Chemistry Lessons

by Jae

  “I’ll be there,” Regan said firmly. More softly, she added, “We’ll be there.”

  They talked for another minute, then Eliza went back to packing moving boxes, and Regan was once again alone with the images playing through her mind.

  She stared at her phone. Should she call Ky?

  No. What she had to say couldn’t be said on the phone. Not that she knew what she wanted to say.

  Starting with an apology was probably a good idea.

  But it wasn’t all me, a voice in the back of her head pointed out. She kissed me back.

  Regan shook her head to silence that voice. Ky kissing her back didn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe she had just gone along with it the way she went along with all of Regan’s spontaneous ideas, even if she thought they were silly.

  Other than how wonderful Ky smelled and how soft her lips were, what Regan remembered most about last night was how stunned, almost panicked Ky had looked afterward.

  She had seen that kind of look on Ky’s face only once before: when she’d told Regan that her mother was filing for divorce and they were moving away. Back then, Regan had been the one to comfort her, hug her, and tell her it would be all right.

  Never in a million years had she thought that she would one day put that look on Ky’s face. Regan’s stomach clenched into a tangle of knots. She had messed up, and this time, she wasn’t sure whether a hug would make it all right—or make it worse.

  Chapter 9

  On Thursday morning, the cafeteria kitchen was a whirlwind of organized chaos as their team worked to prepare lunch and get the day’s deliveries squared away.

  At least Ky’s busy workday left her no time to think about Regan.

  Okay, that was a lie. She thought about her as she prepared sandwiches, the only thing Regan could “cook.” She thought about her as she lugged a box of frozen cookie dough—chocolate chip, Regan’s favorite—out of the walk-in freezer. She thought about her as the PE teacher popped in to grab a snack. Would Regan find the time to do the same? Would she come through Ky’s lunch line? Or would she avoid Ky, as she had all week?

  If that was what she was doing. Ky couldn’t be sure. With the AP chemistry exam coming up tomorrow, Regan had her hands full with last-minute lessons and pep talks to reassure her nervous students.

  Still, even in the middle of exams, they had never gone four days without speaking.

  Ky was just as much to blame; she knew that. The phone worked both ways. She could have called or at least sent a text. But what was she supposed to say? Hey, how are you? Have you recovered from the kiss? Or maybe: Why the hell did you kiss me?

  She wasn’t prepared to hear the answer to either of these questions. What if Regan said it had merely been an impulse and didn’t mean a thing? What if she said it meant everything? Even worse, what if Regan asked her these questions?

  A trickle of sweat rolled down between her shoulder blades, making her school polo stick to her back.

  She had no idea what to say or how to face her. Regan had always been able to read her like a book, and now Ky was afraid of what she would see. After the kiss on Saturday night, she needed time to get her platonic-friend game face on.

  “Damn.” Fran slapped her clipboard onto the worktable next to Ky, wrenching her out of her thoughts and making her flinch. “Our bread order didn’t come in.”

  Ky stared at the chicken breasts she had just seasoned. “So no chicken sandwiches?”

  “Not unless you can magically turn two crates of zucchini into ciabatta rolls.” Fran sighed. “We’ll have to think of something to avoid a mutiny.”

  Ky flipped through her mental recipe collection and compared the ingredient lists with what she knew was in the walk-in cooler. “How about we make chicken parmesan instead? If there’s time, we can even do zucchini noodles.”

  Fran tapped her pen against Ky’s shoulder. “You’re good. Must be why they’re paying you the big bucks.”

  “Fourteen dollars an hour is big bucks?” Ky muttered.

  “Lilia,” Fran called over the hum of the industrial can opener. “Get a cart ready. You’re on second-chance breakfast duty in the science wing.”

  “Can’t do it, boss,” Lilia shouted back from the double sink. “I’m elbow-deep in apples that need to be washed. Can Kylie do it instead?”

