"I'll be with you forever." Ian had promised. Nora still remembered that day. She'd been naïve enough to believe it was true.

They'd met when she was just seventeen – high school sweethearts. Of course, their relationship hadn't exactly been love at first sight. He'd been her chemistry partner. And to call him anything other than useless would have been charitable.

He swaggered up to her, all dimples and mischievous eyes, as if somehow being incredibly cute could make up for being the most annoying kid in class. "Hey," he said.

"Hi," was her tepid response. She didn't want to be rude, but how had she managed to get stuck with the class clown? This had to be an error on Ms. Harle's part; Ian would rather die than take anything seriously. And there was no way she was going to let him tank her perfect 4.0.

The project, to make hot ice, had been simple enough. Mix baking soda into heated clear vinegar, cool the mixture down, and watch as crystals formed when they poured the mixture out. Ian didn't look like he even understood the concept. At least that meant he listened to her as she measured out the ingredients. She let him watch the pot as the excess water boiled out while she started answering the questions on the sheet they'd been given.

She'd already defined a saturated solution, and was moving on to what a supersaturated solution was when she heard Ian from over her shoulder.

"A solution with an amount of the thing that's more than you need to just be saturation."

"What?" Nora looked up.

"A supersaturated solution." he said, pointing down at the paper in front of her.

Nora just stared at the paper so she wouldn't have to look up at him. She knew that. She just hadn't thought someone like Ian would. Maybe she'd been a little harsh in her judgement of him.

So they'd answered the next couple questions together as they waited for their mixture to cool down. Finally, it was time to take the solution out of the fridge. Ian happily volunteered to get it if it meant she'd do the next question. And when he got back, they only had one left. She glanced down at it and almost rolled her eyes. Explain what happens after the liquid is touched with a finger. She could only imagine how excited he'd be when he saw that.

Ian came back to the table with their half-pint of clear liquid. Nora spread a piece of aluminum foil on the table and put a few crystals of their solution onto it as he approached.

"So now we pour?" he asked, grinning. His eyes were shining in a way that wasn't quite as off-putting as she would have expected. She guessed she was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after he actually managed to contribute to their experiment.

"Now we pour." she agreed. To her surprise, he gave her the cup.

"Here." he said.

"You don't want to?" That seemed unnaturally generous.

"Well, yeah." he shrugged. "But I thought you might like to do it too."

Nora grinned, taking the plastic container from him. She would have put up a fight – it was only polite. But she really did want to do it. Besides, she'd planned on letting him have the other half for the final question.

She poured the mixture carefully onto the table, watching as the crystals instantly formed on top of each other, like a miniature stalagmite.

"Woah!" Ian chuckled. Nora stopped pouring and looked up at him. He was grinning down at the table, eyes wide. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen someone look so excited. "You're a genius!"

"You did help." she pointed out. But she was beaming anyway. It might have been a fairly simple experiment, but she didn't care; genius wasn't something she was usually called. Nerd was more like it. She was still grinning as she handed the container back to him.

"Really?" He seemed surprised. Like no one he knew would ever do anything even basically nice for him. He started to pour the liquid out onto the table himself, but Nora stopped him.

"Did you see the last question?" she asked.

Ian dipped his head back to the paper on their table. Then, he looked up at her and grinned.

Surprising no one, Ian didn't content himself with sticking the tip of his finger into the container. He dipped his whole hand in, until his fingers curled slightly against the bottom. The liquid came halfway up his palm. The two of them watched as the ice crystals formed around his fingertips, spreading out to the edges of the glass, getting thicker and thicker as they went.

"It's hot." He seemed surprised. Then, somewhat uncomfortable. "Like, really hot."

"Then take your hand out." There was no reason to hurt himself for some stupid high school chemistry experiment.

"Well, it's not that hot. Like, I'm not going to be going to the hospital or anything." he admitted. "But still..."

As soon as the crystals reached the edges of the container, Ian jerked his hand out and wiped it on his jeans. Then he turned to her and grinned. "Well, I think I can answer that last question there for you."

◊◊◊

Ian and Nora started spending a lot more time together after that. Her grades were still the most important thing to her – no amount of hanging out with Ian would ever change that. But he did help her realize that maybe there was a little more to life than studying. And she'd rubbed off on him too; he managed to pull his grades up enough to get into the same university as her. Though his basketball scholarship did help. And so had the fact that she forced him to study at least once a week.

"You ready for dinner?" Ian asked, closing his book with a relieved sigh.

"I guess..." Nora said. "We can finish up tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Ian grinned, but she could see the crease in his eyebrows. "The test isn't even for another week!"

"Well, it's better to be prepared, isn't it?" Nora asked.

"Yeah, sure. But we're going to study so far in advance that I'll just forget it all anyway. Then I'll have to do it all over again."

"You just don't want to study."

"Well, not on stir-fry night." Ian admitted.

