Chemistry Lessons

by Meredith Goldstein

  On the screen, the brutal Hanna calculated her next move.

  “I’m sorry, Kyle,” I said, my eyes on the television so that I didn’t have to look at him. “We should stop right here.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Did I push it? I didn’t mean to move so fast. Really, this can be slow.” He was sitting up now, looking concerned. “When I said I wanted you, I meant, like, I wanted to keep kissing. Kissing is great.”

  “No, I mean, this isn’t right. We shouldn’t be doing this. I’m just upset about Whit, and we’re both probably confused because we’re alone, without Yael. It’s so late . . .”

  Kyle froze for a moment, then scrambled off the couch, mumbling that he needed to use the bathroom.

  “Wait, I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said, his back to me as I followed him through the kitchen. He was almost running.

  “Don’t apologize—​you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “It’s just that . . . I think we’re tired, and I’ve been so out of it lately . . .”

  He went into the bathroom off the hallway but didn’t close the door. He turned on the sink faucet and then leaned over to splash some water on his face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked from the doorway.

  Kyle grabbed a towel from the rack and patted his face, the drops from his neck falling to his T-shirt.

  “No, it’s fine. I just feel bad. That was just a thoughtless move on my part. I guess I thought you were interested. I don’t know what I was thinking. But it’s fine, really.”

  “No, it’s me. This is my fault. I’m the thoughtless one,” I mumbled, thinking of what got us here. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to be upset about this. Please don’t be upset about this.”

  “No, it’s totally no big deal,” he said. “I should go.”

  He bounded by me. At some point Hanna had finished. The credits rolled down the screen as electronic music played in the background. The soundtrack made me panic; I just wanted to press pause on the whole night and stop Kyle from moving.

  “This is totally my fault. Please, don’t even think about it again,” I said, grabbing the remote and shutting off the television.

  “Hey,” he said, turning toward me. “It’s all good. This happens. Get ready—​it happens in college all the time. It’s no big deal.”

  His words felt like a punch.

  “Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say. He reached out and grabbed my hand, lifting it up so that my palm was out, and then he awkwardly high-fived it. “See you Monday, Maya,” he said, then walked to the door, shutting it hard behind him.

  Stunned, I walked in slow motion, turning off all the living room lights, and then went upstairs to my bathroom. I was overheated, my hair slick with sweat, my cheeks the color of red wine. My pupils were dilated—​big and brown with light brown halos. Curious, I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed my thermometer. My temperature was exactly one hundred—​high but still inside the margin.

  I moved to my bedroom and stood in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. “It’s no big deal,” I said out loud to comfort myself, and then I stretched out on top of the covers. I considered calling Ann, but it was so late.

  Feeling frantic, I jumped up and grabbed my laptop from my desk and brought it into bed with me. There were two new messages in my inbox, one from Ann and one from Akin, Whitman. My chest, which had finally stopped its thudding, sped up again. It had been so long since I had seen Whit’s name in my email. The night after the breakup, Bryan had moved all of Whit’s messages into a password-protected folder so that I wouldn’t pore over the old notes.

  I double-clicked on Whit’s new message first. It was a short note.

  Just saying hi. Want to make sure you’re doing okay. I thought I saw you near the bowling alley tonight but I’m not sure. Hoping you’re all right.—​W

  I threw my hands over my face, exhaling through my palms, and then closed the message, not sure I should answer. I opened the message from Ann instead. She’d sent it an hour ago.

  Check in, please was all she had written.

  I began typing my report then, the detailed description of Phase One of our experiment. At first I considered skipping the part where Kyle and I hooked up—​the idea of confessing it to Ann seemed strange and embarrassing—​but the behavior was part of the results. I had to tell all.

  I was as clinical as possible, detailing my heart rate and temperature, as well as Kyle’s swift reaction after I’d taken my nightly dose of drops.

  Subject One, the email began, with the date and time.

