Page 4 of A Lab Rat’s Guide to Fated Love

“You know what I mean. I’ve never—I don’t see you that way. Besides, I don’t think I’m ever going to see anyone that way. ”

“I uh—sorry, I have this thing I forgot about.” He lurched to his feet, the top of his head hitting the metal end of the canopy above. “I’ll see you later.”

“No, wait!”

By the time Nori managed to follow him downstairs and out through the hungry rush-hour crowd, it was too late.

Her best—ex-best friend had dramatically vanished.

He even went so far as to flee the country later that night.

She only found out about it from his father when she went to his place the next day.

Nori swore under her breath, shoving her phone roughly into her bag. A few kids from a nearby table turned to stare at her, before quickly looking away when she glared back at them.

Yeah, whatever. She didn’t need that coward anyway.

She’d only spotted him from a distance when she’d arrived at the campus last week.

He didn’t seem to know she was there, and she was going to keep it that way.

She refused to talk to that giraffe—ass—clown, ever again.

And if he showed up in front of her, she’d walk away—kick him in the shin first—then walk away. That would show him.

On that note, the patient, Vir Varma, was also a PhD student there. Maybe she could meet him to explain her research before the other team had a chance to stuff the idea of their sparkly spare-parts down his throat. Hopefully, Tanya wouldn’t mind telling her which department he was in.

Scarfing her remaining breakfast in a hurry, Nori gathered her stuff and started for the HOD’s office. She hadn’t reached too far when a deep, familiar voice rang through the corridor, making her pause.

“Nori!”

No way. She considered bolting.

“Nori, wait!”

With an internal groan, she turned to find her clown-shaped ex-best friend marching towards her in quick, long strides, with a wide grin slapped across his face.

“Hey shorty!” Ryan, the giraffe, came to a halt in front of her to tower over her with his lanky athletic frame and spindly legs that had elongated like beanstalks over their eighth-grade summer vacation .

She opened her mouth and snapped it shut without a word while the lump in her throat made her consider running again. Her legs weren’t as long as his, but she could totally outrun him. She was fast as hell.

“What? No comeback? Come here.” Ryan pulled her into a hug, squeezing all the air out of her lungs while the familiar scent of his fruity shampoo assaulted her nose, making it scrunch up in response. She’d missed the stench.

“Hey,” she mumbled once he let her go.

“I heard you got here a few days ago. You know what they’ve been calling you? The Canadian prodigy.” He laughed.

“Why do you care?” she spat out acidly, her face growing warmer by the second.

“Nor—”

Before he could get another syllable out, her foot was already on its way to connect with his shin. He ducked, smirking, and whisked his leg away in time. Rookie mistake. One quick swipe, and she had him in a headlock.

“You dramatic ass—”

“Ow! Nor—”

“How dare you leave me like that—no call—nothing!”

“You promised—NO HEADLOCKS!”

“NO HEADLO—YOU WANT A CHOKESLAM INSTEAD? You—I HATE you!”

“Look, I’m sorry! I’m SORR—”

She dropped her arm and stepped back before she could chokeslam him for real. It wouldn’t be very… professional of her, considering the setting they were in. Not that she’d actually do it, even if that was exactly what he deserved.

“Don’t ever speak to me again.” She started turning on her heels when the look on his face made her pause. Damn his manipulative soggy puppy-eyes.

“Nori…” There was a guilty undertone to the way he said her name, his fingers curling and uncurling the loose polyester strap on his backpack. “I know… I’ve been an ass.”

“So, you do know it.” She arched her brow.

“I do. I’m sorry. I wanted to reach out sooner, but… I was embarrassed.”

Nori glared at him while the lump in her throat grew to double its size .

“It’s not every day that I go around confessing my feelings to people.” He scratched the back of his sun-tanned neck, a clear tint of red peeking from under his shirt’s collar. “When you started talking about the sibling stuff, I—”

“I came to your place later, but you were gone.”

“Yeah. I—when my mom asked me to come here for a bit, I hopped on a flight without thinking. It was supposed to be temporary, and I kept looking for excuses to call you, but—anyway, they have some great PhD programs here.”

“You changed your number.”

“Yeah, I know it sounds like a dumb excuse, but I… broke my phone soon after landing here. I had to get an Indian SIM, anyway. Weeks passed and then I didn’t bother getting a replacement for the old one.”

“That is the dumbest excuse ever. I hate you.”

“I know.”

“Did you miss me at all?”

“Nah. And you were right. Us dating?” He made a gagging sound, pointing his index finger towards his mouth.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He barked a laugh. “What was I thinking? You look perfectly disgusting, by the way.”

“As do you.” Nori snorted.

“Sorry.” Ryan sobered again, his chin quivering the way it always did when he was about to cry. “I missed you, Nor. Platonically, I have to add.”

