Page 33 of Boiling Point
The room began to fill, the scraping of chairs and unzipping of backpacks providing a welcome distraction. She opened her mouth to speak again, but I preempted her.
“No communication from you about missing class,” I remarked, gesturing to my laptop screen.
Sloane pressed her lips into a flat line.
“One missed quiz won’t sink you,” I continued evenly. “I recommend attending class on Fridays.”
“Fine.” She tossed the word like a gauntlet. Her glare tested my patience. “I’ll just have my dad?—”
“Take your seat, Miss Cartwright.” I dismissed her with a flick of my hand. Her shoulders stiffened, and she flounced to the fourth row, a minor rebellion in each footfall. I exhaled, turned back to my laptop, and adjusted my tie—black on black today, especially for Gabrielle.Makes your eyes look even more striking.
I allowed myself one fleeting glance. She sat near the window, pretending to leaf through her notebook, smiling at the page. Something in me settled, soothed by her presence.
“Let’s get started,” I announced, redirecting my attention to the room at large. A few stray murmurs faded, and once I was satisfied with the silence, I continued. “This morning we’ll be expanding on last week’s work with circuits.”
I paused, letting that take hold.
“And speaking of last week, Friday’s quiz results are uploaded to the portal. For those of you who missed out on the riveting experience, try attending class.”
Several groans issued from the back row. I didn’t dignify them with a response.
“We’ll begin today with electrical resistance,” I said, letting my gaze sweep the hall, marker poised against the whiteboard. “Let’s start with Ohm’s Law. You’ve likely seen the simplified version before—V equals IR, where V is voltage, I is current, and R is resistance.”
I wrote it out, underlining each variable. A few students scribbled, others typed, and a few simply blinked, debating whether this was worth taking down.
“Think of resistance as how stubborn the material is. Voltage is the push. Current is what actually moves. Increase resistance,current drops. Double the voltage? Double the current. Simple—when mass and complexity aren’t in the way.”
I advanced to the next slide.
“In calculus terms, current is the rate of change of charge over time—I equals dQ/dt. Don’t worry, no integrals today. Just a clean relationship between voltage, current, and resistance.”
I let the silence stretch long enough to leave a mark.
“For today’s lab, you’ll build circuits with both resistors and capacitors. Start simple, then make it messy. Pay attention to how the capacitors affect current and voltage over time—especially as they charge and discharge. We’ll get into time constants next lecture.”
Chairs scraped as students began gathering materials from backpacks and folders. The usual rustling chaos of lab setup unfolded across the hall.
“Also,” I added, loud enough to carry, “when your circuit fails and your LED doesn’t light, resist the urge to tell me physics is broken. Start by checking your resistor values. Then your wiring. Then your ego.”
A few students laughed. Even Gabrielle looked mildly amused, though she didn’t lift her eyes from her notebook.
Which was probably for the best.
The room settled into the drone of lab work, ambition and frustration humming in equal measure. A student twisted to read his neighbor’s notes; another tapped a pencil against her teeth. Sloane slouched insolently on her stool, as if passive resistance might bend the laws of physics to her will. I left them briefly to their own devices before making my rounds.
At one end of the room, I leaned over a table where a trio stared, perplexed, at a circuit board. “Your resistors are in parallel,” I pointed out, adjusting a connection. “Try series.”
A few steps away, a student with bright pink hair and a perpetual scowl mumbled something about blown fuses.
“Current too high?” I asked, examining the tangle of wires before nodding toward the assortment kit. “Try something less dramatic. Higher resistance.”
Across the room, hands raised tentatively like flags on a battlefield, each signaling for attention or aid. I moved among them, untangling misinformation and missteps until I reached Gabrielle’s table.
She caught my eye as I approached. Her expression was focused but warm—bright with the challenge of getting this right without my help.
A gleaming perfection lay before her: capacitors and resistors in flawless sequence, LEDs winking at full brightness. She held my gaze with teasing confidence, and I felt a disobedient warmth—pleasure I shouldn’t have indulged.
“You’ve been busy,” I remarked, my voice pitched low enough for her alone.