  Me? Go to the science wing? Ky gulped and hurled a glare at her roommate. Lilia was usually happy to take the cart over to the main entrance or the science hall, where she got to interact with students instead of slaving away in the kitchen. She was obviously convinced that Ky and Regan had had a fight, so she was trying to get them to talk.

  Fran looked back and forth between them. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. Kylie, you go. If you want the assistant cafeteria manager position, it might not be a bad idea to show your face over there more often.” She nodded toward the main building and the west wing beyond. “By the way, you should let me know about that soon. I need to make a recommendation for the position before the end of the school year.”

  Ky gulped again. She couldn’t deal with this on top of everything else. When had her nice, predictable life become so complicated and overwhelming? “I will.”

  Fran eyed her. She was probably wondering what the holdup was. Any of the other cafeteria workers would have jumped at the chance to earn more money.

  “I need to talk it over with, um, a couple of people first.” Only one person, really. With everything that had been going on, she hadn’t had a chance to bring up the topic with Regan again, just to make sure she was making the right decision for the right reasons. But for that to happen, she needed to stop being such a coward and finally face her.

  Ky grabbed the stainless-steel breakfast cart. They always prepared it the day before, so now all she needed to do was to slide cold packs beneath the dairy in the bottom shelf and check the fruit in the baskets on the slanted top shelf. Then she wheeled the cart through the double swinging doors and over to the west wing.

  With every step, her throat tightened more until she felt as if she were breathing through a straw.

  Regan’s classroom was at the end of the hall, overlooking the football field, not exactly close to where Ky set up the cart. She would only be here for fifteen minutes, so she might not even see her.

  Her heart pounded anyway as she folded down the side shelf and set up the POS system so the kids could enter their IDs.

  A bell blared through the loudspeakers, signaling the end of the first period.

  Classroom doors swung open, and students flooded the hallway. Several stopped by the cart to grab a Pop-Tart, a blueberry muffin, or some juice.

  Shoes squeaked on the floor, locker doors slammed, and kids called out to each other. But even over the noise, Ky immediately picked out one voice. She glanced up from the cartons of chocolate milk.

  Regan was walking toward her. She wore the T-shirt Ky had given her for her last birthday. The If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate slogan written across its front peeked out from beneath her navy-blue blazer. Her hands were moving without pause, forming round shapes that might be atoms or molecules or something. The two students flanking her hung on her every word.

  Ky couldn’t look away either. She drank her in like a glass of cold water after a march through the desert. God, she had missed her. The four days without her had been the longest of her life.

  As Regan came closer, Ky zeroed in on her face. She was pale, which made the light sprinkle of freckles across the slope of her nose stand out. Her brown eyes, surrounded by faint shadows, looked even larger than usual, and her hair seemed to have lost a fight with her comb. For the first time since the day Ky had met her, Regan’s petite frame appeared fragile and vulnerable.

  Ky’s stomach churned. Damn. Regan looked like crap. Obviously, she had slept as little as Ky had the last few nights.

  This immature not-talking bullshit had to end—right now. She wouldn’t stand by and watch Regan hurting. Ky
opened her mouth just as Regan looked up from her conversation.

  Their gazes met.

  Ky’s lips froze in position, forming a word that had completely slipped her mind. Muffled music drifted through someone’s earbuds, but Ky barely heard it over the buzzing in her ears. Time seemed to slow.

  Regan said something to her students and gave a see-you-later wave.

  They shuffled down the hall, throwing curious glances over their shoulders.

  Very aware of all the people watching them, Ky tried to appear cool, calm, and collected as Regan bridged the remaining space between them and stopped in front of the cart. Nothing to see here. Just a lunch lady offering breakfast to one of the teachers.

  “Hi,” Regan said quietly.

  “Hi.” Ky tried to shove her hands into her pants pockets, then realized she was wearing an apron and white-knuckled the cart’s push handle instead.

  Silence lingered between them, as dense as fog in October. Ky wasn’t exactly chatty around other people, but she had never been tongue-tied with Regan before. Aargh, she hated this sudden awkwardness between them.

