My name is Mitchell and I am a chemist. I wasn't always a chemist, and there was a time not too long ago when I was merely a chemistry student. Back in 2005 I was a junior in college and one of my fall semester courses was analytical chemistry. In my career now I often look back to this course to recall techniques and equations. I keep my analytical book at my desk at work. But there is another reason I look back at this course with fondness; a story that I hope to tell now.
I had always been an awkward boy, and my college days were no exception. I stand at about 5'3" so girls that were only interested in tall men never bothered to even talk to me. During college I weighed in at a spectacular 115 lbs, which would made for an awesome build if I were a woman. I was a nerd in the purest sense of the word. Glasses, questionable fashion sense, pretty much no athletic coordination. But in the lab I was in my element. It was analytical lab where I truly found my innate talent.
There were eight of us in the course. The professor broke us up into 4 pairs for the lab portion. There were 5 males and 3 females in the class. Two of the girls paired up immediately, as did two of the guys. To my surprise, the 3rd girl approached me and asked me to be her lab partner. Of course I agreed.
Her name was Alicia and she was gorgeous. She was about the same height as me and pretty close to the same build. She had very short dark hair and it looked really good on her. I had always been attracted to long hair on girls, but Alicia challenged that opinion and demonstrated how hot short hair can be. She had beautiful blue eyes and made the cutest sounds and gestures when she laughed. Making her laugh became a priority.
I wasn't one of those nerds that has trouble talking to girls, so we started chatting right away. She had transferred at the beginning of the semester from a women-only college because they didn't offer two of the classes she needed for her degree; analytical chemistry was one of them.
She was a nerd, though maybe not quite at the same level as me. She had to be at least a little bit to have made it to Junior year of a chemistry degree. She was a mathematical genius; the same way I mastered lab techniques and reaction chemistry, she had a special gift with numbers.
When I got the chance to talk about myself, nerd that I was, I mentioned that I was a World of Warcraft player. My girlfriend, Heather, and I played together, in fact; I played shaman at the time and she played warrior. I took care not to speak of Heather, but why would this beautiful girl who picked me as her lab partner want to hear about WoW?
"My older brother used to play EQ with his friends back in the day," Alicia said.
"Used to? What happened?" I asked
"He deleted his necromancer when he started dating a girl in college."
"Oh."
I should have taken that exchange as an indication of her intentions, but I was either too slow or too naïve to put the obvious pieces together. Or maybe I couldn't believe it was true. Heather and I had been together for so long I had forgotten what the early stages of romantic interest were like. It wasn't like I set out to cheat on her. I wasn't taking a 300 level chemistry class looking to pick up girls , but it seemed to be happening without my conscious effort.
The months rolled by and Alicia and I became close friends. The common analogy for two people who are romantically compatible is that they have good chemistry. Alicia and I had good chemistry in the literal sense; we were always finished with the lab before the rest of the class, and more importantly, it was always done correctly and completely. I had perfect technique and her math was flawless. Most days when we finished an hour or more early, we would walk together to the student cafe and sit down for coffee.
One day in mid November we went to the lab and it was about 40ºF in the room. The professor was standing by the fume hood arranging the materials for the experiment.
"Why is it so cold in here?" I asked him.
"They're fixing the gas lines," he answered. "Don't worry though, the lines to the Bunsen burners are still ok; we can still do the experiment!"
"Fantastic," I muttered under my breath.
"It'll be ok, Mitchell," said Alicia. "We're always done in like an hour anyway." She smiled. That smile was intoxicating, and pretty soon, I was smiling too.
My hands were shaking as I adjusted the valve on the Bunsen burner and lit it. I held my hands out to the flame like one would a campfire. Alicia did the same thing and scooted closer to me.
Before I could realize what was happening, she was pressed up against me, resting her head on my shoulder.
"We'll be able to stay warm," she whispered to me.
We stayed close for the duration of the experiment, and for the first time, we weren't the first pair out of the lab. I don't know if were were distracting each other from the experiment or if we just wanted an excuse to stay later and cuddle, but it was almost 5pm by the time we got out.
"Let's go get something to eat, I'm hungry," she suggested. I didn't disagree, and we made our way across campus in the cold. Usually we would walk about an arms length apart and chat the whole way, but this particular evening we were silent. We were also walking a lot closer than usual. I half-expected to run into someone that knew Heather, but it never happened.
We ordered and ate but didn't say much. We glanced at each other a few times across the table, but that was the limit to the physical flirting.
"I have to go, Mitchell," said Alicia after some time. "Will you walk me to my car?"
"Sure," I said. We stood and headed towards the parking lot. It was after dusk and the campus lot was pitch black. I can understand why she wanted someone to walk with her, not that I'd be any good at fighting off a determined rapist. I might buy her time to run while getting stabbed or something, though.
"Thanks," she said when we got to her car. She sprung forward and gave me a quick peck on the lips. I was stunned, and she immediately seemed to regret it.
"I'm sorry, I..."
"No, it's okay," I said and reached out for her hands. I touched her fingertips and smiled.
She hesitated for a couple of seconds before adding, "See you tomorrow in lab... maybe the heat will be on by then."
"Maybe not," I suggested. She gave me a sly smile and a quick wave before ducking into her car, starting the engine, and disappearing from the parking lot into the cold. I sighed.
I got back to the apartment late, went inside, and locked the door. I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes, trying to process everything that had happened in the last few hours.
I heard muffled whimpers coming from the bedroom. Heather.
Her older brother had died back in 2003 and she never really recovered. I expected a normal grieving period, so I wasn't surprised when she withdrew from classes that semester, but every time she tried to go back it was one excuse after another and now she was essentially a full-fledged dropout. She didn't work, either, and her grandparents gave her the money to pay our rent while I was in school full time plus a lab.
She spent her days on World of Warcraft grinding out PVP rating and crying to herself about how miserable her life had become. I would try to take her out to dinner or movies and the excuses were bottomless. She didn't want to leave because she was too tired, or her clothes weren't washed, or she was scared someone would burglarize the apartment if she left.
Sex was an emotional roller-coaster. She'd basically lay there and let me fuck her, which might sound nice occasionally, but after two years of virtually no emotional engagement, I had found it was better to just masturbate by myself and not have to tolerate the after sex crying session.
But for whatever reason, I really did love her and it broke my heart every time she had one of her emotional episodes. I would try to help and get rejected to the point where I would lose my temper and have to leave. I stormed out of that apartment more than once while she was sobbing in the background.
This night she managed to stop crying long enough to drag herself out of bed and confront me in the doorway.
She was a mess. Her long brown hair was in tangles and her eyes were swollen and red from crying. She hadn't gotten dressed all day and was wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms.
Heather was about 5'8", a good deal taller than me, and back when she took care of herself she had the most fantastic, flowing hair one could imagine. She had a full figure and nice solid c-cup breasts. She always complained that they were too sensitive though, and never let me touch them for long.
