The wedding occurred during the summer break separating the happy couple’s third and fourth years. It gave them enough time to honeymoon near the Amish community of Maisdorf. They stayed at a quaint little bed and breakfast run by an elderly Mennonite woman. She was very happy to meet the newlyweds and provided them with lots of home-baked pastries and other goodies. Highly enjoyable and Liz probably took hundreds of pictures. So many she joked about needing another phone to hold them all.
Honeymoons were far shorter than the memories they created, so they had to return to school just when they really started to enjoy themselves. Students getting married was not grounds for the university to delay classes.
Being married, they no longer needed to live in separate spaces. Liz’s apartment was too small and there was no way she could live with Dion in his largeish shoebox of a dorm room. That was where Monroe University, being over 100 years old and with several older traditions still practiced, really shined. A separate dorm for married couples still existed on campus. Mayweather hall was a holdover from the 1940s. The dorm rooms resembled two-bedroom apartments with a full kitchen. For whatever reason, the price was lower than what most paid for their shared dorm rooms. This was likely to encourage more couples to attend college, as the one requirement for living there was being legally married. They even had to show their marriage license to the registrar before they could start the paperwork.
Married life was not different than Dion expected for the sole reason he did not know what to expect. Coming home to an occupied house was not new, but took some time to get used to. He remembered what it was like to share a living space with others because he left home a mere 3 years ago. Waiting for the bathroom some mornings was not new because the dorm shared a single communal bathroom. He still ate most of his meals with Liz and in the cafeteria because he did not know how to cook and she was usually too busy to make dinner. No time to learn how to cook beyond microwaving something from a box or can.
The sole exception was Liz making dinner Sunday nights. The cafeteria was closed anyway. It was a mixed blessing. It was nice to have hot food because, in the past, he usually made do with whatever leftover snacks he saved for that purpose. Less nice was Liz usually made something healthy. Lots of vegetables and lean meats or fish. His mother liked making pasta and his father liked heavy meats, so he had a lot of that growing up. Most of the vegetables were carrots and potatoes, not the bitter ones like leafy greens and brussels sprouts and broccoli and all the other stuff Liz liked. Salt was used sparingly, so Dion made frequent use of the shaker. He knew it was good food, so he did not complain. Liz worked hard and it was healthy, so he ate it, but he still loved his sweets. Since he did most of the shopping, he was always sure to get a few boxes of snack cakes. A couple of those did wonders for his mood. It was not uncommon for him to go through a box of Chef Frederic’s Gooseberry Crème Rolls or Granny Tilly’s Cheese Jelly Cakes during a hard study session. It had a negative effect on his waistline. After buying all new pants this year, he could no longer deny it. However, he needed the sugar and could always lose the pounds after graduation. It was normal for college students to gain 10 pounds a year, right?
It took some getting used to being together so often, but in a good way. They shared so many interests it was rare for them to disagree on what to do in their spare time. What spare time they had, anyway, as they were usually studying whenever they were not in class. They could still do that together too, both for the classes they shared and those they did not. Snuggling up on the couch, quietly reading their separate textbooks and taking notes.
Liz was a lot more affectionate now that they were married. Surprise hugs and kisses were such a common occurrence that they should not have surprised him so often. It made him feel a little guilty, so often the receiver rather than instigator. There was a hesitance to him initiating any of it. Deep in the back of his head, he had a nagging voice. One that cropped up whenever he thought about it. It told him to be careful not to contaminate her. Not to ruin what they have. He would never be untainted, always have the cursed, magical blood flowing through his veins.
Contamination, yes. That would be a worry for the future. He was in unfamiliar territory. His parents never said anything about marrying non-Izorians because it was not supposed to happen. His parents told him most pre-collapse Izorians kept sex slaves. Male, female, did not matter. The only place they drew the line was children. The penalty for that was severe. Even evil has standards. They could do so with impunity because Izorian bodies were magical enough they could not mix with other races. Another enchantment designed to ensure their lineage; another curse that still infested their bodies.
And Liz wanted children. Being part of a large family and fitting the Catholic trope, she wanted a house with lots of little feet running around. He had not got around to telling her about his inability to have children, not yet. The subject did not come up often because Liz made it clear she wanted them both out of school before starting a family. Good. It gave Dion a few years to put off telling her. Maybe they could adopt? He would be fine with that. Well, fineish. He doubted he was capable of being a good father.