  Come on. Say something. Anything to break that damn silence. She swept her hand over the goodies in the cart by way of invitation. “Second-chance breakfast?”

  Kind of fitting, her anxious mind supplied. A second chance was exactly what they needed.

  “Um, yeah, thanks.” Regan turned her attention to the bottom shelf as if she was glad for the excuse to look away from Ky. She regarded the food as if nothing appealed to her, then finally picked a pre-packaged piece of banana bread and a carton of chocolate milk.

  Comfort food. Ky had eaten too much of it in the past few days too. Regan needed something more nutritious. She grabbed the most beautiful apple from the top shelf and held it out.

  Regan stared at it as if Ky had morphed into Eve and were offering her the forbidden fruit.

  “School regulations,” Ky said quickly. “One of the items needs to be a piece of fruit.”

  Normally, Regan would have made a joke about the banana bread classifying as fruit. Not today. “Oh, right. Of course.” As she took the apple, their fingers brushed.

  A tendril of heat twisted through Ky.

  Regan licked her lips. “Thanks.”

  Ky glanced away. Looking at Regan’s mouth—that graceful Cupid’s bow of her upper lip—was what had gotten them into this trouble.

  “So,” they both said at the same time.

  Quickly, Ky waved her hand for Regan to speak first. Regan had always been the brave one, and she hoped that wouldn’t change now.

  Regan rubbed the apple along the outer curve of her thigh in a slow, probably unconscious movement, and Ky realized looking at her legs was as dangerous as looking at her lips.

  “Um, did Eliza call you?” Regan asked.

  Ky ducked her head. She had, and so had Heather, but Ky hadn’t answered, afraid they would ask about their date. “I haven’t talked to her in a while. Why?”

  “She’s moving in with Denny on Saturday and asked if we can come over to her old place at eight. Are you still up for it?” Regan’s eyes were deep and searching, as if she was asking about more than helping their friends move.

  “Always,” Ky said firmly.

  They gazed into each other’s eyes for what seemed like a long time.

  “Good. Very good.” Regan shifted her breakfast goodies to her other hand. “Do you maybe want to—?”

  “’Scuse me,” a teenager towering over Regan called from behind her. “Can I have a Pop-Tart?”

  No! Not now, Ky wanted to shout. Her polite smile probably looked more like a predator baring its teeth. “Here.” She shoved two Pop-Tarts at the boy, then, as an afterthought, added a banana. “On me.”

  “Uh, thanks.” He stared back and forth between the Pop-Tarts and Ky before shrugging and sauntering off.

  Ky leaned across the cart to be closer, very aware that they could be interrupted again any moment. “You were saying?”

  “Did you want to meet up before Saturday? Maybe take a walk up Mount Tabor and…talk?”

  Every bit of air escaped Ky’s lungs. Mount Tabor, the park on top of an extinct volcano, was the place they went to whenever they needed to talk about serious stuff. It had been there, high above the city, where Regan, overwhelmed by the stress of her first year of teaching, had confessed she wasn’t sure she was cut out to be a teacher. And it had been there where Ky had voiced her doubts about whether her mother’s death had really been an accidental overdose or suicide.

  Well, a very much nonplatonic kiss probably qualified as serious.

  Ky forced herself to inhale and stand up straight. They had made it through those conversations. This time wouldn’t be any different. “Yes,” she croaked out. “I’d like that.”

  A hint of a smile quivered about Regan’s lips. “Okay. Good. I’ve got a faculty meeting right after school, but how about afterward? Meet me at half past seven at the reservoir?”

  Ky nodded. She would have said yes, even if Regan had suggested midnight. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand going another day without talking to her. She wished they could go somewhere and talk right now, but abandoning the cart was not an option. Plus she had to get back to the cafeteria.

  “Good.” Regan let out a shuddery breath. She looked left and right as if to make sure no one was watching, then reached across the cart. Inches from touching Ky’s arm, she froze and pulled her hand back.

