"I have to go," she said, her face ever so close to his shoulder. She couldn't describe his smell, but she knew instinctively that it was one that drew her in, one that would linger in her far past today, tomorrow, next year…

He stopped playing, and dropped his hands to his knees. "So go," he prodded gently, almost encouraging her but not without a tinge of sadness.

Was she living in a twilight movie? Was she the "special," "unassuming," "diamond in the rough" girl that the vampiric masked boy was going to save from utter suburban boredom? Maybe. But she was no heroine, or damsel in distress for that matter. She was Christine fucken Daaé, and she had to get to class.

She stood and pulled her bookbag from the ground, throwing them over her shoulder and turning before she could stop herself from looking at him any longer. "I'll see you later?" she quipped, as casually as possible while still sounding a little shaky.

"Later," he said. From any other boy, it would sound fine, plebeian, fly-by-night. But he didn't say it like that. He said it like it was written, and that she would be seeing him because he wanted it and she wanted it to happen.

"Good lesson," she said. "I'll have to give you some lessons in sticking to your schedule next time." Was that too contrived? It was too late to matter.

She emerged from the basement and walked into the hallway, straight into Mr. Reyer.

"Oh…Well, look who we have here," Mr. Reyer's nasally, pretentious statement lingered in the air for a moment too long. "Ditching class on the first day of school are we?"

"I had terrible, terrible cramps," Mr. Reyer. "You know, from my period. It's my first day in more ways in one."

The professor's face turned bright pink from under his beard. Bright red actually. "Oh. Uh. Why are you coming from the basement and not the nurse's office?"

"The nurse told me to lie down in her office bed, and it just made me feel worse." She was surprised at how quickly her lie fed into itself. "So I started walking up and down on these steps. I read online that exercise is supposed to help." She smiled at him meekly, giving him the most sincere wide-eyed women's-problems-you-know look she could conjure up.

He pressed his thin lips together in discomfort and looked to have nodded his head. "Well, you're going to have to make copies of the Into the Woods songs we're learning today from one of your classmates. And a couple pieces of Handel."

She smiled brightly.

"Maybe ask Meg." He strode by her but not before saying very quickly, "But I have to say I'm disappointed with you Christine. You're lucky I know you and want you to audition for this year's musical; this was no way to make a first impression."

"I'm really sorry." She twisted her mouth in a childish manner, which seemed to work with her male professors, and hurried on.

"Girl, WTF," came the voice next to her. Meg had redone her hair into braids and spun them on both sides of her head in true Princess Leia style. "Where were you."

"I like your hair," Christine said, pulling the music from Meg's hands into her own and browsed it before handing it back.

"Where were you?" The question, was quite suspicious.

"In the basement taking a voice lesson from a boy."

Meg wacked Christine's head with her stack of music. It hurt a little too much. "Are you serious?"

Christine lifted an eyebrow.

"I am very upset about this."

Christine laughed.

"I am!" Meg smacked Christine again with her papers. "I am VERY UPSET YOU DID NOT INCLUDE ME."

"Ok, Giryhead, don't wet your panties."

"That's *my* dirty joke, and where the hell do you get on using that!" Meg pointed her to head. "Do you see this hair? It took me 20 minutes in the bathroom to do this 'easy-to-do' braid I saw in Glamour Mag, and that whole time, you were snogging somewhere with a guy. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean 'taking voice lessons.'"

"Who says snogging these days?"

"Jane Austin. And my hair looks fabulous. But who the hell is this boy, and where can I find one?"

"You know him actually."

"Full name or he doesn't exist."

"Erik Perrault, new kid on the block."

There was a moment of silence and then a very slow "Shut. The. Front. Door. Mr. Sexypants?"

Christine smiled. Actually, she grinned and her cheeks stretched wide to her ears and she felt elated at the feeling of saying his name. Is it possible to fall in love at first sight? It was possible to fall in lust at first sight…but she didn't want to get into his pants. Well, not yet. And it wasn't really about his pants at all. It was something, a quality, about him that made him that someone. That Heathcliff, or that Edward Scissorhands, or that *someone* who you will never forget, even when you're old and spindly and wrecked smoking a pipe on your front porch. Erik was that guy that you tell your grandchildren about. When your grandma was young, like you…oh, she had some wild, crazy times. She loves your father but she'll never forget about this one boy…Oh, it makes your grandma blush just thinking about him. You should have seen him. He was…really something.

"What do you have now?" Meg sliced her daydream suddenly.

"Chemistry."

"Oh, pun-ny coincidence," Meg smirked. "You've had enough of that today. Are you going to tell me more or what."

"Or what," Christine patted her friend's braided bun lightly and turned to go. "I promise I'll tell you more later."

Chemistry was a drag. She didn't hate it but she didn't love it. Plus, it was a bunch of new kids in her class. All she had to do is get through one more period of Math and she'd be walking home. She needed a walk, a very long promenade, as the French called it.

