Elements of Chemistry: Capture

by Penny Reid

  Elements of Chemistry

  (Part 3)

  CAPTURE

  By PENNY REID

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, rants, facts, contrivances, and incidents are either the product of the author’s questionable imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, events, locales is entirely coincidental if not somewhat disturbing/concerning.

  Copyright © 2015 by Penny Reid; All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, photographed, instagrammed, tweeted, twittered, twatted, tumbled, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.

  Caped Publishing

  Made in the United States of America

  eBook Final Edition: May 2015

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-942874-07-2

  Part 3: Capture

  Prologue A Molecular Comparison of Gases, Liquids, and Solids

  CHAPTER 1 Resonance Structures

  CHAPTER 2 Acid-Base Equilibria

  CHAPTER 3 Concentrations of Solutions

  CHAPTER 4 Avogadro’s Number and the Mole

  CHAPTER 5 Phase Changes and Heating Curves

  CHAPTER 6 Periodic Properties of the Elements

  CHAPTER 7 Atoms, Molecules, and Ions

  CHAPTER 8 Chemistry of the Nonmetals

  CHAPTER 9 Liquids and Intermolecular Forces

  CHAPTER 10 Chemical Equilibrium

  CHAPTER 11 Molecular Shapes

  CHAPTER 12 The Atomic Theory of Matter

  CHAPTER 13 Thermodynamic Quantities for Selected Substances at 298.15 K

  CHAPTER 14 Nuclear Chemistry

  CHAPTER 15 Strengths of Covalent Bonds

  About the Author

  Part 3: Capture

  Prologue

  A Molecular Comparison of Gases, Liquids, and Solids

  -Six months post-breakup-

  “I don’t know how to do this, Kaitlyn. You’re going to have to help me.”

  “Do what, Dad?”

  The phone was silent for a beat before he said, “Talk to you about your mother.”

  I grimaced and picked at an imperfection on the kitchen table. Four months ago, when Sam and I had moved off campus, we furnished our apartment with thrift store purchases. The shellac was peeling away from the Formica and I was making it worse.

  “I don’t know what there is to say.” I shrugged, biting my lip to keep my chin from wobbling. The truth was that I missed her. My dad and I had been talking regularly over the phone, but I hadn’t been participating in our Sunday meetings for the last six months and I missed having a connection with my mother.

  “I think she hurt you. Am I right?”

  I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. Part of the reason I hadn’t contacted her was definitely because she seemed to be indifferent to my feelings about breaking up with Martin.

  The other part was because of my fear she’d be disappointed in me. During my summer of discontent after my breakup with Martin, I’d decided to switch majors—from chemical engineering to music—and take the fall semester off school.

  Taking a semester off school was the Parker family equivalent of giving up on life. I’d made the decision rather flippantly, and without consulting my parents. However, my determination to change majors had deeper roots and was the impetus behind my current gainful employment as the piano player in a special events band.

  After a week of psyching myself up, I’d auditioned in July and was now officially a paid musician. The group played mostly weddings. They also performed at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, swanky business receptions, and office parties anywhere between Boston and New York City. My evenings and weekend afternoons started filling up fast, especially when we’d have to travel into the city for a job.

  Being around music almost daily—either as part of the band, or the time spent alone composing—made me realize I had to pursue it. I had to live it. It was my passion and ignoring what gave me happiness and peace was unacceptable.

  Instead of admitting the whole truth about why I was avoiding my mother, I said, “I don’t even really understand why I’m so upset with her. She didn’t do anything. Not really. And I know she had good intentions. It’s just…I feel like she doesn’t care about me sometimes, I guess.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. She does care about you. She loves you.”

  “Then I don’t think I understand what love is. I thought I knew. I thought it was this great thing where two people support each other and work together to solve problems. I thought it was about trust and loyalty, being honest, kind, being a team. But now I have no idea. In fact, I’m doubting that love exists. Maybe, as a society, we made it up to explain and justify our unhealthy desire for co-dependence.”

  He was silent for a moment and I knew he was thinking about what I’d said, processing it. One of the coolest things about my father was that he listened to understand, not to react.

  “I actually agree with you to a certain extent, if I’m understanding your meaning correctly. We humans, most of us, are co-dependent and it’s often unhealthy. It’s up to the two people within the relationship to keep the co-dependence healthy. But, you are assuming there is only one kind of love, Kaitlyn. I can tell you there are as many kinds of love in the world as there are stars in the sky.”

  “That was very poetic, Dad.”

  “I bet you didn’t know I used to write poetry for your mother.”

  This made me start and I sat up straighter in my chair. “You did?”

  “Yes. And it was pretty good, for a medical student who was infatuated with an unobtainable ice queen. It made her melt…a little.”

  I heard the smile in his voice and it made me nostalgic for his sweet sappiness.

  “What happened?”

  “I asked her to marry me, not expecting that she would say yes, but she did. So we got married, and I was in very deep infatuation-love with her. She was so…good. So driven. She was talented at inspiring people and surprising them with how smart she was—because she is, she’s brilliant. And she’s very charismatic.”

