Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(39)

“My two parts,” I repeated.

“Of your brain?” Bryn figured.

“Okay,” I said.

I wondered how many tutors it was taking to keep Bryn academically eligible to play sports at this school.

“But you can’t keep second-guessing yourself, CeCe. You’re not going to meet anyone sitting at home on a Saturday night. Mr. Wonderful isn’t going to magically be zoomed to your door.”

“You mean beamed to my door?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I appreciated her failed attempt at a Star Trek reference. “Bryn, in no way does your sweet and considerate method of logic have anything to do with cognitive dissonance.”

Bryn shrugged. “Yeah, I didn’t really get it to be honest.”

“Were you reading Psychology Today?” I asked.

She huffed at the idea.

“Cosmo,” she said.

…

EMMETT

Bryn walked into the restaurant and steered a reluctant CeCe in front of her. Scott moved over so Bryn could slide into the booth next to me and Tuba pulled up another seat.

“A dress?” Tuba gawked at CeCe. “Is the world coming to an end?”

“Are you kidding?” CeCe said. “I would never be caught dead in this. It’s way too constricting to comfortably decompose.”

“God, you’re dark,” Bryn said as she slid into the booth next to me. I instinctively wrapped my arm around her and the contour of her shoulder fit perfectly under my arm. I rested my fingers at the base of her neck. I could feel her pulse beat lightly against my fingers.

I had been craving alone time with Bryn all week, but she insisted we make tonight a group date. I noticed Bryn was hardly ever alone. She studied in groups, she hung out in packs. There was always a herd of people around her. It was strange because at night, when she emailed me, I saw someone completely different.

“Let’s do something fun,” Bryn said and looked between CeCe and Tuba for ideas.

“What do you suggest?” I asked Bryn, leaning into her.

“Me?”

“I want to know where your favorite spots are,” I told her. I was hoping she’d pick up on my subtle hint.

“My favorite spots?” Bryn repeated. “I love Urban Outfitters, and pretty much anything on State Street, but none of the stores are open this late.” She checked the time on her cell phone and it was ten o’clock. “We could go back to my apartment?” she offered. “My roommate owns The Shining,” she said with an edge of a dare in her eyes.

Tuba and Scott were staring down at their phones. When no one jumped at the idea, she looked across the table at CeCe for help.

“Come on, we’re the newbies,” Bryn stated. “You need to show us some place cool.”

I watched CeCe’s thoughtful expression turn conniving. I had the thwarting suspicion that her idea of cool was drastically different from Bryn’s.

“I have a key to the college chemistry building,” CeCe mumbled, like it was a joke.

I perked up at this. “Really?” I asked.

“What’s fun about that?” Bryn asked, looking put-off.

CeCe’s eyes filled with a daring edge I was becoming accustomed to. “Well,” she said, “sodium is fun. Cesium, now that is a lot of fun. Have you guys ever thrown magnesium in water?”

“Sorry, they rejected my application to science camp on account that I was too cool,” Tuba stated.

“I’m in,” I said.



The chemistry building sat at the top of Observatory Drive, a campus hill overlooking Lake Wingra. A line of maple trees gave the six-story brick building a wall of privacy against the campus. It wasn’t the kind of building you stumbled on. You needed to seek it out.

We followed CeCe and wove around the gravel path, to the back entrance. CeCe entered the password code and scanned a card that allowed access to the building.

“How did you get a key?” I asked her.

“I volunteered to work with a professor and grad student last year for an independent project,” she said. “I conveniently forgot to return it.”

We followed her up a flight of stairs and down a dark hallway. We turned into an open lab and CeCe flipped on a switch. We were greeted with a dozen black countertops. A lingering metallic odor filled the air. Shelves in the center of the lab were crammed full of glass vials, graduated cylinders, stir sticks, stoppers, and test tubes. The wall space was hung with different elements from the periodic table.

“Ech,” Bryn said. “I’m getting painful flashbacks of freshman year.”

“Come on Bryn, harbor your inner pyro,” Tuba said.

CeCe grabbed a box out of the cabinet and a pair of silicone gloves. She opened a drawer under one of the counters and pulled out a lighter.

“This calls for a larger space,” she said, and tucked everything under her arm. Bryn fiddled with the controls on a glass panel.

“What does this do?” she asked.

“It’s a fume hood.” CeCe patted the vault affectionately. “The experiments that react in here are what lure most science majors.”

Bryn looked inside the glass walls, unimpressed. “You couldn’t lure me with Ansel Elgort naked in this thing.”

Tuba smirked and CeCe raised an eyebrow like Bryn had just set up a dare. She walked over to the case.