CHAPTER ONE

I hated living alone. I was never meant to live alone. And I don’t mean that in the pathetic way where I couldn’t be happy with myself unless someone was validating me with their company or whatever. I mean that I was just super social. I liked having people around me all the time. Conversation. Laughter. Growing up with three younger siblings, the house was loud all the time, and to me that was comfortable, homey, happiness. Some people, like my friend Rory, need alone time, and they can get lost in their private thoughts, a whole universe going on in there that no one else has a view to.

Not me. My thoughts for the most part came out through my mouth in a steady stream of talking and I loved that constant interaction with my friends.

But I had to move out of our roomie’s apartment because of what I had started calling RAN (Robin and Nathan and their drunken hookup), and into a crappy little studio that was dark and way too quiet. Maybe if I’d at least had a boyfriend to cozy up on my daybed with me, I could deal with flying solo in the housing situation. No boyfriend, though, because my ex Nathan had decided to be both mean and stupid and have sex with my friend Robin while we were still dating. Yeah. He so did that. She so did that. Even though she was seriously drunk and didn’t remember a thing, it had still been really hard for me to forgive her and impossible for me to forgive Nathan.

It was hard to be single in a world filled with perfect pairs. Salt and pepper. PB&J. Chili and hot dogs. Not to mention couples like Rory and Tyler. Jessica and Riley. Even Robin—who, drunk or not, had still ruined my relationship—even Robin had Phoenix. How unfair was that? She lived with her boyfriend, totally happy, while I was alone and for the first time ever in my entire life, miserable.

I didn’t do sad. Grumpy wasn’t me. I was usually optimistic, high-energy. Basically a cheerleader for life, always having a good time, always believing the best in people. So I wasn’t the most super-intelligent, highest-IQ chick in the room. I knew that. It didn’t matter, because I always liked everyone and I tried really hard to be nice. It took basically something awful like murder for me to hate your face. Or something like cheating on me with one of my best friends. But even then, I didn’t hate Nathan. I was hurt. Hurt in a way that was weird to me because it wasn’t going away. It wasn’t like a cry at the end of a sad movie or the pang in your heart when you read a story about someone being bullied online.

This was different. It was a hurt that came over me in gigantic cold waves and settled inside my chest. It just lingered on and on, every day, making me feel like I was someone else, someone I didn’t recognize, someone who had nasty thoughts and who cried unexpectedly. It made me forget to do homework and forget my phone in my room and forget where I was going.

It was a new feeling and I didn’t know how to get rid of it, how to make the sadness stop popping up like some jerk-off Jack-in-the-box.

Shoving my hands in my pockets I trudged across the street to the coffee shop to meet my new tutor for chemistry, the cold wind instantly whipping my hair across my face and into my lip gloss, where it stuck. Sigh. I was flunking chemistry because I couldn’t seem to focus. The formulas danced in front of my eyes when I looked at the online study sheet for our final exam next week. It was like temperature and molarity were twerking with each other. Rory, who was pre-Med, had tried to help me study, but I had ended up crying and she had ended up horrified.

I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t wind up leaky-eyed on my tutor, too, but I was willing to risk it. I couldn’t stay in that apartment alone in the dark for one more minute. The lighting sucked and with it getting dark so early every day, it felt like every corner of the room was a black hole filled with happiness thieves. Like there were little men hovering in there, snagging my confidence and hope while I watched TV and slept. It was a weird thought to have, but I was having a lot of weird thoughts, and they were foreign to me. It was like suddenly discovering your thoughts are in Hindi and you don’t know why and you don’t speak that language.

Pushing the door open, the warmth of the room washed over me and I gave a residual shiver. My hair was still stuck to my lip and instead of pulling it away, I decided to chew on it a little. It felt good, like I was six years old again and had the right to nibble my hair. I looked around for a nerd. I had never met the tutor, who was a grad student. My professor had given me his e-mail and said he was the best for helping undergrad students understand concepts. His name was Darwin, according to Professor Kadisch and the e-mail address. That couldn’t be his real name. Or maybe it was. But anyone who went by that name, nickname or not, had to be a nerd. Which was perfect, because only a nerd could save me from failing this course and having to retake it next semester.