  Ky’s fingers twitched with the need to cover hers and establish some kind of contact. Instead, she wrapped them around the cold metal of the push handle.

  “We’re going to fix this, okay?” Regan spoke so quietly that Ky had to strain to hear her over the din of conversation in the hallway.

  Ky’s vocal cords felt stuck together, so she again just nodded.

  Regan nodded back.

  They stood without saying anything else, simply looking at each other.

  Then two students walked up and peered over Regan’s shoulder at the breakfast goodies.

  Regan backed out of the way and gave a wave that appeared unusually timid. “See you tonight.”

  All Ky managed was another nod. As she tracked Regan’s path down the hall, Regan’s words echoed through her mind. We’re going to fix this. Instead of reassuring her, they weighed her down like an iron band around her chest. Fix this. So her suspicion had been correct—Regan indeed thought kissing her had been a silly impulse, a mistake, something to fix.

  Ky should have been happy with that. Fixing their friendship should have been all she wanted. But thanks to that magical moment at her front door, it no longer was. Her most important rule had always been to be happy with what she had and avoid wanting more in every part of her life. Now she had broken that rule big time.

  Shit. She was in so much trouble.

  * * *

  In her six years as a teacher, Regan had learned to turn off personal worries when she walked into a classroom. But as soon as the last lesson of the day was done, the faculty meeting was over, and she got home, all of her thoughts were with Ky again.

  She would see her in about half an hour for their walk up Mount Tabor, and she still had no idea what to tell her.

  In the last few days, while her AP students took their last practice exam, she’d had plenty of time—too much time—to think about what had happened. The sensations of Ky’s lips on hers still lingered, but now she could push back those images and look beyond.

  Had that kiss really come as out of the blue as she’d first thought, triggered by the ridiculously romantic evening and Jenna Blake serenading her wife with a love song?

  If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t been thinking of Jenna Blake or her wife when they had said good night outside of Ky’s front door. The only person she’d been thinking of was Ky—in a way she never had before.

  Or had she? Had she experienced similar feelings in the past?

  Memories from their first two dates flooded her. She had
laughed them off when they had happened, blaming them on their friends’ meddling, but now she remembered being breathless at seeing Ky in that formfitting sweater, with Charlize Theron-style hair, and how she had suddenly noticed her perfume in a new way.

  A shiver went through her as she flashed back to the moments in the movie theater restroom. At the time, she had put it down to the intensity of their friendship and avoided thinking about it too much, but now that she was forced to examine her reaction more closely, she had to admit that curing Ky’s hiccups had been the last thing on her mind when she had slid her fingers down Ky’s upper chest. She had focused solely on how soft Ky’s skin was and how good it felt to touch her.

  Regan stretched out on her couch, then put one leg up the wall, which always helped her think. Okay. She inhaled and exhaled deeply.

  It was probably safe to say she was attracted to Ky. The thought sent shockwaves through her entire body.

  Calm down. It didn’t need to be a big deal, right? After all, attraction was just chemistry—the brain releasing a heady cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. It didn’t have to mean anything.

  But then again, maybe it did.

  Had it merely been a physical reaction, something that, like the physical changes she taught her students about, altered only the appearance of the substances involved and could easily be reversed? Or was it more than purely physical attraction? Was it possible she was developing romantic feelings that, like a true chemical reaction, would change the very identity of their relationship into something completely new?

  And the scariest question of them all: What if it was one type of reaction for Regan but something entirely different for Ky?

  Well, she would never find out if she didn’t get going. Parking was usually bad at Mount Tabor Park, so she needed to leave now to make it on time.

  She swung her leg down and hopped up from the couch.

  * * *

  When Regan had been little, her parents had taken her and her siblings to Mount Tabor Park a few times. Back then, she had imagined the turn-of-the-century gatehouses with their turreted tops and arched windows as castles where princesses lived.