So, they waited, keeping busy with studies. They graduated on time. Dion probably could have graduated early, with how many extra credits he took, but he wanted to graduate the same year as Liz. It meant they could go to the same ceremony not only as a couple, but as fellow bachelors of science holders. Their academic paths diverged after that. Dion went on to grad school to pursue his doctorate in medicinal chemistry, enrolling immediately in Monroe’s doctoral program. Liz, content with her B.S. in dietetics, quickly got a job with one of the local hospitals, St. Paul’s. It was where she had her clinical rotations during her last year of study. They were very happy to have her, as she made a lot of friends there. Not unusual; she made a lot of friends everywhere.
Other than Liz’s new job, things remained mostly the same. They still lived on campus. Since Dion was in school, they still qualified for married housing. It was nice not having to move while he was submerged in the sea of worry that was graduate school. Worrying about more than one thing at a time made it feel like someone was stealing his oxygen.
Once school started, he fell into his old routine like it was his old routine. Get up in the morning, eat breakfast, class, study, find whatever time to eat throughout the day, bedtime. A student maintained a student’s schedule regardless of focus of study or years until graduation. Unchanging routine, but with a lot of details altered. Some good, some less good.
A new program meant a new group of students. A smaller group of students; ones that may be more inclined to try to talk to Dion or offer to study with him. More potential for group projects too. For a skunk like Dion, this was frighteningly intimidating. He had the extreme good fortune as an undergraduate that every class that had a group assignment was a class he shared with Liz. He always paired up with her; she always did all the talking for him while he went off and analyzed data or did anything but participate in interpersonal interactions. The guardrails she provided, now absent. It took him several semesters before he realized that graduate school had very few group projects by design. He did have a lab partner, but he was lucky in that his partner rarely attended lab at the same time he did. They left their work and picked up where the other left off. Could not have been more ideal for his academic isolationist policy.
Graduate school entailed a staggering amount of studying. Naturally, the material for graduate students was far more advanced. It was no longer enough to know the basics and lettering of different elements. Now he had to memorize entire metabolic pathways, step by step, and learn how to visualize the very structure of molecules. Knowing the information was insufficient; he had to know all the hows, whys, whats, and even whens. His mind was more than capable of it, as he graduated with honors, but nothing came to him effortlessly. Putting in all the work, he could see why most had enough after four years.
All that studying meant he saw less of Liz; far less than was comfortable. She had a job and was off working most of the day. His schedule changed day to day and he had to spend increasingly substantial amounts of time either in the chemistry lab or nosing through the library. He tried to rely on physical media whenever possible. One wrong move or unguarded brush against one of the school’s computers would have it developing various obvious problems, up to and including smoke coming from the monitor and tower. It would have made research much more tedious for some, but Dion was used to it. The other alternative was to wear heavy rubber gloves while working, but he was not about to appear in public like that. It was one of many reasons Jason stayed in.
They always tried to eat breakfast together. Some days, he had to get up earlier than she did and run out the door to class. Some nights, he got home after she was already in bed. While he wanted to see more of her, life did not always work that way. Liz understood and knew he worked hard. She was ever the dutiful wife. Kept the house tidy and took over grocery shopping duties. Left him packaged suppers when they were unable to eat together. Sometimes, he even ate them. The weekends she was off, she set aside what she was doing to spend time with him when he had a moment between study sessions or projects. She went to church every Sunday, but understood when Dion was too busy to go. This was one of the benefits of her having a job, as she could afford to buy him a suit that fit. His old ones all went to the charity shop, being too small now.
Being busy people, they found their ways to show each other affection. He found he could still read and jot things down while snuggled up with her on the couch, even when she had a movie on. Part of having an organized mind was the ability to tune out noise. They parted with a kiss; greeted each other when they met with the same. After a long day, she enjoyed having her feet rubbed. She was fond of brushing his tail. Dion found this agreeable for several reasons, the least of which being he constantly forgot to do it himself. Still held hands walking, still talked about their problems and challenges. They still disagreed time to time and had their minor quarrels, but so did every couple. Diomedes and Elizabeth Thade, a happy couple.
Things went on like that for four years until Dion graduated, successfully defending his thesis and getting his PhD. The chosen topic was something safe, but one he was interested in; examining the effectiveness of current generation antibiotics and tracking resistance over time. A topic relevant to his interest, he had no trouble gathering enough data.
