By Chance | Book One |

Chapter Thirteen

River

"Trusting you around sharp objects might be my biggest regret." I said as Lyra picked up the metal scalpel and twisted it around her manicured fingers.

She rolled her brown doe eyes and pulled the tray with the frog on it towards her. "I'd let you do it but I don't trust you around sharp shit either, Evers."

"Funny." I reached around her and took the scalpel from her hand. "I already called it."
As I made the first incision along the centre of the frog, I felt Lyra's eyes burning into me.

"You can stop staring. If you're madly in love with me, just say so."

"Gross, River." She made a fake gagging noise. She looked back at the worksheet in front of her and moved her pen across the answer lines for the first section. "Do you want to be a doctor or something?"

I shook my head and I followed the next step on the sheet, making another incision. "No."

"Well what are you going to do after high school?"

Her question threw me off as I glanced at her. She had her hair tied back in a high ponytail today. She never wore it up. Her long hair wasn't hiding her face anymore, and I felt as if I was seeing her for the first time. Her sculpted cheeks were no longer hiding behind her dark waves.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "Something to do with sports maybe."

"Do you want to go pro?"

"What do you want to do after high school?"

"Photography."

My hand froze for a moment and I resisted the urge to turn to her. "You used to take pictures for the yearbook, didn't you?"

"Briefly." She mumbled and held out the circular container.

I took the tweezers that were beside the metal pan and plucked the tiny frog organ into the container.

"You took the photo of my winning touchdown in freshman year. Jody Planks took credit for it." I said more to myself than her.

"Did I?"

The conversation ended with a few exchanges back and forth about the frog until the dissection was complete. She slid over the worksheet and I found that she had already completed all five pages.

"She put up the worksheet last night so I filled in what I could in advance." She explained.
And she had even put both our names in it already.

"Thanks." I mumbled before we both rose from our stool and brought Ms. Sacker everything.

"Well done, Lyra and River." Her smile reached her eyes as she took out sheets from us. "Go ahead and put that in the back. You two are free to leave."

Lyra nodded as she moved around me to go to the back room in the biology lab.

I peeled off the sweaty rubbery gloves as she threw hers away and hung up her lab coat.
For once, she wasn't wearing a sweater. Instead she had a long sleeved shirt on, tucked into her tight black jeans. I hadn't realised her curves, the way her shirt hugged her body, clinging  like a wet shirt would.

Christ, stop fucking looking at her. I had no reason to look at her. She wasn't my type, she wasn't even- fuck that's a lie, she had a body to die for. Her large breasts were clear even if they were being hidden, she had a perfect round ass.

"Thanks for being my lab partner." I found myself saying as I slid on my jacket and picked up my backpack from the floor.

"I didn't do it for you."