by Daniels, Viv
“Stalker.” I wrote the date on the top of the page, tapping my eraser against the edge of the paper to cover my nerves. Why hadn’t I looked him up? I’d spent a good half hour last night thinking about gunmetal gray glasses. One little visit to Facebook, and I might have gotten this all out of my system.
“That was some project.”
My science project—the one that had finaled in all those competitions—had been on algae. Specifically, on the potential for growing algae as a food source for livestock. But I could freely admit that no cute guy had ever seemed interested in it before. “Thank you.”
“You should have won.”
“You should have been on the jury.”
At the front of the class, our professor cleared her throat to begin the lecture. The room hushed.
Dylan chuckled again, soft and low, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “You’re kind of prickly for someone obsessed with the mushiest plant matter alive.”
“Good to know,” I said without looking up. “My next project will be about cactuses.”
The professor began speaking, and we both settled down to take notes. At least, I tried to, but my penmanship was jittery, and my heart pounded in my chest. I felt my cheeks flush and leaned my head over my paper, glad I had my hair to act as a screen.
That, Tess McMann, is what is known as flirting.
When the professor handed the syllabus around, I passed the stack to Dylan. Our hands touched, and all my nerve endings thrilled. This was insane. I glanced down toward the bases of our stools, where he’d hooked his sneakered feet around his footrest. His pants were still too short. That was good. Good to remember. He shifted in his seat, and my gaze snapped up. He was staring at me, his hair falling over the rims of his glasses, skimming his cheekbones.
Oh God, since when was I someone who noticed cheekbones?
“Drop something?” he asked me.
I shook my head and returned my focus to the lecture. The professor was outlining the entire syllabus. It was designed much like a college course, with most of our coursework being done either outside of class or during the lab session. We’d have a midterm and a final project, all in a three-week session.
“For your project,” Professor White said, “you may either work alone or on two-person teams.”
There was a rumbling in the class. I kept copying notes down from the board, unconcerned. I’d never been much of a team project kind of girl. In my experience, I’d always ended up doing the work while my slacker partners ended up with the benefit of my blood, sweat, tears, and grades.
When class ended, I managed to pack up my papers and notebook without looking at Dylan. Much.
“So…,” he said. “Tess.” My name in his mouth sounded longer than four letters. He savored the syllable like it was a bite of cheese and organic blueberry-date compote.
My mouth watered. I pretended to be very busy arranging my pencils into the little canvas pencil holders on the inside of my bag.
“You headed to lunch?”
“I was going to grab a sandwich or something,” I said. I had a lot of planning to do if I wanted to complete a worthwhile project by the end of the term.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll grab one with you. We can chat more about”—he grinned—“algae.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and took a deep breath. “Look, Dylan, you’re”—Cute. Funny. Disconcerting.—“fun and all, but I should probably tell you something. I’m not here to flirt and I’m not here to date and I’m not here to hook up. I’m here to work. Since you read up on me, you already know that I didn’t win my science fair or the Siemens regional, and so the fact that I have an opportunity like this…well, it’s really important to me. I aim to have the best project in the class. And that means I don’t have time for any kind of nonsense.”
He blinked, taken aback. “Oh…kay. So, no sandwiches, then?”
I rolled my eyes and turned away and, thankfully, he didn’t follow.
Back in my room, I booted up the computer, my mind already scrolling through concepts for a kick-ass three-week project. I tapped my fingers idly against the keyboard, groaned, then clicked over to Facebook. There were seventeen Dylan Kingsleys, but it was easy enough to spot mine—I mean, to spot the correct one. His profile pic showed him outdoors, grinning broadly—was that a dimple?—with his glasses glinting black in the sun. I read the stats. He lived in Pennsylvania, listed himself as single. Schools: Sacred Heart, Canton University.
I caught my breath. Canton. He never had told me where he was planning to go to school, unlike everyone else I’d met at the party. I felt a stab of jealousy. Private school, private college, designer glasses. Must be nice. No wonder he thought his time here could be used eating cheese and chasing girls. The rest of the profile was nothing special, the usual wall messages from friends and family. Lots and lots of family. Dylan had an older sister, a little sister, a very tiny baby brother, and a mess of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. I clicked through to the photo albums—not as many as I would have thought. I wondered if he’d scrubbed his account and why.
One photo album featured a lot of guys in suits on a stage. I opened it up. There was a short, chubby kid on stage, shaking an older man’s hand as he accepted a plaque. Short and chubby, huh? Suddenly, the ill-fitting pants and the lack of photos made a lot more sense. The Dylan I knew was tall and on the slim side, with a physique more like a runner. Must be what they called a late bloomer. Better late than never, I supposed. The picture linked to a news article. I clicked through and started reading.
Five minutes later, I picked my jaw up off the floor.
