When I entered the laboratory that evening, Alex was, just for an instant, my very best friend.

I had come from my office running, panting, full of a kind of excitement that seemed too foreign to be true. But it was real. The Nobel Foundation was very interested in our research. We hadn't hurt the world, even if Emma thought so, because the freaking Nobel Foundation had given us an exhilarating amount of approval.

I had expected to find Alex checking the last cell cultures she had prepared in minute detail, or rushing through her laptop, or absorbing Genetics journals with her eyes. That's why, when I found her lying on the floor and watching The Great British Bake Off, I fell to the floor myself, laughing.

"The freaking Nobel Foundation called. It's real." I said, as I picked up a handful of popcorn from the bag lying beside her.

"I know. But we are not going to win. Our work is far from complete." she replied, and she took a handful of popcorn herself. Her eyes were fixed on her laptop, and she seemed to be thoroughly analyzing every step of the recipe on the screen, as if she wasn't conscious at all of how badly she had just stabbed me.

The spell was over. She wasn't my best friend anymore.

"My results are unbelievably good. The autologous macrophage-activating pathways work. We won't have to use all those injections anymore. One first shoot will be enough. The body will keep repairing itself on its own afterwards."

"But it's the same as before. I have spent endless hours in this laboratory, and I am not pleased with our results. We have been researching for months, and haven't come up with anything new. The Nobel Foundation doesn't like that, Tess. The freaking Nobel Foundation likes efficiency. Genius. Fast pace."

I stood up. I didn't want to have a fight with her right then. It had been an overly intense day, and I had finally received good news. Her frustration was surely not going to ruin that. I wanted to celebrate it, to dance it off, to meet up with easy-going people and drink a little to much. I needed that. I needed Africa. I took my phone out to text her, and, while I did that, I answered to what Alex had said.

"I understand what you mean."

"Really?" she said, and she looked up, surprised.

"I know you don't see the genius part of it all. The ground-breaking advances." I said, and I smirked as I said it. Her face darkened as the words came out of my mouth, and I genuinely enjoyed it. "That's because they happen in my mind. What happens here, at the laboratory, where you spend so many hours, is just an approximation to the magic going on in my head." I paused and thought about how typical of David those last words had been. I was tempted to smile. "You have been part of my research for months, but I have been in it since ever. It was a latent project, taking shape, in my head. And I made it happen. I achieved the unachievable. Is there something more efficient than that? And, as for this last months, I turned from being able to maintain humans alive, to being capable of making them keep themselves alive. How is that not good enough?"

She stared at me silently, and then went back to eating popcorn and facing the screen. She looked miserable and lonely.

Unable to keep looking at her, I checked my phone, and saw that Africa had replied to my text. Before I new it, I verbalized its content:

"Africa is throwing a party at her place tonight. I'm heading there now. You should come."

I was very aware of the fact that I was acting in a shockingly bipolar way, but that contradictory behavior was a completely honest reflection of my feelings right then. My dead best friend's mother wanted to take my immortality revolution down, but the Nobel Foundation was presumably interested in worshiping it. A part of my brain looked at Alex's evident exhaustion and longed to hug her and thank her for just being there, and for being so annoyingly intellectually avaricious, but another part was about to scream at her how sick and pathetic her competitiveness was since she had ingrained it in my research.

I was, therefore, full of incongruity. And, apparently, she was, too:

"Sounds good." she said, as she stood up and grabbed her coat.

We took a taxi to Portobello Road. It had always been one of Africa's favorite places in London, together with Camden Town. Even if Camden Town was edgy, and Portobello had a melancholic essence, both areas were known for their vintage markets, and they represented the incapacity of humans to leave the past behind, and move forward. Africa had always been seduced by the idilic charm that time granted past eras with, and that weakness of hers was, simultaneously, totally compatible and utterly contrary to the immortality revolution. Never-ending lives would, at least partly, ruin the allurement of foregone instants, because nothing would be truly gone forever, and, therefore, it would be harder to miss.

When we had received our compensation from Fleming&Florey, and I had decided to move to The Boltons with David, she had concluded that living in London would be better for her too, so she had transferred schools, and had rented a beautiful house at Portobello Road.

On the way there, I texted David to let him know I was going to spend the night out. As I did so, I was invaded by memories of the time he and I had spent a night out partying. I remembered how my throat had burnt from the many shots we had drank, and how he had put his arm around my waist for the first time, and some of his fingers had slipped under my top. I remembered how we had danced so close to each other that I had been able to see every detail of the mole over his upper lip.

