Chapter 10

For the next couple of days, I tried my best to stop thinking about Johnny and tried to repress my feelings for him. Amazingly enough, it worked quite well. Maybe because I haven’t seen him for a few days because it was the weekend and we didn’t have Chem class until Tueday. Dragging myself out of bed at 6:30AM for my Chem lab, the thought that I would be seeing Johnny didn’t register in my head until I was eating breakfast. My stomach gave an uncomfortable feeling because I didn’t want to see him and wanted to at the same time. No, I’ll make today a success. I will treat him like how I did when we first became friends. No awkwardness, no butterflies in stomach, nothing. I repeated those lines in my head over and over again as I was going to school and walking to my Chem lab.

Walking over to my station, I kept my head down as I prepared my equipment for today’s lab. I knew he wasn’t here yet, but I wanted to avoid looking him at all today. Sighing and pushing all regretting feelings away, I stared blankly at my lab manual pretending to be busy reading it. I heard footsteps nearing me a few minutes later and they suddenly stopped a few meters away from me. Johnny. Forcing myself not to look at him, I continued to stare my lab manual down. “Hey Lina”, Johnny greeted me. I could hear a smile on his face. “Hi Johnny”, I replied, still not looking at him. “So uh, difficult lab today?” he asked, probably noticing my strange behavior. “Uh yeah, very”, I replied shortly. “Oh”, he answered. Silence befell us, expect for the sound of my pounding heart. Ugh, darn it Lina, what are you doing? You’re not supposed to be ignoring him for no reason! Thankfully, our TA called us to the whiteboard and explained today’s lab.

“Today’s lab will be in pairs because it’ll require lots of stirring and measuring. Just partner up with the person next to you. You are required to hand in your own lab report at the end of your lab,” my TA said. I silently groaned. That would mean that I HAD to look at him and talk to him. Going back to my lab bench, I moved my equipment closer to Johnny’s side. “So uh, let’s start eh?” Johnny asked, smiling at me. I could feel butterflies start to form in my stomach, but I managed to shoo them away. “Yes, let’s”, I replied, returning a weak smile. Two hours later, Johnny and I were laughing and talking like normal. Lina, you didn’t have to worry about a thing after all! You can do this! Just two more hours! I filled a beaker with ice, water, and salt while Johnny prepared a mixture of unknown solutions in a test tube. Setting the test tube carefully inside the beaker, Johnny and I each grabbed a stirring rod and I stirred the beaker while Johnny stirred the test tube. We had to stir non-stop for 10 minutes.

However, the time passed quickly and my hand didn’t feel tired at all. Having a conversation with Johnny was so easy and they were always so interesting. I was so caught up in our conversation that I didn’t notice our hands were dangerously close to each other as we stirred. Nearing the end of the last minute, our hands accidentally brushed each other’s…

…and I was falling, too fast and too hard to stop. The repressed feelings I’ve locked up suddenly exploded. I should’ve known I had no hope in winning, even when it seemed like there was. I had won a losing battle.