  I didn’t get to sleep until after three, which is when I finished my written narrative of the results and detailed my questions about the evening.

  In the subject line of the email, just to get her attention, I wrote in all caps, SUCCESS.

  10

  I’ll admit that I hadn’t thought about what might happen if the experiment worked, especially on Kyle. Even if there had been no kissing, a temporary attraction might have caused some confusion and awkwardness. It would be worse with a hookup, which I’d called a brief physical interaction in my notes to Ann.

  What is a “brief physical interaction”? she wrote back.

  We kissed, I responded, my face hot as I typed.

  Oh?

  Yes, I wrote back. Just kissing. Then I put an end to it. It only lasted a few minutes, I think. He didn’t seem to think it was significant.

  Interesting, she emailed back.

  As I typed, I wanted to tell her that it was significant, at least to me. At what age did making out with a close friend stop being a big deal? Kyle had dismissed it like we’d accidentally bumped elbows in the hallway.

  This kind of thing happens all the time in college, he’d said.

  I didn’t get it. Before Whit, I had only been kissed twice—​once when I was fourteen, by a sixteen-year-old named Beckett on a trip to Yellowstone with my parents, and another time before that, by Bryan, when we were thirteen and trying to figure out if we were capable of sticking our tongues in another person’s mouth. Those first kisses still felt like big deals. Then there was Whit, who was the first person to kiss me like an adult, like the kissing could lead to something else.

  But Kyle was probably right. I did have to get used to the fact that not all kisses would be significant. At my high school, all hookups were important, because no one disappeared. You saw the person the next day, no matter what. But in college, you could probably make out with a person and maybe never see them again.

  During my visits to Whit’s dorm, I’d seen students bring strangers back to their rooms and then say goodbye forever the next morning. Some of Whit’s friends were in real relationships, but many headed out at ten at night with party plans and fake IDs, and returned at one thirty with someone they had never met before.

  To Kyle, the kissing was probably a routine mistake between friends. That was probably a good thing, because it meant that we could go back to normal. But when I got to work on Monday, Kyle wasn’t even there. According to Tish at the front desk, he’d called in sick early that morning.

  I grabbed my phone to text him to see if he needed anything, but then paused, wondering if he’d want to hear from me. Maybe he wasn’t as breezy about the night as he’d seemed.

  Yael was sitting in front of her laptop, humming softly. I could tell she’d added some new photos of her girlfriend to the small bulletin board behind her bench. They were tacked under a postcard that showed a pretty beach I assumed was in Israel.

  “Hey,” I said, standing behind her, and then I moved in front of her, waving my hands so she’d take her earbuds out.

  “What’s up?”

  Her voice was flat, like she was annoyed. I wondered if she suspected something was off, but there was no reason she’d know what happened.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice warmer. “I just need to send this note to my adviser.”

  “Kyle’s out sick? Is he okay?”
r />   Yael pushed a curl out of her face and shrugged. “I think something’s going around. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  I returned to my bench and began transcription, but I had trouble focusing. I spaced out every few minutes, my mind drifting to memories of Friday night, how easy it had been to kiss Kyle and how quickly he left when it was over. I kept having to rewind the tape and listen to Dr. Araghi say the same thing over again.

  At about two, Yael’s phone buzzed. She looked at it, typed back a message, and yelled over to me, her earbuds still in, “Kyle’s fine. He says hi.”

  I stopped the tape recorder and walked to her desk. She paused whatever she was listening to and looked up at me from behind her laptop.

  “Did he say anything else? Does he need anything?”

  “Nope. He was just coming down with something. He probably just needs to sleep it off.”

  It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I knew Yael couldn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. She didn’t know whether he and I were okay. She couldn’t tell me whether his “hi” was a message of obligation.

  Yael’s facial expression let me know that my level of concern was strange. I was still standing there, in front of her desk, now staring at her phone, hoping it’d buzz again.

  “Great,” I said, sounding as casual as I could, then shuffled back to my desk. I was so distracted that it took me two more hours to get through another half-hour of tape.

