The Scars of Anatomy

8. Dissect

The strong scent of formaldehyde hits my nose as soon as I step foot inside the anatomy lab. I take a look around and find dead rats setting in trays at the center of every table. I then scan the faces of my classmates, their expressions varying drastically as they all seem to stare at the dead animals in the middle of the tables.

I turn my gaze to my table. Delilah is leaning in towards the center of our table to get a better look at the dead rodents, observing them with interest. Pale rat boy is slumped back in his seat with a look of indifference, but I can detect some disgust in the seemingly permanent slight scowl on his face. Probably realized one of them is a distant cousin of his or something. Then I spot Olivia, looking at the cadavers with indifference. She's not totally disgusted or freaked out like most of the class, but she's not freakishly thrilled like some classmates either. She just stares at it with curiosity.

"Hey, Finch," I say, drawing the attention of everyone at our table.

She pulls her gaze away from the formaldehyde soaked animals and manages to flash me a smile. "Hey."

"Finch?" rat boy asks, his nose scrunching in disgust.

"It's a nickname," I explain dryly, seriously restraining from following up my statement by calling him rat boy to his face.

He lets out a small scoff in response, scowling at me with revulsion after.

I sling off my backpack and set it on the floor before slipping into my seat. "Ready to crack this bad boy open?" I ask Olivia, feigning excitement to lighten the mood, rubbing my hands together impishly.

She laughs. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

"You guess? Finch, you're trying to make it into a profession where you crack people's chests open and mess around with their most vital organ," I say. There's no way she can be squeamish with a career like that.

"Yeah, with people," she emphasizes. "Not dead, smelly lab rats." She scrunches her nose adorably.

Ah, good to know she doesn't like rats.

"Good morning, class," our TA, Tracy, says, all too chipper while walking into the room. Her cheerful mood has no undertone of malice, despite throwing us to the wolves the first day of class by having us do a dissection.

Tracy drops her thick lab manual on top of the front desk before grabbing a marker and writing on the whiteboard. She makes a bullet point list of internal organs before calling out a page number, instructing us to open up our lab manuals to today's lesson.

Making herself comfortable, Tracy grabs her computer desk chair and rolls it to the front table, plopping down into it. She snaps on some latex gloves before turning on the projector, one half of the whiteboard now glowing with the image of a dead lab rat, much like the ones at our tables.

"Everyone needs to slip on some gloves, and each pair of partners can grab a rat from the center of your table," Tracy instructs.

I reach for the glove box at our table, pulling out two pairs and handing one of them to Olivia. She gives me an appreciative smile, but I can detect the apprehension behind it.

"Hey, we got this," I assure her with a nudge of my elbow, even though I don't feel quite as confident myself about this whole dissection thing.

She nods, reaching back to tie her long caramel hair up into a ponytail with the band around her wrist. She tightly tugs it into place and tucks some loose tendrils behind her ears. Slipping the gloves on, she reaches over our side of the table to slide one of the trays in front of us.

"Let's do this," I say, dramatically snapping on my gloves, causing her lips to twitch. "Who should do the honors?" I ask, grabbing the scalpel out of the tray. I'm willing to do the initial cut if she doesn't want to, but I don't want to just assume and take over.