What he had trouble with was finding a job. All the time and effort he put in to study put him far ahead of his peers in terms of test scores, but far behind in networking. A big part of graduate school was making connections and contacts to serve them post doctorate. While he was making his thesis perfect, they were interning with pharmaceutical companies, shadowing hospital pharmacists, and communicating with department heads for teaching positions at prestigious universities. He was the top of his class, but knew nobody, so he was not hired. An unfortunate reality, but that was how the game was played. Increasingly, the professional world was willfully ignorant of academic standards, having abandoned interest in them in favor of interpersonal relations. A doctor was a doctor.
Applications went out everywhere. All the right schools with all the biggest colleges of pharmacology and all the drug companies that needed someone for research and development. In return, he got a great wall of silence. No calls, no rejection letters, no emails. May as well not even exist.
After a couple of weeks, desperation sunk in. He wanted to do something, so he sent out more applications. They left the dorms and could only afford a two-bedroom apartment slightly smaller than theirs at Monroe. It was not right for Liz and him to live in a small space with him idle all day. He wanted to be able to afford a house so their money was not flushed away on rent.
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More silence and some more unorthodox applications. Settle for something nonacademic, maybe? He had a doctorate, so he was clearly qualified to manage a gas station or something. On a whim, he decided to apply for a few teaching positions too. The idea of being at the head of a classroom, the center of attention for hundreds of students made his stomach feel full of molten lava butterflies. If it meant he had a job, it had to be done. Besides, who would be desperate enough to hire a fresh grad with no teaching experience to do something as complicated as teaching organic chemistry?
Late Thursday night, Dion was making supper for when Liz got home. He cooked most meals these days, having nothing else to do but learn. Thankfully, he was not terrible at it. Even though he disliked most vegetables, even after all these years, there was no learning curve in heating them up or making a refreshing salad. Tonight was chili and cornbread; a meal they could agree on.
He took the cornbread out of the oven and placed it on a wire rack to cool. Smelled nice and Dion could not wait to slather it in honey and butter. Gave the pot of chili a good couple of stirs and placed the lid back on. The meeting of lid to pot coincided with the front door shutting. Entirely coincidental. Liz was home. A half minute later, she walked into the kitchen.
“Welcome home.” Dion was waiting.
“Thanks, hun.” Liz was wearing her work clothes. Dieticians typically wore either white coats and business casual stuff or scrubs. Liz preferred the more practical hospital scrubs. Hers were dark green. Green was her color.
She set the mail on the kitchen table, already set for supper, and gave her husband a hug. As they parted, she kissed his cheek. Always stealing kisses; Dion would never tire of it.
“How was work?” He asked.
“Usual stuff.” She sighed and sat down at her place at the table, the seat facing the living room area. “Clay’s back today. A1c’s still in the double digits.”
“Oh, still?” Dion flicked his tail. “Frustrating. What’d you do.”
“Same thing I always do. Went over his diet, how to cut carbs, limit sweets.” She smirked. “Some people really like their sweets, huh? Hint hint.”
“Yeah….” Dion felt the familiar blush forming under his fur whenever she got like this. Better change the subject. “Anything in the mail?” He pointed at the pile of letters on the table.
“Mostly junk….I think.” She sorted through some of the letters, rifling through meaningless circulars and solicitations. “This one’s for you….hey, Carston Community College. Could be good news.” Liz held a letter out to him.
“Carston?” Dion took the letter and held it in front of his face.
Plain white envelope with his address hand written on the front. A sticker bearing the college’s return address was in the corner. Save money by not buying preprinted envelopes, maybe? Or they were just out and no one bothered to order more. Dion strained to remember if he applied to this school. The name sounded familiar, but it was often spoken derisively. Most people in graduate school felt like they were too good to go to a community college, even for prerequisite classes. ‘C cubed is where the sportsball players go in the summer so they can get their GPAs high enough to keep playing sportsball’ was a common ‘funny’ joke circulating among his class. Another was ‘Carston’s so cheap they print their diplomas on crackers’. This got even more laughs as most people in his program came from monied families. Dion would be paying off his student loans for some time.
“Going to stare at it all day or open it?” Liz broke him out of his trance.
“Huh?” He glanced at her in the process of dishing up a bowl of chili and some cornbread for them both. The butter and honey were already on the table; she knew him well.
