by Serena Vale
Typical jock.
The older man took a short breath and a slightly elevated voice replied, “What is the process by which plants generate oxygen called?”
Jenny watched Rick, waiting for him to give the answer. She felt a small wave of nostalgia washing over her at the question. She had learned it in third grade, and anyone who had taken the basics of science should have known the answer to this.
“Uh…” the jock responded, “no idea.”
What??!! She almost smiled at his response. The question was so simple that it bordered on hilarious that the professor should ask it. And once again, Typical jock, she thought. And she was content to lean back in her chair and watch as Rick looked dumbfounded in front of the whole class.
The professor looked crestfallen. Jenny couldn’t blame him. “You don’t? It’s a fairly simple question… and possibly the easiest question that you could be asked in my class.”
Rick looked unconcerned and simply shrugged, indifferent to the question’s importance. “Sorry.”
Jenny looked back to the professor, the fog that had settled upon her senses seemed to have lifted, and her spirits had gone up with it. She had gauged that Rick was an idiot, and correctly at that. Now it seemed that the whole class could see it.
“Unfortunate… I can see that I’d better assign you a good partner for this lab then,” the professor said. Jenny almost snickered. There wasn’t enough brilliance in the world to help Rick if he didn’t know the answer was “photosynthesis.”
“Ms. Tyll,” the professor said, looking at her, “I hope you’re equal to the task. It looks as though Mr. Tigh is going to need all the help that he can get.”
Jenny’s eyes widened at the older man’s words. For a brief moment, she felt like she must have heard him wrong. There was no way… it wasn’t possible…
“Me?” she asked, “His lab partner?”
The older man confirmed with a nod. “Yes… you,” he said, folding his arms. “Will that be a problem?”
She began to stutter a response, “But… professor… there must be…”
“Yes, there are,” he said as if he already knew what she was about to say. “But I think that you’ll be his best chance if he’s going to pass this course.” He smiled as if she would welcome this chance greatly. “Now that I’ve said that… let me assign the rest of you, your partners.”
Before she could protest, the older man turned and began assigning people to their new partners for the lab. Every bone in her body was protesting this outrage. She couldn’t be stuck with him for this class. It wasn’t right… it wasn’t fair! Sure, she had blushed to embarrassment when she’d seen him naked, but this was something else!
Jenny writhed inside, staring daggers at the old man and carving a hole right through that sweater vest that she had admired and mentally cutting his throat right above that bow tie that he wore. Any admiration that she had held for the elder fellow had gone.
“So… looks like we’re going to be working together,” Rick said, his voice amused.
She turned a baleful stare at him.
The rest of the period passed in a kind of rage-induced blur and Jenny found that she hadn’t taken a single note for the remainder of it. And by the time the period was concluded she gathered up her book and notes in a high dudgeon and sped her way for the door.
She hadn’t gotten two steps beyond when she heard Rick’s voice again behind her. She tried to ignore him.
“Hey! Jenny!”
She didn’t stop but kept walking.
“Hey, what’s the hurry?”
She got the overwhelming feeling that he wasn’t going to stop until she actually talked to him… and in complete sentences this time. Against her better judgment, she stopped and turned to look at him.
He too had gathered up his book and notes in a hurry and had them tucked under one arm and slung his bag over one shoulder. But unlike her, he looked positively delighted by the new arrangement that they had found themselves in.
“Well, isn’t this interesting?” he said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I wouldn’t have thought that this was possible when I signed up for this course.”
She only stared at him, her silencing sharping her stare like a knife.
“Listen I…” he began.
She held up a hand, silencing him. He looked taken aback by the motion, but he was quiet long enough for her to speak.
“You listen,” she said, a hint of malice in her voice, “we’re stuck together on this… I can’t do anything about that, apparently. But this class is really important to me, and I’m not going to let an idiot like you ruin it for me.”
The insult seemed to have struck a nerve in him, and his look of casual interest shifted, looking more affronted. It was like no one had ever spoken to him like this in the whole of his life. She sensed a small victory in that and used the momentum it offered and kept talking.
“I can’t make you do any of the work, but I sure as hell am not going to do the whole thing for you. Now you’re a football player, right? That means you know how to contribute to the team effort, right? Well if you don’t help me with this lab, I swear to god I’m going to make you sorry! Get it?”
His face was hard to read. It looked like a blend of shock and bewilderment, but there was something else in that as well. It seemed to be… acceptance?
“Right,” he said, his voice less jovial and more serious. “I won’t screw this up for you. I promise.”
She felt good hearing that… she felt ever better just saying what she had felt. “Good.” She turned and walked away.
Chapter 3
Jenny was still fuming from the injustice of her lab by the time the day ended. She had managed to wrangle her sense of focus again and had gotten through her other classes without any difficulty. But the gap in focus for her lab weighed heavily upon her mind, and she began wondering if there was anyone else in the lab that she might be able to ask for a little help… and maybe find a way to get a new lab partner.
