St Mary's Academy Series Box Set 1

by Seven Steps

  I shifted in my seat and faced the front of the classroom where Mr. Khan, my chemistry lab instructor, was holding a thin textbook in one hand and pointing to several equations on the board with the other.

  He’d just started talking about something called the iodine clock when the sound of soft snoring came from my right.

  I glanced over at the source of the annoying sound and found Ollie’s head hung forward, and his eyes shut.

  Figures. It wasn’t the first time Ollie fell asleep in class. It was pretty much a daily occurrence.

  He leaned too far forward, caught himself, straightened, and muttered something incoherent. His full lips squeezed into an O shape, then pushed out as if he were pronouncing something with a J sound.

  Orange juice? Was he dreaming about orange juice?

  Someone threw a ball of paper my way, and it struck Ollie between the shoulder blades. His head popped up, glared at the rest of the class, then promptly fell back to sleep.

  I sighed. This was why my chemistry grades were dragging. Because of Ollie, the boy who could give Rip van Winkle a run for his money.

  I picked up the paper and placed it in front of Ollie’s sleeping form. I hadn’t been the one to throw it, but I didn’t want to have a mess around me either. I tried to keep my surroundings tidy, even when my life felt messy and out of place.

  “The Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction is one of the very few oscillating reactions we know of,” Mr. Khan said. “Three solutions are mixed, creating a beautiful color gradient that fades from colorless, to yellow, and finally black before starting over again.”

  Mr. Khan droned on about the vaguely interesting topic, and I struggled to keep from yawning.

  Chemistry wasn’t my best subject. That honor went to art. And with Ollie to carry, I struggled to maintain a B- at best. Still, I made it a point to keep my other classes grades high enough so I’d have my pick of colleges when I graduated.

  I was still deciding between New York School of Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the London Art Academy. I liked the idea of staying in New York, but I did love the warm San Francisco weather. Then again, I’d always loved the classic architecture of London. It was a hard choice, made harder still by the fact that once my parents found out I wanted to go to art school, they’d probably go into cardiac arrest.

  They planned for me to be a gynecologist like my mother. I didn’t tell them this was the absolute last thing I wanted to do in the world. I didn’t even like changing my tampon when I got my period, let alone examining other women. But, I didn’t tell them that because my future seemed to be the one thing they didn’t argue about these days.

  But I had to tell them eventually. Maybe I could set a date. That would help me to prepare. Maybe in two weeks? Or next year? Or, the day after I graduated from college? I inwardly groaned. Avoidance was so much easier than confrontation. And I wished I could avoid this particular conversation with my parents for the rest of my life.

  I’d just started focusing back on the lecture when a sharp pain shot through my head, making me see stars.

  I swore and rubbed at my pained head, searching for the source of it through slightly blurred vision.

  It didn’t take me long to find it. Somehow, Ollie’s body had gone from sitting up straight and sleeping to leaning his head on his hand and sleeping. He’d managed to angle himself just enough to bump his head into mine.

  Ouch!

  By the time my vision cleared, the angle of his head had deepened until he was lying directly beneath my chin. My gaze drifted down to him in my pained haze. For the smallest of moments, he looked peaceful. Innocent. But I knew Ollie, and innocent wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him.

  Slacker. Jokester. Bad boy. Unprepared for the future. But not innocent.

  “That hurt,” I hissed.

  “Inconceivable.” He shifted so that his hand was tucked beneath his head. “Your head’s too hard to feel anything short of blunt force trauma.”

  I scoffed and crossed my arms tight at the insult.

  “Everyone has a hard head,” I said. “Otherwise we’d have to wear helmets in the rain.”

  “But yours is harder than most.”

  A teasing smile spread on Ollie’s lips.

  “Whatever. Just move.” I pushed at his shoulders until he sat up.

  Jeez, hadn’t he ever heard of personal space?

  Ollie grabbed his shoulder, as if I’d hurt him.

  “Ow!”