It wasn’t very crowded in the coffee shop but as I moved inside, I didn’t see any obvious candidates for a Darwin. There were three girls studying together, and two couples. See, couples were everywhere. You couldn’t exist without stumbling over like a hundred perfect pairs of people who believed they were in love every single day. Some of them probably even were in love, though I had my doubts about Couple Number One. They looked bored. Couple Number Two? Love. And say hello to jealousy, Kylie, your new best friend.

I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind where there was a box labeled Things That Suck and went back to searching for my genius tutor. And why weren’t those thoughts in Hindi? Geez, so not fair.

There were two guys sitting by themselves. One was wearing hipster glasses and had a tattoo sleeve, his head bobbing to the music fed through his iPhone. Nope. The other one looked a little young to be a grad student, but he had acne and curly hair that went to his shoulders. He was staring intently at his computer screen, papers spread out all around him. This was clearly my man. He was going to have to be a superhero to save me from repeating this class, and, frankly, he looked up for the job. I also felt that I was perfectly safe from bursting into tears in his presence. Nothing about him seemed compassionate or friendly.

Approaching him, I smiled. “Are you Darwin? I’m Kylie. Thanks for helping me study.”

But he just glanced up at me blankly. “What?”

“I’m Kylie. Professor Kadisch gave me your e-mail . . . we arranged to meet here.” Then as his expression never changed, I realized I was barking up the wrong nerd tree. “Are you Darwin?”

“No, I’m Christian.”

“Oh.” I gave him a smile of apology, readjusting my backpack on my shoulders. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem.” His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, his upper lip curling up to indicate it was in fact a huge problem. He was annoyed at the interruption.

Feeling stupid, I turned on my heel and went for an empty table. Darwin must be running a few minutes late. I would check my e-mail on my phone and see if he had canceled or something.

“Kylie?”

I stopped short, and turned. The other guy had pulled out his earbuds and he was giving me a smile.

“Yes.”

“I’m Darwin.” He stood up and came toward me, sticking his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

This was Darwin? For real? Huh. I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. I hated when people assumed I was just another dumb blonde. But seriously, this guy was cute. He had eyes that crinkled when he smiled in greeting, a patch of beard on his chin, and eyelashes behind his glasses that made me bitter on behalf of wispy-eyelashed blond women everywhere. He was about five eleven, lanky but not skinny, and despite the jeans and T-shirt, looked every inch a man, not a kid.

“Nice to meet you, too.” I took his hand and shook it carefully. His grip was appropriately solid, but not grabby or lingering. His palm wasn’t damp. “Thanks for helping me out. I’ve been . . . struggling.” That was an understatement.

“Sit down and we’ll see where you’re at.” He pulled out a chair for me and sat in the one he’d been occupying before, his tablet propped on his bag so he could see the screen.

I sat down, feeling disarmed by his friendly smile. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I would have preferred a stern and studious tutor. I wasn’t sure I could handle kindness without comparing it to the cruelty Nathan had shown me. That’s what I kept doing. Every time someone was even remotely and casually nice to me, I immediately wondered why Nathan could have so intentionally and viciously hurt me. Which then made me feel terrible. Like maybe there was something wrong with me. That the more he had gotten to know me, the more he thought I wasn’t entitled to his respect. I didn’t want to think about that, but I couldn’t help it. It charged in without warning.

As I pulled out my laptop and found my study guide, I studied Darwin.

His hair wasn’t military short, but not long either, just enough length to look appropriately effortless with a hint of hair product. I knew hair product. You could not fool me. He was definitely using it, but it was most likely just a molding mud he ran through his hair post-shower in a pea-sized dose. A man who cared enough to control frizz was a notch up in my estimation. But if they spent more time on their blowout than I did, we had a problem. There was a fine line for acceptable male grooming practices. In that middle territory between high maintenance and caveman was where I found men to be attractive.

Not that I found him attractive. I didn’t find anyone attractive. I had been in love. You don’t just suddenly start finding other guys attractive when your heart has been hand-fed to jackals.

