Open Arms—Part 3…
Well,
this is the next part (and don't worry, not the last) J and I've made it a long, like the last one,
for those who are asking for more. All disclaimers apply here…I still don't own
the characters L
"You will have a quiz tomorrow on
the reading pages 450 to 454 on compounds. Come prepared." Mr. Olson warned as
he wrote down the page numbers on the white board at the front of the
classroom.
Val sighed and copied them down to
her assignment book. That night, she was going to study, and study hard. She
was determined to ace this quiz if it killed her—she had to. If her
grade got any worse…well, Jaime had been right. It couldn't get much worse than
it was, her parents might just rethink about letting her have so much
freedom with her EMT job. They'd probably bear down on her and make her study
more and spend less time with the squad; she certainly hoped they wouldn't. She
loved her job more than anything else in the world…well…besides Tyler.
The class filed out and she met
Tyler outside in the hallway to go to Sociology together.
"Hey, what's wrong? You look like
someone just died." He said with a small smile and moved closer to her as they
stepped together.
Val sighed again and smiled back
shortly. "Chemistry quiz tomorrow. I just know I'm going to fail."
"Well, then, don't." He said simply.
"What do you mean?" She gave him a
questioning look that made him grin.
"I'll help you study. Remember, I
take the same class."
"Yeah, but Mrs. Kelly is nice. She
doesn't…oh, you know…"
"That shouldn't matter." He told her
frankly, and Val knew he was right. It was her own knowledge of the subject
that wasn't up to par.
"Yeah…okay. At the station
tonight—study date?"
"Is all we have to do study?"
She
giggled, actually giggled, sounding quite stupid, and gave him a quick kiss.
"Not if you don't want."
Caitie felt sick to her stomach for
the rest of the afternoon. For once, nothing in her life was going the right
way. Nothing. She was failing almost every class, not that she cared (she
knew she was smart, she didn't need grades to tell her that), she'd told Jaime
she never wanted to speak to him, and the situation with Brianne was not going
much better. She didn't know what she would do if…just maybe…they lost her. She
would blame herself for years.
That afternoon, she hung around the
school for a little while and then went to the station. Caitie figured she'd
worked up enough strength to go tell Jaime she was sorry by four thirty, when
the dusk ridden day was already cold. She walked slowly along the sidewalk,
rehearsing what she was going to say, making it sound as though she were more
pitiful than she was, just to maybe get Jaime feeling sorry for her.
No. She told herself. That's
not going to work. He's going to think I'm really stupid.
For some reason, she didn't find the
right words anywhere inside of her, and by the time she had reached the front
doors of the station, she had less ideas than an author with writer's block. A
few years later she would look back on this moment and probably pay to have
seen her expression as she walked in. Brooke, not wanted to mess with her, just
pointed to the storeroom.
Caitie didn't say thank you—it
wasn't worth it. She had to see Jaime. Right then.
"Jaime?" She asked quietly, approaching
him in the store closet. When he turned, he gave her an angered look and kept
on working.
"What do you want?" This was a curt
statement. He didn't look at her, he didn't even avert his attention from the
boxes.
"Look, if it's this hard, I don't
need to be here. I just thought you might care. I guess I was wrong."
"I don't care? Yesterday I
talked to Val because it was the right thing to do. I thought she might have
some ideas…I was only trying to help." His words stung like a thousand knives.
"You don't understand." But before
she could continue again, Jaime started another sentence, this time in a higher
and much harsher voice.
"No, Caitie. I do understand.
You always have to have things your own way. Bri's in trouble and you wanted to
keep that a secret…why…I'm not sure. I was not the one who was wrong." He
pointed out, his face flushed, and turned back to his work as she responded.
"Well, you know what? I don't care.
I really don't." She managed this while not yelling. "I wanted to help her,
too, but I guess you're…oh, never mind. I'm not going to waste the breath."
Caitie spun on her heel and stormed out, thinking to herself. You really
messed up that one, Caitie. Worse than the last time.
Jaime sighed and fell against the wall in anger—at himself. His shoulder pressed against the blue barrier, he shut his eyes, preventing tears of frustration and slammed the wall with the flat side of his fist as hard as her could, pain shooting through his arm. The strike shook his bones, but not as bad as Caitie's last words had struck his heart.
You did it again, Waite. Messed
it up for good.