  I thought about this for a second, mildly horrified that I was attracted to guys who were like my mother.

  He continued. “But then I became disillusioned because she belonged to the world just as much as she belonged to me. And I didn’t like that.”

  I considered this for a moment, thinking about my father being jealous of the world. I couldn’t imagine my father being jealous at all. He was so…nice. Even tempered. Sweet.

  “What did you do?”

  “I told her I wanted a divorce. I told her I couldn’t be with someone who was always putting me second and that I’d made a mistake.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why did I not know about this?”

  “It happened before you were born.”

  “What did she do?”

  My father sighed, as though he were releasing memories from long ago. “She begged me to stay, which shocked the hell out of me, but she did. She offered to leave politics and even went so far as to drop out of her commissioner’s race without telling me. She tried to make herself into a different person, because she didn’t want me to go. She didn’t want to lose me.”

  “That seems…very unlike her.”

  “It was. It is. But love—the kind of love she felt for me—makes people do crazy things. It twists them up and can make them question their own choices.”

  “So, you stayed, obviously. But then how did she get back into politics?”

  “I realized I was ruining her with my jealousy. She tried to change for me, and not for the better. The parts of her I loved the most—her brilli
ance, charisma, goodness, fierce desire to correct injustice—these were not compatible with my jealousy. And I also realized that she didn’t belong to the world, and she didn’t belong to me. She belongs to herself. We all belong to ourselves, until we have children. Then our children lease us for as long as they want.”

  I exhaled a laugh and shook my head.

  “Never doubt that your mother loves you, Kaitlyn.”

  Feeling ashamed as I contemplated my father’s wise words, I forced myself to stop picking at the Formica.

  My father continued, “But she does everything in the extreme. In your case, she respects you and trusts you in the extreme, so she trusts that you’ll come to her when you’re ready. Meanwhile she’s bitten off all her fingernails.”

  I thought about this for a stretch, feeling a bit of panic at the thought of facing her and being a disappointment.

  “What if I’m never ready?”

  “Then that would make you stupid, and you’re not stupid. You’re stubborn, but you’re not stupid.”

  “I don’t know how to do this, Dad. How do I make things right?”

  “Come home for Thanksgiving. Talk to your mother. Or yell at her. Just do something with her. You two need each other and I can’t take another Sunday call without you, so call in for the next one. Just…be brave.”

  ***

  -Seven months post-breakup-

  “Between you and me and the tree, I think we should have our own Thanksgiving before you leave.” Sam was folding our clean laundry while I sorted through my desk, purging it of old classwork and notes. I’d decided to go home for Thanksgiving and was leaving in three weeks for the long weekend. I had an abundance of restless energy. I used the energy to clean my room.

  My father was correct. It was time for me to make things right with my mother.

  I’d rejoined the Sunday calls at the beginning of October, yet none of us had broached the subject of my months-long absence.

  As well, she and I hadn’t spoken yet about my decision to take a semester off school, and I was glad. When I brought it up on a mid-October call, I’d tried to explain and defend my position. She told me to wait.

  My mother had said, “You need time.”

  And she was right. I’d needed the time to figure things out without dwelling on the fact that I must be a disappointment.

  “Is your mother going to make Tofurkey again?” I asked Sam.

  Her only response was to make a gagging sound.

  I chuckled at this. Her mother was a strict vegan. Sam loved steak.

  “Hey Sam, do you think I could get a job at your restaurant? Not as a server of course, since I don’t have any experience, but maybe I could bus tables or wash dishes.”

  I was re-enrolling at the university in the spring, but now as a music major. I’d applied and auditioned for the music program, probably setting my graduation date back by two or more years. As well, this meant likely losing my academic scholarship. My dad had offered to pay for tuition; therefore I was determined to get a second job, pay for my living costs, and pitch in for the school expenses.

  “I can ask…” She peered at me for a long moment, biting the inside of her lip as she considered me. “But have you thought about maybe applying for a job at The Bluesy Bean? I hear the lady there only hires musicians as baristas because she makes them serenade the customers.”

  I chuckled. “Ha ha, that’s funny.”

  I tossed a stack of papers into the paper bag I’d set aside for recycling and then shifted my attention to the bookshelf. I had so many textbooks. I thought I’d need them for reference; I should have just sold them back for cash. The room fell into silence, which wasn’t unusual for us these days.

  Which was why I was surprised when Sam blurted, “So, I think it’s time that you talk to me about what’s going on with you.”

  I glanced at her over my shoulder, and found her watching me with her hands on her hips.

  “What do you mean?”

  Her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed into determined slits. “I mean, you didn’t speak to me—or anyone else—for months, until you got that job with the band last July. Hell, even when we picked out this apartment it was like pulling teeth trying to get you to voice an opinion. And don’t get me started on the weird, angry acoustic guitar music.”