Those memories provoked two very different reactions in me. Mostly, they made me want to quit the party plan and tell the taxi driver to take me home, to my bed, to his lips, to his fire. But, at the same time, even if I didn't want to think about it at all, they made me remember that David's fire was not the one that I had longed for back then.

I had ached for Luke.

As soon as we approached the first colorful facades of the street, I started to hear the kind of indie music that only Africa would choose for a party.

"Let's have fun!" Alex said as we walked out of the car, and I failed to know whether she had intended to be sarcastic or not.

In contrast to our volatile convictions, the mood at the house was not inconsistent at all. The smell of weed was so intense that it almost intoxicated me just for breathing in there for five seconds. There were many people in the living room, many of which I had never seen before. I supposed they were Africa's new classmates. Some of them danced over the sofas, and over the table in the center, holding beer bottles and struggling to keep their balance. Instead of dancing vigorously, like most people did at clubs, they moved slowly, to the entrancing rhythm of the music, as if they were lost in space. I had had such an intense day that I envied them, and longed to feel as captivated by numbness as they looked. I wanted to become submissive, passive, and go with the flow.

"Hey! You are here!" Africa said, coming out of nowhere. Her eyes were redder than her hair. She grabbed a couple of glasses from the counter, and gave them to Alex and me.

"We are. The question is: are you?" I joked, and she patted me on the arm and laughed.

"Don't be silly, I am used to this shit. It doesn't make me half as high as the rest of the people here."

"Well, you are right, I guess. Everything is relative."

The psychedelic music started to get into my brain, and my bones, and I felt loose, and started to move to the beat. Alex waved at someone at the other end of the room, and walked off.

"What else is?" Africa asked, stabbing me with her emerald eyes. She was wearing a tight, low-cut black dress, and she looked imposingly sure of herself, and fierce.

I hadn't intended to imply anything more than the evident with that remark, or, at least, I had thought I hadn't.

"Perhaps... The fact that David is your boyfriend?"

"What? What the hell do you mean?" I said, as we both kept dancing.

"Well, he just came in, and, instead of coming here, he is enthusiastically talking to Alex over there."

"What?" I said, and the looseness I had started to feel evaporated, and I regained control over my muscles.

I turned around and found Alex and David close to the door, laughing. She was moving her arms joyously, and he had each of his hands on her shoulders.

I made my way through the clumsy, intoxicated bodies. I turned back to check if Africa had followed me, but I couldn't see her anymore.

"... and we have turned from being able to maintain humans alive, to being capable of making them keep themselves alive. How is that not good enough?" I heard Alex say, and David laughed. She didn't put her eyes of him as she started dancing and unbuttoning the top of her shirt.

She was quoting my words. Words that she had shown clear disagreement with. And she was using them to flirt with my boyfriend. She was unbelievable. Why was she unable to find a life, and a personality, of her own?

"Hello." I said, and I tried to smile, but I didn't manage to act naturally.

"Tessa!" David said. "Why didn't you tell me that you have been preselected for the Nobel Prize? This is huge!"

He pulled me to him and kissed me, but I didn't manage to enjoy his perfect lips, because I was concentrated on checking out if Alex was witnessing his passion for me.

"Yes... It's amazing. But Alex thinks that it's highly unlikely that they will give the award to us in the end, right?"

She didn't stop dancing, and her answer was just a deceptive laugh.

"Of course you will! She was just telling me about everything you've achieved. She probably told you that to prevent you from getting your hopes up too high."

"Absolutely." she said, and she undid another button of her shirt.

Before I could think of what to answer, Africa appeared again and grabbed my hand.

"Come to the backyard with me." she whispered in my ear.

"Now?" I asked, and I hoped she would understand the difficult situation I was in.

But she didn't.

"Yes. Now."

We made our way among all the synchronic, boozed bodies once again, and once we managed to have some space to walk side by side, I told her:

"Why did you make me leave Alex and David alone? You know how I feel about them being together."

She grabbed my hand again and made me walk faster, so fast that we threw a couple of cups along the way. We entered the kitchen and she closed the door behind us.

"Africa! What's going on?"

She walked to the door that led to the backyard, and, before opening it, she turned around, and told me:

"I thought that this would be more important that Alex and David dancing together for a couple of songs."

She opened the door, and I made up a silhouette sitting on the grass.

He turned around.

"Oh my God. Luke?"

What did you think of this chapter? Do you think that Alex is trying to seduce David? What do you think will happen now that Luke is back? Let me know in the comments! 

If you enjoyed the chapter, please, don't forget to vote. Your support means the world to me :)

The following chapter will be up on November 30th.

To find pictures and quotes from the book, follow me on Instagram: seasidewhispers

To find news and updates, follow me on Twitter: swhisperswriter

You can contact me at: [email protected]