Chemistry (Otis Milburn)

23

I beat my alarm clock by waking up two hours earlier after a near sleepless night. I couldn't stop thinking about how the meeting was going to go, but I knew that the questions lurking in my head would have been answered today. 

What if Nick doesn't like me?

What if I don't like him?

Will we be a believable couple?

I dug into my closet to find a casual, but cute outfit and went with a crop top blouse and high- waisted boyfriend jeans. I left my hair down and went for a natural look with makeup. After getting ready, I stared into the mirror at my dying, sleepless eyes. I could feel them burning underneath the concealer that I had used to cover my eye bags and to fool others into thinking my dead, soulless eyes were bright and awake. 

I drove to school after I made a pit stop to rejuvenate with a large iced coffee and later realized the pit stop had made me 15 minutes late.

I snuck into my Chemistry class and saw Otis eagerly staring into the powerpoint slide with his notebook open to a fresh page as he flipped his pen in his hand. I quietly sat down and whispered a 'hello' to him as he smiled a gave a slight nod. 

"Don't forget about your projects! The deadline is creeping up on you guys!" That has been Mr. Anderson's 'goodbye' to us for the past 3 weeks. 

Otis and I both got up and I beat him out the door as he tried catching up to me. 

"Vivienne we haven't started on the project and it's due really soon. What are we going to do? I can do most of it if you don't have the time to-"

I stopped abruptly and turned to him. "Let's start tonight. My house. I have all the time. I'll message you my address." 

Did I really have all the time?

"Oh-okay. Sounds good!" He smiled. 

_________________________________________________________________

I quickly headed over to Amy's office so I could wait and give myself time to think in the parking lot. 

I got there 40 minutes early and parked my car near her office, attempting to tame my anxiety before it got the best of me.

I closed my eyes for a few minutes in order to relax and suddenly heard a faint sound of a car door slamming. I searched around the parking lot to see who it was and noticed an exceptionally tall figure in a denim jacket walking towards Amy's office.

Nick?

I quickly put on my sunglasses again in case he turned over and saw me-he didn't. He walked into the building and disappeared as the doors closed behind him. 

I had waited until 3:50 pm when I finally got out and headed towards the building.

 I crept up the stairs and took a deep breath, knocking on Amy's door. 

"Come in!"