  Right before I left for the day, I decided to text him. I felt compelled.

  You need anything?

  I stared at the word Read. Then the dots appeared as Kyle typed something back. It was probably just seconds, but it felt like minutes. The dots appeared and disappeared, like he kept changing his mind about what to write.

  Nope I’m good.

  That was the entire response. After all that time.

  I wrote back, Feel better. You better not have given me germs.

  As soon as I pressed SEND, I wanted to punch through the phone screen to pull back that last part. I shouldn’t have made a joke about what happened.

  He started typing, but then the dots vanished. I waited, staring at the phone, hoping he’d start writing again, but after several minutes, it was clear the conversation was over.

  Later, I hoped my dad would be home, just for a distraction, but as I approached our door, he was pulling out of the driveway. He spotted me and rolled down his window.

  “Rock climbing again?” I asked, guessing his destination.

  “Yeah. Looks like it’s going to rain, so I thought it’d be a good night to practice at the gym. I’m hoping it’s late enough that there are no birthday parties. Last time I was there, the place was overrun by kids.” He shot me a toothy smile. “No offense, kid.”

  “None taken, senior citizen,” I responded.

  “Do you want to come? They’ll give you an intro class for free.”

  His offer made it clear I looked lost.

  “No, thanks,” I said, trying to be normal. “I’m feeling like a TV night. I’ll re-watch Sherlock or something.”

  “Okay. But if you change your mind and go out, try to shoot me a text.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I stared up at my house, overwhelmed by the idea of being by myself for the rest of the night. I wished Bryan didn’t have so many rehearsals.

  My phone buzzed.

  Karaoke? it said, with Bryan’s name above the message, like he had read my mind, as always.

  YES, I wrote back, my body flooding with relief. I made a detour back down the street in the direction of the T, just a little bit ashamed that I was so scared of spending the night alone. I’d never been that kind of person before.

  11

  I must have been pretty desperate to agree to a night of karaoke with Bryan and his friends. I had nothing against karaoke, but only when doing it with normal people like my mom and dad. It was a different, more terrifying experience to do karaoke with aspiring actors who believed that if they performed a song dramatically enough, they might end the night with a record deal. Whit had warned me about this. “Never do karaoke with theater people. They like it too much.”

  The Junior Barders were meeting at the all-ages karaoke bar not far from Boston Common. It was weird in there, a place clearly designed for tourists, with big pictures of Boston’s skylines and landmarks on the walls. It was freezing and smelled like beer.

  I scanned the faces at the tables until I spotted Bryan near the stage, flipping through the songbook. “Hey,” I greeted him.

  I hadn’t told him about what had happened with Kyle. There had been no time, and I wasn’t sure whether I should. Bryan couldn’t know about the experiment, so I’d only be able to tell him about the kissing, which I wouldn’t be able to explain. I felt strange, never having kept anything from my best friend before.

  “Hey,” he looked up, his voice urgent. “ ‘Kiss’ or ‘Rolling in the Deep’?”

  “What’s ‘Kiss’?”

  His jaw dropped, and then he placed his hand over his heart. “It’s Prince, Maya. It’s Prince! ‘Kiss’!”

  “I don’t know everything you know. I choose ‘Rolling in the Deep.’ ”

  He mumbled something about making me a new playlist as he registered his selection, and then we sat down at a small table next to Kimberly Katz and a girl I didn’t recognize. She had the look of a friend, a shy non-actor like me who was just along for the ride.

  Before I could introduce myself to her, feeling like we should bond, a voice boomed over the speakers, “Kimberly K. You’re up, Kimberly K.”

  Kimberly jumped from her chair as if she had just been named an Oscar winner and ran to the stage, grabbing the microphone from the DJ.

  I leaned into Bryan and whispered, “If she does ‘Let It Go’—​or anything from Frozen—​you have to buy me a soda.”

