I’m sick of this place, Lucas thought as he walked through the entrance of his school. He was in his final year of college, although one year left was one year too long for him. Though he despised going to school, he had always been a top student, which earned him a full scholarship to the University of Nascenshire. If his education was going to be fully paid for, he might as well see it through until the end.

Although it was technically the second week of school, it was the first Monday of the school year. After being sabotaged by the school enrollment system, he had no choice but to pick the Monday eight A.M. section for his plant biochemistry lab class. It was not a total loss, however. Olivia was going to take the lab class with him.

Lucas met Olivia in their sophomore year physics class and bonded over their shared struggles. They always went to lecture and lab together, but though they developed a friendly relationship, they never really met up outside of going to classes. After an icebreaker activity their physics discussion instructor had the students do, they found out they were both plant biology majors and tried to schedule their classes so that they could be in the same sections. Although Olivia’s course enrollment time was slightly earlier than Lucas’, the plant biochemistry lab class had limited spots and thus filled up quickly, leaving the only open section to be the earliest possible time slot of the week. When Lucas approached the lab building, he saw a familiar figure waving at him from afar.

“Hey!” Lucas said smiling. “Why are you here so early?”

“I woke up super early today. I finished setting up my lab notebook only a couple minutes ago,” Olivia sheepishly grinned. Lucas noticed that her lab notebook was in her hands instead of in her backpack. They walked into the lab building and navigated the hallways until they found their lab section’s room.

There were a few people already waiting outside the room, and eventually more people gathered next to the door. A lady in a lab coat came and opened the door, holding it open for everyone to enter. 

“Please take a pair of safety goggles and a lab coat on your way in. The lab coats are organized by size on the table by the whiteboard,” the lady said. Lucas and Olivia picked up safety goggles and lab coats and found their way to a station at the back end of a lab bench. They put their backpacks in the lockers underneath the bench and put on their safety attire. Lucas then saw another familiar face enter the room, and he immediately turned to Olivia.

“Why is he here? I know for a fact that his major does not require this class,” he whispered. Olivia was confused about who he was talking about, until she looked over Lucas’ shoulders and saw who was walking over to their bench. She accidentally made eye contact with the tall boy, and then diverted her eyes to the lab bench.

“Hey there! What are you doing here?” the boy said. His loud voice offended Lucas’ ears. Lucas only looked the other way, with the back of his head facing the boy.

“Jonathan, you know why we would be here,” Olivia spoke. “The real question is why are you here?”

Jonathan was in a few of Lucas and Olivia’s classes in previous semesters, due to his major overlapping some requirements with the plant biology major. It wasn’t enough to say that Lucas hated Jonathan. Jonathan always acted as if he was smarter than everyone else, and for some reason, he always chose Lucas to annoy. He had an obsession with asking Lucas what grades he got, making comments about how Lucas dresses, and telling Lucas he’s wrong whenever Lucas participated in class. What started as a minor annoyance became an ongoing struggle as Lucas would endure the constant embarrassment of Jonathan humiliating him in front of their classmates.

“I’m taking this class as an upper division elective. I heard the plant bio labs are super easy,” Jonathan said. Lucas rolled his eyes. Whoever Jonathan heard that from was feeding him lies, because everyone in the College of Agricultural Sciences knew the plant biology upper division labs to be difficult. Jonathan took a seat at the station next to Lucas and Olivia, and as more students arrived, all the lab stations were filled. The door to the room closed and the lady in the lab coat began to speak.

“Hello, everyone, and welcome to Plant Biochemistry Lab. My name is Melanie and I will be your instructor for this lab section this semester. I am a second year PhD student in the Plant Biology department and I am excited to guide you through all the exciting experiments for this class. I’m sure you have attended Dr. Lim’s lecture last week and have written the procedures for today in your lab notebooks. Today’s lab is pretty simple, so I will let you all get started on it right away. All the reagents are located in the fume hood, and all the equipment can be found in the box at your station. As you are working, I will come around to collect your lab safety agreement forms and check your lab notebooks.”

Lucas took out his lab notebook and safety agreement form, and he began working on the lab with Olivia. After they gathered the reagents they needed for the first part of the lab, they started following the procedures, until Lucas had a feeling that someone was uncomfortably close to him.

“You didn’t draw the set up for part one? I thought you were a star student! I bet Melanie is going to send you home for not completing the lab notebook set up!” Jonathan blurted out. Lucas said nothing. He figured that if Jonathan is embarrassing anyone, it would only be himself for showing everyone how childish he acts. Additionally, Lucas could not recall there being any mention of diagrams in either the lecture or the lab manual. Melanie eventually came around to their area of the room, and Jonathan’s attention was redirected towards her as she began checking his station’s lab notebooks. Lucas and Olivia were focused on collecting their data, and then they heard Melanie’s voice behind them.

