Page 52 of Campus Heat

“Glucose?” I tried.

She shook her head. “A few minutes ago you mentioned glycolysis.”

“Right. Glycolysis.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. This wasn’t like reading a playbook. There were no patterns to memorize. No opponent tendencies to exploit. It was just layers of information that kept stacking on top of each other until they were on the verge of collapsing. I turned around to reach for my water bottle, but ended up knocking over a stack of flashcards instead.

“Great,” I muttered. “Can’t even get water without destroying everything around me.”

She laughed as she slid off the bed to gather them. “You’re spiraling.”

“I am not,” I said defensively.

“You most definitely are.”

A chair scraped across the floor, drawing us from our discussion. Darren stood abruptly and shoved his laptop into his backpack.

“Study hard, Romeo,” he said on his way out.

I froze. “Shut up, dude.”

Elizabeth grinned as the door clicked shut behind him, but neither of us said anything. The silence settled, and for the first time, it was real silence. There were no keyboard taps or background noises that could make it less awkward. The only thing that kept things from getting creepy was the low hum of the building.

Elizabeth sat cross-legged on my bed, quietly reorganizing my academic disaster. I took a moment to just appreciate the sight. Since she arrived, I had been so stressed, and we had been so busy that I hadn’t had a moment to actually breathe her in. She looked absolutely gorgeous in her loose-fitting tracksuit pants and crop top, but the most beautiful part of her look was her hair. For the first time since we met, she didn’t tie it up. It curved around her shoulders, making me want to run my fingers through it.

“Okay,” she said, her voice softer than it had been before. “Look at me.”

I hadn’t stopped looking at her since Darren left. I wished I could just keep looking at her for the rest of the night.

“You’re not bad at this,” she said. “You just panic when the answer doesn’t immediately come to you. And right now, that’s your downfall because once you panic, you draw a blank.”

“I don’t panic,” I scoffed, feeling incredibly self-conscious.

“You literally slammed your head into a desk. It can’t be more obvious than that.”

“That was just for emphasis.”

She gave me a smile that said she was seeing right through me, and suddenly I didn’t feel so embarrassed. I felt a little exposed, but that wasn’t half as bad. So we pushed through again. That time I made it for an hour and a half before I mixed up ATP and ADP. She made me repeat it three times after that, but then I accidentally said that mitochondria happened in the nucleus. Elizabeth laughed out loud and then gave me a look of mock horror.

“That’s it,” she said, slapping the desk. “You’re officially banned from the field of science.”

“If it means I can rest, I’ll gladly take it,” I groaned. “I’m so damn tired.”

“Good. That means your brain is working.”

I wanted a break, to stretch my legs and rest my eyes, but Elizabeth was ruthless. She hadn’t stopped since she arrived, and that wasn’t something I was used to. It was probably why I made so many mistakes, but I wanted to learn, so I let her do things her way. Two hours later, though, things weren’t as simple anymore. The words on the page started multiplying, and I instantly knew I couldn’t keep going.

“What’s the role of NADH?” She asked, confusing me completely.

“If we studied it, it must be important.”

She laughed. “That’s not an answer.”

“Does it carry electrons?”

She stared at me, and I blinked, not knowing what else she wanted me to say. Her mouth twitched with amusement, but I was too tired to play along. Feeling completely defeated, I leaned back in my chair.

“Can we please have a break? My mind doesn’t want to play this game anymore.”