The professor tried to catch me, but I ran from the room. I could not sprint down the halls fast enough and almost fell racing down the stairs. When I made it outside, I did not stop running. Tears streamed down my face as I ran blindly back to my dorm room.
"Quinn? Oh my God, Quinn, what happened?"
Owen's strong arms came out of nowhere and caught me up in an all-encompassing hug. I clung to him, the sobs ripping out of my chest again.
"Please, please tell me what happened. Are you alright?" He spoke against my hair, his body still wrapped protectively around me. "You're scaring me."
"I got scared, that's all," I said. "We started on the cadavers today. So gray."
He pulled me over to a bench and cradled me in his arms. When I could finally take a deep breath, I sat up in his lap. "I'm sorry," I said.
"Nothing to be sorry about. Maybe this just goes on the con list for nursing as a career," Owen said.
A laugh burst out and surprised us both.
"Wait, what are you doing here?" I asked.
"I'm not stalking you. I swear," Owen said. He helped me to my feet and stood up. "I was here to talk to one of the computer programming classes."
"Sure," I said. My legs felt shaky and ruined the teasing.
"And then I decided to see if you were around. So, yes, I guess it turned into stalking," Owen said. "I'm sorry about the other night at the party."
"What about it?" I asked, my heart aching.
"You thought I was flirting with that redhead. I was really just passing the time until you were free," he said.
"Really?"
"Whoa, hang in there," Owen reached out to steady me. "You know, Quinn, it’s possible that you have PTSD. Maybe you should go lay down for a while."
"No, please, I need to get off campus," I said.
"UCLA got me a hotel room in town," Owen said.
I headed towards the parking lot. He caught up with me after a few steps and wrapped his arm tightly around me. I was glad as my legs still felt wobbly. Now that the terrifying episode had passed, the adrenaline was kicking in and I felt electrified.
When we got inside Owen's hotel room, he went straight to the mini-bar and cracked open a small bottle of Scotch. "Here. This will help calm your nerves. You look a little jumpy. Adrenaline?"
"I don't know," I said. "What, do you think I'm a nursing student or something?"
Owen laughed and flopped down in the armchair. He put his feet up on the bed, leaving me the rest of the king-sized mattress to spread out on. I used all the extra pillows to create a nest and settled in with the little bottle of Scotch.
"No," he said. "Maybe not a nursing student today. How about a chef?"
"I burned macaroni and cheese in high school. Remember? You had to knock down the smoke detector with a baseball bat."
"How about astrophysics? You could spend your life studying black holes."
"That sounds uplifting. Oh, wait, my math skills are not strong enough," I said.
"Yeah, you're terrible at making change."
I whacked his feet off the corner of the bed.
"How about astrology, then? I bet you could write a good horoscope," he said.
"Sounds good. Let's start with yours. With the moon in your seventh sign, beware of old friends. Your wit and charm will get you nothing but slapped." I took a hearty swig of the Scotch and punctuated his horoscope with a round of hacking coughs