"Okay. Baking soda…this one's easy."
Tyler said, sitting on the couch with the chemistry book sprawled out on the
other cushion, forcing him to twist his torso to look at it.
Val looked apprehensively at the
clock, that's hands showed 7:23 PM. She paced in front of Tyler and pressed her
hands together in front of her chest. "Sodium Bicarbonate." She said, hoping it
was right.
"Yes! Now the formula." He smiled,
happy that she had gotten the answer on the first try. Val wasn't stupid, she
just overbooked sometimes.
She wrinkled her face and frowned. "I
have no idea."
"Come on, Val…you have these down
pat…you must have for the EMT test. How come you can't do it now?"
She sighed and plopped down on the
couch as Tyler took the book and laid it over his lap. She peered over his
shoulder to get a peek at the answers but he shut the book over his thumb. "You
know this."
"Okay, okay…skip this one. Give me
the next one."
"All right, fine. Another easy one.
Methane."
Val thought for a second, but the
answer didn't come to her—at all. And this one was supposed to be easy. "Oh, I
don't know. I hate this! I can't think of any of them!"
Tyler sighed. "It's CH4…okay. Butane."
"I seriously don't know—any of them."
"C4 H10."
"All right. Let's scrap this for now
and work on something else." She said, preparing to get up again, but Tyler
stopped her.
"No. If you want to be a doctor, you're
going to learn this."
"What does chemistry have to do with
this?"
"You said yourself half the stuff is
in meds we use…well some of it's also in our bodies. You must know those…"
She nodded. "Worth a try."
"All right. Glucose."
"Easy. C6H12O6. And so are fructose and
galactose. You're right. I know those ones…I practically aced bio, but it's the
stuff that we don't use that kills me. Like acetic acid is CH3COOH…and calcium carbonate
is CaCO3…" She stopped when she noticed
that Tyler was laughing, and then she realized what she had been doing. "Oh, my
gosh! I know this stuff!"
"What did I tell you?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're always
perfect." Val rolled her eyes and leaned her head on Tyler's arm quickly as if hugging him. "But we all knew
that, it's nothing new."
He laughed and gave her head a kiss,
closed the book. "Octane."
"C8H18." She
lifted her head. "I don't get it…I know it now, but how come less than 5
minutes ago, I couldn't even think of something like table salt?"
"Well, I think when you opened your
mind to the ones you knew, the others came easily."
"Not that that makes any sense." She
smiled as he closed the book.
"I can't believe it. This time it's
worse." Val exclaimed as she walked into the station. Tyler had gotten there
much earlier since she had stayed late to speak to Mr. Olson. Brooke and he
both looked up from their work, Brooke on the laptop and Tyler on the table
with papers.
"Why, what do you mean?" He asked,
and turned to face her in his seat.
"I got a D." She exclaimed. "A
D. I've only gotten something that low once. Once!"
"Whoa, chill out. In chem.?"
She nodded and sat down next to him,
throwing the test down on the counter and burying her face in her arms over the
table. "Yeah."
"But I thought you knew this stuff."
He looked through the test, which was sparsely written on.
"I do. That's the thing…I do!
I guess my life is just destined to be over." Before he had a chance to say
anything, she stood up, even though it was less than a minute after she had sat
down, and walked out of the room muttering something.
Tyler started to go after her, but
Brooke, who had seen the whole thing, told him. "Don't bother. She's got a lot
on her mind."
He stopped and turned back to the
younger girl. "Like what?"
Brooke, realizing what she had just
said and shook her head. "Oh, I don't know—she's always busy…must just not be
balancing her schedule right."
Tyler just looked at her for a
second and then said. "Brooke. I know it's something else. Tell me."
Val's sister broke down—she knew she
was beat. "I wasn't supposed to hear it in the first place—Val will kill me if
I tell you. Well, both Caitie and Val will kill me."
"Not if I do first." He told her,
not serious yet not joking, and moved closer so that he was staring at her from
behind the screen of the laptop.
"Okay, okay. It's Brianne. She's
doing drugs—I don't know who knows but I heard them talking on accident and…"
"Thanks, Brooke." He said before she
finished and went to find Val.
But
just as soon as he had made his way into hallway, the alarm sounded and they
all had to get to work.
End
of part 3 J The next part might be the
last one, depends on how much I have to say…but there will probably end up
being 5 parts.