CHAPTER TWO

Two hours later my head was spinning, but I at least had a game plan for further studying. Darwin/Jonathon had shown me that the class was divided into elements, mixtures, compounds, gases, and measurements. He subdivided each of those for me into additional categories and talked me through every definition and gave example formulas, which I almost maybe understood if I squinted and thought really hard.

I had three days before my exam so if I spent every waking moment between now and then reading the notes over and over and over again, I might pass. Maybe.

But I was getting a little loopy. While he was in the bathroom I was going through some online study sites and I found a bunch of chemistry jokes. I couldn’t help it. I copied one and e-mailed it to him.

He was looking at his phone as he came out. “Did you just e-mail me while I was in the restroom?”

He really was cute. It just wasn’t right. His jeans fit the way they were supposed to and I found it interesting that he only needed a T-shirt in November. His tattoo was a complex sleeve of numbers and diagrams.

I nodded. “Yes, I did, Jonathon.” I was still testing his dual-personality names.

He gave a low, husky laugh as he settled back into his chair while reading his screen. “Really, Kylie?”

My head was propped with my palm and I smiled, feeling comfortable with him. He smelled good. Like coffee and clean.

“What did one ion say to the other?” he read back to me, even though I knew what it said since I’d sent it. “I’ve got my ion you.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was stupid, and even I understood it.

To his credit, he laughed with me. “See? Chemistry is fun.”

“Oh yeah. It’s a laugh riot. Hey, what do you do with a dead chemist?” I asked him, glad to rest my brain for a minute. I was a little afraid it was smoking from overheating.

“You barium.”

No way. He’d heard this one before. “Damn it! How did you know the answer?”

He tapped his temple. “Me use my head.”

“Well, Darwin.” I let the nickname roll off my tongue. I still wasn’t sure which one suited him better. “I guess I should let you get back to your regularly scheduled life. Thanks for all your help.”

“You’re welcome.” He efficiently packed up all his stuff. “You’ll do fine on this exam as long as you don’t panic.”

Easy for him to say. “So what all is in your tattoo?” I asked, reaching out and running my finger along his arm, over the maze of numbers.

He looked startled that I had touched him and I realized that probably wasn’t appropriate. But I came from a touchy-feely family and I had always been someone who reached out and made contact without any thought about it. I hugged my friends, I put my hands on arms when I spoke to people, I squeezed knees. If I liked you—and it was rare I met someone I truly didn’t like—I touched. The me before the RAN incident wouldn’t have even thought twice about it, but now I suddenly felt like I needed to apologize or something. Like he would think I was hitting on him.

But he just started pointing out parts of his sleeve. “The periodic table of the elements. Avogrado’s number. The molecular graphic for propane.”

After that, I couldn’t follow any more. “But won’t professors think you’re cheating? If you have stuff on your arm?”

The smile he gave me was patronizing. I don’t think he meant it to be, but his answer told me how clearly stupid my question was. “When you’re studying reactions kinetics and advanced nucleic biochemistry you don’t need to cheat on basic chem.”

“Oh.” I felt heat in my cheeks. Most of the time, I was perfectly happy with who I was. But then there were other times, like then, where I just didn’t want to be the dumb blonde. Just once, I wanted to be taken seriously, instead of having everyone think I was cute, but ten IQ points off from needing the short bus. “Duh.”

“In between are dates representing people and events that are important to me. My birthday. My mom’s birthday. The first time I—” He looked up and gave me a grin. “Well, you get the idea.”

So genius or not, he was still like any other guy. Needing to brag. “Are you seriously telling me you inked the date you lost your virginity on your arm?”

“I never said that.”

But he did wink at me, and I thought he was actually growing even cuter the longer I sat with him. “Honestly, it should look like a total mess, but the artist did a really good job. It’s very cool.”

“Thank you.” He pushed his chair back. “You ready to head out?”

“Sure.” I stood up and pulled my coat off the chair.

“Do you have any tattoos?” he asked.

