Chapter Six: Breathing Underwater

Gretchen had been in a fairly good mood until she arrived at the Rainforest Biology lab after the lecture portion of class was over, only to be greeted by the familiar, stomach-ache-inducing scent of formaldehyde.

Professor Reid had announced it last week, but somehow, Gretchen had all but forgotten that today would be the first dissection post Herbert. She shuddered involuntarily and kept her gaze firmly on her notebook but she was well aware that Simon – and probably most of the rest of the class – was watching her. For the most part, everyone not named Simon seemed to have forgotten about the Herbert debacle, but this was definitely enough to spark everyone's memory.

Professor Reid paused before handing Simon their tarantula. "You sure about this?" he asked, a demented grin on his face. "Do I need to bring out the smelling salts again just in case?"

Gretchen felt her face flush. "No, I'm fine," she said quickly.

"Good to hear," chuckled Professor Reid, plopping the spider between them.

Simon moved it toward his side of the desk and looked at her warily. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" he asked. Unlike Professor Reid, he sounded dead serious.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Very funny. I think you know why you wouldn't be," Simon said excruciatingly. "I think it would probably be better if I did most of the cutting."

"Oh my God, Simon!" Gretchen whined. "That's beyond stupid! You know it wasn't even about being squeamish. Not even kind of!"

"Well, just to be safe," Simon said. Gretchen's breathing sped up and she felt prickly warmth course through her. She hadn't exactly been looking forward to chopping into the giant creepy-crawly, but this sudden chivalrous behavior from Simon was beyond embarrassing. Did he think she was some delicate Victorian-era damsel who would keel over and die if anyone looked at her the wrong way? Probably, she decided. And those damn smelling salts probably only added to this impression.

"No way!" she snapped, her voice much higher-pitched than she had intended. The two football players in the desk next to them turned and stared. She grinded her teeth together and tried to breathe calmly through her nose. "It had nothing to do with being squeamish," she repeated. "It was because I forgot to eat that week. C'mon, you remember."

"Well, did you eat anything today?" asked Simon.

"Yes!" she hissed.

Simon looked like he had been slapped.

"Look, I'm sorry," Gretchen said, trying to keep her voice light. "Just…I wish we could forget that happened. Could we do you think? Just forget it happened?"

"How come?" Simon asked, his face and tone of voice completely innocent.

"How come?" she repeated.

"Yeah, how come."

"Because," she paused for a second. "Because it was embarrassing, okay? I'm really embarrassed and it made me feel like…pathetic…I guess."

Simon looked slightly surprised. "Oh," he said, adjusting his glasses. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. I guess I could see how that would be weird for you. I just…" he looked shyly down at his hands and sniffled – was he actually going to cry? Gretchen hoped against hope that he was not. "I was worried about you," he said, his voice shaking. His face had turned red as Luscious Nail Polish. "But…yeah…we could…sure. Let's just forget it."

And weirdly enough, Simon was true to his word. He even let her do most of the dissecting work. And even weirder still, Gretchen started feeling something she hadn't felt since arriving at Oberlin. At first she couldn't put her finger on it, but as she gazed down at the tarantula's poison glands, she realized, to her surprise, that she was actually good at it. She somehow knew how to cut with perfect precision and where each tiny organ belonged – and she was interested - really, truly interested - in the insides of this spider. She even began to lose track of time and when she finally stole a glance at her cell phone at 7:45, she was actually disappointed that class was almost over. She had been struggling with the basics of just about everything in literally every other class/activity, convinced that she was destined to be a failure despite her efforts. Could it really be that she was wrong?

One of Gretchen's deepest secrets was that she had actually always liked spiders and other creepy-crawlies. Regina, by contrast, wouldn't even go into a room if a spider was on the ceiling. An even deeper secret was that she used to love to read her brothers' old Spider-Man comics even after joining the Plastics but hid them under her bed with the real spiders whenever Regina and Janis came over. Buffy may have been almost cool in a loserdom type of way, but Spider-Man was a whole other level of nerd.

"Hey," said Simon as they were about to pack up. "You're really good at this." She expected him to sound surprised – after all, how could a delicate little flower like her actually know how to dissect? But his tone sounded neutral and vaguely impressed. "Maybe you should go into biology."

"You think?" Gretchen asked, flushing slightly.

He shrugged. "I mean, I know you're just a freshman so you have awhile to decide and everything, but you seem to have a talent for cutting." Simon blushed profusely. "Oh my God. I didn't mean it like that!"

"Like what?" Gretchen asked, genuinely confused.

"I mean…like…not like you're a cutter. Like a self-harmer or anything…" Simon took off his glasses and wiped them anxiously.

"Uh, no. I never thought that's what you meant."

"Oh," said Simon. "It's just…I thought maybe you…I mean after you fainted from not eating…"

Gretchen thought she probably should have been at least partially offended by this, but she couldn't help but feel some compassion for Simon and his stammering. "Oh, no," she said quickly, jumping in to rescue him. "No, I really didn't do that on purpose. It probably seemed like it, I guess…" She shrugged and sighed heavily. "It's just been an all-around rotten semester," she said.

He nodded. "I hear ya'. My first semester was tough too. I was super homesick. Well…" he said, trailing off. "See you next week."