PROLOGUE

I ran down the corridor at full speed. I felt how my blood boiled as my temples throbbed, as if my head was about to explode. Damn it, I thought.

I had never felt this much rage before. Well, probably I did. It was eleventh grade when Jessica, my bestie and later ex-bestie (yes, teenagers can be very dramatic about it), spilled a whole cup of blue, raspberry slushee onto my favorite Back-to-the-Future white t-shirt. According to her, accidentally. According to me, totally on purpose. I hated her because she knew it was the day Isaac had invited me to play Mario Bros on his newly purchased vintage video game console after school. I never forgave her for that. Isaac asked her out the next week.

Mind back at the corridor, I rushed my pace and then quickly turned into the lab area. My destination was just a few feet ahead, I knew because I had already come here a couple of times. Or maybe just one. A nauseous feeling washed over me and suddenly the corridor seemed to narrow and lengthen before my eyes. The door appeared to be more and more distant and smaller, and a sensation of vertigo started to take control over my body.

The words that I had just read minutes ago wandering again inside my head. Work together. Great collaboration. Oh, God.

- Hey Julie! – I thought I heard a voice proceeding from a shadow that passed me by, which almost got me out of my absentmindedness. But I needed to be upset (you may call me masochist if you wish), because I was, I wanted and I deserved to be just mad, because... Argh! So I decided to ignore the voice (made a mental note, though, to apologize to the voice later, I am not that rude), and just continued walking as fast as I could.

He had to be there, he got to be in there, as Juanita told me after I probably must have scared the hell out of her. God. I have to apologize to her for that, too. Juanita is so sweet. But now… dammit, dammit!

I reached the lab’s door and took a deep breath. In short, it didn't help. At all. Taking a deep breath only made my blood pump faster to my brain and the newly arrived oxygen reactivate the necessary synapses for me to remember, again, everything that had just happened. The information that I had just received, and my brain was still processing and vehemently refusing to accept.

I reached the door handle and tried one last time to dialogue with my cerebellum. It replied back with a resonant NO, decidedly crossed arms and tantrumed expression. My frontal lobe sighed in resignation and I finally opened the door. My eyes began looking for him. The countless hours I had invested into my Where's Wally book collection had finally paid off. In less than a millisecond I had already found him. Let's say that it was not such a difficult task, because his head stood out from the rest. That black hair revealed that the object of my deepest hatred was sitting there, with his back turned to me, giving his full attention to an oscilloscope while a beep was heard in the background.

My feet began to move on their own and I had not realized how firm my steps were until several heads began turning their eyes towards me and drew expressions of horror on their faces, secretly wishing that a mythical monster just snatched them and eat their full bodies, or that some sort of alien abducted them in its spaceship to perform painful experiments on them. Because they knew that would be way less painful than being in that room at that exact moment. With him and me. Together.

Like I said, all eyes were on me except his. Because his head never turned. He remained impassive, paying full attention to whatever the hell he was doing. Then I heard his voice, low and thick.

- Hello, sunshine. What a pleasant surprise to see you down here. – He let out sarcastically, not even turning to look at me, but making it clear that he already knew that I was the one standing behind him. I felt how a thousand grunts stuck in my lungs, fighting to come out at the same time.

- What the hell were you thinking?! – I let out with the voice that I thought no longer existed five minutes ago. My throat was totally closed and dry.

- Huh. Bold question, Pinky. But, since you're asking... I WAS thinking that this circuit here is simply beautiful. - He made a painful pause. - Modesty aside, of course. But now, with you here, and panting, I AM thinking it would be considerate from me to tell you it is not adviseable to run on the labs.

Ignore. - Why… did you do it?

A frustrated sigh left his lungs. - More specific, Pinky. Why did I do what? As gifted as I am, I don't read minds yet. -

- I. Am. Not. Working. With you.

His back stiffened for a bit, then relaxed again. - Oh. That.

- If you think that I am going to share some sort of space and time with you, you are very mistaken.

