Page 8 of The Chemistry Test

Cam

You have got to be kidding me. It’s her. The girl I ran away from at the doctors’. She comes out of the room next to the one I was in, and I notice her take a short breath when she sees me. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I had known the new student was going to be her. But it’s too late now.

‘Ah, here she is,’ says Andrew, my work coach. He’d been assigned to me at the beginning of my second semester last year – just before I dropped out. When we still thought I might be able to finish the year.

I’m too busy thinking of an excuse about why I ran away from her to hear the lady introduce her to me properly. And then it’s just us again.

I put my cap on as we head out, backwards to start with, before swivelling it forward to tuck in the sides.

Doing it like that looks a lot better than awkwardly trying to stuff the hair in with your hands.

I glance at myself in the reflection of the glass-panelled door opposite to check – a habit I’ve had ever since my hair got curlier five years ago and I needed a quick way to tame it down before my paper round.

These days, the hat doubles as a pretty good disguise in places I’d rather not be spotted, like student support buildings, which could be full of fans or even journalism students for all I know.

You’d think it would be annoying wearing it, but actually, as long as it works – and it often does – I low-key quite enjoy my little incognito moments.

You’d never catch Arturo in a cap. I don’t think they even exist in his world.

‘So, you were close with my name,’ the girl says, playing with the ends of a blue friendship bracelet as she looks at my reflection. ‘Penny is close to Poppy.’

She drops her hands into her lap when she sees me watching her. ‘How close was I with Jackson?’ she asks. And I’m relieved she’s broken the ice – maybe it didn’t look like I was running away from her after all. I’ve been overthinking everything lately.

‘Spot on,’ I say, grinning in a what-are-the-chances sort of way. ‘I’m Jackson.’

Her mouth falls open and she starts smiling too. ‘Wait, really?’

My face breaks into a laugh. ‘No, not really, but that would’ve been good, wouldn’t it?’ I tug my cap down slightly before holding out my hand. ‘I’m CJ. Nice to meet you properly.’

With that out the way, I turn my attention to the accessible campus map, which details all the accessible routes. I use both hands to fold it out and ask her what she’d like to see first.

‘The labs, maybe?’ she says, and after seeing that the accessible route is the way I usually go, I pocket the map while we walk.

‘You know, we were both wrong about each other’s ages,’ she says, remembering how we’d both guessed the other was a year younger than we actually are. ‘How did we do on the other stuff?’

I think back to our conversation. ‘It was pretty impressive actually,’ I say. She slows down and looks up at me, expectantly. ‘You somehow got everything wrong.’

She rolls her eyes and groans, the hint of a laugh tipping her head back slightly. ‘Did I get half a point for the chocolate, at least?’

I raise my eyebrows, smiling back. Competitive, even when there’s nothing to gain. I like that.

‘A quarter, then?’ she says, clearly misjudging what I’m thinking, just as we reach a dropped kerb that’s really fucking high.

‘They had one job,’ I say, facepalming so hard I have to readjust my hat.

We both stare at the kerb for a second before I ask if she’d mind me tipping her upwards or if she’d like to try another way.

‘This is probably our best option if the map says it’s the accessible route,’ she says, and so together we make it up.

And while I’m still annoyed that there’s a dropped kerb that doesn’t do the one thing it’s designed to do, Penny seems to have forgotten about it already.

It’s probably not the first time she’s encountered a problem like that.

‘You got about the same for me,’ she says. ‘Wrong about the twin brothers, right about hating Maths – but hating Maths is just as universal as liking chocolate, right? And definitely wrong about the ingrown toenail,’ she says, wriggling one of her feet.

‘It was a good wrong answer though, wasn’t it?’

She laughs, ‘Yeah, I’ll give you that. The real reason isn’t quite as straightforward.’

‘It’s not?’ I ask, curious but hoping she won’t feel pressured to expand if she doesn’t want to.

‘Nope,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I have a condition called EDS, which causes my joints to dislocate easily, among other things.’

I think I might actually know that one. ‘Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?’

She seems pleasantly surprised. ‘Yeah! That’s it!’ she says, looking at me hopefully.

I think she thinks I know more about it than I actually do.

It affects the connective tissue in the body – which is found in just about everything.

The skin, tendons, blood vessels, organs, even the bones.

Meaning it often wreaks havoc for the patients, but can be a nightmare to diagnose since symptoms can be so wide-ranging.

‘We covered it a bit in my first term last year.’