She knew no one in chemistry, and she was glad she didn't because she learned about "Oxytocin." She learned about two kind of male voles, or rodents, one of which mates for life, and the other type of vole in only interested in singular sexual experiences. And the crazy part is, these two different kinds of voles share more than 99% of common genes.

So what makes a rat a slutty one, and what makes a rat a hopeless romantic? The answer was oxytocin. The rat who is born naturally receptive to oxytocin prefers to be faithful and stay in love, while the other rat is born without those receptors. And the faithful vole will link their mate and the feeling of pleasure to remembering a physical personality: a smell.

She did not have to ask which one Erik was. She didn't really care. But she learned something about herself, and that was that she was a good rat. And she did not have to remind herself what smell lingered in front of her nose right now.

"So Ms. Sorelli," A kind, gentle voice said, "How can we tell which vole we are? And if we are born naturally unreceptive to xxytocin, what can be done to change that?"

"That's an excellent question, Mr. Chagny."

Christine did not notice Raoul was sitting a few seats behind her, diagonally to the right. He did not seem to notice her head whipping around at the sound of his voice, and lowered his hand as Ms. Sorelli explained:

"Scientists have done tests where they inject the non-receptive voles, more precisely, the montane vole, with oxytocin, and the results were all the same: negative."

"So you're saying there's nothing that can be done to change a montane rat's nature?" He leaned back confidently into his chair and tapped his eraser on his notebook.

"No, not in rats."

"And are we humans, like rats, or are rats like us, and only a branch of us?"

"What are you asking, Mr. Chagny."

"I mean to ask–are we different. Can we make a conscious choice whereas when a rat cannot, and if we can make that conscious choice, does that ultimately change the outcome of our integrity as human beings."

She had never heard Raoul de Chagny sound so intelligent before. She never knew he was intelligent. But as he spoke, something in his voice told her that he was being sincere, and that he was someone who did not take no for an answer. In other words, he was not a quitter.

"I'm saying," Ms. Sorelli said thoughtfully, "that it is within a montane voles nature to go from one female rat to the next, and that chemicals cannot change that."

"But what if we invented a chemical to aid the oxytocin that failed? What if all it needed was a bridge drug?"

"If that's the case, then we just haven't discovered that bridge drug yet. And to answer your question; rats are like humans, and humans are like rats, but they are not mutually exclusive. We may have rat-like qualities, but we are not all rats."

"I agree," he leaned forward and suddenly his gaze locked with Christine's. "We are not all rats."

Something inside her churned. No, pinched. Not in a bad way, but it pinched her deeply enough that Christine gave an audible gasp.

"Christine, did you want to say something?"

She spun around and shook her head at Ms. Sorelli. "Uh–no. Sorry. Just…Cramps." Gosh, she used that excuse twice already.

A few kids snickered but she was sure Raoul did not. She felt a heat on the back of her neck as if she was being stared at, and she knew who was doing the staring.

"Then there are male rats that are so eager to fall in love that they prematurely release the dopamine and norepinephrine that announce to their brains that they're in love; and this is not usually sustainable, due to the male rats visual nature."

It was not Raoul's voice, but Erik's. And Christine felt utterly mortified, petrified, and elated that he was sitting in the back of the classroom, silent as a mouse until just the right moment, where a word from him would ultimately disturb any kind of peace.

"And these rats are merely floating in the attraction stage, and addicted to the feeling of being love." The voice was matter of fact, but not forceful or loud. It just demanded attention. "To answer Mr. Chagny's question, the 'bridge drug' already exists. Oxytocin and vasopressin block the flow of dopamine and norepinephrine, and that's why passionate love tends to fade when commitment grows. It's a counter chemical that are needed to give eternal life to Oxytocin. And there is no such counter chemical. Integrity has little to do with it. In a way, humans are not mutually exclusive to rats. Rats choose the rat they want, and no sheer act of will can force one rat to be with the other, at least not happily, and humans are the same way. No matter how 'learned' the rat's dedication to fight against their nature."

Ms. Sorelli, who was obviously taken aback by the new student's words, stood with her arms crossed. She looked confused, and a bit angry at herself for not being able to provide a quick comeback. She did not like it when things at too heavy-handed in class, not when it made her look bad. So she stood, tapping her pointer finger against her opposite elbow and chewing on the side of her mouth until Christine excused herself, muttering she had to "go to the bathroom to take care of her cramps," this time to absolute no reaction from the class.

As she stepped into the hallway, her head felt heavy and she was beginning to feel faint. In a way, she was experiencing a sort of déja-vu, but she wasn't sure which part of the last 15 minutes she might have lived in her past life. She just felt that she could not breathe and that she had been here, in this place, emotionally and spiritually before. She didn't know what to make of it. She just hoped quite innocently that the ending was a good one.

"Rats," she muttered and headed back into the classroom.