“No. I do have a piercing, though.”

“Belly button?”

“No.” Let him interpret that however he wanted to.

His eyebrows shot up. “Are you telling me you have your love button pierced?”

I laughed. “Love button? And I never said that.” I winked back at him after echoing his words.

“Oh my God,” he said, standing up and picking up his messenger bag. “You’re dangerous.”

I wished. “To be dangerous you have to be evil or super-smart and I’m not either.”

“Those aren’t the only ways to pose a threat.”

Suddenly I was afraid to hear what he might say. So to distract myself, I looked at my phone, and was immediately sorry I had. I had a text from Nathan.

I love you.

My smile evaporated and I shoved my phone in my pocket. I didn’t want to see that. He kept coming at me like that, trying to apologize, begging me to take him back. But how do you trust someone who not only hooked up with your friend, he spent the next two months trying to repeat it?

He didn’t love me. You didn’t treat someone you loved like he had me.

Resolutely, I put a smile on my face and looked at Darwin/Jonathon. “Thanks again, Jonathon. Have a good night.” I started to walk away, wanting a private moment to myself.

“I’ll walk out with you,” he said easily, falling into step beside me.

Damn it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he held the door open for me.

Cold air hit me the face. I winced. “Fine. I’m stressed, but I’ll do the best I can on the exam. If I fail, well, at least I tried.”

“I’m not talking about the exam.”

Puzzled, I glanced over at him, hovering on the sidewalk, not sure which way he was going. “What do you mean?”

“Whatever was on your phone upset you.”

That it was that obvious made tears instantly rise to my eyes. “No, it’s fine.” I gestured to the left. “I’m this way. Have a good night.”

“You’re walking?” He frowned.

“It’s just a block.”

“It’s dark. I’ll walk with you.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” I started walking, anxious to get away from him. He was being too nice and I felt vulnerable, like a loser. I couldn’t keep a boyfriend or understand basic chem. What he considered chemistry for dummies.

But he continued to walk with me. “You’re a junior, right?” he asked casually, like I wasn’t struggling not to cry.

I nodded.

“What is your major?”

“Education. I want to be a kindergarten teacher.” I gave him a wan smile. “I don’t need to know chemistry to teach that.”

“I bet you’d be good with kids.”

“I love kids.”

There was silence between us as we walked, the heels of my boots sounding extra loud in the dark, the street, which was normally filled with students, mostly empty. It was a bit of a creepy walk at this time of night and I’d known a girl who had been mugged. I would pee my pants if I were mugged and if I wasn’t feeling so bummed, I would be more grateful for him walking with me. But mostly I just wanted to get home.

Then I realized what I was going home to—a dark, silent room.

And the tears I’d been holding back fell along with a sob that burst out unbidden.

We were in front of my building and I just about ran to the door, digging in my bag for my key.

“Kylie.” Darwin/Jonathon touched my arm. “Hey. Look at me.”

I shook my head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head harder.

But then, because I’m not someone who stuffs my feelings down, and because all my thoughts come out like a toddler commentating from their car seat on every car, cow, and house they see out the window, I blurted out, “My boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend.”

“What?” He sounded horrified. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

It gave me a sense of relief that his reaction was so strong. “That’s what I thought. I mean, it’s like the worst thing ever.”

“I hope he is your ex-boyfriend.”

“He is. Because the thing is, okay, so it was a drunken hookup which is really bad, but I don’t know, maybe I could have forgiven him for that. But I found the texts he sent her for months afterward, creeping for a repeat. He said it was the best blow job he’d ever had and that she had a . . .” I shook my head. “Never mind. It just was obvious he wasn’t even remotely sorry.”

“Wow. That’s rough. He sounds like a complete asshole. I’m sorry.”

My shoulders fell as my breath expelled. I ran out of words for a second. It was the right thing for him to say, but every time I heard someone offer sympathy, I just felt worse. Because while they were all genuinely sorry for me, they were also a little bit glad it hadn’t happened to them. “Thanks.” I finally found my key and I noticed my hand was shaking a little as I tried to unlock the exterior door to my building.