  Faker. He was all lean muscle and broad shoulders. I couldn’t hurt him if I tried.

  “That didn’t hurt,” I hissed.

  He stuck his lower lip out like he was going to cry. “It did hurt. You’re like She-Hulk or something.”

  I gasped. “Excuse me? She-Hulk?”

  Mr. Khan’s heavy brows rose, and his dark eyes slid to us.

  “Miss Patel and Mr. Santiago. No talking, please.”

  I sat up in my chair, palms flat on the desk, eyes wide.

  I could not get detention. Wasting away after school, or on a Saturday, was absolutely the worst thing ever.

  “Sorry, Mr. Khan,” I squeaked.

  Ollie silently saluted next to me, then snatched my textbook and pretended to study it.

  I sucked in deep breaths, trying to slow down my racing heart. I’d never wanted to punch someone as much as I wanted to punch Ollie right then.

  “I am not a She-Hulk,” I grumbled.

  His eyes remained on the printed page.

  “Shh. Do you mind? I’m trying to pay attention to the lesson.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He shushed me again. I was so angry that my entire body shook.

  “Fine,” I growled. “Just, stay on your side of the desk.”

  “You assaulted me,” he whispered. “And, for the record, I am on my side of the desk.”

  “Whatever.”

  Doubling down on Operation Freeze Out, I focused my attention on Mr. Khan’s lecture when a soft kick, more of a touch really, hit my ankle.

  This boy was infuriating.

  Ollie, of course, still hadn’t looked up from my chemistry book. Apparently, his feet had a mind of their own.

  Well, two could play that game.

  I pinched Ollie’s side as hard as I could, which made him yelp and jump so high in his chair that he banged his knees on the bottom of the table.

  Uh-oh. I hadn’t meant for him to do that.

  Mr. Khan threw his arms open in an exasperated gesture, making the papers in his hands wave like little white flags.

  Crap.

  “What’s going on back there?” he demanded.

  My mind froze, and I sucked in a breath.

  “This table poked me, sir,” Ollie said quickly, one hand grabbing onto his side, his brows furrowed in mock pain. “I think I have to go to the nurse.”

  The class broke out in snickers and laughter. I was glad my classmates found our antics funny. I, on the other hand, was terrified I’d be sent to detention.

  “You can do that after class, Mr. Santiago. Now, if I could just finish the lesson…” Mr. Khan’s eyebrows rose, as if asking Ollie’s permission.

  Ollie waved him to continue. “Go ahead. I’ll just be back here with my spleen hanging out.”

  More giggles from the class.

  Mr. Khan scoffed.

  “As long as you don’t get blood on the floor.” He plucked his glasses from the top of his head, perched them on his nose, and continued discussing oscillating reactions.

  “You’re going to get us in trouble,” I whispered via the side of my mouth like I was in an old school cartoon.

  “Well, if you kept your hands to yourself, I wouldn’t have to cover for you.”

  My hands to myself? Yeah right. I wasn’t going to take that from him.

  “Maybe if you kept your feet to yourself, then I wouldn’t have to cover for you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied.

&n
bsp; “Sure, you don’t.”

  An indignant chirp left his throat. I could tell he was about to say something, but Mr. Khan broke us into our groups to start our labs for the day, effectively shutting Ollie up.

  Thank goodness.

  The tension in my shoulders eased a bit. At least we didn’t have to be quiet anymore, thus eliminating the threat of detention.

  I took the ball of paper that’d been sitting on the table and hurled it at Ollie as hard as I could. It bounced off his chest and landed on the floor.

  “You’re going to get me in trouble!”

  He shrugged. “What’s an hour in detention?”

  “More than I want to serve,” I replied. “Some of us are not degenerates.”

  He put his hand over his heart.

  “Really? A degenerate?” He sniffled and wiped away an invisible tear. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  I rolled my eyes and decided then and there to focus on the project and not on the exasperating boy next to me.

