Page 117 of Drown Like Heaven
“Did you hurt your hand?” he questioned, glancing down at me still rubbing my knuckles, clearly suspicious.
“I’ve just been handwriting a lot,” I lied too easily. “I’m ready to go downstairs.”
He looked at me for another moment, maybe deciding whether or not to push me further. Eventually, he nodded and we walked together into the hallway, him a half-step ahead of me.
We avoided the elevator again, taking the concrete steps down into the lower level, then went through the wide hallways until we reached the door to his lab. He pushed open the door and flicked on the lights. It was a lot quieter without the distillation column running. No hissing or creaking or rattling.
Dr. Killshaw motioned for me to put my stuff down while he powered on the computer, then went over the the column, carefully turning knobs, switching things on, calibrating sensors. I sat on a stool, my feet resting on the bottom metal rung.
“Exam’s coming up,” he commented, still focused on his tasks. “Are you prepared?”
“I believe so.”
“You believe so?”
“Well, yeah. I haven’t done the review, if that’s what you’re asking.” I ran my fingertips over the fibers of my jeans idly, picking off a fuzz that’d come from my sweater.
“It’s very similar to the exam.” He went back over to the computer, clicking through a couple programs as they booted up, every movement completed with a practiced ease that made it it look like he’d been doing this his entire life. He was always sosureof everything. Not like me at all.
Maybe instead of somebody who could match my messiness, I needed someone who could control it. Contain it, even if that came in the form of a mentor. Maybe that was safer.
“Is it unfair for you to tell me that now? Instead of telling the whole class? You’re giving me an advantage.”
“No. Everyone has access to the same review.” His blue eyes found mine from across the room, my pulse quickening. “And I told people in office hours.”Which I’ve never once been to.
“Oh.” I adjusted how I was sitting, the soles of my boots squeaking on the metal rung. “Do a lot of people go to those?”
“Enough people go. I wouldn’t say alot.”
“Okay.” I sat up straighter, flattening my palms on my thighs, trying to ignore the fluttering in my belly. Being alone with him made me nervous—among other things. “Is Nick stopping in this afternoon?”
“No. Just us.”
Just us. Nobody else watching.
“Can I help with anything?”
“Yes,” he said, and motioned for me to stand next to him at the column. “You can watch the temperature here.” He pointed to the gauge. “And adjust the heat to get us in range. Just under eighty degrees Celsius. Take your time.”
I nodded my understanding, a bit more nervous now that I was actually standing at the distillation column and adding some heat—especially when Dr. Killshaw left to go back to the computer, leaving me alone. Chewing on my lower lip, I turned the knob slightly, my eyes flicking over to the thermometer’s screen every few seconds. The temperature was rising very slowly, which settled my nerves somewhat.
A few minutes passed, Dr. Killshaw still doing things on the computer while I stood at the column, watching the number creep upwards at a snail’s pace. I gave it a little more heat, my mind wandering.
As much as I tried not to, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mason. He was the infection in my brain I couldn’t carve out.
I wished I knew what had caused him to act the way he did in his car, why he’d cared so much about who my professors were. My eyes slid over to Dr. Killshaw’s back, my brain trying to fit the pieces together. Was there a chance Mason did actually know him?Maybe.
He’d always seemed a bit more interested in my college experience than I thought was casual. Perhaps they were related; estranged family members. It would explain the intangible similarities between them, the particular vein of unease I tended to feel in their presences.
I looked down at my shoes, more minutes steadily ticking by, my thoughts lingering on all the things and people I knew I shouldn’t think about. Sometimes, it felt like I was nothing more than an exposed heart, pumping and bleeding and running and hiding and getting pulled under the surface whenever I tried to swim. I had no idea what I needed. I’d started to think it was Mason, someone who didn’t shy away from the darkest parts of my head, but maybe I was wrong about that.
“Dakota,” Dr. Killshaw snapped. My head whipped around, heart lurching fearfully in my chest. “Pay attention to what you’re doing.”
I spun back to the column, eyes shooting wide open when I saw the temperature on the thermometer. My brain shut down, panic making me freeze. Vapor was suddenly surging rapidly up the column, the packing rattling in the trays and the glass fogging, a smell of ethanol leaking into the room.
“Slow the heat. Now.” His voice was hard, a note of danger in it that I’d not heard before.
Panicking, I spun the dial lower. In an instant, my wrist was snatched and hand dragged away roughly.
