Page 108 of Drown Like Heaven
Iwantedher here; it was why I’d offered the position to her. It was also why I’d been pleased she accepted it.
Yet, the things I wanted were usually bad for everyone involved.
I’d tried to tell myself I’d be able to stop, that I’d keep her free of my darkness, keep her whole. Over the weeks I’d known her, it’d become increasingly clear that I wasn’t stopping. I desired to satiate this sick craving, this perverse need to give her everything, knowing it would leave her with nothing.
She glanced up, her eyes connecting with mine for a brief second before she hastily turned her gaze back on her phone screen, cheeks flushed. Her hair was long, reaching all the way to the waistband of her jeans, dark blonde like mine, but leaning more golden. I figured I needed to tell her to tie it back, for safety.
But I didn’t. Because I liked it.
Because I was selfish and would rather stand here imagining wrapping Dakota’s long hair around my fist than tell her to get it put away.
She’d agreed to stay here for an hour or so, to get a feel for how things worked. She had another class this afternoon, and I didn’t really expect her to give me all her time at once. It was a test run, a first experiment into seeing how well she’d bend for me.
I shifted my stance subtly, the familiar sounds of the distillation column the only noise in the room. I’d spent so much time in here over the past few years that it felt like a significant part of me. Plus, the lab work gave me something to do in the absence of other things.
“We can collect some data here,” I said, breaking the silence.
She looked at me. I couldn’t decipher the emotion in her eyes. I was tempted to use my aspect to figure it out, but I’d longsince stopped doing anything related to being Sigeian—or being an angel at all, for that matter.
She needed to trust me before I let myself pry into her head.
“I’d like you to take temperature and pressure readings for me at ten minute intervals,” I started, gesturing to the column as I walked near it. Simple data collection was a good enough way to ease her into being comfortable in the lab, to observe how she performed when I was the only one watching. “Feed inlet temperature, overhead vapor temperature, and the reboiler temperature. We’ll also need to know the pressure drop.”
I showed her each of the sensors for the temperatures, then the two manometers at the top and bottom of the column. Her eyes were quick, observant, taking in all the things I pointed out.
“There’s a stool for the top,” I said, kicking the plastic step stool out from under the table with my foot. Dakota stared at it, then at me, then at the column. “I’ll have you read them out loud, then write them down after I confirm.”
“Confirm what?”
“That we’re in the range I’m expecting,” I explained. Nick already should’ve gotten everything preheated and running this morning, and based on the data pulling onto the computer screen, it appeared the flow rates were stabilized.
I’d run this thing so many damn times over the past years. This was the sixth iteration of the whole column setup, and was only six inches taller than the fifth iteration. Which I’d built and rebuilt myself many times after hours and hours of optimization calculations.
The university largely let me do what I wanted, which was appreciated.
“Okay,” Dakota said after a minute, slowly nodding.
“Great.”
More silence.
She was likely afraid to say anything to me because of how I’d treated her in my office. I didn’t regret it, even though maybe I should’ve. But I didn’t. She knew the stakes, knew exactly what she was about to say to me, and I couldn’t let her do it. Not yet, anyway.
But I thought about those words more often than I should’ve, the things she might’ve been about to say to me, the offer she was willing to make for whatever reason right there in my office. And what I’d said to her before leaving the first time…That truth which I could see so easily in her sad eyes…
She hadn’t come to the next class after what happened in my office, and it was all I could focus on while lecturing that day. Her absent seat in the back.
Maybe she wanted to talk about it now. Maybe she was suspicious of me for giving her this position. But I couldn’t exactly tell her that the reason I was incapable of leaving her alone—despite hating myself for it—was because she reminded me of the person who’d ruined my life.
It wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right.
But I couldn’t fucking stop myself.
She was too tempting. And I hadn’t seenhimin too long.
Dakota stood in front of the column, eyes flicking over the various parts of it, her hands tucked safely behind her back, as if she was afraid to touch anything, though there were warnings mounted to the parts of the column that got hot.
I grabbed a clipboard from the benchtop and slid a fresh temperature log sheet under the metal clip, hanging it to Dakota. “You can write them down here,” I explained, then pointed at the different rows and columns, showing where each number would go.