"Well, wouldn't want to deprive you of bland noodles and mystery meat." Nora laughed, closing her book.

"See? I knew you'd understand."

They walked hand in hand towards the cafeteria. Nora texted their friends to meet them there.

As soon as they walked in the door, Nora spotted Sophie walking from the line to a table in the back. She was six feet tall with long, black hair, making her easy to spot in a crowd. Nora and Ian grabbed food of their own and headed over. Matt and Emily were already at the table.

"Hey." Matt nodded a greeting as they approached.

"Hi." Nora said. Ian nodded back.

"So, you're coming this weekend, right?" Matt asked Ian.

"You know it." Ian grinned. "Been looking forward to it all month."

"You should totally come out with us." Sophie said, turning to Nora.

"Yeah, I know..."

The group had been planning a trip to Matt's family cabin for the last several weeks. But Nora wasn't really in the mood. She'd never been a big fan of crowds, and she wasn't exactly the world's strongest swimmer. What was she supposed to do all weekend?

"No one's swimming marathons." Sophie insisted. "I mean, you know the guys – they'll probably try to swim out to the island. But I think I'd rather just lay in the sun and blow off steam. And you know Emily's practically allergic to the water. Just bring a book – but not a textbook." she added quickly.

Nora laughed. This was supposed to be a weekend getaway – even she wouldn't bring an actual schoolbook with her. But the thought had occurred to her briefly. It'd give her time to work on her lit and film essay. Still, the idea of relaxing on the sand with a group of friends and a real book in her hand was awfully tempting. And she could finish the essay on Monday or Tuesday.

"Sure." she agreed.

"You're actually going to go?" Emily asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Why not?" Nora shrugged. "School's not all I do."

"Then prove it." Sophie said. "No schoolwork the whole weekend."

"Fine." Nora agreed.

So Friday afternoon, she packed her bag and hopped into Ian's electric blue car for the three-hour trip. The road wound through the pine trees and climbed up into the mountains.

"Kind of in the middle of nowhere, isn't it?" Nora asked.

"Well, if it was the middle of downtown, it wouldn't be a weekend getaway, would it?" Ian asked. Nora tried to ignore the sense of foreboding that was tugging at the back of her mind.

When they got there, Ian pulled into the gravel driveway, behind David's car. Sophie was lugging her cumbersome bag up to the cabin.

"Need help?" Nora asked.

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks." Sophie called over her shoulder.

"Good. Because that looks ridiculously heavy."

Sophie turned and grinned. "Oh, so you were just pretending to be helpful?"

"Well, naturally." Nora grinned back. Her bag only contained her bathing suit, two changes of clothes, and the book she'd started reading in the car. Unlike Sophie, she didn't see the need to bring half her wardrobe to what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.

She made her way to the back of the cabin, to where she and Ian would be sleeping. There was a bed along one wall, and a closet on the other. And directly across from her was a window that looked out onto an azure lake.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked, turning to Ian.

"Oh yeah." he beamed. "Get your suit on and let's check it out."

Nora hurriedly got dressed and followed Ian out to the lake. Her toes dug into the warm sand, and she was very glad she'd come. Matt came out to join them, a cooler full of beer in his arms. Beer, sun – what more could she want?

They ended up up spending the whole day lying out on the sand. They barbecued right there on the beach. And once it got too dark to swim, they moved the beers inside and kept the party going. Finally, once it was almost two in the morning, Emily stood up.

"I think I'm going to go up to bed." she told the group.

"Awww! It's early!" Sophie slurred, holding up her beer in the air. "Here – you just need another one."

"I just need to sleep." Emily told her. "I got up at six this morning."

"Fine." Sophie grumbled, turning back to her beer.

"I think I'm going to go to sleep too." Nora told them.

"Nooo..." Sophie whined.

"I'll stay up all night with you tomorrow if you want." Nora promised.

"I'm going to hold you to that." Sophie said as Nora left, making her way back to her room. She got ready for bed, then snuggled under the covers with her book. She only made it through four pages before her eyes started to get heavy. She put the book on the nightstand and turned off the light.

She woke up to the sound of something smashing to the ground. She turned her head and looked quickly around the darkened room. She didn't see anything. She bolted up in bed and snapped on the light. If something really was in the room with her, she wanted to catch it off guard. That was a mistake.

There was nothing in the room. Just her, her bed, the dresser in the corner, and the closet across from the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move along the wall across from her. She turned to face whatever was there.

She saw the shadow of the bed against the wall, her own shadow lounging on top. But that was it – there was nothing between her and the wall. So what had she seen?

As she stared, she saw the shadow on the wall move. Slowly, turned its shoulders towards her, its feet dropping under the bed to meet the floor. It stood up, tilting its head to the side. Its eyes blinked open and shut a few times before before crinkling into diamond-sharp slits. Then, its mouth opened into a jagged grin as it stared straight at her.