Darwin/Jonathon put his hand over mine to steady it. For a second, I just stood there, drawing in a breath to calm down. He waited then helped me turn the key to the right.

He was close behind me when I looked up at him, my hip shoving the door open. “Thanks,” I whispered.

“He’s an asshole,” he repeated, his voice serious, eyes earnest.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked, because I really, really didn’t want to be alone. My thoughts were too scattered, my anxiety high. Failing chemistry, moving out of my old apartment, hating my jealousy over my friends’ relationships . . . it was hitting me hard. I didn’t want silence.

His eyes shuttered for a minute and I felt silly. He was like twenty-five years old, a grad student with labs and research and probably a brainiac girlfriend who did physics for fun. Why would he want to spend the rest of his night with an undergrad who didn’t know biochemistry from her butthole and kept threatening to cry? “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m sure you have better things to do. Things that don’t involve me boring you with my pathetic love life.” Shame wasn’t an emotion I’d felt a lot in my life, but the last three months it had become a familiar feeling. One I hated.

I stepped into the vestibule, intending to close the door behind me, letting Darwin off the hook. But he came with me. “I’d love to.”

Oh, God, he totally felt sorry for me. The shame increased, but at the same time, I still didn’t want to be alone, so I didn’t hold firm and send him home like I should have. I trudged up the stairs to the second floor and he reached out and put his hand on the small of my back when I stumbled a little on the third step.

Darwin was clearly a nice guy. Whatever he was getting paid by the university to tutor wasn’t enough. How many hours a week did he spend coaching crying undergrads? Probably half the freshman class was failing chemistry. Yet here he was, being pretty damn sweet when it was obvious he could be doing about a million more interesting things.

“Do you have a roommate?” he asked.

“No, it’s just a studio. I moved here in September after classes started, so I had to take what I could get and this was it. But I couldn’t live in an apartment with Robin after what happened, so this was the best solution.” I unlocked the door and shoved it open. Flicking on the light, I felt depressed all over again looking at the glum. “It has terrible lighting.”

He wandered in to the small room and bent over to inspect my two lamps. “You only have twenty-five watts in here. You could get brighter bulbs.”

“Oh.” Of course I could. But that had never once occurred to me. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be logical. “Yeah, I guess I could do that.”

He dropped down onto my bed, which also acted as my couch, because I had no furniture and no space. “It takes a while to settle into a new place.”

“I never wanted to be here. So it’s hard to care.” Setting my backpack on the floor, I sat next to him, crossing my legs and tucking my feet under them. “Do you have a roommate?”

“Yeah. My friend Devon. I’d rather live alone, honestly, but I can’t afford it.”

“And I would rather live with people. I’m social.” My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I wasn’t going to look at it. I didn’t want to look at it. It could be nothing. It could be Jessica or Rory or my mother. But compulsion drove me to pull it out and check. I was sorry I did. A pit formed in my stomach as I read the text from Nathan.

This wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed here this summer like I asked you to. We would still be together and happy.

My lip curled. So it was my fault that he had fucked my friend? Because I wasn’t around for a few weeks?

“Why don’t you block him?” Darwin asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe because I keep wanting and waiting for a better apology.”

“I don’t think there’s a better apology for what he did. I don’t think he can ever really give you a good enough reason for why he had sex with your best friend.”

I nodded. “You’re right.” I knew it. “I also know it’s not my fault, but I can’t help but feel like if only I’d done something different . . .”

He held his hand up, palm out. “Stop right there. There is no way that you could have done anything different so that it would have prevented this. If a guy is willing to cross that line, you could be perfect and it still wouldn’t matter. Don’t put yourself through that.”

The tears started again. I nodded, my lips trembling.

“It’s not your fault he’s selfish, stupid, immoral, and an asshole.”

“Well, I don’t know if he’s stupid.” I could concede the rest, but for some ridiculous reason I felt the need to defend Nathan, even just a little.

