Page 63 of The Scientist

“Hadley, you know that’s not true,” my mom said, looking just as concerned.

“I know,” I told her. “I said it without thinking. I didn’t mean it.”

The way everyone was looking at me in this moment, like I needed a “handle with care” stamp on my forehead made me want to run out of this place as fast as possible.

“Mom, the guys are really busy. They need to get back to work.”

I looked to them pleadingly, hoping they wouldn’t argue. They picked up on my subtle dismissal and stood with their coffees to leave.

I mentally kicked myself the whole way back to the car.

“You want to talk about it?” my mom asked once we were inside the vehicle.

I shook my head. “Not right now.”

She didn’t push me on it, and we drove back to her home mostly in silence. I dropped her off and spent the rest of the evening alone. Stuart had texted to invite me over for dinner, but I ignored him. I knew he was probably worried about me because he texted a few more times to check on me, so I told him I was fine, and that I was just going to bed early.

I didn’t know what was bugging me exactly. I was feeling out of sync with everyone around me, and now more than ever, I wished I had my dad to talk to about it.

Chapter 15

My class ran late the following Monday, so I had to sprint through the quad and cut through one of the science buildings just to make it on time to our faculty meeting on the other side of campus. By the time I reachedthe entrance of Roble Hall and hurried to the designated room on the third floor, I was sweaty and out of breath.

I managed to slip in through the back just as Dr. Abel was getting to the podium and setting up for his presentation. Sarah and Lionel had saved me a seat near the rear of the conference room, where we’d spend the next thirty minutes listening to Captain Creeper give a presentation on ethics and sexual harassment in the workplace.

“You think he knows the irony of what he was saying?” Sarah asked as we all left the meeting together.

“No, he thinks he’s just being friendly when he tells us we should smile more,” I answered. “Although, the Captain seemed a little off his game today. He didn’t even crack a smile when he talked about the penal code.”

“I heard his wife just left him,” Lionel said.

“Are you surprised?” Sarah asked. “Even his hair abandoned him.”

“I swear he looked straight at me when he got to the part about dating students being an ethical code violation,” Lionel said.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re imagining things.”

“A guilty conscience will do that to you,” I said, piling on.

“Go play in traffic, both of you,” he said. “I’ve got to get to my next class.”

“Biceps in that class?” Sarah asked with a smirk.

“I haven’t the slightest clue who you’re referring to,” Lionel said, walking away. “But yes,” he called over his shoulder.

“I’ve got to get going, too. I’m meeting my sister for lunch, so I can listen to her complain endlessly about her deadbeat husband that she should have left years ago,” Sarah said.

“Yikes. Have fun!”

“See ya,” she said with a wave.

I cut through the same building as a shortcut to get back to the music department. I don’t know how I missed it the first time, but right through the entrance was a huge eucalyptus tree that was surrounded by glass on all four sides. It stretched all the way to the top of the exposed ceiling so that it was technically outside even though it was placed indoors. I stood admiring the construction of it for a few minutes when I heard a familiar voice carrying down the hallway.

I grew curious so I followed the sound until I found the source emanating from a large lecture hall. The door was partially ajar so I peeked in. It was twice the size of my classroom, but nearly every seat was taken as its occupants studiously observed Dr. Alexsander Strovinski pacing back and forth at the front of the auditorium.

I listened in on his lecture about some complicated process in the brain that made my own brain hurt just trying to decipher all the advanced words and scientific jargon. But he spoke with such confidence and had absolute command of the room. You would normally see at least a few students dozing off or looking bored, but this group was hanging on every word.

“Automatic detection of an unexpected change in the sensory input is a central element of exogenous attentional control. Stimulus-specific adaptation is a potential neuronal mechanism for detecting such changes and has been strongly identified across sensory modalities and different instances of the ascending sensory pathways…”