“So what do you think is the main issue?” he asked me, shifting a little closer to me so he could take a look at what was on my screen.

“I’m failing chemistry.”

He laughed. “Well, I know that. But when did you start having problems?”

“When the class started.”

His lips pressed together and he pushed up his glasses. “Okay, let’s just start going through the study guide together and we’ll see if we can figure out what’s tripping you up.”

“Okay,” I said doubtfully. The coffee shop was warm and I shrugged out of my jacket.

His hand came out and helped me drag my left sleeve all the way off. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” He draped the freed sleeve over my chair. “So why can’t isolated atoms be measured?”

Um. I thought about it. But I seriously had no idea. None whatsoever. I didn’t even remember discussing atoms at all, but since this was a chem class, we must have at some time. “Because they’re alone and there’s no one to hold the measuring tape?”

He gave me a grin. “No. It’s because we can’t determine the location of the electrons around the atom’s nucleus.”

“Right.” Oh my God, I was already lost. Wait. I had never been found.

“But we can estimate the size of an atom by assuming that the radius of an atom is half the distance between adjacent atoms in a solid. This is best for elements that are metals, because they form solids composed of extended planes of atoms of that element. The results of the measurements are called metallic radii.”

I tried not to panic. “So . . . do I just have to memorize the definition? Is the exam just going to ask me to define ‘metallic radii’?”

“Yes, and there may be an example where you have to estimate the size of the atom.” He ripped a piece of paper and started drawing a formula. He was left-handed and his pen moved efficiently and confidently. “See? Like this.”

Yeah. No. I figured if I at least got the definition and bombed the formulas, I would maybe get a D and that was all I needed to pass. “Uh-huh,” I said, noncommittedly.

“The metallic radius becomes larger as we go down a column of the periodic table because the valence electrons are placed in larger orbitals.”

I could feel my lip starting to tremble and I blinked hard, afraid I might embarrass the hell out of myself and start crying. He might as well be speaking Klingon for all I understood what he was saying. Actually, I might understand Klingon better. I went through a Star Trek phase in middle school.

When I didn’t say anything, he glanced over at me and his face became alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“I think a whole semester of chemistry is a lot to cram into one night,” I said in a small voice.

“Good thing you have the best tutor.” He winked at me. “They don’t call me Darwin for nothing.”

“Is that your real name?”

“No. It’s Jonathon.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“Thanks. I got saddled with the Darwin nickname when I won the state physics competition in high school. It stuck.”

For some reason, that made me feel better. “I played volleyball in high school. My nickname was Bump.”

He laughed. “Really? And how did you feel about that?”

“I hated it. Who wants to be called Bump? It made me feel like my butt is big.”

Darwin, or Jonathon, gave me a puzzled look. “Isn’t a bump a . . .” He used his wrists to demonstrate hitting the ball.

“In volleyball, yes. But it doesn’t have that meaning off the court.” It was a teasing slur that could be interpreted in a thousand ways depending on the circumstances, but I wasn’t going to spell it out for him.

He glanced down behind my chair. “I think your butt is fine.”

That’s what I got for bringing up my butt in the first place. My tutor giving me a lame compliment to shut me up so we could get back to atoms and whatnot. “Thanks. Am I supposed to call you Darwin or Jonathon?”

“Whichever one you like. I answer to both.”

“I’ll test them both out and make a decision,” I said to him, standing up. “I’m going to grab a latte, Darwin, can I get you anything?”

He smiled, his mouth turning up like he was fighting the urge to laugh. “Sure. I’ll take coffee. Black. Costa Rican blend. Thanks, Kylie.”

I dug in my backpack for my wallet and he tried me to hand me five dollars but I shook my head. “It’s on me. For helping me. It’s the least I can do.” Especially considering I was a totally hopeless case.

He nodded. “Thanks. And hey, we’ll just divide the material into the major components and break it down one section at a time. You’ll be fine. You’ll ace this.”

Sigh. I used to be optimistic like that. When the earth was younger, and I hadn’t been cheated on by the guy I’d given my heart and the key to my back door to.