Dylan, it seemed, was something of an environmental science wunderkind. While doing a run-of-the-mill science fair project in ninth grade studying frog populations in a local pond, he’d noticed some chemical readings that were off. Hypothesizing that there was degradation from an old coal mine nearby, he’d tried to bring it to the attention of the company responsible for maintaining the site. They’d blown him off. Undaunted, Dylan had taken water samples from all over the area and actually pinpointed the exact location of the leak. He’d reported his findings to an environmental watchdog group, who’d nailed the mining company on their environmental violations. Dylan, meanwhile, got himself a grant from said environmental watchdog group, a commendation from the EPA—that was the ceremony in the pictures—and kept working.
While the rest of us were dicking around with school science fairs, Dylan had been out doing real science. I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.
Then I noticed the new message in my inbox. I saw his name and my heart raced. Was there some way Facebook could tell you when people were looking at your profile?
Tess,
After consideration, I’ve decided to accept your strongly worded proposal to be my biology project partner.
In all seriousness, I think we’d make the perfect team. Ask around. I’m good with water stuff, but I have a desperate need for more algae in my life.
However, on one point I want to be absolutely clear. If we are to work together, you should know that I require very high standards from my coworkers. And that means that from now on, it’s not cactuses. It’s cacti.
Dylan
THREE
For three weeks, I never heard the name Swift. For three weeks, no one once told me to be careful or I’d risk ruining my future. Cornell was a respite from all the expectations—or lack of same—that had marked my high school experience. I don’t think I was alone there, either. Everyone around me seemed to be breaking free of the stereotypes that had followed them through their teens, whether it was class dork or freak or “good girl” or what. I even saw Cristina heading to class a few times with no makeup on at all, and she taught me how to do a smoky eye and the proper use of a lip pencil.
And for three weeks, there was Dylan. When he explained his idea to me, I jumped at the chance to be his partner. Piggybacking on my algae experiments, he wanted to stu
dy the relative potential of types of feedstock algae as a sink for marine pollution. “Double duty,” he called it. “We could even do some biofuel stuff.”
Okay, I’ll be honest: I might have jumped anyway.
But the work was fun and challenging and engaging. Dylan was a meticulous partner—maybe even more dedicated to the research than I was. I’d often get emails detailing new avenues of research that were time-stamped 3:00 a.m.
Your roommate must hate you, I wrote back when I read my email at 7:00 a.m.
His replies always came lightning-fast.
My roommate dropped out midterm. Computer science guy. Too much gaming, not enough coding. What did you think of that paper I sent?
Me: Haven’t read it. Some of us need sleep.
Him: Amateur.
This was par for the course for Dylan. Lots of hard work, seasoned with liberal joking. The behavior I’d taken for strong flirtation when we’d first met seemed to be my partner’s standard setting. Every statement was tinged with sarcasm; every conversation ended in a quip. If he’d ever been interested in me as more than a project partner, he gave no indication. He was friendly, kind, generous, and professional. We spent most of our time talking about algae blooms and phytochemical reactions. Sometimes we talked about food—Dylan was very disappointed in the college dining options (“For a hotel training school, I’d expected more”)—and occasionally he’d start in with a story about his family. He came from a huge family, full of busybody cousins and cheerleader sisters and a student-teacher aunt who’d apparently campaigned to get him a prom date.
“Most embarrassing experience of my life.”
“Well,” I prodded, “did she get you one?”
“Yeah.” He smiled mysteriously. “She was way hot.”
I spent the rest of the evening alternately glaring through my microscope and wondering exactly how hot the prom date—and the prom night—had been.
But if our research remained platonic, I was certain other project pairs didn’t fare quite so well. Cristina, who was always up on the campus gossip, filled me in. She had a boyfriend back home in Brooklyn, so she was living vicariously through all the hormones running amok across campus. Hook-ups, cheating, broken hearts, people who’d been caught with their pants down—literally—despite the campus’s rather firm open-door policy.
“And what about you and Dylan?” she asked, sculpted eyebrows waggling. “Are you doing it?”
“No!”
She smirked. “Are you not doing it?”
“We’re project partners,” I insisted. “That’s all.”
And that was all, even if his words made my heart beat faster, the accidental brush of our skin set my nerve endings on fire, and I spent hours every night after our work ended turning over in my head every look and smile and conversation. One night, he leaned over my shoulder to point at some numbers on my computer screen, and I felt the weight of his chest against my back, his breath in my ear. Another night, he caught a strand of my dark hair with the tip of his pinky and swiped it off my face. Yet a third night, I could have sworn I felt his eyes on me every time I looked away. Day after day, night after night, study session after study session, we exchanged emails, we talked about our project, we read and worked and researched together, and there were times that I wanted him so much, I worried if he so much as touched my hand, I’d split right open and spill my soul all over the floor.
I might have denied it to Cristina, but there was no point in pretending to myself. And as long as it was only to myself, I figured there was little harm. I’d told the truth to Dylan after our first class: I was here to work and to do well. He respected that, and with his help, I was doing exactly what I’d intended. Anything else was my own personal problem to deal with. And I wasn’t like my parents, who did what they wanted with no regard for the effect it may have on their lives or the lives of others. I had the project, my position at the camp, Dylan’s own undeniable scientific fervor…and honestly, it was enough.