How? The old professor had seemed pretty set on her and Rick being partners for the term. How could she convince him otherwise? Rick was a jock… worse than that he was a joke. The teacher had to be able to see that Rick wouldn’t do his share of the workload. She shouldn’t be punished for that. Maybe she could make her case?
Maybe, but that would have to wait until this coming Friday when they had their lab again. In the meantime, she had other things to worry about. And she had the dorm to herself and was determined to make the most of the solitude.
She immersed herself in her book, Developmental Formulas when the door to her room opened. It opened with such force and suddenness that she would have thought that a SWAT raid was on. She nearly fumbled her book as a blur of figures came pushing through the door.
Two forms, she saw, one of them was Rick, and the other was Nichole. They came through with such speed that they nearly fell upon the floor. Laughing and moaning, Jenny felt a sickly feeling crawling over her skin that made her feel like she needed another shower.
Nichole had her leg wrapped around Rick’s, and his hands were clutching firmly upon her ass. Nichole moaned loudly as her mouth widened to accept his tongue and he grunted with delight as he did so, fumbling with the simple jacket that Nichole was wearing and pushing it from off her shoulders into a heap on the floor.
Jenny almost vomited at the sight, wondering if this same thing had happened Friday night when she’d been asleep and silently thanked God that she had slept through it if that had been the case. But after her talk with Rick today, she was grateful that she had found the courage to speak what was on her mind when she felt she was within her rights to say so.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice forceful.
The passion that had been brewing between Nichole and Rick ceased like a flaming brand dropped into a bucket of water, and the eyes of both her roommate and her boy toy turned to her. Nichole looked a bit embarrassed to have been caught in this situatio
n. Rick didn’t look at all like he was bothered.
“Oh!” Nichole said, suddenly realizing that they weren’t alone in the room. “Sorry, sweetie… didn’t know you were here.”
Jenny began to say something but held it back. Nichole was obviously a sex-driven kind of college girl and unless a miracle happened then that wasn’t going to change. And seeing her half-wrapped around Rick like she was told her that their mutual intention was clear.
“It’s okay,” Jenny said, changing gears at top speed. “I was just leaving.” She scooped up her books and notes and dumped them into her backpack and gathering up her keys she started to push her way past them towards the door. “Have fun, crazy kids,” she said with a note of false joviality in her voice.
She pushed her way past the half-tangled pair of people and had just started to round the corner when she heard Rick’s voice, stopping her for the second time today. “Hey, Jenny!”
She stopped at the threshold of her room and turned to look at him. Though he hadn’t relinquished his grip on Nichole’s ass, and she was lightly kissing his neck, he looked at her intently. The weight of his stare made her feel uncomfortable. “I was wondering… what are you doing tomorrow night?”
It was a question that she wasn’t expecting. But somehow she didn’t think that he was going to ask her what time she wanted to meet for them to begin their O-chem work. She arched an eyebrow and replied the best way that she knew how “Studying.”
He smirked. “Well, if you want to take a break… there’s a party at my frat house tomorrow night. You should come. I think it’d be good for you to have a little fun.”
She could almost taste the bile in her throat and suppressed it with a shake of her head. “Thanks, but I don’t do frat parties… and I wouldn’t trust you of all people to know what’s good for me. I can make up my own mind.” She turned and walked away, hearing Nichole giggle behind her.
Her roommate added, “I told you she’s not any fun. Just let her go to her books… we have the whole place to ourselves tonight.”
The words were simple, but a little hurtful. Jenny had never been one of the partying sorts of people, not ever in her whole life. But she didn’t want people to think badly of her either. She shouldered her bag and kept walking, hearing the door to her room closing behind her.
As the weeks went by Jenny had managed to find a good equilibrium, both with her studies and with Nichole’s constant escapades. Nichole had seemed to finally realize – and understand – that Jenny didn’t care to be around whenever she brought Rick over for the night. As a result, they had worked out a kind of silent system of alerts.
Nichole, whenever she intended to bring Rick home, would lay out her evening attire and leave it there for Jenny to see. She was able to interpret the warning signs easily enough. If there were a thong and a matching bra present, then Nichole intended to show such undergarments to someone… namely Rick. At this, Jenny knew to come home only after the library had closed, by which time Rick would usually be gone. If there wasn’t a set of matching underwear present, then all was well, and she didn’t need to worry.
Disgusting as it was, the system seemed to work. And they had learned to stay out of each other’s way. It was as close to mutual respect as the pair of them came, but Jenny had learned to live with it. Nichole didn’t bother her while she was studying and she didn’t bother Nichole by being around when she and Rick were busy defiling their mutual living space.
As a consequence, Jenny had become overly familiar with the many shelves of the library whenever she needed a study sanctuary for the night. Weeks of the same routine had yielded to her the many books she needed for her classes. Oldest… newest… theory… practice… she was familiar with it all. She had become so familiar with the library that she didn’t require help from the librarians any longer when she needed something.
