Borrowed Time

Chapter Three

Chemistry had come to be a class that -much to her surprise- Juliette had started to enjoy. Mostly, she enjoyed being around Esme, because as good as she was at causing distractions and messing up their labs, she was funny. And she had a habit of scribbling flowers on Juliette's hand or her notebook, which was sweet... It made her smile when she was reading back the notes. Now granted, Esme was fun, but she was a terrible Chemist, she always looked a moment away from passing out when she dropped one chemical into another, like she was nervous that she'd be labeled an arsonist if anything went wrong.

"I don't even know how we're supposed to do this without blowing it up..." Esme mumbled, and Juliette gave her a look. Chemical reactions happened all the time, and most of them ended up not killing people... though Esme had been hard to convince about that.

"Not all chemical reactions result in explosions, Esme." Juliette said, and Esme gave her a worried sort of look, a large smile spreading on her face even as her eyebrows furrowed. She looked cute in the goggles, even if they were going to mess up her makeup and maybe her hair. It'd happened before, and Juliette had had to help her smooth it out and reapply so no one would notice.

"I feel like most of them do. And I feel like you're a bit too calm at the idea of blowing this desk up, considering most people already think that I want to do that." Esme said, raising an eyebrow, and Juliette shrugged. Esme was too sweet to actually do that, she just had a reputation that others had put on her. She was far from worried.

"Yeah, but I know that you don't." She said, and Esme gave her a look, like that wasn't what she was expecting to be said. Fair, after the way that everyone else talked about her, she was probably expecting to be seen as a villain. But Juliette just didn't see her that way... she was way too sweet to be evil.

"How would you possibly know that?" She asked, and Juliette looked over at her with a half smile.

"Because." She tapped Esme's hand with the end of her pen. "You're not the type to do it without reason." Esme nodded, like that made sense, but she did wrinkle her nose and shrug as she drummed her fingers on the table.

"That's a fair point, but I feel like Ms. O'Brian's voice is reason enough." Esme mumbled, and Juliette fought back a laugh as she nudged her with her shoulder. Chemistry was fun with her... far less mind numbing than biology when she'd been paired up with Jeremy Wilson... all he'd done was try to sneak a look down her shirt while they were dissecting pigs. They should've dissected him instead.

"What was that, Esme? Something to share with the class?" Juliette jumped at the intrusion, shaking her head. That would've been enough and they both probably would have gotten away with a warning if only Esme had not decided that she needed to be sarcastic about it. She placed a hand over her heart, giving Ms. O'Brian a look brimming with false sincerity.

"Uh, no ma'am! We were just commenting on how important it is to mix corrosive acids in an uncontrolled environment. So fun, and so safe." Esme said, and Juliette fought a snort as she also fought the urge to stomp on Esme's foot. Her faux-serious bit was very funny, but from the way that Ms. O'Brian was looking at them, it wasn't something that was worth the detention that could follow. God, she didn't know a face could look so sour...

"That's detention, Ms. Panchek." Ms. O'Brian said sternly, and once she turned back around Esme groaned and rested her forehead on Juliette's shoulder. She brought her hand up and ruffled Esme's hair for a moment before the other girl lifted her head again.

"... Shit." She groaned, and Juliette sighed. She had to have expected that to happen, right?

"Well, you were bound to have that happen again." She said, and Esme gripped her chest in a way to convey her faux sort of hurt.