  The chemicals we needed were in a bucket beneath our desks. I placed the bucket on the desktop and pulled out the bottles one by one. Potassium iodate, concentrated sulfuric acid, corn starch, malonic acid, manganese sulfate monohydrate, and hydrogen peroxide.

  I grabbed three beakers from the bucket and placed them about six inches apart. Then, I dropped a magnetic stirring bar in the first two beakers.

  “I think you should know I don’t like being winked at.” The words tumbled from my mouth before I could check them.

  Crap. Where did that come from? It was true, but I didn’t plan on bringing it up. But now that it was out, I was glad I said it. It was time to set some rules and boundaries with Ollie. After all, people treat you how you allow them to treat you, right?

  In my peripherals, I saw Ollie smile all the way to his eyes. He looked like the cat who’d just eaten the canary.

  “Well, I think you should know that a lot of girls appreciate my winking.”

  “I’m not a lot of girls.”

  “I gathered that.”

  I stood and jogged to the front of the class to grab a bottle of distilled water from the counter. Being away from Ollie felt good. Like I could breathe. When I jogged back, I distracted myself by pouring water into a beaker. Then I started working on the cornstarch solution. All the while, Ollie sat there doing absolutely nothing.

  “While we’re on the subject of things we don’t like, I think you should know I don’t like being stared at.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “I do not stare at you.”

  “Examining me, then?”

  “I don’t examine.”

  “Well, what would you call it when someone gazes deep into your eyes all dreamy when they think you’re sleeping?”

  My eyes bulged and my cheeks felt hot. I bit my lower lip to keep from screaming at him.

  He continued as if I wasn’t on the verge of mangling him. “You know what? I think I’ve changed my mind. I don’t mind you staring at me so much. Just don’t be surprised if I stare back.”

  “I’m not listening to you,” I sang, putting a top on my solution, and labeled it with a capital A. I noticed that my hand was shaking slightly. I shook it out and continued working.

  “How’d you answer me if you weren’t listening to me?”

  “Stop talking, please.”

  “Normally when girls tell me to stop talking, that leads to other things that aren’t very appropriate for chemistry lab. I mean, they involve chemistry but not the oscillating reaction kind. Then again, reactions do play a big part of it.”

  I glared at him.

  “Are you going to help or are you just going to talk me to death while I do this entire experiment by myself?”

  He shrugged. “You’re doing a great job. A degenerate like me wouldn’t want to interfere.”

  I growled and placed my corn starch solution on the hot plate to boil.

  “I don’t even know why you bother coming to class. All you do is either sleep or harass me.”

  “Sounds like two excellent reasons to come to class to me.”

  I sighed because I was too frustrated with him to do anything else.

  “Listen, Ollie. I don’t know what types of girls you’re used to, but I don’t fall for this act.”

  “What act?”

  “This act. The winking and the flirting and the devil-may-care attitude.”

  “Who said I was flirting?”

  I snorted.

  “You’re flirting. Granted, you’re terrible at it. But you’re flirting.”

  He leaned forward, his mouth coming close to my ear.

  “Believe me, Princess. When I’m flirting, you’ll know it.”

  Goose bumps broke out over my neck and shoulders. My entire body went white hot and my eyes glued to the table.

  What had just happened?

  I’d never reacted like that to Ollie before. Granted, he’d never whispered in my ear before.

  I was too shocked at my reaction to move. To breathe. I couldn’t even look at Ollie. What if he saw the way my body reacted to him? I’d be mortified!

  God, when would this day be over?

  After a few big breaths, I finally got my limbs to work again. I quickly finished the third concoction of hydrogen peroxide and water and labeled it with a capital C. The water and cornstarch mixture hadn’t started boiling yet.

  “You’re disgusting,” I ground out.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “No. It’s not all. You are a reprobate who doesn’t take anything seriously.”

  He looked positively giddy while my insides felt like they were being mixed in an old blender. “Anything in particular I need to take seriously?” he asked.