- Well. You'll have to get used to it, Pinky. - I hated when he called me like that. I always had, ever since we entered college. According to what I have been told (oh, yeah, sweet mother of gossip, this is on you ), everything started one day that I got so much sun that my cheeks blushed for several days. And he found it hilarious. Fact is, it's something I can't help. My cheeks blushed for any reason. At that very moment, they must have been blushed with rage. And I am sure that he knew how much I hated that nickname. I hated blushing all the time, and I also hated that he called me that way. - Because now we have a long semester ahead of us -.

I groaned so loudly that I could see someone recoiling at the back of the lab.

- I don't know what your plans are with all… this. But that project is mine... - I may have abused a little bit of hand gestures on this one.

- And you need me in it...

- Of course not! Who do you think you are?

- Your ass-saver.

- No, you are not! I can work on that project perfectly without you.

- No. You can't, and you know that. I can be of great help. You need me.

His calmness drove me out of my wits. While I knew he was indeed the best in his field, I didn't have to admit it, at least not to his face. My dislike for him only grew more.

- No, I don't! Did you hit hard on your head? May I remind you whose project is this? Who submitted the application and presented it to an entire committee, who was pleasantly surprised by the way?

He turned in his swivel chair and faced me for the first time. His olive-colored eyes looked at me seriously, although they seemed to be having a little bit of fun. I was so angry, damn it! He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

- Calm down, Pinky, I'm not going to take credit for your work, if that's what's bothering you. This project is yours and you will continue to appear as the main researcher and I, I am going to help you so that your project is not a complete disaster.

What the? Argh! My teeth clenched as I suppressed the urge to punch his perfectly structured nose. Shoving away his smug comment as fast as I could, I sighed in an attempt to gather myself. I got this. My narrowed eyes a painful death sentence, my gutural voice a confirmation to it.

- Withdraw. Your application. Today.

- Impossible.

- Excuse me?

- Two reasons. First one, I do not withdraw applications from projects. Everyone knows that’s a reputation killer. Never done that, never will. And second, it's a good project, Pinky, and I enjoy a challenge. You should already know that by now. – His last sentence wrapped in a brow lift. My patience was already hanging by a thread at that moment. That he liked challenges, I was already very well aware of, unfortunately. And I hated to know he was speaking true about his help. But still…

- I don’t care about any of that. You ask out.

- Uhm… nope. – He said as he wrinkled his nose and shook his head. My hands suddenly tingled, feeling the urge to strangle him, but I didn't want to wake up the next morning in jail when I had a damn project to work on. With him.

- Then I'll ask out for you. - No, I would never do that to anyone, not even him, but I needed to scare the hell out of him somehow. Or at least I could try.

- Really? Peters? – He said arching his eyebrows. Then clicked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval.

Fuck. I hated to admit it, but he was right. If there was one thing that Professor Peters did not tolerate, it was students whining saying that they could not work together and asking for a different teammate. It had already happened to Susie last year when she had lazy Tom on her team. The professor argued that she should be able to work under any circumstances and that there was no other option but to deal with the flaws and virtues of her current teammates. True, but…

- Very well then… - I said, staring at him, narrowing my eyes and pointing the index finger of my right hand at him. – You leave me no choice. You asked for it, Anderson. Get ready for the worst six months of your life. I’ll squeeze the brains out of you to the very last drop of it. If you think I will make life easy for you, you are so, very mistaken.

I saw him hold back a laughter, as he dedicated me a condescending, deep look that caused me hateful thoughts and shivers at equal parts. Oh, I wanted to punch that perfectly symmetric face of him so so badly. He got up and leaned on the table, standing, facing me with his full six feet three. The distance between us reduced to just a couple of feet.

- I wouldn't expect any less from you, Pinky.

I pursed my lips and cursed to myself. Having done that, I turned in my heels and walked at giant steps towards the lab's exit.

- Oh, and Pinky… - Stupid thick, baritone voice. I stopped just before stepping out and faced him over my shoulder. – About the draft... - Yeah, the stupid draft that professor Peters mentioned at the end of his bad-news-conveying e-mail and that he wanted to receive from us by the end of the week. - See you today at 6 in the library. Be on time. I don’t like to wait.

I gripped the door handle, wishing it was a teene tiny version of his neck, and left without saying a word, breathing heavily and totally and utterly irritated.