Fast & Wet (The Fast 2)

“Just lots of questions on the research, no job offers,” I tell Klara, who is rubbing her temples. She mutters something in Swedish under her breath when a toddler in the corner starts wailing at the top of his lungs.

I’m sure it wasn’t kind, Klara has a dark sense of humor and little patience. I watch the little boy have a tantrum and find myself a little envious again. Wouldn’t it be grand to scream and wail every time you were tired or slighted? Just get it all out and move on with your life?

I do better at computer models and chemical formulas than analyzing the inner workings of humans. At least science makes sense, it’s black and white. You create or fix something and then move on. Case closed.

Not so much with humans.

“Skitstövel,” Klara sneers at the boy and mutters.

I repeat the word trying to get the pronunciation right. “I don’t know that one, what is it?”

“Poop boot,” Klara thunders in the boy’s direction. “Bastard,” she sneers.

I choke on the coffee I was just sipping, almost launching microfoam out of my nose as I laugh and reach for a napkin. “Klara!” I scold her as the boy’s mom gasps at Klara’s menacing glance and outburst. “You’re going to get fired,” I giggle across the round table.

“Ja, ja, ja,” she cajoles and waves her hand. “There is only one choice. You get a job and support us,” she taps the screen of my laptop.

“I’m trying, I’m trying. But if you get canned, we’ll have to pay for coffee.”

“Unimaginable,” Klara shudders her shoulders at the thought.

I do have to get a job, though. Quickly.

Now that I’ve graduated, my student visa is only valid for four months. I have to get a real job if I want to stay in the UK. And I do want to stay.

Maybe not here, perhaps not so close to London. That’s a little too close for comfort.

Maybe something in Wales or Ireland. Scotland would also be delightful. Minimally, something several hours away from London.

Not that London isn’t lovely. It is.

But I can’t stay here.

I’ve done well the past ten months to avoid London at all costs, but I can’t do it forever, hiding out in Cambridge sixty miles to the north. Bad enough I have to come up with constant creative excuses not to join Klara on weekend benders in the city.

In many ways, I’ve missed out on the quintessential college experience, being holed up in my room, buried in books, spending my weekend in the labs instead of being young and having fun. I wonder if I’ll regret that one day, doing anything at all exciting like I used to.

Then again, school is safe for me. I’m good at it.

Usually, I blame my strict parents for my reclusiveness and cite Major General Walker’s notorious lack of tolerance for shenanigans. But a twenty-five year old not being allowed out by mommy and daddy, who are three-thousand miles away, is lame, even for me.

I let out a long, audible sigh.

“What?” Klara asks, picking up on the change in my demeanor.

“Mmm, nothing,” I shrug my shoulders. “Just remembered I need to call my parents back.”

“Ugh,” she rolls her eyes.

Apparently, the Swedish have a different parenting style, which doesn’t involve hovering, authoritative discipline, or constant reminders that failure is not an option. Klara was given freedom as a child, allowed to explore and experience the world, make her own mistakes.

I was… not.

My parents love me, and I wouldn’t be where I am today, a master’s graduate from one of the finest educational institutions in the world, without them. A tingle of guilt stabs at me, but I sometimes wonder what it would feel like if mistakes were an option.

But, they aren’t, and I learned that lesson the hard way when I didn’t listen and made the biggest mistake of my life. One that continues to haunt me, in secret, every day, wakes me up from dreams and infects my mind even though it’s been almost six years.

The mistake who lives in London.