herself mentally and physically and inserted her key into the lock and opened the door. When she did, she saw Nichole sitting on her bed, her eyes wet with tears. When her redheaded roommate looked up and saw her, her look of sadness turned to a look of outright loathing with incredible speed.

“Fucking bitch!” Nichole hissed.

Jenny froze. The insult was aimed at her and that it had come at all was nothing short of a shock. She tried to think of something to say, but before she could, Nichole got to her feet and produced her phone, turning it so that Jenny could see the screen.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

On Nichole’s phone was a photo of her and Rick. She recognized it at once, taken only minutes ago, an image of her and Rick holding hands outside the door of the dormitory greeted her eyes. Nichole swiped the image, and it changed again, becoming one of her and Rick kissing. She swiped it again, and it was another of her and Rick resting their foreheads against each other.

Jenny was at a loss for words and felt like someone had reached inside her chest and clamped a steel fist around her heart and spinal column, pinching them shut like a plastic straw. She thought to ask how Nichole got these pictures… then her mind changed gears to argue that she and Rick had broken up weeks ago… that she had been giving Rick so much grief before they broke up that she had no right to be jealous or angry. But the words wouldn’t translate from thoughts and all Jenny could do was stand at the threshold of her door with an irate roommate.

“I thought that there had to be a reason he broke up with me,” Nichole said, her voice sounding genuinely hurt. “Now I know… but I never would have thought it was you!” She stiffened her lip, and the look on her face sent a feeling of panic down Jenny’s spine. “Get ready you fucking slut… the whole campus is about to find out that you’re sloppy seconds!”

In a move that surprised her, Nichole reached out and pushed Jenny from their room and into the hall beyond. Jenny lost her footing and fell onto the carpeted floor, her backpack tumbling over her shoulder. She tried to protest and speak but too late, the door to the room she and Nichole shared slammed shut. The sound of the panic lock sliding into a place filled the silence of the hall.

She knew she wasn’t getting back inside there.

Jenny sat, dazed and stunned, wondering just what it was that Nichole had meant. The fear of infinite possibilities crept up inside of her. She knew the kind of person that Nichole was, and the options that her roommate had to make her life into a new kind of hell seemed more than possible, they were certain.

Jenny couldn’t believe this turn of events. This night… which had started out normal and turned magical had suddenly become something else. Something that seemed like it was right out of a nightmare.

Uncertain of what else to do, unable to think anything else, she began to cry.

Nichole made good on her threats just as she had promised. Jenny, having slept in the common room of the dorm, woke to find people pointing and laughing at her the second she had opened her eyes. She had known these people from her life in the dorm, though she had not been particularly friendly with any of them. She had always been content to keep to herself and not interfere with the lives of others if they would do as much for her.

Now she was beginning to regret that decision, as she had no friends to turn to.

It didn’t take her long to find out what Nichole had done that had suddenly seemed to make everyone turn on her. A quick check of her phone yielded a flood of social media alerts that were all about her… and Rick.

The pictures, presumably the ones that Nichole had taken – or perhaps someone had sent to her? – had all managed to surface on the internet. At a casual glance, most of them were harmless, some of them simply posing the innocent question: Who is Rick Tigh’s New Mystery Woman?

Others were as corrosive as sulfuric acid and burned her twice as badly. Most of the comments that she had seen were mean and hurtful. Some of them came in the forms of, “I’ve seen this chick at the library… should have known the quiet ones were the kinkiest.” Some were more like, “I can’t believe Rick Tigh would hook up with a nobody like this.” Others were more akin to, “I can’t figure it out. He’s a 10, and she’s a -100.”

There were hundreds of comments and thousands of views of these photos, and they were popping up everywhere. It was like she suddenly couldn’t escape them, like a flood tide, and she was about to drown. Fresh tears surface in her eyes, and when she saw Nichole emerge from their dorm a short while later, Jenny was uncertain of what to do. Part of her wanted to attack her feisty roommate while another part of her wanted to grab her and drag her to the R.A. and demand a mediation session. But her mind drew a blank as Nichole emerged and mouthed a very subtle “Fuck you,” as she disappeared out the door into the open campus.

