Unlikely

Chapter Ten: Standstill

"After what happened this morning, I'll be surprised if we see her anytime before the Saturday."

"Wait, so what exactly happened? She texted me saying she went home for the day but was so vague about it."

As Jesse turned to recount this morning's events, they played in my head like a movie.

"Alright, so make sure to be careful before starting to cut. It's best if one partner opens the specimen while the other partner carefully inspects and measures the organs. And please, treat these frogs with respect. They were bred for science, not for fun. Anyone caught fooling around with them will get a zero for this lab."

"Do you want to measure or cut?" She turned to me and asked the question, but I hadn't been paying attention. The homecoming dance was this weekend and my mind had been consumed with whether or not I should ask her to the dance, if we were in a good enough place to do that. Then when I figured we were, I was thinking about how to go about it.

I heard her speak, but didn't register what she had said, and she noticed. Giving me a slightly annoyed look. "Hm?"

"Do you want to measure, or cut?" She asked slower.

"Oh, uh." I turned to the frog in front of us and realized I didn't want to do either. This just wasn't my thing.

"Here," she handed me a ruler and I took it. "Don't want any organs getting sliced. This has to be done gently."

"No complaints here."

I watched as she shifted her stool closer to mine and leaned forward, intently slicing through the skin in the manor shown in our guided diagram.

I heard her speak again, but once again I was distracted. I wondered how she could still smell so sweet given the dead formaldehyde-soaked frog lying stiffly between us. "Shawn." She spoke louder, turning her head to face me. "Your hands are still clean. Turn the page." I did as she said and she sighed before turning back to the frog.

She gently dropped the scalpel and grabbed some pins, gently keeping the skin flaps open. I was a little more than kindly disgusted with what I saw, but her calm demeanor kept me as bay. It's been a month since we met and every day she had that effect on me. Even with the slight moments of friction, they were quickly resolved to peace. I could tell she enjoyed my presence as much as I enjoyed hers and I was thankful.

"Shawn!" I snapped my thoughts away from this month and saw her staring at me. "What's going on? You're like, out of it today."

"Nothing's going on."

"Shawn, any other day I could do with your aloofness. If you wanna zone out in class that's fine, but I need you in lab. Can you just pull it together for an hour?"

I saw that she had no humor in her words and I nodded. I wanted her to be able to count on me.

"Good. Now can you measure the liver? We have to do that first, cause the rest is behind that." She turned away and I leaned in to measure it. I gave her the measurement. "Okay, write it down. My hands are a bit gross." She chuckled, finally allowing herself to relax. I smiled, enjoying the sound of her laughter. "Shawn. Write it down." She repeated, and I quickly moved to do that.

We worked for a couple of minutes and I was hyper focused on the assignment, just doing as she said. That was until I heard a pair a couple of feet away from us talking about the dance. They were discussing the dresses they got for it and my mind drifted back to how I was going to ask Olivia. It didn't exactly seem like the most romantic time to do so.