Page 45 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

“No. I—well—sort of?” I said. “It sounds much more noble when you say it like that. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t even intentional.”

“So then how would you say it?”

I tipped my head up, trying to find the right words. Eventually, I replied, “I would say that sometimes the easy choice isn’t right. And sometimes the right choice isn’t easy.”

A silence fell between us while we regarded each other. My eyes were all but pleading with him to understand me. He set his hand between us in the sand, palm up. When I set my hand into his, he curled his fingers around it and squeezed gently.

I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and hold me close and reassure me that I was doing the right things. But after a moment, a group of students wandered by, and he let go of my hand. We sat next to each other staring at the dancing flames, and I tried to be grateful for the quiet company.

Chapter 15

Not a Date

Phyllis left at 9 p.m., emptying the last of her flask into my cup before toddling up the path back to Brookside. Ashley left not long after, insisting she had an early morning. But Alan’s notable absence around the same time had me wondering if there might be other shenanigans going on.

I didn’t give it too much thought either way. The students were well-behaved, and I was more than happy to keep an eye on things with Cooper for company.

Our conversation earlier in the night had been a sort of breakthrough for us. With the barrier down, conversation flowed like a chain reaction.

“You used to run in Central Park? Me too! I wonder if we ever passed each other and didn’t realize it.”

“So there’s this taco place on 72nd—it’s so cheap and so good, but you have to make sure you are close to a bathroom.”

“The old books at the back of the library, and—I know this is going to sound weird, but bare with me—they smell so good. Exactly! The lignin!”

For hours, words poured between us. We talked about everything. And nothing. None of it was important, but it felt meaningful. I felt closer to him. My crush was growing legs, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, not that I wanted to.

By 11 p.m., the party was winding down. I was exhausted from a full day—and a little tipsy from the booze and sugar—but I stayed to help the October Lovers clean up after everyone else left. To my surprise, Cooper insisted on staying too, volunteering with Russel and Jose to lug buckets of water from the lake to douse the bonfire and the scalding-hot sand beneath.

“Sand,” Cooper explained, “is essentially silicon dioxide with a few other minerals mixed in for variety.”

“So, it holds heat for a long time,” I reasoned.

“Exactly,” he said. “This time tomorrow, the spot under the fire will still be hot enough to burn skin.”

Everyone agreed that we had to make the beach safe before leaving for the night. No one wanted anyone inadvertently getting burned if they walked this way in the morning.

Once the beach was cleaned up, I waved goodbye to Russel and the others as they headed back to their dorms. Then, Cooper and I were alone.

“Are you headed back to Brookside?” I asked.

“Where else?” he replied.

He fell into step next to me, and together we followed the tree-lined path around the lake to the faculty residences. The night seemed impossibly dark and quiet after hours beside a roaring fire. There were probably stars out, but they were hidden behind the tree canopy. I was tempted to take out my phone and use it for a flashlight, but the useless brick was dead in my pocket. I would have to rely on my other senses and familiarity with this path rather than sight.

As it was, the darkness had a kind of insulating quality about it. There was privacy in darkness. Intimacy. I tried not to think about it, but I was intimately aware of where Cooper walked by my side.

“I hadn’t expected to have so much fun tonight,” I said. Darkness was one thing, but silence was too much for me to handle. “It was really nice spending the evening with you.”

I started second guessing the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. Would he take it like a back-handed compliment? I definitely didn’t want him to think I had been expecting spending the evening with him to be horrible.

“I had a really nice evening too.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. He wasn’t mad. I hadn’t said anything too stupid.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to talk to someone like that. I had Silvia in New York, but I don’t really have any close friends here. Tonight almost felt like a date.”

Fuck, I’d done it again. That was a stupid thing to say. I was going to scare him away and ruin our budding friendship.