Jenny sat motionless for a long time, unable to move, feeling as though her skin had been pumped full of led. Her mind seemed to have abandoned her, and she was unable to make any kind of sense of any of this. She felt like an ant under the proverbial magnifying glass and that her whole world – which had been quiet and unseen until this point – was suddenly ruined and being destroyed by intense focus.

She almost sputtered her tears, not knowing what else to do. A crippling feeling surged into her stomach, and she felt like vomiting. She wanted to cry again, she wanted to run away, she wanted to find the deepest and darkest hole in the world and just crawl into it. But that option seemed moot now, as it seemed that even one who had spent her life trying to be invisible could easily be flushed out.

Part of her wanted to run to her now vacant dorm room and just hide in there, locking the door and keeping all of the evils that Nichole had unleashed upon her out. But she knew that it would serve no good… Nichole had occupied that room and spun her evil like a spider spins a web. She would be nearest to the evils that now haunted her there as anywhere else.

Unable to keep her feelings suppressed she felt her mind switch over to logic. So Nichole had done what she had promised she would… it was done then. What Nichole had done was the equivalent of casting a stone into a still lake; there would be ripples, but eventually those would fade and become nothing. Her actions would be forgotten, and everything would be as it was.

Jenny felt some comfort in that thought. If she had observed anything about how people viewed the social lives of others is that they took only a momentary interest until something more worthwhile came along. They would forget about her soon enough… everything would just go back to being the way it was before. It would be like it had never happened.

But it did happen, she told herself, closing her eyes and feeling tears squeeze out from behind them. She still couldn’t believe her rotten luck. Last night had been wonderful and so unexpected, but now her life felt as if she had been cast into her own personal hell.

Things won’t go back to the way they were, she realized. People – ones that she didn’t know but ones that had clearly recognized her – had marked her. They would never let her forget what this was all about and shame her for it. The weight of public opinion was so heavy upon her she felt like she was breathing in a dense metal. There wasn’t any way to escape this. She would always be known as the girl that Rick Tigh didn’t deserve, and there would be consequences to pay for it.

She paused, a thought occurring to her, but one that hurt her inside terribly.

She gritted her teeth, trying to see both sides of the coin that she had just been presented with. She tried to keep objective, but her vantage point was compromised. She could no longer be objective; her views were askew unless she could detach herself from her predicament.

God… no, she thought, feeling a new heavyweight filling her up and burning her like molten metal. She had the solution now and was unable to think otherwise on it. The answer to her problems was simple, but it was the most reasonable and surest way to correct her predicament.

She began to reach for her phone, a simple text… a phone call… that was all it would take. But then she held. No, she decided, it was something that she couldn’t allow technology to handle. It was something that she had to show she had the heart to do in person. And she needed to do it at the earliest opportunity.

Feeling her heart grow heavy, she picked up her backpack and headed out the door and into the campus where she was certain the rest of the world was waiting for her. Waiting… and anxious to mock her.

When she arrived at chem lab, she was an hour early. She had walked much of the way with her head down, hoping that no one would recognize her. But peripherally she saw people occasionally looking at her, watching her, and a few fingers pointed in her direction confirmed that some of the other students recognized her.

Feeling sick she had hastily walked away, eager for someplace to disappear into. When she found the hallway outside the lab mercifully empty, she attempted to slip inside the classroom, desperate for a small measure of silence and peace to collect her thoughts, as was her personal tradition. But her aggravation increased when she found that the door was locked, preventing her from getting inside and just sitting at her desk and buying some time to think.