  Bryan shushed me and glanced over to Kimberly Katz’s friend to make sure she hadn’t heard me.

  “Sorry,” I said, meaning it. I disliked Kimberly Katz, but only because she’d seen Whit more recently than I had.

  Her choice was not “Let It Go,” but Rihanna’s “Stay,” a song that Bryan had put on many of my playlists. I loved the song and feared Kimberly would ruin it, but she was a pro and had clearly performed this one before. She hit every note and strolled around the stage with the mike like she was performing at a real concert—​like she was begging someone to stick around.

  It always amazed me how theater people could be like this, forever on, always ready to make use of a spotlight. I supposed scientists could be naturals too. My mom was always thinking about research. So was Ann.

  Whit was like that with his writing. Sometimes he’d jot things down in a little notebook he kept in his back pocket. The ultimate flattery was when he scribbled something down after I spoke.

  Kimberly took her seat when it was over, still panting from the performance.

  “That was amazing,” I said, leaning over, surprising myself.

  “Oh my god, thank you!” she screamed so loud that all of a sudden I hated her again.

  Bryan’s name was called next. “You’re up, Adele,” I said, patting him on the back.

  No one dared sing along when Bryan was performing; he was too good. Even through the fuzzy bar mike, which was probably soaked with beer, his voice was flawless and whatever he wanted it to be. He could sound like Frank Sinatra or Justin Bieber when he wanted to, and for Adele, he made his voice husky, allowing it to crack for effect.

  “Your friend is kind of a star.”

  My trance was broken and I turned to my right, where Asher Forman sat in Bryan’s chair.

  “He’s really, really good,” I said, unable to stop myself from beaming. “He’s always been this good.”

  Bryan finished to a room full of whistles and applause, and was greeted on the side of the stage by spectators who wanted to compliment him and shake his hand.

  “Instant fan club,” Asher said.

  “I know. He�
�s going to be famous someday.”

  It was an awkward thing to say to someone who was sort of famous but probably not as famous as he wanted to be.

  “Are you singing?” I asked.

  “Yeah. With you. We’re up soon.”

  I shook my head. “Very funny.”

  “No, really. Prepare yourself. Steal someone’s drink if you have to. Loosen up your vocal cords; release your inhibitions.”

  “I don’t sing.”

  “I promise you won’t actually have to sing. Just talk.”

  “Asher F. Do we have an Asher F.?”

  The voice boomed through the speakers, and Asher stood, pulling me up from my seat by my white T-shirt sleeve.

  I tried to sit back down, and the crowd began to boo. Bryan noticed me from across the room. I mouthed the word help, but he shook his head, looking thrilled.

  “You won’t have to sing, I swear,” Asher whispered in my ear, grabbing my hand to pull me onstage. “I promise it’ll be painless.”

  On the karaoke platform, the lights were blinding, and I could barely make out faces in the crowd. The beat started, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. I had a new appreciation for Bryan’s stage presence, because this was frightening.

  It took me a few lines to recognize the song. Taylor Swift. Of course he’d want to sing a song by a woman. There were squeals from the crowd when Asher started, his voice too serious as he sang.

  His voice wasn’t as thick and smooth as Bryan’s. Asher had the strained, thin tenor sound of a pop star. But Asher was more limber onstage, his body moving like a guy who was meant to have backup dancers.

  I faced him, both enjoying his performance and panicking each time a new line would pop onto the screen, waiting for the moment when Asher would expect me to contribute. But he kept singing on his own, the audience chiming in to help him during the chorus. “Wee-ee!” they sang, before adding, “are never, ever, ever getting back together.”

  Then, just when I thought he was going to let me stand up there silent, he leaned in and whispered, “Come alive, my friend. This is you.”

  The prompt on the karaoke screen said SPOKEN, and then there were scrolling italicized words—​words I knew, thanks to the radio and to Bryan, who had put this song on many playlists. It wasn’t quite a rap, just Taylor Swift giving an angry speech to an ex.