After the tests were handed in on Monday, David turned to Laurel. “So, how bad was it, really?”

Laurel grinned. “Fine, it wasn’t that bad. But only because of your help.” They’d studied for about three hours on Saturday and had talked for another hour on Sunday night. Granted, the phone conversation had nothing to do with biology, but perhaps she had learned something by osmosis. Osmosis over the phone.

Right.

He hesitated for just a second before saying, “We could make it a regular thing.

Studying together, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Laurel said, liking the idea of more quiet “study” sessions with him. “And next time you could come to my house,” she added.

“Great.”

It was raining by the time class let out that day, so the group gathered under a small pavilion instead. Almost no one ate there because there were no picnic tables or cement underneath, but Laurel liked the bumpy patch of grass that never seemed to dry all the way—even with the roof overhead.

When it rained, most of the group stayed inside, but today David and Chelsea joined her as well as a guy named Ryan. David and Ryan threw bits of bread at each other and Chelsea commentated—critiquing their aim, throwing form, and inability to keep from hitting spectators.

“Okay, that one was on purpose,” Chelsea said, picking up a piece of crust that had hit her square in the chest and flicking it back over to the guys.

“Nah, it was an accident,” Ryan said. “You’re the one who told me I couldn’t hit anything I aimed for.”

“Then maybe you should aim for me so I can be assured of not being assaulted,” she shot back. She sighed and turned to Laurel. “I was not meant to live in northern California,” she said, pushing her hair out of her face. “During the summer my hair does fine, but introduce a little rain and bam! It turns into this.” Chelsea had long brown hair with a tinge of auburn that fell in ringlets down her back. Soft, silky ringlets on sunny days, and jumping, coarse ringlets that bounced out of control around her face when the air was cold and humid—which was about half the time. She had light gray eyes that reminded Laurel of the ocean when the sun was just rising, and the waves had an endless quality to them in the murky half-darkness.

“I think it’s pretty,” Laurel said.

“That’s because it’s not yours. I have to use special shampoos and conditioners just to be able to brush through it every day.” She looked over at Laurel and touched her straight, smooth hair for a second. “Yours feels nice; what do you use?”

“Oh, just whatever.”

“Hmm.” Chelsea touched her hair one more time. “Do you use a leave-in conditioner? That usually works the best with mine.”

Laurel took a breath and let it out noisily. “Actually…I don’t put anything on it.

Any kind of conditioner makes my hair really slick and oily-feeling. And if I use shampoo, it makes my hair really, really dry—even the moisturizing kind.”

“So you just don’t wash it?” The idea was apparently beyond foreign to Chelsea.

“I rinse it really well. I mean, it’s clean and everything.”

“But no shampoo at all?”

Laurel shook her head and waited for a skeptical comment, but Chelsea just muttered, “Lucky,” and turned back to her lunch.

That night Laurel examined her hair closely. Did she need to wash it? But it looked and felt the same as it always did. She turned her back to the mirror and poked and prodded the bump. It had been a tiny thing on Saturday morning, but over the weekend it had grown pretty big. “Hell of a first zit,” Laurel grumbled to her reflection.

The next morning, Laurel woke up to a dull tingling between her shoulder blades. Trying not to panic, she hurried into the bathroom and craned her neck to look at her back in the mirror.

The bump was bigger around than a quarter!

This was no zit. She touched it carefully, and a strange tingling sensation lingered everywhere her fingers brushed. In a panic she clutched her nightgown to her chest and ran down the hall to her parents’ room. She had just raised her hand to knock when she forced herself to stop and take a few breaths.

Laurel looked down at herself and suddenly felt very foolish. What was she thinking? She was standing in the hallway in little more than her underwear.

Mortified, she stepped away from her parents’ door and crept back to the bathroom, shutting the door as quickly and quietly as she could. She turned her back to the mirror again and studied the lump. She turned to view it from a few different angles until she convinced herself it wasn’t nearly as big as she’d thought.

Laurel had been raised on the idea that the human body knew how to take care of itself. Most things—if left alone—would clear up by themselves. Both her parents lived that way. They never went to the doctor, not even for antibiotics.

“It’s just a humongous zit. It will go away on its own,” Laurel told her reflection, her tone sounding exactly like her mother’s.

She dug into her mother’s drawer and found a tub of the salve her mom made every year. It had rosemary, lavender, tea-tree oil, and who knew what else in it, and her mom put it on everything.

It couldn’t hurt.

Laurel scooped up a fingerful of the sweet-smelling salve and began rubbing it on her back. Between the tingle of her hands irritating the bump and the burn of the tea-tree oil, Laurel’s back was on fire as she pulled her nightgown over her head and, with her shoulders pressed to the wall, scooted to her room.