“I missed you, too. But if you ever disappear again—” She dabbed her watery eyes with her shirt’s sleeve before stepping forward to wrap her arms around his middle and letting him crush her again.

“I won’t. Sorry. Kick me in the teeth if I try. You have my full consent. Just—no more headlocks.”

“We’ll see about that.” She stepped back, dragging her sleeve over her face again. “Ugh. I can’t deal with puffy eyes today. I have a lab rat persuade.”

“Lab rat?”

She filled him in.

“And now it’s up to Mr. Varma to choose which treatment he’d go for. And I, obviously, need him to choose mine. But I need to find him first. ”

“I might be able to help with that.” Ryan whipped out his phone and tapped on it a few times. “Fehim, hey! Tacos?” He grinned at Nori. “Bring Mr. Varma, too. I have Nori with me, and she wants to have a chat with the subject. Ha ha. See you in five.”

“What are you doing? You know him?” Nori gaped at him. “And right now? How do I—what if—?”

“Do you want me to cancel?”

“What? No, wait!” Snatching his phone away before he could make another call, she stared at the empty corridor for a long moment. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Vir

T he moment Vir stepped inside Fehim’s car, he sensed a strange, guilty undertone to his friend’s otherwise upbeat demeanor.

Usually, Vir’s heightened sensitivity to people’s ever-changing emotional states proved to be more of a curse than not.

A curse that forced him to feel everything they felt, play-by-play, as if those were his own inner workings, inseparable from theirs.

From a stranger’s gut-wrenching sorrow to another’s momentary spike of rage and yet another’s anxious, butterflies-on-steroids infatuation that made him light-headed enough to want to barf out his last meal.

Vir felt everything. And often, all at once. It was another reason for him to hate crowds, not that there could ever be any reason for anyone to actually like those. People who did were obviously lying.

On rare occasions, though, occasions like these, his useless oversensitivity did come in handy. Fehim was clearly hiding something.

“You know…” And it didn’t take him long to give it up on his own.

“One of the researchers from the program, Dr. Nori Arya… she’s considered a big-shot prodigy in Canada.

No wonder she’s Dr. Elaine Arya’s daughter.

Yup, the Elaine Arya who came up with all those Phage-based drugs that shook big pharma a few years ago. ”

“Okay…? ”

“And you’ve met my flat mate, Ryan, right? It turns out she’s also his childhood friend from Calgary.”

“… and why are you telling me all this?”

“She wants to have a quick chat with you. They’re joining us soon.”

“You mean the Canadian prodigy wants to scout me as her lab rat?” Vir shook his head, clicking his seatbelt off. Not in this lifetime. “Did Adi put you up to this as well?”

“You don’t have to agree to anything.” Fehim gripped his forearm before quickly letting go. “Give it five minutes. I won’t ask you to stay longer if you don’t want to.”

The rear doors swung open, and their two guests slid into the back seats with a loud, “Hey!” from Ryan and a softly mumbled, “Hello,” from the woman, Dr. Arya.

Vir shot an acidic glare at Fehim before settling back with a resigned sigh.

Fine. He’d go have a coffee and get out. It wasn’t like they could force him into anything he didn’t want to be a part of. There was nothing the prodigy could tell him that would make him hand himself to her for her sadistic little science experiment.

Ryan was a verbose one, nearly as chatty as Fehim.

They yapped non-stop for the entire ten-minute drive.

Yet Vir didn’t hear a single word from Dr. Arya.

He couldn’t see her face in the rear-view mirror, but there was something curious about her presence.

He couldn’t put a finger on what it was exactly.

She seemed nervous, but also had an almost liminal sense of calm about her that had him easing further into his seat.

That was odd. Though not as odd as the fact that he could pick all these layers of emotions from her so clearly, each a distinct viscous sheet slipping over the others.

Normally he could only sense the outermost ones from strangers, powerful as those were, but never the whole spectrum.

And he was glad he didn’t, or he’d end up in a psychiatric ward somewhere, buried under all the heavy garbage humans liked to carry around with them.

By the time they reached the diner, Vir was already queasy and excused himself to withdraw to the restroom first. He hated how quickly he tired these days. And the headaches that followed even a small amount of exertion .

Slamming a hand over the faucet, he waited for the nausea to pass before he made his way to the ordering queue outside.

“I’ll have a double-shot latte,” he said to the cashier.

“No tacos?” Fehim asked.

Vir shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”

They reached the booth, and he placed his and Dr. Arya’s coffees at the table before taking his seat across from her. Then braced himself for the mind-numbing sales pitch to begin, and with an inaudible sigh, finally glanced at the woman staring doe-eyed at him.

As their eyes met, he froze, his jaw clamping shut against the flurry of expletives before it could slip out.

None meant for her, but all directed at the fact that he might have truly, finally started hallucinating.

Unless it was a dream. An obnoxiously elaborate one, because there was no way. It couldn’t be.

Dr. Nori Arya… It was her.