Then I went with Becca to lab three, awkwardly climbing on to the high stool. Hearing somebody behind her, Darcy turned around to see who was getting stuck with the misfiring burners and gave me a surprised, incredulous look like, “Didn’t I just warn you about that lab?”
I smiled weakly and shrugged, and Darcy rolled her blue eyes before twisting back around to face front.
“Okay, everyone,” Mr. Messerschmidt announced, clapping his hands to summon our attention. “Are we all set? All partnered?” He counted heads a second time, then consulted a sheet of paper in his hand, frowning again. “We still seem to be missing someone . . .”
Just then the door opened and in walked Tristen Hyde. Late. And not seeming to care that the whole class was already assembled. He strolled right in front of Mr. Messerschmidt and picked up the textbook, checking the cover and nodding like I’d done. Like he recognized the book as a good one, too.
Mr. Messerschmidt watched this performance in silence, mouth set in a firm line. “You’re late, Mr. Hyde,” he finally said when Tristen took his sweet time collecting the lab manual.
“Sorry,” Tristen said absently, more focused on trying to jam the manual into his battered messenger bag, like he had no intention of looking at the rules and regulations.
I noticed that he’d gotten a light tan over the summer, and the sun had highlighted his thick, dirty-blond hair, and I wondered for a second where he’d been, what he’d done over the last few months. Tristen was a cross-country runner, a track star. Maybe he’d just been . . . running? Or had he traveled back to England? I’d heard that his dad was a psychiatrist, here for some kind of visiting professorship. Maybe they’d gone home for the summer break?
I definitely couldn’t recall seeing Tristen around town. Then again, I hadn’t really seen anybody around town. I’d worked in the basement of Carson Pharmaceuticals cleaning equipment and inventorying stock. A pity job that my dad’s old boss had wrangled for me. Although I’d hated the work, it had been really nice of Mr. Layne to look out for me, given what my dad had been accused of doing at Carson in the months before his murder on their property.
We were fortunate, too, that Mercy Hospital was desperate for nurses, so Mom hadn’t lost her job when she’d had her breakdown right after Dad’s funeral.
Yes, things could have been worse. So why didn’t I feel luckier?
Still standing at the front of the room, Tristen took some time to survey the lab stations, looking for a spot. He didn’t seem panicked or desperate, even though it must have been obvious that everybody was already paired up.
“Do you have a pass or an excuse?” Mr. Messerschmidt asked, holding out his hand.
“No,” Tristen said, still coolly appraising the class.
“Oh.” Mr. Messerschmidt didn’t seem to know what to make of Tristen’s total lack of justification or concern. My teacher’s hand flopped to his side. “Well . . . take a seat, please.”
“Sure,” Tristen agreed, starting to make his way down the center aisle.
“We have an odd number this year,” Mr. Messerschmidt began to point out.
“That’s fine,” Tristen said, heading toward the empty table at the back of the room. Lab station ten, where I’d nearly ended up.
“I suppose we could have one team of three,” Mr. Messerschmidt suggested as we all followed Tristen’s solitary progress. “You could join—”
“No, I’m good,” Tristen interrupted, thudding his messenger bag on the table, claiming the space. He slid onto the stool and began to leaf through the textbook, sort of shutting Mr. Messerschmidt—and all of us—out.
There was a weird moment of silence, during which we all stayed swiveled toward the back of the class, looking in Tristen’s direction. He continued reading.
“Well, then,” Mr. Messerschmidt finally said, clapping his hands again, ending the interruption and regaining control of the situation, which Tristen had somehow hijacked with nothing more than a casual disregard for . . . everything.
Over the course of the next half hour, our teacher proceeded to guide us, page by laborious page, through the contents of the lab manual, advising us of all the ways we could inconvenience the local emergency crews, the school district, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by variously scalding, searing, asphyxiating, and blowing each other up if things were mishandled.
I’d had Mr. Messerschmidt for basic chem the year before, and I knew all the proper procedures, but I turned the pages anyway, as directed.
But now and then, for some reason, my mind would wander back to the far end of the classroom. To Tristen.
Did he even remember that day in the graveyard? Should I tell him, someday, that he’d been right—and wrong—back then? That some things had gotten better . . . but some had gotten much, much worse as the police had delved into my dad’s activities, exposing a double life? Late nights at Carson labs. Murky images on security cameras. Unexplained thefts of chemicals that seemed innocuous enough, but which Dad had stolen, nonetheless.
And then there was Mom, who still seemed to be hanging on by her fingernails.
My grief had softened a little as Tristen had promised on that day he’d held me. But I wouldn’t say life was “better.”
Would I tell Tristen all that someday?
Of course, I knew I wouldn’t. We hadn’t even talked again, except to say hi in the halls now and then. I wouldn’t go bare my soul to him just because we’d shared one close moment in a cemetery.
Yet I found myself glancing over my shoulder at him. And when I did, I saw that Tristen wasn’t following along with his lab manual. It wasn’t even on his desk. He was still reading the textbook, which was spread open before him, and his mouth was drawn down in concentration, like he was engrossed in some concept or theory that challenged him.
I watched his face, his mouth, thinking, Those lips have brushed against
