Walker pushed through the double doors and into the auditorium of the chemistry building with aplomb. He wiped away the sweat that trickled down his forehead in relief. Air conditioning had to be one of the greatest inventions in human history. How the hunter-gatherers went without it, he didn’t know.

Like the stands in a sports stadium, Walker had to walk down a short hallway that opened up to rows of seats on either side of him. He scanned the mass of students packed in the seats like books on a bookshelf. Almost every student had a laptop and textbook already opened. Their clothes were fashionable, a lot of the guys wore button downs some even had ties. Who was he kidding, this was a top-tier school, kids from all over the country came here, and here he was dressed in a grey shirt and black shorts. An outsider. Walker glanced down the hallway to the double doors where students still entered.

However, someone caught his eye. On the third lowest level, on the second seat from the aisle, waved Mowgli. “Adam!”

She looked nice. Mowgli removed her backpack that was currently occupying the seat to allow him to sit down. With one final look down the hall, he waved back and navigated to the seat that she was tapping for him.

“Hey Mowgli, thanks for saving me a seat,” he said.

Mowgli pulled out her binder and opened it on the small desk that jutted out of the seat. Walker copied her, but instead of a color-coded binder with the syllabus printed and stapled to the inside cover, he opened a Kelly Green composition notebook and placed a pen inside.

“Crazy that we had the same days,” she commented.

Walker scratched his neck, the sweat cold against his skin, “Yeah, what a coincidence.”

A door crashed shut at the helm of the auditorium and a heavy-set man in a suit with overalls shambled in. He wore a black fedora and sported a grey beard groomed to match the rest of his classy outfit.

Mowgli leaned closer to him her voice clear against the student’s droning, “I heard this professor is a real stickler for the details. My roommate took him last semester, she said only, like, a third of the class made it to the end.”

Walker already knew this. He spent the last couple of days in the library in a fervor reading up on the professor and the early chapters of the textbook for the course. It had been a couple of years since he’d been in a class of any kind, and he couldn’t deny feeling anxious.

“Good morning, I’m Dr. Clancy. We are skipping the syllabus. If you are curious, you can read it yourself. Let us begin,” He clicked a remote and the periodic table illuminated the projection.

He pulled out a small device and a red dot appeared on the projector, “Hydrogen,” He pointed to the first element, “Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and the halogens. These are the main elements we will be dealing with…”

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As the class continued, and his notebook filled with ink-blotted notes, his pulse slowed, and he began to enjoy the material. Walker found himself reaching the answer to the professor’s examples before he explained them. He drew the constitutional isomer of the given elements: the structure of the molecule. For example, three carbons in a ring, with two hydrogens bonded to each carbon.

Walker went past the basic examples and imposed restrictions on himself. Four carbons, six, ten. He drew them in one ring, or two. Or at least two double bonds. A triple bond and a ring. His pen flew across the pages. He included oxygen, bromine, and fluorine. It was easy. He knew the different combinations, what worked and what didn’t. He could look at the professor’s example and know whether the amount of valence electrons totaled the correct amount, or whether the charge of the molecule was neutral. The class flew by, and sooner than he’d expected, students left in droves. Only a few students scattered the auditorium, Mowgli and he was one of those two students.

He glanced at her with a wide grin, but it wasn’t met with another. She sat slouched over her binder. Her normally slightly curly hair now resembled the bushy tail of a frightened squirrel. Notes sprawled across her page, messy handwriting, and slanted drawings of molecules. She paused, sighed, and viscously rubbed the page with her eraser hard enough that it tore.

Walker tapped her shoulder, “You okay?”

She flinched, and Walker retreated and gave what he hoped was a comforting smile instead.

“Ugh sorry,” She combed her hair with her fingers, adding to its already mountainous volume, “I just can’t get down these structures.”

“Let me see,” Walker asked and leaned in.

Her curls tickled his ear. Walker barely registered when she apologized and looked down to tuck her hair behind her ear as he scanned her pages. He could see why she was struggling; the structures were inconsistent. Some were correct, others missed bonds, or didn’t reach a neutral charge.

Then it clicked.

“You can put the carbons in rings. You don’t have to always make them so linear,” Walker said.

She leaned in close, “What do you mean?”

He tapped her hand, “Can I?”

Dimples appeared on her cheeks as she smiled and acquiesced. He scribbled the elements and their numbers, “Four carbons, six hydrogens, one oxygen. He asks for five constitutional isomers if you put them in a ring…” They stayed at the auditorium for another half an hour. They swapped pencils often at the start. However, after a few failed attempts Mowgli lit up and yawped. She lit up and scribbled down the structures, and from that point on, almost as quickly as he, and with only a mistake here and there she got it.

“God, thanks, Adam. This stuff confuses me like no other.” She gestured between them, “People? I’m good. This stuff…” She snapped her binder closed, “not so much.”

Walker shrugged, “We all have our pitfalls. Just yesterday I ran into a pole because I got distracted by a bird.”

She covered her mouth but wasn’t able to stop the mirth-filled giggle that slipped through, “I’m sorry, but c’mon. That only happens in cartoons.”

He rubbed his fingers over the bump just above his hairline, “Learning experience I guess.”

They packed up and headed out of the building together. Walker didn’t know the protocol here. Did he just say bye? All he was going to do was head to the pavilion and check out some missions.

“Where ya off to?” He asked.

Mowgli pointed to a one-story building behind some trees, “Chunky’s, I’m starving.”

Walker stretched his neck, “Is it any good? Haven’t been there yet.”

Her jaw dropped, “You haven’t been to Chunky’s?” She grabbed Walker’s arm and tugged him along, “C’mon we’re going.”