Feeling that molten metal plunging into her stomach she put her back to the door and slid down, sitting on the cold linoleum of the floor and hugging her knees to her chest. She did her best to keep from weeping in the event that someone came by. She didn’t want to add to her humiliation by suddenly seeming weak, but she couldn’t help herself. At least not while she had privacy for the moment, she wanted to let her emotions run freely and purge them from her body. So her tears came freely, and she wept and shut her eyes.

She lost track of how long she had been sitting there when Rick’s voice broke the silence of her personal torment.

“Jenny?”

Her eyes shot open, and she looked in the direction of his voice. When she saw him, her heart gave a small flutter, but it quickly subsided when his expression changed. It wasn’t a shift of heart that seemed to change him, but more of a reaction to seeing her. It went from jovial to worry in a heartbeat. She watched as his eyes took in the sight of her and undoubtedly he seemed to realize that she was wearing the same clothes that she had been wearing yesterday… last night… and that the puffy redness under her eyes was a clear indication that something was not as it should be.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, rushing over to her.

She stood, wanting to run to him and hold him. She wanted to find sanctuary in those arms that had held her last night. She wanted to feel sheltered and secure. She wanted to feel like she had just passed under everyone’s notice and live her life the way she had always lived it until now.

But she couldn’t… she held her ground and held up a hand to stop him from advancing any nearer. He paused, confused like he had been anxious to hold her in his arms again.

She summed up her courage and forced the words out. “H-have you seen them?”

He furrowed his brow. “Seen what?”

“Please, don’t play stupid, I can’t handle it right now,” she said, her voice a combination of rage and sorrow. “I know you have to have seen them. You’re in a frat. I’ll bet your brothers threw a party for you over the whole thing.” She hoped the words sounded hurtful. “I’ll bet you even have a Google alert on yourself or something.”

He shook his head, and she could tell that her words were hurtful to him to some degree, he looked perplexed but when he spoke his voice sounded calm. “Jenny, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I woke up at five this morning for practice at six, and none of my frat brothers were even awake yet. And I’ve been moving around all day, and my phone’s been off. So, please, tell me what you’re talking about?”

She again measured his words, looking for any sign of untruth but she found none. He genuinely was ignorant of the weight that had been crushing her all morning. “You really don’t know, do you?”

He simply waited, patiently, for her to deliver an explanation.

She didn’t know what else to do except open her phone, find the photos that felt like they were choking her, and passed it to him. His eyes widened when he saw the pictures on the screen, and as he swiped through them, his expression changed over and over again. His eyes scanned the small screen, and she had no doubts that he was reading over some of the words that had been written there.

“Holy shit,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” she said, holding back a tear.

He shook his head and passed his phone back to her. “Don’t worry about it.”

She suddenly felt like she had just been kicked in the chest by an angry horse. “Don’t worry about it?!! Are you kidding me?”

He froze, looking frightened by her. “Babe, it’s okay… it’ll blow over soon. People forget about this stuff all the time. Two or three days no one will remember it even happened.”

Part of her wanted to be reassured by this, having thought the same thing already, but she couldn’t manage it. But hearing it come from him – and so casually – did not offer the relief she had thought it might. What offered her even less relief was that he was taking this in stride like it happened to him all the time.

Suddenly it felt as if a steel rod had been shoved down through her skull and planted her to the floor like a scarecrow in a cornfield. A terrible thought crossed her mind and for once, her turbulent mind was able to form thoughts into words. “Has this happened to you before?”

He nodded with such a casual grace that she felt certain that she would vomit. “Sure… a few times, but it’s okay…”

“It’s not okay!” she flared at him, her anger rising. The sorrow in her heart was replaced by a sudden urge to murder him… to murder Nichole… to murder anyone that happened to be close to her. “People are saying all of these horrible things about you… about me… about us! It is most definitely not okay!”

“Jenny…” he said softly, reaching out as if to put his hands on her shoulders.

She smacked his hands away. “No! Don’t touch me!”