It was amazing.
In high school, it had been hard to find anyone as interested in research as I was. I’d never been bullied or ridiculed for the amount of time I spent in the bio lab or my commitment to the science fair and other competitions, but I hadn’t exactly had friends who shared my interests, either. Sylvia, my closest friend in school, never even took science past the minimum requirements, and though she’d always politely asked how my projects were going, her eyes would glaze over after the second mention of cellular structure.
Not so with Dylan or the other people I met at Cornell. Dylan and I could debate for literally hours over various methodologies or ramifications or avenues of research. Behind the rims of his glasses, his eyes were blue flames, lit up with intensity as he argued about the dangers of frakking or listed case histories of water contamination or declared that he didn’t care if it took us an extra two hours every night, we just had to include some linear regression graphs in our final presentation.
And then he would back off, and his cheeks would darken, and he would apologize like I used to with my high school friends. But he never needed to, because I was right there with him, late night after late night, pleading with the lab managers for just fifteen more minutes, wrestling with graphics programs I’d never heard of and which were certainly way more complicated than the simple Excel spreadsheets I’d used on all my high school projects.
One night, after hours spent crunching numbers and hunching over petri dishes, I collapsed in one of the lab chairs with a moan and grabbed my shoulders, kneading my aching muscles in vain.
“You can’t massage your own shoulders,” Dylan’s voice floated over. “It’s an anatomical impossibility.”
“Better than nothing.” But he was right. In order to rub, I had to contract the very muscles I was trying to relax. I gave up, rolled my neck, and yawned.
Seconds later, I felt his fingers brush my hair to the side. His thumbs caressed the base of my neck and his hands curved over the tops of my clavicles. “Let me,” he said softly as my skin started tingling and warming beneath his touch.
I caught my breath. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. His thumbs pushed against the knot of muscles in my back and I bit my lip to keep from groaning.
“Does that feel good?”
I turned around in the seat and faced him, kneeling on the chair. His hands dropped to his sides in surprise. “Yes,” I said, staring at him staring at me, inches away. His glasses were off. There were tiny red marks on the bridge of his nose. He looked older with them off, more refined, cuter than ever. He didn’t step back, he didn’t look away, he didn’t say a thing.
And I knew. If I reached for him, he’d let me. If I kissed him, he’d drag me off the chair and into his arms. He wanted me to. He wanted me, too. My heart pounded blood so hard through my body that I was surprised the windows of the room weren’t rattling. Dylan had no interest at all in stopping what was about to happen.
So I did it. “I have to go,” I said and grabbed my bag. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t dare turn in his direction before I ran from the lab.
***
The next day, we both acted like nothing had happened. Fortunately, it was our final day of work. We put the last touches on our presentation and turned it in to Professor White for her review.
The morning after, she asked us both to stay after class.
“I took a look at your project last night,” she said when everyone else had gone, “and I have to say that I’m very impressed. There’s a level of meticulous detail here that is uncommon for early undergrads, even in a program of this caliber. If it’s all right, I’d like to share your work with some of the other faculty members here.”
“We’re scientists,” said Dylan. “We always want our work shared.”
“Miss McMann,” the professor said, turning toward me, “I took a look in your file last night. I understand you’re interested in bioengineering?”
I nodded. “They have a really limited progr
am at my college, but I’m going to do my best to get in—”
“I doubt you’ll have much trouble,” Professor White said. “In fact, I know a professor there you should meet. If you like, I’d be happy to contact Dr. Stewart and put you two in touch.”
I brightened. Maybe things wouldn’t be so gloomy at State after all. “Thank you!”
“I think he only teaches upper-level classes, but I’ll let him know that if he’s in the market for a research assistant, he couldn’t do better than you.”
I was speechless. I probably managed to stumble out a thank-you. And here I was thinking I’d be making ends meet by slinging coffee.
It wasn’t until we were dismissed that I noticed she’d made no explicit promises to Dylan. Perhaps, though, she figured he wouldn’t need any extra help at a school like Canton, whereas I was going to have to scramble to make sure I could take all the classes I needed for my major in the overpopulated crush of State.
Dylan was beaming as we waited for the elevator together. “Well played, algae girl. Who knew you might get a job out of this?” The doors dinged open and we stepped inside.
I still felt a little breathless. I turned to Dylan, who was pressing the button for the lobby, and threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you,” I whispered, hugging him tight. Yes, the project was mine, but I hadn’t done it alone. It was Dylan’s idea, Dylan who’d helped push everything to the next level.
His arms slid around my waist as he returned the hug. “Tess…”
To this day, I don’t know who started it, who moved first. But suddenly, his mouth was on mine and my hands were weaving into his hair and he’d grabbed the back of my shirt in his fists and crushed me against him. By the time the elevator door dinged open, we were both breathing hard. We flew apart, staring at each other. Forever. Forever.
“Are you going to run away again?” he said at last, with a kind of anguish in his voice I’d never heard before.
