Alchemy and Algebra

Chapter 26

Kennedy heard the crisp rattle of the paper in her hands and realized that she was shaking. She'd gotten it wrong. She'd been spectacularly, painfully wrong about what Charlie was doing. She laughed out loud with relief. She hadn't been fooled and Charlie was the decent guy she'd believed him to be. They'd be okay.

Her stomach clenched. Things might be okay someday, but not until she had a hard conversation with him, one that involved a lot of apologizing and possibly some shameless grovelling. She shut the apartment door and dropped heavily on the couch. What should she do? Phone him? Send out feelers via a text message? Show up on his doorstep? That's what she most wanted to do, but it hadn't worked out so well last time. She was itching to see him, this very minute. She wanted to eat crow, and she'd heard it was easier to do while it was still warm.

A timer chimed on her phone. She groaned and her stomach clenched even tighter. She was supposed to leave for her afternoon class. Indecision spun through her body, paralyzing her with conflicting desires. Sort out the mess with Charlie? Or miss her class? She'd missed exactly one class all year, and that was this morning. She hated falling behind. She groaned again. This class was taught by her thesis supervisor, who would notice if she was missing from the fifteen-person audience.

Kennedy ran to her bedroom, dumped her book-bag upside-down over her bed. She'd brought her books with her when she went to visit her parents in case she didn't make it back in time to stop home first, so she picked those out of the pile of things, untangling a sock that had gotten caught on the metal spiral ring of her notebook, stuffed her books into her bag and hurried out the door. She didn't much care for the delay, but she rationalized it by telling herself that Charlie's shop would be emptier if she went closer to closing time and they'd have a better chance of getting to talk privately.

The class dragged on for what felt like days. Kennedy found herself doodling fractals and hourglass-shaped drums in the margin of her notebook during the lesson. When the professor asked her a question, it took a embarrassingly long time to figure out what was being asked. If she hadn't read ahead in her textbook, she wouldn't have had any idea how to answer. As it was, the answer she gave was nearly correct, but the professor gave her a look that clearly said Kennedy's flustered answer wasn't up to her usual standard.

At last, the class finished and Kennedy nearly sprinted across campus back to the parking lot behind her building. She searched her pockets, then her bag, for her keys, but couldn't find them. In desperation, she dumped the whole thing out on the cold pavement and shook the backpack, then picked through each item one by one, but her car keys were nowhere to be found.

There was a spare set of keys in her apartment, in the second desk drawer from the top, near the back as she rarely used them. Kennedy took six steps towards her building when she remembered that her apartment key was on the same ring as her car keys. In her haste to make it to her class, she must have forgotten to re-pack her keys. For a split-second, the thought flew through her head that forgetting her keys was a sign from the universe that she should have skipped class and gone straight to Charlie's place. She quickly dismissed the thought as ridiculous, then gritted her teeth and marched into the lobby of her building.

Twenty minutes later, Kennedy was rapidly pacing the hallway in front of her door, waiting for the maintenance man she'd called from the phone in the lobby to let her in to her apartment. She looked up every time she heard footprints in the hall, which echoed for a long distance against all the hard surfaces. A dozen or so students passed by before the man in the blue jacket with the school logo on the breast finally arrived. He let Kennedy into the apartment, then waited while she found her ID to prove she had a right to be inside. Satisfied, he left, but not until Kennedy had thanked him and apologized profusely for the trouble.

Kennedy dashed to her bedroom and started searching for her backup set of keys, then remembered that her regular keys were somewhere in her room. She made a victorious sound when she found them on the floor beside her bed. They must have been knocked to the floor in her haste to repack for class.

Kennedy snatched up her backpack and hurried to her car, electric with impatience and nerves. She made the drive to Charlie's street bristling with what-ifs. What if he wouldn't forgive her for her assuming the worst about him? What if he yelled at her? Could she stand there and take his - fully justified - anger? She wasn't good at conflict. It was probably why she fled before giving him a chance to defend himself. Believing something awful was, in some ways, easier than fighting for the truth.

Pulling into the first parking space she could find, Kennedy quickly pulled her keys from the ignition and reached for the handle of the car door, then froze. Her anxiety was making her second-guess everything. She'd thought Charlie capable of something terrible. Was her intuition trying to tell her something? He walked away, too, when she'd confronted him about the grief program. How hard was he willing to fight for their relationship if he walked away as easily as well?

"More data," she mumbled to herself. "I need more data." She exhaled through pursed lips, her next course of action decided. She'd talk to Charlie and find out more about what he thought and how he felt. With grim determination, Kennedy got out of the car and walked towards Charlie's shop.