Much to her astonishment, she found that even Rick was pulling his weight in their lab. The work he’d done hadn’t been terrible, but it hadn’t been astounding either. But neither has mine, she thought.
This was proven by the paper that she was looking down upon even now. It was a single sheet of paper with a simple word problem written upon it. She had always known that chemistry and biology were going to be hard, but now she was beginning to see just how hard it could be.
She looked at the wording again, only some of it registering as she went. “…possible outcomes… requiring the differential… genetic makeups… dormant cells… regenerative processes… mitosis… immature cells… different cell types…”
“Ugh!” she said, rolling back on her bed and throwing her head upon her pillow. It was aggravating. She’d been staring at this same problem for the last two days, and she was nowhere near figuring it out. And this particular problem piece had to be turned in by Monday.
It’s due tomorrow, she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. She rubbed her eyes with her hands and let out an aggravated sigh. Maybe she had overlooked something? She’d been over the corresponding chapters in her book three times now, and she hadn’t seen the solution staring up at her. This, she knew, was what the professor liked to call an exercise in creative thinking.
Maybe there is no right answer? It was an appealing thought, because if that was the case, then anything she wrote down would be the right answer. This week’s lab had been about genetic theory, after all. And the theory was just that: ideas that weren’t proven. And if there was no proof then any answer she gave would technically not be incorrect. But even so, she didn’t like the idea of giving an answer that wasn’t the right answer.
“Can this get any worse?” she asked the walls of her room.
There was a knock at the door.
She stood up and answered. Rick stood there.
Yes, it can, she thought, rolling her eyes. “Nichole’s not here,” she said, knowing that there was no other reason for him to come to her room. He didn’t even come over to study, especially when Nichole was the only thing he’d been interested in examining.
“I know,” he said, his voice was somber and genuinely so.
That gave her reason enough to pause. In recent weeks she had only ever seen him as his usual boyish self, laughing at everything and treating everything that he was supposed to be taking seriously with mild neglect. But he had always been upbeat and good-hearted about it all.
Now, he wasn’t.
“Uh, can I come in?” he asked.
Curiosity prodded at her. Something was different about him. She looked him over. He was wearing the same things that he usually wore; his form-hugging t-shirt, ragged jeans, tennis shoes, and his necklace with the school mascot were all firmly in place. He’d shaved since she had seen him last and his hair was neatly combed. The only thing that seemed different about him was his mood.
“Sure,” she said, stepping aside and allowing him to enter.
He did so, keeping his hands respectfully in his pockets as he did so. She felt strange as he walked in, wondering if maybe this was some kind of a trick on his part, but her curiosity overrode her caution.
When he entered, he slipped into one of the desk chairs that the room had come furnished with and sat facing the bed, where her books and notes had been spread out. She settled back onto the bed, facing him, watching him for any signs that he was just being an ass.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
He was silent a moment, rubbing his hands together. “Uh… I’m… not really, no.”
She watched him, sensing no deception in him. This didn’t seem to be any kind of a ploy. He looked genuinely distressed about something. She waited.
“Has Nichole… said anything to you lately about me… or about anything, really?”
Jenny furrowed her eyebrows. “No… why? Is something wrong?”
He leaned back in the chair. “Oh, God… I don’t know. She’s… she’s just been different lately. She’s giving me a headache. I feel like I don’t know what to do about her anymore.”
> “Well, what’s she doing?”
He pressed the heels of hands against his eyes as if he was trying to bar some horrible image from surfacing in his mind. “She’s doing everything… and it’s driving me bat shit crazy. One minute everything seems good between us, we’re holding hands and kissing, and then the next she’s all over one of the other guys on the team. And then the other night we were out having dinner, and she thought I was looking at the waitress the wrong way and then she was shouting and…” his voice trailed off, and he groaned. “Christ, I don’t know what she’s thinking.”
Suddenly, being absent from Nichole’s comings and goings sounded like the smartest thing that Jenny had accomplished since term had begun. She didn’t care to be caught up in the dramatic trappings of others’ lives, and it was for reasons like this that she knew she had done the right thing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, uncertain of what else to say.
“I thought it was my fault at first,” he said. “Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to her something… that’s why I was kind of hoping that maybe she had said something to you.”
Oddly enough, Jenny suddenly felt bad that she had nothing better to offer. “No, I’m sorry… we, uh, don’t really talk much.”
He didn’t look shocked to hear this. “I guess I’m partial to blame for that, aren’t I? Otherwise, you two would be having like some kind of a sisterly bond, right?”
Jenny laughed at that. “Nichole and me, like sisters?” The idea sounded as ridiculous as finding ice cream on the surface of Mars.
“Not that close, huh?” he asked, a small smile crossing his face.
“No,” she assured him.
He nodded. “I guess I should have realized that. I see her at every party… I only ever see you in class… or know that you’re at the library when you’re not here.” He rubbed his chin. “Yeah… the differences are plain, now that I think of it.”