“Right. Opening.” Paper tore as he ran his finger along the top.
Inside was a single piece of paper with the message typed in Times New Roman font. Possibly. It looked like it was printed on an old typewriter, judging by the odd ink splotches and slightly smudged letters. Did anyone still make those?
He read the message. Then read it again. Then a third time. It made more sense every time his eyes passed over the tiny letters, but the content made less sense. These words all had their own meaning utterly divorced when placed in this particular sequence, typed out on inexpensive paper and read by an unemployed doctor of medicinal chemistry.
Dion pulled back his chair, the one facing the stove, and flopped his entire body in it. It groaned in protest under the sudden weight, being a chair from the department store kitchen table set Liz’s parents got them as a wedding present. The words sank in and he set the letter down. Eyes turned up to the ceiling, it did not matter that food was in front of him. Too much to think about to eat.
“You all right? Is it bad news?” Liz had to bring him out of his thoughts again.
A lot more of those introvert moments happening since graduation. Too much on his mind and too little to put it towards. Restlessness. He looked at Liz. Brows furrowed and mouth in a concerned frown. He worried her needlessly with his display. Naturally, this progressed to guilt. Say something to make it right, if he could.
“It’s fine… uh… good news? Maybe….” He pushed the letter to her. “Uh, I got a job.”
“Oh, neat. A job interview!” She smiled and reached for the letter. “You’ve been waiting for this.”
Close, but inaccurate. Dion shook his head. “No, a job. They offered it to me outright. No interview. Even asked me if I can start the fall semester.”
“….. seriously?” Liz quickly scanned the letter. The paper obscured her face. When she lowered it, she showed off a big grin. “Dion, honey that’s great!” She set it down and moved in to hug him. Dion barely had enough time to scoot his chair out so she could slide into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, accompanying the affection with a kiss.
“mmf…” Not unwelcome, but it only distracted him for a moment. “No…um, they must be really hard up…I mean, it’s teaching chemistry….”
“Yeah, you can do that. You’ll be great at it!”
Dion shook his head rapidly. So forceful was his denial his belly nearly pushed Liz to the floor. “No, no no. I can’t.”
“You know the material better than anyone else.”
“This’s different…it’s teaching. I can’t do that.”
“Yes you can.” Liz raised an eyebrow. “You taught me. Wouldn’t’ve made it through chem2 without you.”
“You were easy to teach….” Dion often wondered if she only feigned not being great at chemistry to talk to him. Rude to say something like that out loud, though. “And this’ll be a group of rowdy…. college kids.”
“They can’t be that bad. I mean, we were just college kids.”
“Yeah, but these are community college kids…. they’ll be noisier…”
Liz chuckled. “Don’t talk like one of those dorks you went to grad school with. Mommy probably fed them with a silver spoon, so what do they know about actual people?”
Dion suppressed a laugh. Easy to do, since all his cognitive space was occupied with forming every worst-case scenario imaginable.
“Okay…..” Dion breathed out to steady himself. “But, it’s me. In front of a bunch of people. All of them… looking at me. And, uh, if I mess up or say something weird, then what? They’re all going to laugh at me and I’ll have to quit and I’ll never get another job and not be able to research that new wonder drug and we’ll never get a house or your garden and what if I accidentally burn one with a ball of fire or turn a girl into a toad or…”
“Honey, that’s enough.” Liz leaned in and held him close. “You’re doing it again…. stop saying every bad thing that pops into your head.”
“….. um, yeah, yeah… that… those won’t happen. No.” Dion shook his head. “I’m better….”
“… your heart’s beating out of your chest.” Liz looked into his eyes. “You can do this, Dion. You’re a lot better around people than you think.”
“I’m not….” The image flashed through his head of a sea of young faces, all laughing at him as he stuttered his way through talking about covalent bonds. “…. there’s too many of them…. I can’t function like that.”
“You didn’t think you could give a speech at our wedding reception either.” Liz put a paw to Dion’s chest. Gentle pressure, comforting. Enough to slow it down.
“It was scary….”
“You were shaking like a leaf.” She replied. “But you stopped. I don’t think you even stuttered once.”
“That was different. Those were people I knew…..” Dion ran a paw along one of Liz’s ears. Nervous fidgeting, but it helped him calm down. “…. Kind of.”