His expression changed again. There was something hurt behind his eyes, and she felt only a momentary pang of guilt for having done so. She thought about what he had said that this sort of thing had happened to him before, and it infuriated her. She felt like she had made a classical scientific blunder: she hadn’t noticed a pattern forming.

Of course, this sort of thing had happened to him before! He was a goddamn football star! He had whichever girl he wanted and as often as he wanted them. Hell, he’d even told her that his father had burned it in him not to get too attached to one girl for too long. And here she was, just another point in his pattern of behavior, and soon enough he would move on to the next girl.

She had had foreknowledge of something before it happened and she had still fallen into the blunder! It was like chumming the water and then jumping in with the sharks, expecting that the ravenous animals would ignore her! She felt so stupid for having thought otherwise.

This realization seemed more crushing than anything she had been brooding over since last night. She felt childish, even stupid for having thought about the things that she had last night in those few blissful minutes between their time in the lab and reaching her dorm. Her mind, however briefly, had wandered off to wonderful and amazing things. Going on dates – actual dates – with Rick Tigh like a normal person would have seemed so unreal, but they had been within her grasp. She had fantasized about dinner and movies, not as study partners, but as a couple. She had thought what it would be like to bring a boy home to meet her parents or possibly better still… to meet his father.

God, how fucking stupid I was!

“I can’t…” she tried to say, but the words refused to leave her lips. She felt like she was trying to explain a book on rationality to someone who was illiterate. “I can’t be here right now… I can’t look at you… I can’t be near you… I’m leaving.”

She gathered up her backpack and brushed past him. She needed space, her own space, not someplace where she would usually seek solitude but somewhere else… someplace she knew that he or anyone else would never look for her.

“Jenny, where are you going?” he asked as she walked by. “We have class in ten minutes…”

She ignored him and kept walking, her eyes welling with more tears. She was angered by what she had just heard, by what she felt, but somewhere inside of her she was amazed that she still had enough substance within her to produce fresh tears.

Jenny knew that she had had some rather clever ideas in her time, but she thought that her current choice of hiding place was one of the top ones. It almost made up for the feeling of total inadequacy she had felt for the whole day… for feeling as dumb as dog shit.

She looked about the empty football field and reveled in the serenity of her solitude. It wasn’t the official field where games took place, and it reminded her more of where a high school team might play, but it offered her the silence and solitude that she had longed for. It was the Tiger’s practice field, and she knew that if there was going to be anyone here, they would not be here until later in the afternoon. She had at least another hour or two to be alone.

She had lain out on the center of the 50-yard line, looking up at the sky. She watched as the clouds took shape and dissipated in the blueness above her. Her cheeks felt red from being under the sun for so long today, but it felt better than for the reason that they had felt red earlier today. Fury, she was noticing, was a compromising emotion. She hadn’t been able to think straight before she got here and with the blessing of being alone, she had managed to calm down.

Her phone continually buzzed. She could hear it vibrating in her backpack, but she actively ignored it, feeling better and better about herself. It felt good being detached from, well… everything. She hadn’t gone to class, she hadn’t opened a single textbook, and she had avoided contact with any other living person for nearly six hours now. In short, she had played hooky today… something that she had never done in her whole life.

It felt good.

Two of life’s milestones in as many days, she thought with an amused smile.

She sighed deeply and watched the clouds as they rolled by. She tried to determine if any of them held shapes familiar to her and she had counted them as they went by. Thus far she had seen a duck, a car, a house; something that almost looked like the Orion constellation, a twisted tree, and a helium molecule… the list went on and on. She felt better, having lost herself in an old childlike escape that she hadn’t utilized since she really was a child.

To just be away from everything… from everyone… it had felt like she’d taken a real breath of much-needed air. Her heart had calmed down, and she felt like she was thinking straighter for it. She felt like she had finally cried out all of her tears and life was finally beginning to feel like normal again.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that it wouldn’t last. She would eventually have to go back to the real world. She hadn’t eaten anything all day and her stomach was rumbling with hunger, and her throat felt cracked with thirst. But it hadn’t been that kind of sustenance that she had needed today. She had needed what had always been her best asset: time alone.

