Lucy the Lab Rat

Lucy exited the classroom, closing the door gently as the professor within droned on. Her eyes were focused on the stack of papers she held in her hands, her latest exam results. She scoured the pages with her eyes as she flipped through them, attempting to make sense of the results. The good news was that Lucy had been extremely consistent with her testing abilities recently, so she had been mentally prepared for the results. The bad news was that her previous tests had been... less than exceptional.

Lucy was in her second year of attending college at Wallace University. After one year of general education classes, she had finally begun classes that were actually relevant to her field of study: Biochemistry. She had experienced no trouble getting accepted to the prestigious university. Her grades and extracurriculars from highschool had been more than adequate for acceptance, and her first year had practically been a breeze. However, now that she was actually getting into her college level bio classes, things weren't going quite as well. Exam after exam came back with poor results. If this trend continued... Lucy wasn't sure how long the program would tolerate her. She knew if she could just weather the storm of college and exams, she was destined to achieve great things in biomedicine to help all of humankind. Curing disease, reducing famine, even conquering from old age, Lucy had committed herself to the pursuit. She knew deep down that these test results were not a fair reflection of her passion and abilities.

Continuing to process her lackluster test results, Lucy slumped against the wall near a drinking fountain and sank to the floor. Maybe this wasn't what she was meant to be doing with her life. Maybe she was wasting her time trying to achieve these lofty goals. As the pessimistic thoughts were coursing through Lucy's head, a voice snapped her out of her dismal daydreaming.

"Hey, Luce!"

Lucy recognized the voice immediately. It was Kyle, a friend that had graduated from highschool with her, and followed a strikingly similar career path to college. Lucy had purposefully left the class early to avoid this exact encounter, but had been too disheartened by the exam and hadn't escaped far enough away. She knew that Kyle would be eager to discuss the results. Unlike her, Kyle seemed to excel in their joint field of study, very rarely seeming to have any trouble at all.

"Heck of an exam, huh? Professor Stanley really doesn't waste any time in speeding through this material." Kyle pulled the exam papers out of his sidebag as he walked towards Lucy. She cautiously held her own exam to her side, shielding any of the red-penned, incorrect markings from Kyle's view, and stood to meet him. "Yeah, that essay question on page 7 nearly got me, but I managed to pull it out of my ass!" Kyle lowered the pages, and Lucy managed to sneak a peek at his result: 96 percent.

Lucy would have KILLED for a 96, but she tried her hardest to keep up an illusion for Kyle. She knew he would be eager to drag her along through the program with him if he was clued into her struggle, but she wanted to do this by herself, for herself. "Yeah, it was tough, but I still managed to scrape by with a solid 90. Question 3 was my problem area, not so much trouble with page 7..." Lucy flat out lied, trying to conceal her true feelings of inadequacy and insecurity as well as she could.

Fortunately for Lucy, Kyle was barely listening to what she was saying. He was too occupied in gazing down Lucy's blouse, where a button had apparently strained open. A modestly-lacy black bra poked out, embracing Lucy's ample cleavage. Lucy didn't notice because she was busy discussing her ficticious test results, flipping through the exam and gesturing to the pages. Had she not been too nervous in pulling her ruse, she would have noticed the vacant, occupied gaze Kyle held on her chest.

Lucy and Kyle had been family friends for as long as they both could remember. It had only been recently, however, that Kyle had become interested in being more than just that. The previous summer, both of their families had spent two weeks at a beach house. The first day, when Lucy had emerged from the changing area in her white two-piece swimsuit, Kyle couldn't believe his eyes. Lucy pretty much always dressed modestly, so when Kyle got a glimpse of her scantly-clad body, something changed. Her auburn hair, her fair skin, her curvy body... she had really developed since he had last given it a thought.

He hadn't been able to get the image of her body exposed like that out of his mind. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn't entirely mutual between them. It wasn't that she had anything against Kyle, Lucy was simply too involved in her studies to even consider romantics with anyone. This created an issue for Kyle, as it seemed any attempt he made to grab her attention never quite hit home.

"Hey! Speaking of promising results..." Kyle spoke up as Lucy got to her feet, "...I managed to get my lab internship for next week set up at Hycondrex Labs! Make sure to let your parents know I appreciate their letter of recommendation!" Lucy's parents were fairly prestigious employees of the extremely prestigious biology lab, and Kyle was always overly polite around them. Of course he had been accepted. "I bet you'll be a sure thing there too, maybe we'll get to work together all summer!"

Lucy wasn't so sure. She hadn't been allowed to use her own parents as a reference, so she had relied on some of her professors. Surely they had witnessed her grades slipping... "Yeah, for sure!..." She feigned, "I'm expecting my assignment notification any day. I'll let you know when it comes in. Probably today! I should get home to check! See ya!" Lucy applied the flimsy excuse and awkwardly jogged away towards her car. Kyle didn't mind, and waved as he watched her ass bounce away.