She smiles. ‘It’s good to know that it’s being taught to new students now. Most of my doctors didn’t even know what it was when I first started getting sick. Did you learn about POTS too?’

She looks like she really wants me to say yes, but it’s not ringing any bells.

‘Remind me what that one is?’

Her eyes narrow as she tries to think of the best way to explain it.

‘It can be a condition on its own, but mine is caused by EDS. It’s basically just where your heart rate rises too quickly when you sit or stand up, causing you to be dizzy or to pass out.

’ She notices my blank face and carries on.

‘For me, it’s the main reason I need a wheelchair. ’

‘I don’t think it comes up in first year,’ I say.

‘But that makes a lot more sense than the ingrown toenail. EDS sounds like a lot to manage.’ I slow down as we start making our way up the ramp to the labs.

I almost ask if she wants me to push her, but she taps the wheelchair into a different speed setting as I’m about to speak, reminding me of the motorised thing on the back.

‘Sometimes, it is. I would say it keeps me on my toes,’ she says, the hint of a smirk crossing her lips as she looks down at her feet. ‘But clearly it doesn’t.’

‘I see what you did there.’ I wink as she looks up at me with a smug grin.

I’m just about to reach for the door when my phone vibrates in my pocket, so I hold it open for her and awkwardly fish out my phone with my left hand while she makes her way inside. I glance down at the screen. It’s Ryan.

Hi Cam, no rush, but can you check on Callie when you get in?

I shoot back a quick reply and let out a slow, forceful breath as I look around for Penny, deciding what to do.

It takes me a few seconds to find her since she’s all the way over to the left of the foyer, through the archway, patiently waiting for me with her hands tucked on her lap.

I walk towards her with slightly heavy footsteps, so I don’t make her jump as she takes in the high ceilings and upper floors, which look a bit like indoor balconies from here.

She leans forward excitedly as I approach her, so I take my phone off silent and lead the way. I can at least show her this.

As I open the door to the labs, her eyes light up in wonderment and she wheels down the hallway, peering through the open doors to all the different labs. I have to jog for a few seconds to catch up with her before taking her inside the one at the end.

We’re actually at the front of the lab since we entered from the far door, so I go to show her the big screen that the lecturer uses for demonstrations, but it soon feels like the roles are reversed as she starts talking over me and pointing out things she recognises.

Like a child playing I Spy, she wheels around the room and correctly identifies the water baths, the centrifuges and the fume cupboard.

‘Thanks for the tour,’ I say, as she comes back round to where I’m sitting, at the end of the front row.

She grins at me sheepishly. ‘Sorry,’ she says, hands flying up to her face.

But she doesn’t have to be sorry, I remember how it feels to be in her position and how reassuring it is to recognise stuff in a world that’s completely new.

I take her into another, slightly smaller, lab down the hall and feel nostalgic watching her, even though it was only a year ago that I looked at the place the same way.

I wish I could show her everywhere else she’s going to be studying too, like the lecture theatres in Nightingale College and the seminar rooms behind the cinema.

But I can’t stop thinking about Callie. She’s been on medication for a neurological condition and what seems like a million allergies since we found out about it all two weeks ago.

And even though it should be under control now, she’s still ridiculously small and I know she could go downhill at any time.

So, I consult the map again and find an accessible route to the library. It’s a lot longer than the way I usually go, but my car is parked outside, so I figure I may as well show her around a bit more of the campus as I head back.

As we walk, I point out my favourite places to eat and drink as we pass them, and I apologise to her for not having time to go in.

It’s wild to think that people are just dropped off at university like this, not really knowing anywhere or anyone, so I wish I had more time to help her out, but I also know it won’t take long until she knows it all better than the back of her hand.

When we get to my car, I offer to drop her home, but she wants to get used to finding her own way around, so I hand her the map instead.

She settles it on her lap, leaving both hands free to steer her wheelchair.

And from where I’m sitting in my car, I can’t help thinking about how bloody brave she is.

Leaving home for the first time to live in a new place with strangers is pretty daunting for anyone, let alone having to figure out the wheelchair stuff too.

Besides the connective tissue, she’s made of pretty tough stuff as far as I can tell.

I’m about to reverse out of my parking space when I catch sight of her in my rear-view mirror, coming to a halt already. So, with my hand still on the handbrake, I wait for a few more seconds to make sure someone helps her up the dropped kerb that isn’t dropped quite enough for her once again.