She had pondered over many things, most of them tied to what was going to happen to her life now. What was she going to do? Drop out of school? Go back home? Tell mom and dad what she had done and hope that they forgave her? Would she tell them the whole truth? Would she decide to keep this whole thing a secret? What if they somehow learned about this latest little explosion on the internet and read the stories and the comments for themselves and were able to draw their own conclusions?

Yes, these thoughts had weighed down on her tremendously. But they had only been half of what she had been thinking of. The other half of her moral dilemma revolved around Rick.

She felt uncertain pangs in her heart just thinking about him. She was angry with him, but at the same time she found that she missed him. It was a horrible contradiction in emotions. Were this any other day then by now they would be at the library studying. Maybe they would be at a dining hall in one of the other dormitories and talk about how they could make their experiment better.

Or maybe they would be…

No!

She pushed those thoughts aside with an angry grunt and sat up. No, she couldn’t afford to think of that. Yes… last night had been amazing… she had never been with anyone before, and she had savored the sensations. But now she felt that she had leaped to conclusions. She’d allowed childlike wonderment to carry off her sense of logic and reasoning, and now she was paying the price for it.

She had just been a diversion. A bump on the road in the life of Rick Tigh’s eventual rise to sports fandom and he would, as he apparently had done many times, just run her over and press on until he got to where he was going. Wherever that was, it wouldn’t involve her in the least of ways; she would be nothing but a footnote.

She sighed at that. The more she thought about it, the more she was willing to accept it.

Yes, there were things that she had to do here. She had to leave school. She remembered the socio-social politics of every school she had been to. And the politics usually dictated that sports stars – usually football stars – were the ones who had the most sway in anything. It was their lives that were followed most closely and when they clapped the rest of the school danced to the beat. The academics, like herself, were supposed to go by unnoticed. And for something like this, after what Nichole had done, no one would ever believe her side of the story.

That had given her pause as well. What was her side of the story? She had been paired with Rick Tigh in chem lab, and unwillingly at that. He’d been an ass. He’d pretended to be dumber than he really was so that he could just skate by doing the minimal amount of work.

But then he’d changed, and she’d been there to witness it. He’d changed his character. He’d become more outspoken, shown he was more intelligent than he let on, and done work that even she hadn’t considered doing.

It had been… nice.

And somewhere along the way, she realized, she had begun to like him. Not just as a study partner and not even just as a friend. But she had really begun to like him. She knew that for certain, otherwise last night would never have happened.

But it did.

And she’d wanted it to.

Yeah, and look where that got me.

Okay, maybe this would be a mistake that would rival any other that she had ever made or would ever make. Maybe she never would recover from it. Her mind had explored the possibility of going all the way to the dean’s office to lodge a complaint against Nichole for what she had done. But the more she thought about it, she began to wonder if it would really be worth all of the trouble. The whole campus had already made up its mind about her, and she felt sicker for it. Perhaps it was just better to leave and find someplace new to educate herself… like maybe a small community college back home where there were no sports teams and everyone was focused on academia. It would be easier for her to disappear then.

The idea of a clean slate held more than a little appeal. Sure, she liked this school, and it had been her first choice for higher education. But after this, the whole place suddenly seemed tainted after seeing that the whole of the student body would be so quick to turn against her for something that was, by and large, not wrong in the least of ways.

What was out there in the world to learn could be learned from anywhere. That was the brilliance of books, the internet, and even people who had dedicated themselves to learning this, that, or the other. The information didn’t change based on where one sat in a classroom, but dedication to obtaining that information depended solely on the person who wanted it.

That last thought brought her up short.