“He got caught, didn’t he? That makes him stupid. Besides, any guy who would waste his time hooking up with a chick when he has you is an idiot.”

I smiled. “Thanks. Even if you are just saying that.”

But he shook his head as he peeled off his jacket. “I’m not just saying that. You’re beautiful, Kylie, and more than that, you’re sweet.”

I did like to think that I was nice. “I try to be a decent person. But it seems like that’s worked against me.”

“Don’t let one guy’s dickheadedness change who you are. Don’t let him ruin you. You’re attractive just the way you are.”

Confused, I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew he was just being nice, and I hated that it even mattered to me what anyone’s opinion was, but I felt needy. It had me seeking validation in a way I hadn’t since probably middle school. “You think I’m attractive?”

It was an embarrassing thing to ask. I wanted to choke myself for letting it slip out.

Darwin nodded, though. “I find you very attractive. So attractive that I have to admit to being distracted the whole time I was tutoring you.”

A shiver inched up my spine. “You were not.” He hadn’t looked at all like he’d been undressing me with his eyes. But then again, maybe nerds were smart enough to hide it, unlike the douche bags I usually hung out with.

“Oh yes, I was.” He was leaning against the wall, hands resting on his knees, and his expression was hooded. “I can tell you that you wear two necklaces—one is a cross, one is a heart with a ruby in the center. You have on a braided bracelet and if I had to guess, you are a 34C bra size. You have a tiny mole on your neck, you’re really fond of lip gloss, you always twirl your hair with your left hand, never your right, and you are a natural blonde.”

Oh, my. A blush covered my face and it was partly from embarrassment and partly from a sudden arousal that caught me completely off guard. “How do you know I’m a natural blonde?”

“You don’t have any exposed roots and your eyebrows are the same tone as your hair.”

Were all intelligent people this observant? Rory was the same way. Though Rory had never nailed my bra size. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Is that creepy?” he asked. “I only told you to illustrate my point that I find you attractive.”

“It’s not creepy. It’s flattering.” It was. And he was very sweet to massage my damaged ego.

“Good. I want you to remember that, whenever you start to doubt that you had anything to do with Dickhead cheating on you. It was his problem, not yours.”

I felt like I should I give him a fee for the therapy. “Thanks, Darwin. I find you attractive, too.”

He gave me a smile, the corner of his lip turning up in a way that made me focus on his mouth, made me wonder what it would feel like to have it on mine. I kind of really wanted him to kiss me, just to see.

“Now you’re just flattering me.”

“No.” I shook my head, feeling myself leaning closer toward him, without even intending to. “The first thing I noticed when I sat down next to you was how good you smell.”

His nostrils flared a little. “How I smell?”

“Yes. You smell masculine.”

“That’s evolution,” he told me. “A female instinctively responds to the scent of a male and she is subconsciously drawn to the specimen she thinks will ensure her progeny’s survival.”

Whatever. “I think it was more that you don’t smell like sweat or cologne.”

“It’s still the chemistry of attraction.”

He had shifted closer, too, and I could see that he had an erection. It hadn’t been there before, and now it was. Bam. The sight of it so clearly outlined beneath his jeans had me tingling in places I had thought no longer existed. I hadn’t had a single sexual urge at all since RAN and now a warm sensation was pooling between my thighs and spreading out to all my limbs. My nipples felt constrained in my bra. My 34C bra.

“Can you just show me instead of explaining it to me?” I asked, and I was shocked to hear the flirt, which I thought had taken a permanent vacation, return to my voice for the first time in four months. “I learn better hands-on.”

“With visual aids?”

I nodded, biting my bottom lip.

“Come here,” he urged, holding his hand out to me.

I did, crawling up between his legs, breathing in his scent, taking in his narrow lips, his eyes, so dark behind the lenses of his glasses. He reached out with his thumb and wiped the tears that were still lingering on my face in itchy, wet streaks.

Then he kissed me.