Ryland Grace

The dorm room above the lab had always felt temporary.

Not in the normal way. Not college-student temporary. More like someone had taken an abandoned storage space and convinced it to become human through sheer stubbornness.

A mattress shoved against the wall. Books stacked in unstable towers. Half-finished equations taped beside astronomy posters. A NASA hoodie hanging off the chair like it had collapsed there after a long day.

Outside the narrow window, evening pressed against the glass in dark blue layers.

Below the floor, the lab hummed.

Computers. Refrigeration units. Machines breathing mechanically in the dark.

Home. Usually, they liked the sound.

Tonight it felt unbearable. The report card sat face-down beside them on the bed. Like it was radioactive.

Maybe it was.

Their fingers dug into the sleeves of their sweatshirt until the fabric twisted tight around their knuckles. Their eyes burned so badly they'd stopped wiping them twenty minutes ago.

Forty-two in math.

Thirty-eight in chemistry.

Barely passing physics.

The numbers kept replaying in their head like corrupted audio.

Failure failure failure.

They pressed the heels of her palms against their eyes. It didn’t help. The worst part wasn’t even the grades themselves.

It was the confirmation.

Every terrible thing they'd quietly suspected about themselves for months had suddenly arrived stamped in red ink by official authority.

Pathetic.

Lazy.

Not enough.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed softly. One of them flickered every couple minutes like it couldn’t fully commit to staying alive.

Fitting.

Downstairs, faintly, they could hear Grace arguing with someone. Probably Lokken. Something about sample contamination. Something normal.

For one awful second they considered pretending everything was fine. Washing their face. Going downstairs. Making some sarcastic comment about stellar drift models like nothing had happened.

They'd done it before. But then their eyes landed on the report card again. And something inside their finally snapped. The sound that left their throat barely sounded human.

Small at first.

Then sharp.

Then suddenly they couldn’t breathe around it anymore.

They curled forward hard enough their forehead nearly hit their knees, one hand clamped over their mouth to muffle the noise because even now, even now, some part of them was terrified of being heard.

Tears soaked into the sleeves of their hoodie. Humiliation burned hotter than grief. Because this wasn’t one bad grade.

This was proof.

Proof that everyone else had been moving forward while they stayed exactly where they were. Proof that maybe they'd mistaken potential for intelligence. Proof that maybe working in the lab had let them pretend they belonged somewhere she actually didn’t.

A soft knock hit the door. They froze instantly.

“Kid?”

Grace.

Their stomach dropped. They stayed silent, desperately forcing air back into their lungs.

Another knock.

“Your culture samples are threatening civil war again,” he called through the door. “Thought you should know.”

Usually they would’ve laughed. Usually they would’ve answered immediately. The silence stretched too long. On the other side of the door, the faint rustling stopped.

Then:

“…You okay in there?”

Their throat tightened violently.

Don’t speak. If they spoke, he’d know. And somehow that felt worse than the grades themselves.

They heard the doorknob shift slightly. Not opening yet. Just hesitant.

Grace’s voice came quieter this time. Not teacher-voice. Not joking. Careful.

“Hey.”

Their breathing hitched. The floorboards creaked outside the room. Then nothing. No movement. No leaving footsteps.

Just the terrible realization that he was still standing there.

Waiting.

And after a long silence, the handle slowly began to turn.