She thought back to Rick today… on how he had said that he hadn’t known what was going on because of Nichole’s intent to slander her. She thought of how he had reacted to the photos she’d shown him and the horrible and hurtful words that he’d read. He’d been so casual about it, and that had hurt her. But she remembered the basis of adaptability: exposure to negative stimuli builds up a tolerance and eventually immunity. He’d been through this same thing so many times that it didn’t bother him. But she, on the other hand, had never been through something like this. Of course, she was going to react differently.

But that wasn’t what she thought about the most. What kept coming back to her was how he’d tried to talk her down… how she shouldn’t worry about it… how he’d even tried to remind her that they had class. His mind was on academics… on her feelings… and hers had been focused only on herself. She’d spoken hurtful words to him in the hope that he would show how hurt he was. That he would react somehow to this whole thing. But he had chalked it up to just another daily occurrence in the life of Rick Tigh.

Though she couldn’t explain it, her mind kept coming back to what he’d said and done – or tried to say and do – before she had walked away from him. He’d tried to reason with her. He’d had more to say, and she hadn’t listened to him, she had been so overcome with emotions.

As a scientist she realized that that had been a big mistake; letting her emotions get the better of her like that.

Inadvertently her eyes went back to her backpack. Though she couldn’t see it, her cell phone beckoned her. She nervously twiddled her fingers together, wondering if it was a wise idea to pick her phone up and check what it kept buzzing over.

She knew what to expect: more updates about Rick Tigh and his new girlfriend, more hateful comments of people that had seen her and him together, and likely more of Nichole’s – and probably some of her sorority rush pals – making mean comments about her.

Her shoulders sank. “I can’t avoid it forever,” she said to herself.

Mustering her courage she reached into her backpack and pulled her phone out. With a final calming breath she swiped it to life.

“89 messages, 1 new voicemail,” the startup screen read.

“Huh?”

She opened her phone and had a look at the roster of unread messages. Her eyes widened with surprise when she saw who they were all from.

Nichole.

Not just some, all of them.

She opened the first message, curious and fearful, and what she read there was just as she had predicted it would be.

‘How does it feel, bitch?’

She had expected that. She opened the next.

‘Your fame is spreading. I would avoid the news kiosk in student plaza if I were you.’

She opened the next.

‘There’s a couple of stray dogs running around the campus. Friends of yours?’

‘Are you meeting Rick today? Be careful where you meet, there could be another camera waiting to catch a money shot of you two.’

On and on the hurtful messages went. She had reached the nineteenth or twentieth message when suddenly Nichole’s messages changed.

‘I need your help,’ it said.

That surprised her. But not as much as when she opened the next message.

‘I’m sorry.’

She opened the text, and her amazement went on and on.

‘Sweetie, I need your help, please answer me.’

‘Jenny, I know I fucked up, but please I need your help now.’

‘Jenny, I’m being called to the dean’s office! I need your help!’

‘I need a character witness, sweetie! PLEASE help me!’

The words put a lush smile on Jenny’s face. She read the next message, and the next, and the next until she finally reached the final message. Though she didn’t know what the outcome had been, she was able to determine that somehow, someone had managed to point the finger at Nichole as the source of all of the horrible things that had been said and done today, and now she was being drilled for it.

Cyber-bullying laws, Jenny suddenly realized.

Suddenly it felt like she was sitting in a beam of divine light and the weight of crushing pressure was lifted from off of her shoulders. Nichole had taken a shot in the dark, and that bullet had somehow come back to do more harm to her than it had to anyone else.

So, there is such a thing as justice in the world!

She felt good… she felt amazing.

But the good feeling soured when she thought of Rick.

Rick! Oh, my god!

She moved her fingers across her screen and was about to dial his phone number when she saw the call history on her phone.

“1 Missed Call,” it said. And she recognized the number instantly. It was Rick’s. The voicemail!

She opened her voicemail box and put her phone to her ear and listened. She bit her lip nervously, waiting for the message that could only have been left by Rick. Panic and anticipation rocked her heart, wondering if his message would be angry… hurt… or something else.