  I gave her an apologetic half smile. I knew this conversation had to happen eventually. Sam had been so patient with me. I was better, so much better, and now was as good a time as any to bring everything out into the open, to clarify my headspace over the last few months.

  I faced her, crossing to the bed. “I know. I’m so sorry about the angry acoustic guitar music.”

  She continued like I hadn’t spoken, as though some dam had broken and she needed to get all her thoughts out. “I know you don’t like me mentioning his name.”

  I rolled my eyes at my dramatics from months ago, when I’d told her I never wanted to speak of Martin Sandeke ever again; but it also made me realize I’d been greedy with my thoughts.

  “And then you joined the band and started drinking Red Bull. Next you decided to change your major and take a semester off school—which I’m totally for, by the way. It’s just that you never talk to me about anything. You’re in your head all the time. And I want to know, it’s been almost eight months since the two of you split and I think it’s time for you to tell me. Are you over him yet? Is Kaitlyn back? Is it okay for me to ask you questions and voice my unsolicited advice?”

  I took a deep breath, gazed at her affectionately, then patted the spot next to me on the bed. She eyeballed me, then the bed, then plopped down beside me.

  “Okay,” I started, trying to figure out how to give her a Cliffs Notes version of what I’d been going through. The words would be difficult, so I decided to use terminology with which I was most comfortable. “Let me start from the beginning, with the solid state of matter.”

  She lifted one eyebrow at me, her chin falling and issuing me a look of disbelief. “Solid state of matter? What are you talking about?”

  “Let me finish. So, after M-Martin and I broke up—”

  “So we can say his name now?”

  “Just listen. After Martin and I broke up, I admit I did not take it well. I was an immovable mass of low energy. I kept thinking that if I didn’t think about it, then I would never have to deal with it.”

  “So, you were in denial.”

  I laughed a little at her apt simplification. “Yes. Basically, I froze everyone out. I was a solid. This lasted for a long time, because I’m stubborn. As well, you know I like my pity parties and self-recrimination soirées.”

  “Yes, it lasted two months. You went to class, sometimes you went to your jam sessions, but mostly you just hid in the closet.”

  I cleared my throat, remembering this dark time, and grateful I’d moved past it. “So then this brings us to the liquid state of matter. You know how I started loosening up once we moved into the apartment?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, but you still wouldn’t talk to anyone. You just sat in your room listening to Taylor Swift’s angry-girl music.”

  “Yes, but I was angry. I wasn’t frozen anymore, I was just really, really pissed off. I think the new apartment was the catalyst for my shift in state from solid to liquid. It felt like a new start. Away from the dorms, away from the college atmosphere. It was a reminder that life existed beyond school. I was only nineteen—almost twenty—and, I realized that I have decades left on this planet. I couldn’t keep hiding in closets…”

  I reflected on my feelings at the time. Yes, I couldn’t keep hiding in closets, but this thought made me angry. I’d been happy hiding in closets before Martin had ruined everything and scratched my itch.

  I hated him for it.

  During my liquid state I’d redoubled my efforts to avoid all mentions of, or references to, Martin Sandeke. I wasn’t ready to accept he existed in the world, and yet might as well be Hercules as far as I was concerned. I would never
see him again—never in person—but maybe in a magazine or in the news. Our breakup had been my choice and it was the right decision, but it still pissed me off.

  As well, I wasn’t ready to accept that I certainly no longer existed to him.

  Sam sighed. “So, this angry phase, this liquid state as you call it—this is when I tried to get you to read that fitness magazine interview Martin gave over the summer?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Sorry for snapping at you about that.”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay. I get it. So, if I recall my high school chemistry correctly, the gas state comes after the liquid state.”

  “That’s right. Though I like to think of it as the nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas, phase—otherwise known as the I-don’t-give-two-poos phase.”

  “Oh! That’s when you started drinking Red Bull and boxes of wine. I still can’t believe you’re drinking the demon liquor even though you’re not yet legal. Shame on you.”

  I tried to give her my best girl, you crazy face. “Sam, you’re the one who buys me the boxes of wine. You’re my supplier. But I make no apologies and I have no regrets. I’ve discovered I like my boxes of wine and I’m not giving them up for the next six months before I turn twenty-one. They’re stackable, like Tetris. All beverages should be stackable.”

  “I agree, beverages should be stackable, it saves on shelf space. And it’s not my fault I’m older than you are and enjoy enabling your illegal activities, especially if it means I’m not drinking boxed wine by myself. But back to you and your states of crazy, the boxed wine phase was when you started going to those music meet-ups. I remember that phase.”

  “But, if you remember, it was around this time that I decided to take the fall semester off school and switch my major to music.”

  “And you started hanging around those druggies at the Fourth Avenue bar. But that only lasted a week.”

  “Yes, it only lasted for about a week.” I studied Sam for a beat before continuing, marveling at how perceptive she was and how lucky I was to have her as a friend. “I’d made a deal with myself: I would be carefree and act my age. If I were carefree then I would forget about Martin and be happy.”