“That should’ve made it worse. What guy wants to upset his new wife’s family?”
“Well, no guys, I guess…” Dion did not wonder if Liz was intimidated by the idea of meeting his family. She never brought it up, knowing it was a sore subject and he did not talk about it. The possibility only existed in theory and a tenuous one at that.
“So, you remember what you did to deal with that. Right?”
“Yes…” Dion remembered, of course. Dealing with that many people at once, talking to them and having all those eyes on him, was too much to take in. He dealt with it by tuning it all out. Turning on his magical sight, he let all the auras blur together. A mix of colors glowing and obscuring each other until the people were hard to see as individuals. For a novice, this would be overwhelming. For someone of his bloodline who practiced often, even when not intending to, it was easy. He could see them individually, or let them blend, kind of like unfocusing one’s eyes when staring past an illusion to see what was underneath.
“Just do that.” Liz’s helpful advice.
“It’s not that easy…. what if….”
“Whatever it is, I guarantee it won’t happen.”
“I’m…. well, maybe? But, I’m not sure I want this job… I mean, teaching?”
“It’ll be good for you. You’ve said you want to learn how to talk to people. Here’s your opportunity.”
Dion said that reasonably often; usually after Liz witnessed him publicly putting his foot in his mouth or botching an introduction. He meant it…. partially.
“Maybe this is God putting you in a situation to help you grow? His way of refining you.” Liz continued. “God puts us where we’re supposed to be. Just ask Jonah. May not be comfortable, but it works out on His timeline.”
Well, that was that. He certainly was not going to be able to convince Liz of anything now. He suppressed a sigh. The hope was that, once Liz was done with school, she might be too busy to give the Catholic stuff more thought. It had not diminished. He knew it was a big part of her, but it made her a little stubborn sometimes.
She was not wrong, though. He needed this job.
“…. I guess…. I can try it. One year. Something to put on my resume, I guess? Um… but I’m not a teacher.” Having something more substantive on his job history than ‘part time librarian’ would be useful in pursuing his true calling.
“Good. You can do it, I know you can.” She kissed his cheek and slid out of his lap. “And I’ll be here whenever you have a bad day. You’re not doing this alone.” She picked up one of his paws and gave it a squeeze.
“Um…thanks.” He squeezed back. “…. chili is getting cold. Can we eat now?” He badly wanted this conversation to be over. That way, he could push worrying about the job until later.
The first day of class and Dion was in a neutral mood. His orientation with the community college lasted all of an hour. Enough to tour all five buildings on the tiny campus. They already had him in the system before he started and he filled out and returned every form they sent him well in advance. He would be teaching Intro to Chemistry 1 and 2 and would be the first professor at Carston to teach Intro to Organic Chemistry. They were only able to start the program because he got a job there. He was already familiar with the text books. They were the editions that he used in his first year. Well out of date, but good enough.
Carston was about ten minutes from Aledo; they did not leave town after graduation. The distance could be truncated to eight minutes if one had a heavy foot. It only took him about 25 minutes to get there, factoring in traffic and stop lights. Hardly a cause to relocate. Good, because he hated moving, like most rational people.
The class was unlike the introductory classes he took at Monroe. Rather than a cavernous lecture hall, he was in a smaller classroom with about thirty desks, each housing a single student. Still too many for his tastes. When he walked in the door and saw that sea of eyes staring at him, most with expressions of dislike or boredom, his entire body seized up like an oilless engine.
Nightmares like this occurred throughout his childhood. Being in a classroom in front of everyone, the center of attention. He tried to mentally prepare himself for it. Liz gave him a pep talk that morning. It helped…. right up until the main event.
Somewhere. Liz was praying for him. Maybe his parents were too? In any event, he remembered what he was supposed to do when this happened. He closed his eyes, breathed out, and turned on his magical sight. Shifting his thoughts, he willed himself not to see people, but auras alone. Let that take all his attention.
He opened his eyes and saw a sea of colors. Blues and greens like a rolling lake. Maybe a little orange and white here and there. He smiled and approached the dry erase board at the front of the class. Picking up the violet marker, he wrote his name in his best handwriting.
“Welcome to Intro to Chemistry 1. My name is Dr. Thade. I’ll be your professor for Intro to Chemistry 1. Open your syllabus, we will start immediately.” A little stilted? Yes, but it worked. He controlled their grades, so who did he have to impress?