“When you’re ready, turn around,” was all that the simple message said before the virtual Rick on the other side of the call hung up.

She paused, feeling a bolt of lightning shoot sideways across her heart. She turned as the message instructed, and sitting directly behind her on the edge of the 50-yard line marker was Rick.

He sat with his legs crossed, his backpack sitting beside him like he had been sitting there for hours. He watched her as she looked at him, his face looked worried… as if he feared what she might do once she realized he was there.

“Rick…” she half-gasped. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Long enough,” he said back. He swallowed a lump that looked like it had formed in his throat as he stood up. “If you want me to leave…”

She dropped her phone and ran towards him with all of the speed that she could muster. She tackled him with speed and efficiency so profound that she could have made the team and knocked him onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. She planted her mouth on his with enough fiery passion to weld plates of steel together. And that, she found, was chemistry that she could enjoy beyond all others.

When their kiss broke, she felt flushed and relieved at the same time. And the look on Rick’s face was both impressed and equally as relieved as hers.

“So… everything is okay?” he asked, almost nervously. She kissed him again. “So… that’s a ‘yes’?”

She chuckled and playfully rapped his chest with her fist. “How long were you sitting here?”

He shrugged. “Only about an hour or so,” his expression became more solemn. “I was worried about you.”

The words sounded reassuring. “You were?” A thought crossed her mind. “How did you know where to find me?”

He rolled his eyes. “I said to myself, ‘If I were Jenny, where would I go to hide where no one would think to look for me?’ The answer was pretty clear to me, and it only made sense that you would hide in a place dedicated to football… someplace where you thought that I would never look for you.”

She blushed, “Am I that predictable?”

He didn’t answer right away, but his expression remained somewhat worried. “I went after you when you walked out, but I lost you in the crowd.”

She lowered her eyes shamefully. “I’m sorry I missed class.” The words were hollow and completely untrue; that wasn’t what she was sorry for.

“It’s okay… I took my voice recorder to class today, I recorded the whole thing. You won’t fall behind.”

She was slightly relieved by that, but there was still more that she had to make up for. But before she could formally apologize she needed more information. “What happened?”

He smirked. “Let’s just say that the kinds of skill sets you find in a frat house are amazing.”

She frowned in confusion. “Huh?”

He smirked. “I had filed a complaint against Nichole weeks ago… just after we broke up. So there happened to be a report on her that established a precedent for unstable behavior on her part after all of the shit she was putting me through. And then as for today… well… I happened to have a frat brother of mine do a little computer work that was able to trace the I.P. address where those photos of you and I originated and wouldn’t you know it, it was Nichole’s? It somehow that that I.P. address was leaked out to the provost’s office… campus security… even the dean’s personal computer and then everyone knew who started this whole thing.”

She was able to infer that in this case “a little computer work” was code for “hacking.” Normally she would have thought this to be a very shady thing to do, but she didn’t care. Not this time.

“And then?” she pressed.

He smiled, almost wolfishly. “Well… let’s just say that’s when the real firestorm started and Nichole was in the eye of the whole thing. There were blogs about Nichole – some of them even artfully written – that started popping up faster than porn advertisements from an e-bomb. And more pictures of her – in rather compromising positions – began to surface.” He rolled his eyes sickly, “It’s amazing what some girls would do during a sorority rush.”

She gasped delightfully, wondering how Nichole had reacted to such things and imagining her redheaded roommate cracking under pressure. An image of Nichole, breaking down crying, filled her mind.

“In any event, the shit she tried to pull on you and me paled in comparison. All of her would-be sorority sisters – and everyone else for that matter – started to bail on her like rats on a sinking ship. Nobody would help her. She was called to the dean’s office for it. Apparently, cyber-bullying – and a few other kinds of bullying – are very serious crimes. And since they couldn’t reach you – but a reliable source assured that you were unharmed – the dean laid formal charges against her on the school’s behalf.”

