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She seemed rather upset, and I couldn't help but wonder whether the fact that we'd messed up the experiment was upsetting her or the fact that she'd let her guard down in front of me. Perhaps it was a bit of both.
“Alright,” she conceded, “I'll get rid of this mess. Get those quantities measured out again and this time, no talking. We pay close attention and get things right. Got it?”
Her tone was stiff and almost authoritarian—a total reversal of the easy, open, and chatty Brooke I'd witnessed just moments earlier, and all I could do was mumble a quiet agreement.
We repeated the experiment in silence. When we had completed it successfully, she cleaned up the equipment without a word and packed it all away by herself.
Things had gone from light-hearted to severe in the blink of an eye. And somehow, I felt as if she was blaming me for the chill in the air, even though I felt like it was coming from her and her alone. I had no idea why was I feeling this way, anyway. She really wasn't my type. Having feelings for her considering how she was treating me didn’t make sense. But for some reason, there was something there.
“Got all your notes?” she asked.
“Um, yeah. I've got everything.”
“Alright, I guess that's that then. See you in class tomorrow.” Without another word, she turned and walked out, leaving me alone with my bruised ego… and my disappointment.
Chapter Eleven
Brooke
I walked out of the lab wondering what had just happened. Had I just bonded with Emerson? He caught me off guard when he threw that Game of Thrones line at me. He did not seem like the type who would be into my favorite show. Initially, I thought he may have started the conversation as a way to get to me, that maybe he'd heard the show playing from my apartment as he walked past and did a bit of Googling to learn about the show.
But he knew a little too much about the characters and it didn't seem like the kind of thing Emerson would do. He may have come across as a lot of things, but he never came across as having a creepy stalker vibe. If I told Leslie about it, she’d insist it was yet another act of fate pushing us together.
I'd never believed much in the concept of fate or destiny, but things were getting more than a little uncanny here. I wondered what I'd find out next about him—that he, too, had a little obsession with balcony gardening or only drank milk if it had ice in it?
I tried to force the thoughts out of my mind; this was exactly what I didn't need. This semester was all about focus—total concentration. I was going to nail it, get straight As, be top of the class. Throwing some fleeting attraction to a guy into the equation could wreck everything. Last time I fell hard for a guy, things came apart rather quickly and in an incredibly spectacular manner. There was no way I could open myself up again, not after having my heart ripped into a million shreds by Andrew. I'd been sewing those shreds back together with painstaking care for a long time, and I didn't want all that hard work to come unraveled.
So many thoughts swirled around my head as I walked home. I was fried, in part because of the incident at the lab that had ended my hectic day, so it was only by the time that I reached my apartment building that it suddenly hit me—I had left my phone in the lab.
“Shit!” I swore. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Ughhhh. How could I be so stupid!?”
Panic hit with alternating flashes of clarity. I needed my phone, but would it even still be there? The lab wasn't locked until six o'clock in the evening and, as far as I had seen, there weren't any security cameras, which meant anyone could just walk in, pick up my new iPhone and pocket it without there being any evidence of their crime. Of course, what had me so upset wasn't that the phone itself would be stolen. It was expensive, yes, but it was an item that could be replaced. What had me upset was the idea of what was on it that was irreplaceable—especially photos and videos of my grandfather who had passed away only a year before.
I sat down on the steps of my apartment building and put my head in my hands. It was one of those moments you can’t explain when it feels like everything that’s gone wrong in your life floods back in at once and you just want to break down. I felt defeated. It took all I had to keep myself from bursting into tears right there. Of course, I could turn around and run back to campus to see if the phone was still there or check to see if some good Samaritan had picked it up and turned it in to campus security. But in that moment, there was no way I could handle a jog back to campus.
I was moments away from a breakdown when a familiar sound stopped me—a motorcycle roaring down the street.
Emerson.
He pulled in to his usual parking spot and dismounted, running a hand through his hair after he removed his helmet. To make matters worse, he saw me and made a beeline straight for me.
Great.
He was the last person I wanted to see, but I was going to have to deal with him because I didn't have the energy to get up and make an excuse to leave.
My heart started beating faster, way faster when I saw that he was pulling something from his pocket as he approached. My phone!
“
Hey, Brooke, you left this in the lab! I saw it lying on the floor near the stool you'd been sitting on as I was leaving. Must've fallen out of your bag or something.”
Relief hit me with tsunami force. Before I could stop myself, I sprang to my feet, ran up to Emerson, and threw my arms around him. I probably held on a couple of moments longer than I should have. The warmth of his arms tightening around me, after a moment of shock on his part, made me realize what I’d done. I quickly disengaged. His gaze locked on me as I slid my arms back to my sides. There was a look of total surprise on his face. He hadn't expected that any more than I had.
We stood with gazes locked for a few tense moments. I broke the trance by reaching for my phone, but that only intensified the awkwardness when our hands touched. I swallowed hard to compose myself.
“I, umm, thank you so much, Emerson,” I finally said, calming myself. “I was so worried. I thought it was gone for sure.”
He lightened up, becoming his usual chipper self after our moment of whatever it was. “No worries. Just looking out for a friend. Just be a bit more careful next time, huh?”