  “If you must know, your art. You have a God-given talent and you can’t even be bothered to turn in your work to the teacher.”

  “You like my drawings, huh?”

  I shook my head, choosing my words carefully. I did not want to seem too interested. That would only invite more of Ollie’s unwanted attention. “They’re okay.”

  “Okay? A moment ago, they were God-given.”

  “Shut up.”

  He put his hands up defensively. “Look, those pictures are just that. Pictures. They won’t get me anywhere in life but down a long road of disappointment and regret.”

  “As opposed to?”

  He leaned against his hand and grinned at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I snorted. “Actually, I wouldn’t like to know anything.”

  “Oh, yeah? Ask me.”

  “Ask you what?”

  I turned the heat up on my cornstarch mixture, trying to get it to boil faster.

  “Ask me about the two faces. I’ll bet you’ve been dying to.”

  I froze for a moment, wondering how he could read me so well. I did want to know who the man in the picture was, but how could Ollie know that? It wasn’t possible.

  His grin widened, and his brows rose as if he’d bested me somehow.

  I shook my head and looked down at the sheet we needed to hand in once we finished our experiment.

  “I don’t care who the man was.”

  My mixture had finally boiled. I turned on the mixer and the pill-sized magnet in the beaker started to spin, creating a tiny whirlpool.

  “Your mouth says no, but those eyes say something else entirely.”

  “Oh yeah? What do my eyes say?”

  He scraped his teeth against his bottom lip as he examined me.

  “You’re curious.”

  My insides seized.

  It was time for me to stop talking to him. My body was reacting weird and he was saying weird things, and everything was just… weird. Weird. Weird. Weird.

  I closed my mouth and turned away from him, keeping my eyes glued to the two beakers in front of me.

  I focused on my work. Pulling on a glove, I took the beaker off the heater and placed it in the middle of us. Then,
I wrote a capital B on it. Next, I took the mixture in beaker C and poured the two mixtures together. Finally, I took a fourth beaker and another mixer from the bucket and poured in the contents of my A and B jars.

  “You don’t deny it?” he asked.

  I turned on the mixture and watched the water spin and slosh.

  I didn’t want to admit that his voice so close to my ear made my heart speed up. I didn’t want to admit I was curious about him, or that his picture had both haunted, scared, and intrigued me.

  Who was the man? Why did he have two faces? It was like the drawing had unearthed a side of Ollie I didn’t know existed, and now my subconscious was focused on him, trying to figure him out.

  That was it. I wasn’t attracted to Ollie in any way. I was curious about his drawing. That explained my weird reactions. That explained everything!

  My shoulders relaxed. It felt like a weight had been lifted from me.

  I didn’t like Ollie in any way. I was just curious about his drawing.

  Ollie reached for the contents of beaker C, then poured it into the final mixture. The water stayed colorless for a few long moments, then slowly faded to yellow. A few spins later, WHAM! All black. It stayed that way for a little while before fading back to colorless.

  “There,” he said. “I helped.”

  He looked at me and I looked at Ollie.

  I expected that my newfound revelation would give me some sort of immunity to Ollie’s charms. That my odd reactions to him would stop and I could go back to hating him like I had before. But, I was wrong. Something in Ollie’s gaze shifted and my heartbeat picked up in reply.

  Before I knew it, I was staring deep into his eyes, waist deep in their inky depths, staring at the approaching storm deep within. He was like a jigsaw puzzle I couldn’t solve. But what was the puzzle a picture of? And how did the pieces fit together? And why did it feel like the box the puzzle came in did not match the contents?

  The storm moved closer, and I looked away before it overwhelmed me.

  The odd part was, a little piece of me wanted it to.

  The bell rang, and Mr. Khan said something about homework, but I could barely hear him over my pounding heart. I stayed glued to my seat, waiting for Ollie to leave first before I did. I needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts and to understand why my body was doing such funny things. I needed some time away from Ollie.