“I’ll take the safety agreements first,” said Melanie. Lucas and Olivia handed over their papers. “Thank you, now show me the first page of your notebooks,” Melanie said with a smile, though her smile soon faded when Jonathan opened his mouth.

“Lucas has no drawings in his notebook! I checked myself before you got here!” Jonathan said. I can’t believe this idiot. Has he gone insane? Lucas was baffled by the lengths Jonathan would go to ruin his life. They were all adults, yet Jonathan acted like a tattletale in elementary school.

“Um… okay? I know some professors tell students to include diagrams of the equipment set up in the lab notebooks, but Dr. Lim did not include that in her lecture, nor is it on the instructor rubric.” Melanie was confused on why Jonathan made these seemingly random remarks. She briefly looked over Lucas and Olivia’s notebooks before proceeding to the next station’s students. Lucas continued on with the lab, pipetting reagents into test tubes.

“You’re doing it wrong! You should have used a smaller tube. And the reaction will be faster if you mix with the stirring rod.” Jonathan continued to talk to Lucas, despite Lucas’ efforts to pretend as if he couldn’t hear him. 

“Shut up! I’m trying to do some calculations!” Olivia was becoming fed up, too. Suddenly, Jonathan grabbed Lucas’ arms while he was pipetting into a tube.

“What are you doing?!” Lucas was shocked and infuriated. Luckily, nothing spilled from the tube as his arms were shaken by Jonathan.

“Let me help you, since you clearly don’t know what you’re doing. It’s funny how I’m not even a plant bio major and I’m still better at this than you!” Jonathan let go of Lucas’ arms. Lucas put down the tube and pipette in anger. Jonathan reached out towards the box with Lucas and Olivia’s lab supplies, and this motion knocked over their waste beaker, sending it falling to the floor. 

The sound of shattering glass rang in Lucas’ ears as he looked at Jonathan’s face, who didn’t show the slightest sense of regret or remorse.

“Look at what you just did,” Lucas said. He glared at Jonathan, waiting for any type of reaction.

“Punk,” Jonathan said as he pushed Lucas. Enraged, he pushed Jonathan back, only for Jonathan to aggressively shove Lucas, letting him fall to the hard tile floor. Lucas looked up at Jonathan, whose face had a sense of satisfaction. Lucas sprung back up and slapped Jonathan.

Jonathan’s goggles flew off his face and his lab partner shrieked.

“Enough!” Melanie sternly said as she made her way back to their bench. Broken glass, spilled waste, and whatever was going on between the students was too much for the first day of lab class. 

“That psycho attacked me!” Jonathan yelled. Everyone’s attention was now definitely on them.

“I… I…” Lucas stuttered. He felt like Jonathan deserved some sort of punishment, but he also began to realize that he was also in the wrong for engaging in a physical fight. The conflicting feelings in his head paralyzed him.

“I will clean up this mess,” Melanie gestured to the broken glass and puddle of chemicals. She then looked at Lucas and Jonathan. “We’re going to have a talk after class.”

“I’ll get going now,” Olivia said as she picked up her backpack. Despite the fiasco, Lucas and Olivia managed to finish the lab experiments and were getting ready to leave. Well, at least Olivia was. Lucas’ heart started pounding from the impending doom of having to speak with Melanie. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Olivia said as she made her way out the door. Eventually, it was just Lucas, Jonathan, and Melanie left in the room. Lucas made his way to the table where Melanie was organizing some papers. Jonathan was already standing over there, and after Melanie packed away her folders, she turned to the two boys.

“What happened today was unacceptable. Not only are you both upper division students who should know how to act in lab, but you are both adults who should know better than to act like this. I will have to write both of you up for violating lab safety and the university honor code. Dr. Lim and I will send the reports to the student affairs office, and you will hear from your advisors of what will happen. I will be emailing you both with forms to fill out.” Melanie then dismissed them, and Lucas quickly left out the door. He was so ashamed and couldn’t look at Melanie any longer, and he couldn’t face Jonathan at all. He ran down the stairs and exited the building as fast as he could.

The rest of the day was grim for Lucas. As he went to his remaining classes, he never bothered to sit next to anyone or introduce himself to anyone new as most people do in the beginning of the semester. Once he was done with school for the day, he walked back to his apartment, which was located a few blocks away from campus.

On his dreary walk, something caught his eye. A sign that said “Grand Opening” was placed on the sidewalk. He looked for what the sign was referring to and saw an empty unit in a brick building. Lucas couldn’t recall noticing if the unit was empty before. There were no signs of what the new establishment would be, but there was a logo on the window of the entrance door. A black circle with a white lily centered within it.