Before I Forget

Chemistry

For fuck's sake, this place is a fucking maze, not a school!

Sky was almost late again as she rushed into the classroom, out of breath and her cheeks blushed - only to notice that there was only one free seat in the whole room.

A seat on the table where the cute scar-lipped boy and his friend, the pale-as-a-vampire kid sat.

The loser table.

Oh, crap.

Sky hesitated, glanced around again to see if she'd missed a free spot somewhere, but in vain. The only thing that her hesitation caused, was that the boys noticed her clear unease to join their table, which immediately made her feel bad.

She'd been hanging out with Yasmine and her friends for a couple of days now, but it hadn't yet managed to erase her humanity completely. Sucking up her reluctance, she grabbed her backpack and walked to the table.

"It's fine, we don't have leprosy." the pale boy commented. "Nor the black death. You're completely safe."

Sky felt her cheeks heating.

"I didn't mean to–"

"Hey, I wouldn't sit at my table either if I had a choice." the boy said. "But I don't, so here we are."

"I was just trying to see if any of my friends had this class–" Sky started, but got interrupted again.

"You mean Queen Yasmine and her evil minions?" the boy asked. "The advanced chemistry class? Because that's where you are, in case you'd gotten lost. The 'How to torture innocents' is across the hall."

"Hey, I don't think you know me well enough to start throwing insults." Sky snapped. "Besides, I'm here to study, not to make conversation."

The dark-haired boy opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, and shrugged. From the corner of her eye, Sky noticed that the scar-lipped boy was looking at her, but as he was still saying nothing, she decided to ignore him too and instead pulled her chemistry textbook out of her bag and slammed it on the table.

Chemistry happened to be one of her favorite subjects, and she wasn't going to let these nerds ruin that for her. She'd be perfectly happy just listening to the teacher and doing her work, no social interaction needed.

Her solitude only lasted a couple of moments, though, before the dark-haired boy again leaned closer to her, and continued talking.

"I'm Demetri, by the way," he said, as the lesson began and they started to write down notes from the board. "And this is Eli."

He nodded towards scar lip - Eli, Sky corrected herself - who in turn made a small nod.

"And?" Sky replied. "Now that you've introduced yourself you can continue insulting me?"

"No!" the kid - Demetri - replied. "I didn't mean to. Just–"

"Just trying to bother me while I'm studying?" Sky rolled her eyes and gripped her pen harder.

"Fine, whatever." the boy said and gave a frustrated sigh. He opened his notebook and started writing too. Sky welcomed the silence that fell into their table and took a deep breath to ease the tension on her shoulders.

The teacher was explaining the connection between moles, molar mass, and mass, which was simple enough since Sky had already read that chapter from the book last night to be prepared. Almost without thinking she scribbled down the notes and let her mind wander.

She glanced at the boys by her side. Demetri was now making weird hieroglyphs in his notebook, but maybe they made sense to him since his brow was deeply furrowed in thought. And Eli–