Anonymous

34

Summer for Bonnie usually meant six weeks of free research time. Bubba would always accompany her, and they'd get ahead on the next school year's syllabus, as well as conducting their own personal study sessions on whatever they liked. Because they were the two best students in the school, and their headmistress knew that, they were often allowed to use the science department's facilities over summer to conduct their own experiments.

Despite being one of the best students at her current school and being fairly certain that Marceline's dad would probably allow it – Marceline herself had told Bonnie he liked her – she no longer had that option. She also no longer had Bubba to accompany her. Instead of her standard six weeks of free research, she now had three months to work with, but no facilities and no best friend to join in on the fun.

She supposed she could call Lady, see if her friends were doing anything to kick off the summer. She bet that they were probably at the mall, or maybe the beach. The beach would be okay, because she could take a book and there'd be no pressure to do anything other than sunbathe. She definitely didn't want to end up at the mall, though. Browsing was her least favourite activity, and she hated mindlessly dragging through shops while Elle loudly announced the latest piece of gossip. No, staying home was the best way to go.

Instead of working on her scientific subjects like she usually would, considering she favoured them, Bonnie decided that mathematics would have to do. Mathematics was ingrained in science anyway, so technically she was doing her favourite thing. She dug out an old textbook she'd purchased a year ago, a university maths book, and flipped to a random chapter. The fates decided that today she'd be working on differential equations. She had a folder of notes on those already, so she pulled them out and decided to go over them.

She got to work, doing a few of the exercises for fun, but found her heart wasn't really in it. It wasn't the same, without Bubba to make it just that little bit more exciting. She considered calling him, seeing what he was working on, if he'd managed to charm the staff at the Sixth Form into letting him use the facilities over summer. She didn't doubt it. Bubba was very charming, and if she hadn't been gay all along, she thought she would've been interested in him. Perhaps he still was a soulmate of some sort, just not in a romantic way.

Thoughts of romance made a certain black-haired beauty pop into her mind. No, Bonnie, focus on equations, she chastised herself. It wasn't good for her to maintain whatever fantasy she had in her mind. Especially now that Marceline knew so much. She probably wouldn't want someone with that kind of emotional baggage, anyway.

Rather unceremoniously, Bonnie pushed that train of thought straight off the tracks. No time to be thinking about all of that. Equations were the thing to be thinking about. She wondered if she should put some calming background music on. Nothing with lyrics, but just an instrumental could help. Music was supposed to help people concentrate, right? Music was good. Music was Marceline. Marceline.

"Oh my god, shut up, brain," Bonnie said, exasperated, "concentrate, Bonnie."

She decided to ditch the equations and do something she found a little more challenging. She filed her notes away and flipped through the textbook for something else. When she landed on the topology chapter, she grinned. She'd been meaning to teach herself a little bit of this but hadn't gotten around to it. A challenge made it much easier to concentrate. She got out a fresh pack of sticky notes, her highlighters and a notebook, and got to work.

The time flew by, and she could almost pretend she was back at home, with Bubba working next to her in a comfortable silence. Almost.

Granted, back home, her bedroom door never swung open to a loud, "sup, nerd?" and a pretty musician walking in like she owned the place. "Whoa. Don't you know that school is over? Or are you like, trying to solve all the world's problems over summer? Because that's pretty ambitious, Bon, even for you."