Page 127 of Finding the Forward: Part One
Verity
Headphones on, I focused on my plant samples, closing off everyone and everything around me in the lab. In this moment, it was just me and my plants.
That’s all that mattered.
Not the final I’d taken yesterday and still felt sick about. Or the paper I should’ve read one more time before turning in this morning. The final I was giving tomorrow. Not even the department party we were having later to celebrate the end of the semester.
Or that Grif and Dean were on their way to Quebec and texting me cute things.
I lost myself in my work, vaguely recalling Saphira telling me it was time for food. Yeah, I’d be there as soon as I finished this...
... done.
Huh. I peered at it, hope sparking inside me. This could be the batch.Please let this be the one.Only time would tell.
I was so close to having obtained optimum happiness with my flowers. Then I could see what else my flowers could do and delve further into other aspects. Like the alpha-subduing properties and how to pair the two features successfully in one blossom.
No child should have to grow up in a home full of dysfunctional, angry alphas. If my silly flowers could help one person, it was worth it.
“Verity, are you joining us?” Dr. Winters stood there, frowning slightly. He was an older beta man with white hair and suspenders. He’d taught at Briar University since I was a child. Ultimately, he only left because NYIT offered him a chance to build a department–and well, his daughter and her husband had moved here.
I took off my headphones and looked around the silent, empty lab.
“Oh, yes, sorry. Trying to get this done,” I replied. Over break, I planned on spending nearly every moment that Mercy was at practice here.
Though I hoped to get in a little time with the guys. I also was going with the Maimers for a long away-game stint to the west coast.
“While I appreciate your efforts, please make sure that you take some time for yourself over break. No one expects you to spend all of your break in the lab. That’s one thing I like about this place,” he told me.
“I don’t want people to think I’m not working hard enough.” I turned to clean up.
“While you might not be up to your standards, you are up tomineand the universities–and that’s what matters,” he told me,leaning against the counter. Today’s suspenders had stars on them.
He and my dad liked to compare suspender collections.
“I’m so far behind on my research,” I sighed. I should be there by now.
He shook his head. “It’s not a race, Verity. If it takes you a couple of years longer than you expected, it’sokay.You changed programs and had to take extra classes. It’sokay.Now, come join us?”
“Okay.” I knew that, too. There was ample funded time to finish my research, I just had my own timeline. I finished cleaning up, then joined my fellow students in the small lounge that belonged to us.
“There you are,” Saphira told me, wearing an obnoxious holiday sweater.
“I brought cupcakes,” I told everyone as I put cupcakes that looked like Christmas trees on the counter by the microwave.
Music filled the small lounge, as did the smell of the delicious takeout Dr. Winters had gotten us. It was him, three of us from Briar, and two NYIT students that had switched over to plant genetics. I didn’t know them well, especially since I didn’t hang out with everyone much.
“So, did you ever get the grant, flower girl?” Jesse, one of the NYIT students, smirked. The blond alpha was a bit of an ass and took me being busy as snobbery.
“What grant?” I took the last egg roll.
“Don’t play dumb. The reason you were showing Spencer Thanukos your precious flowers a while back. Why would biotech be interested in that?” He rolled his eyes. “How did you even get permission to go to them? I’ve been waiting for ages.”
“I could see a number of biotech uses for them.” Dr. Winters gave me a look. “Is Compass BioTek looking to fund your work? I mean, it makes sense, but...”
I laughed, almost snorting lime soda out of my nose. Dr. Winters had met my big sister.
“Not jumping the line or going against protocol. Spencer literally wanted to see my flowers, given he helped move them from Briar to his backyard, then to here. That and my sister really likes them.” Okay, he had offered to fund me,again,but I still wasn’t ready to take it.
