help me hold onto you

Cass Williams never loved New York City. It was too loud, too bright, altogether too much. But when the death of her brother left her feeling hollow, New York City, the place he called home, beckoned to her. It was there that she met Peter Parker, who was similarly in his first year at NYU and looked similarly haunted. He knew a lot about chemistry, though, and Cass needed a lab partner. And, as it turned out, they both had a lot to learn, both about chemistry and each other, not that those concepts were mutually exclusive. Far from it, in fact. Chemistry was all around, if only one was brave enough to chase after it. Cass wasn't sure she was, but one fateful Christmas Day changed that, possibly forever.