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Page 46 of The Chemistry Test

Penny

Operation orange pyjamas ended up being for nothing. No one microwaved a make-up brush or put a knife in the toaster overnight. Ro’s orange pyjamas and I are going to live to see another day.

It may be nothing more than blind optimism, but I’m starting to wonder if everyone in the building’s figured out the whole adulting thing now.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here on a huge, burgundy mobility scooter, feeling like I’ve taken the concept too far.

As in, fifty-years-ahead-of-where-I’m-supposed-to-be too far.

It’s a ridiculous thought and I know it.

I’m usually the first person to shut down misconceptions about people being ‘too young to be sick’ or ‘too pretty to use a mobility aid’, as if the two are, for some bizarre reason, mutually exclusive.

And yet, sitting here on this huge thing, something about this doesn’t feel right.

‘Cute scooter,’ Ro says, breaking my thoughts and eyeing me up as though I’m showing off a sexy new outfit. Honestly, this boy.

He’s pulling his desk chair behind him with Amy following suit when my phone pings in my pocket. Finally.

I practically had to sit on my hands to stop myself texting CJ before our class, only for him to miss it once again. He didn’t answer any of my calls either, even though I gave him plenty of opportunities to.

So, with no options left, I sent a text asking him to let me know when he would be free to call so I could tell him my side of the story. From the radio silence that ensued, I figured it was still too soon (which is fair enough given what he thinks he knows). But now, he’s finally ready.

‘So, we start here?’ Amy says, pointing to the bin shed, completely oblivious to the weight of the message I just received.

It’s just gone eleven and, as planned, they’re about to race the scooter around the block to decide who’s getting dragged into wheelchair-fixing duty today, while I oversee the whole thing as referee. Mobility aids are all just big toys unless you actually need them, after all.

But now, all I want to do is dash straight back home to call CJ. I’ve already waited too long. And so has he. But Amy and Ro are only out here doing this stupid thing because of me, so I can’t bail on them now.

‘Your throne awaits, Miss Penelope,’ Ro says, putting his scarf on the desk chair for me to sit on, or possibly under.

I honestly have no idea what his intentions are, but I appreciate the gesture all the same.

And I know I can’t be a terrible friend to him and Amy, as well as CJ. I can at least be present for them.

So, I put on a smile and swipe the notification away without even looking at it. Ignorance is bliss and all that. I’ve waited almost a week to put things right; I can wait ten more minutes.

Back in my room, I get in bed and pull the covers right up.

I wish I had a blanket hoodie so my phone-holding arm wouldn’t be so cold.

Hot showers are the only thing that truly warm me up when the cold bites through my bones like this, but I don’t have the energy for it right now. Neither physically nor mentally.

And I’m not going to my Biochemistry class today either, rendering the whole mobility scooter fiasco pointless since my wheelchair will be fixed by the time I need it again. But at least Ro and Amy had fun – especially Amy, who crashed it three times and somehow still won.

She calls through my door. ‘Are you sure you’re not coming, Pen?’

‘I can’t today,’ I say, letting her make what she will out of it. I’m not up to explaining right now.

‘I’ll be back in an hour to print some notes for you then,’ she shouts back, her voice fading as she walks down the hall.

Well, good. Because I wouldn’t have gone even if she hadn’t offered.

Because after all that waiting, the notification wasn’t from CJ after all.

It was from Delilah, with the world’s most badly timed question about whether we should get Nan a dog to keep her company (and to be clear, we definitely should), but I can’t focus on that now.

All I can focus on is CJ, and how he still hasn’t gotten back to me. I consider phoning Delilah about the whole thing, but I already know what she’d say.

No message is a message. And you don’t have to be Einstein to work out what it means.

I log into WhatsApp to double-check I haven’t missed anything from him, when I spot those nauseating blue ticks. Confirming he’s read my message but hasn’t replied. Oh no.

The thought of him not knowing my perspective – no, not wanting to know my perspective – suffocates me. And now the realisation has taken hold, I can’t come up for air. I’m drowning and I need him to lend me his hand like he always does. Whether I need it or not.

Because even though this isn’t about me, it’s still not fair that he didn’t let me explain myself.

