An Introduction to Chemistry

“Remember class, lab sections begin this week,” the young auburn haired professor says. “With that, let’s get into the material.”

“Wait,” you say, stumbling into a seat, “class starts in five minutes right?”

The dark haired girl next to you shoots you a harsh glance. “Were you deaf last week? She said she’d start and end class five minutes early, because there’s too much material to cover otherwise.”

What the fuck? What is it with this school and making students suffer? You guess this is what you signed up for by coming to Stonewall, and you lean back in your chair resignedly.

“As we now know, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation gives us a good starting point for molecular quantum, but we will need several refinements to develop good models for molecules with many electrons. From the second part of your homework, you’ve got your crash course in linear algebra, so we’re going to move onto the LCAO model, which stands for linear combinations of atomic orbitals… You sir, without the notes!”

You jolt, broken out of your rapt attention, and look around to see who the professor’s calling out.

“Yes you, the guy in the grey shirt that’s looking around.” The lecture hall has got to have at least 200 students sitting in it. How has she even noticed you? “Where are your notes?”

“I was paying attention, professor…”

Professor Styles

“It’s Professor Styles, in case you’ve already forgotten my name. Perhaps you neglected to pay attention during last week, but I will reiterate one last time for your benefit. If you’re not taking notes, I assume you know what I’m teaching already. Do you, Mr…”

“Alex Knight, Professor Styles, and um…” you wonder whether you should tell the truth or not. “To be honest, I’m broadly familiar with it, yes.”

“In that case,” the professor says, putting a hand on her hip. “Would you care to explain to us how you would predict the geometry of trans-tetrazene (N4H4)?”

You rack your brain, get an idea, and start speaking, hoping that the rest of the pieces will come together as you go along: “So looking at the end Nitrogens, they would each have three bonds and a lone pair, right? That makes the steric number 4, with hybridisation sp3, giving us a pyramidal shape…”

You go on for a little bit more, and the professor nods along with you, looking fairly impressed. The class, turned around to face you, slowly begins to realise that they’re not about to witness the thrashing that they had expected, but something far better… phones come out to record you, and you see a girl sitting in the front with a hand over her mouth while you’re speaking. Trying not to get distracted, you eventually finish - “Um… and I think that about covers it, although if we’re going to dip into nuclear structure for a second, I think Hartree-Fock has something to say about that?”

“Wow,” the professor says, as you finish and sit down. She’s silent for a second, her cute face looking conflicted as she decides what to do with you. “Wow. Let me… okay, class, if you’re going to not take notes, this is what you should be able to do. And… Alex, come see me after class? We should talk about opportunities for work in my lab…”

Yeah, there’s a reason you think you’re going to be a chem major.

With that, Professor Styles seems to gain back her composure, and she continues teaching, although you see her glancing at you from time to time. You smile back at her, unsure of what she’s really expecting of you, and you do eventually take out your notebook to jot down a few interesting things that she’s mentioned. The dark haired girl sitting next to you seems to be sneaking glances at you too, which you find you don’t mind much at all either.

When the class ends, five minutes late, as the girl warned you, most of the class rushes out, having somewhere else to be.

“I’m Beatrice,” the girl says, sticking out her hand, which you shake. “How’d you know all of that?”

Beatrice

“Chemistry was kind of… my thing in high school? Like I geeked out probably more than was healthy,” you say, thinking of those days you stayed back after school just to work on a cool lab experiment.

“Man, and I thought I was good at chemistry for getting a 5 on the AP,” Beatrice says. “I feel like I’ve met so many brilliant people here, and it’s kind of overwhelming, you know?”

“No, I totally get what you mean,” you say. “It’s crazy, like everyone you talk to just knows so much about something… I think it’s easy to feel lost.”

“Thanks for that,” Beatrice says, packing up her bag. “I kinda needed to hear that.”

You give her a warm smile, and then a big hug, which she happily returns. “I kinda needed this too,” she mutters, and to be honest, even though you’re still riding the electric high from earlier in the class, this feels nice too. It helps that she has a nice rack to press against your chest.

She breaks away awkwardly a second later, gives you kind of a wave goodbye, and then scurries off. You need to head down the steps of the lecture hall to go talk to your professor now.

Styles +10
Beatrice +10