One & Only

Chapter Three

THREE

For three weeks, I never heard the name Swift. For three weeks, no one once told me to be careful or I’d risk ruining my future. Cornell was a respite from all the expectations—or lack of same—that had marked my high school experience. I don’t think I was alone there, either. Everyone around me seemed to be breaking free of the stereotypes that had followed them through their teens, whether it was class dork or freak or “good girl” or what. I even saw Cristina heading to class a few times with no makeup on at all, and she taught me how to do a smoky eye and the proper use of a lip pencil. 

And for three weeks, there was Dylan. When he explained his idea to me, I jumped at the chance to be his partner. Piggybacking on my algae experiments, he wanted to study the relative potential of types of feedstock algae as a sink for marine pollution. “Double duty,” he called it. “We could even do some biofuel stuff.”

Okay, I’ll be honest: I might have jumped anyway.

But the work was fun and challenging and engaging. Dylan was a meticulous partner—maybe even more dedicated to the research than I was. I’d often get emails detailing new avenues of research that were time-stamped 3:00 a.m.

Your roommate must hate you, I wrote back when I read my email at 7:00 a.m.

His replies always came lighting fast.

My roommate dropped out midterm. Computer science guy. Too much gaming, not enough coding. What did you think of that paper I sent? 

Me: Haven’t read it. Some of us need sleep.

Him: Amateur.

This was par for the course for Dylan. Lots of hard work, seasoned with liberal joking. The behavior I’d taken for strong flirtation when we’d first met seemed to be my partner’s standard setting. Every statement was tinged with sarcasm; every conversation ended in a quip. If he’d ever been interested in me as more than a project partner, he gave no indication. He was friendly, kind, generous, and professional. We spent most of our time talking about algae blooms and phytochemical reactions. Sometimes we talked about food—Dylan was very disappointed in the college dining options (“For a hotel training school, I’d expected more”)—and occasionally he’d start in with a story about his family. He came from a huge family, full of busybody cousins and cheerleader sisters and a student-teacher aunt who’d apparently campaigned to get him a prom date.

“Most embarrassing experience of my life.”

“Well,” I prodded, “did she get you one?”

“Yeah.” He smiled mysteriously. “She was way hot.”

I spent the rest of the evening alternately glaring through my microscope and wondering exactly how hot the prom date—and the prom night—had been.

But if our research remained platonic, I was certain other project pairs didn’t fare quite so well. Cristina, who was always up on the campus gossip, filled me in. She had a boyfriend back home in Brooklyn, so she was living vicariously through all the hormones running amok across campus. Hook-ups, cheating, broken hearts, people who’d been caught with their pants down—literally—despite the campus’s rather firm open-door policy.

“And what about you and Dylan?” she asked, sculpted eyebrows waggling. “Are you doing it?”

“No!”

She smirked. “Are you not doing it?”

“We’re project partners,” I insisted. “That’s all.”

And that was all, even if his words made my heart beat faster, the accidental brush of our skin set my nerve endings on fire, and I spent hours every night after our work ended turning over in my head every look and smile and conversation. One night, he leaned over my shoulder to point at some numbers on my computer screen, and I felt the weight of his chest against my back, his breath in my ear. Another night, he caught a strand of my dark hair with the tip of his pinky and swiped it off my face. Yet a third night, I could have sworn I felt his eyes on me every time I looked away. Day after day, night after night, study session after study session, we exchanged emails, we talked about our project, we read and worked and researched together, and there were times that I wanted him so much, I worried if he so much as touched my hand, I’d split right open and spill my soul all over the floor.