I make sure he’s not online so I won’t be interrupted, and then I start typing.

I’m meant to be good with words, but even from the get-go, it feels too messy.

I want to address it to Cam, the person I owe the biggest apology to, but he didn’t tell me that name.

He told a stranger on the internet, a random person he thought he didn’t know.

And while it may be too late for me to un-know it, I can still work with what I’ve got. So, I stick to the name he actually gave me as Penny. Because he deserves to be the version of himself he wants to be, just like I deserve a chance to explain myself and my reasons for everything. And so I do.

I tell him about how I didn’t even know he was an actor until I spoke to Delilah, right around the time we started the poster.

And that yes, I intended to give Cam a smile at Rover’s, but I stupidly assumed he’d be in full costume, so I wouldn’t see who he was.

Here, I emphasise how it was wrong of me to take that risk – but that I only took it because I didn’t even realise it was risky in the first place.

Truth is, I’m not the genius he often makes me out to be.

At least, not at everything. There’s no handbook for stuff like this, and I’m still learning too.

I attach a photo of the anonymity disclaimer I’ve added to both the CTY website and the poster for it, so he knows that I know I’m in the wrong here.

And even though I can’t take back what happened, I’m working on it.

And I definitely won’t be making the same mistake again.

I keep everything short so he’s less likely to skim or skip through it.

I need him to know I really did plan on telling him everything as soon as that bloody assignment was done, if only Mother Nature hadn’t had other ideas.

I word it just like that too, in case he likes the pun.

Then, I apologise as sincerely as I can (which, let’s face it, isn’t as sincere as I’d like over text) and hit Send.

There. I did it. I feel so much better – and so much worse.

I put my phone on aeroplane mode to stop myself checking it like crazy, before tossing it on to the window seat.

As it leaves my hand, I think of the post I read about a girl who tried to throw her phone on her bed but accidentally threw her cup of tea instead.

And as bad as I feel right now, it still makes me giggle, just a little bit.

I may have messed up (what feels like) everything in my life at the moment, but I’m thankful I’ve at least never done that.

Then, even though it’s still cold, I sacrifice both hands to haul my laptop out and open a YouTube tab.

Because despite whatever he may think, I really haven’t given CJ’s acting stuff much thought until now.

I don’t think I could’ve continued to hang out with him if I had.

Seeing him living that sort of life would’ve made mine – and more importantly, me – feel too mundane.

But I don’t think we’re going to be seeing each other again any time soon, so I finally give in and type ‘CJ Taylor’ into the search bar – because what have I got to lose?

I can’t scare myself out of seeing him if he already doesn’t want to see me.

The video titles load a split second before the thumbnail photos, and my stomach drops as I read the number of views.

They all have around fifty thousand, but the one at the top has even more.

Go big or go home, I suppose, clicking on it.

He’s with a few other cast members on Conan O’Brien’s channel and the video has over a thousand comments. And over four hundred thousand views.

Whoa.

Delilah said the show’s a lot bigger in America, but I didn’t realise it was this big. The video is two years old, and even though his glasses are more square here, he looks exactly the same – which somehow makes it even more surreal seeing him there.

As I carry on watching, the other thing I notice is how much he talks about his gran.

He explains how she helped him learn his lines and how she would learn them off by heart too, just to show him she could.

He even mentions his plans to study Biomed at university and how he wants to get into medical research one day, just like her. O’Brien looks at him in mock horror.

‘I was going to say it would be a downgrade from what you’re currently doing,’ he jokes. ‘But whatever you do next probably won’t top starring in an HBO show, right?’

‘Right,’ CJ laughs. ‘Aim for the stars and all that, just don’t get there too soon or you’ll peak before you’re twenty.

’ He pulls a face as the camera zooms in on him, looking both amused and alarmed.

The thing is, he might’ve only been joking, but you can’t deny the way CJ’s eyes light up when he talks about the science-y stuff.

And whether it’s possible or not, he sounds so self-assured as he discusses the possibility of fitting in medical research while he waits around for hours on set and doing it full-time in between acting jobs or seasons.

Making his work work for him, instead of the other way around.