She didn’t need to ask who the reliable source was or how he’d told them. All she needed to know was that people had seen the truth of these horrible events and that she wouldn’t be blamed for any of it. She smiled, realizing why Nichole had chosen to sing a different tune so fast. That’s why she apologized… she thought that I would help her. “How long ago was that?”

He looked at his watch, “About two hours ago. If I had to guess, she’s packing up her half of your dorm room right now… with your R.A. and a couple of campus security men standing watch probably. Apparently cyber-bullying – not to mention those rather compromising pictures – outweighed her ambition.”

He smiled and got to his feet, bringing her with him. They simply stood there for a long time, holding each other. He rested his forehead against hers like he had last night and she savored it. Being alone on this empty practice field felt good. It felt as if there really was a patch of the earth that belonged only to them and it felt right that they should share it.

“Listen…” he said after what felt like a long time. “About us…” he licked his lips nervously. “I like what we have, the old and the new. I mean, especially the new.”

She felt her old doubt nagging at her. “But, Rick, how do I know that I’m not just another of your conquests? How do I know that you’re not just going to brush me off like you did Nichole and move on? What about your dad?”

He shook his head dismissively. “It took being with Nichole to realize that I had been on a kamikaze run my whole life. I was with all those other girls knowing that it was going to end ugly because that’s what my dad told me to be like.” He paused, gently stroking the side of her face. “And then, I was paired with you in class.”

She felt a flutter in her heart.

“You were the first one – the only one – in my whole life who told me that I was an asshole. You actually made me feel stupid about pretending to be, well, stupid. Everyone just kind of assumed that I was the dumb-jock and thought that I wasn’t capable of being something better than that.” He smiled softly at her. “I liked that.”

She smiled back.

“And as for my dad… don’t worry about him, Jenny. I’m here on a football scholarship that I earned… not him. I got it because I killed myself playing high school ball to get it. He had nothing to do with how I got here. I’m sure being his son didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t because of anything he did that got me here. Plus, he’s two thousand miles away on the other side of the country. He can’t tell me what to do from there. It was different when I had him standing over my shoulder and watching my every move, but that’s not the case anymore. I wanted him to notice me… to be proud of me. Well, I’ve done that. Now I feel like I just want him to ignore me, at least for a little while.”

A brew of emotions welled up inside of her. It sounded very much like he was speaking the thoughts of her mind, but inverted. She would have given anything to be invisible and unnoticed by the rest of the world. And Rick had wanted that too, but he had seemed to relish his fame. It was strange to hear him speak like this.

“It was never hard for me to get top marks in school before now and it won’t be now… especially if I have you to help me.”

A warm feeling burst in her heart and slowly began to spread through the rest of her body. She felt as if she was a candle and that a wick had been lit, igniting her whole body with a warm and tender light.

“My scholarship still applies as long as I play ball… that’ll be no big deal. I can pass my classes without any problem, and I can only play as long as I keep my grades up. But that doesn’t mean that when I graduate that I have to play ball professionally.” A small, maybe even a sinister smirk, formed on his face. “Maybe I’ll just invert my usual tactic and do the bare minimum on the field and focus more on school.”

She tightened her arms around his neck and planted her lips on his again. His passion flared, and he lifted her from up off the ground, holding her aloft for a few moments before setting her back down upon the soft grass of the sidelines.

“And you want me there with you, is that it?” she asked hopefully.

His eyes never left hers and that, more than anything else, convinced her of the truth. “Are pluripotent undifferentiated stem cells?”

She smiled and kissed him again. When they broke apart, she felt a sinister feeling of her own creeping through her. “Come on… there’s a dorm room of mine that I want to see you naked in… again.”

They gathered up their bags and walking hand in hand out of the stadium, she felt a tremendous amount of relief. It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from off of her shoulders. Her fears had come and gone like they had never been there and quickly too.

It felt like she was getting a clean slate after all and as they walked towards her dorm, she felt like she was starting a whole new term at school.