Intertwined

A Death in the Family

Emalia

2033

I've always prided myself in the fact that I am not, by nature, a hateful person. Everyone says they despise someone or something, whether it be an unruly coworker, a famous face on television, or a laborious task they have to complete against their will, but it's more of a casual expression of emotion rather than a statement of true, total loathing. I've never found anything worthy of pure hatred, even during my time with Ms. Arnold and all the screaming girls locked forcefully into my group home, the ones who fought over that forsaken sink.

This all changed, however, when I was shoved into the confines of the "art" called chemistry.

Grey was who tried to convince me that chemistry is an art, of course. I had my own choice words to describe the branch of science, none of which were nearly as flattering. The only thing positive I felt that I gained from the tortuous subject was an even greater sense of wonder in regard to the unlimited amount of knowledge Grey had stored up in his head. I'd been learning with him for just over two years and a half years and was beginning to think that the well of things he just knew offhandedly, the endless supply of lessons and subjects he could teach, and the bottomless pit of anecdotes that strangely mimicked "how to live a good life" parables was about to run dry. I was still ignorant, however, ignorant in my lack of faith in my teacher and horrendously ignorant in comparison to him.

Whenever I decided to whine about how tedious chemistry was, Grey would endeavor to console me by inflating my surprisingly flat and flimsy ego, saying with exuberance things about how far ahead I was of my children my age, how advanced the material I felt as though was being force-fed to me was, and how by the time I was only fifteen I'd be intellectual miles ahead of the average civilian. I'm not sure if my dismissal of such lofty compliments was fueled by stubborn modesty or just the fact that he was so confident, against all my protesting, that he was right. Maybe I was much farther than ahead of most people, but if such a height above "average" instilled a want to blow my brains out, I didn't think it was worth it.

"Essentially, you read the periodic table like a book, Emalia," Grey informed me one early March afternoon. We were still occupying that same favorite table of ours in the CD8 school library, but in the time that passed I'd taken to dragging an easy chair out of the room's corner while Grey had even begun to wear his glasses, an act I knew brought him embarrassment and one he performed only in front of people he knew didn't mind or wouldn't take notice. But I committed both offenses. I minded in that it made me happy to know he wasn't worried about my opinion, and I took note of the ocular contraption on his face because, somehow, it made him look even more scholarly.

"You go from right to left and the electron capacity, if you will, increases as you go."

In front of us was a large copy of the periodic table, an older addition, and Grey was running his pointer finger across it horizontally, touching down on both hydrogen, helium, lithium, and all the elements through neon.

"Until you get to the middle part, most of the 'transition metals,'" I added bitterly, picking at a hangnail and watching him trace the manifestation of my actual disgust through the corner of my eyes.

"Kind of," was his answer, and it wasn't uttered in a positive light. "That's why you need to memorize the order. It gets stranger as you continue upward."

For those who don't understand the concept of electron configuration or quantum numbers, I won't bother to go into any detailed explanation of the subject because my retelling of it would be very tiresome. It also might seem as though I include this narrative on my least favorite moments in school solely to prove to my superiors that I do, in fact, remember the lessons, but there is a point in their recollection. That day in particular was very monumental.