Free While You Were Gone by Amy K. Nichols

make a right. There’s the park-and-ride and Germ’s waiting car. “Speaking of M…” He pulls the paper out of his pocket and hands it to me. It’s random letters and numbers. I don’t have a clue what it means.
    But I fake it. “Cool.”

My phone rings as I’m walking to meet Warren at the Archives. It’s Dad. I consider not answering, but the last time I tried to ignore him, security tracked me down in the middle of civics class. So embarrassing. And that was
before
we were under a terrorism watch.
    “Hi, Dad.”
    “How’s my girl? Did the shipment of remains—”
    “ ‘Remains’? Geez, Dad.”
    “Sorry.” He clears his throat. “What I meant was, how are you doing?”
    “As good as can be expected, I guess.” I dodge students on the sidewalk. “Considering I’ve been sorting through the burned and shredded
remains
of my soul.”
    He sighs. “Anything salvageable?”
    “Of my soul?”
    “Of your paintings.” He’s losing patience with me.
    I scale back the melodrama and tell him the truth. “I found most of the pieces of one and still have a heap of scraps to sift through.” Saying it out loud makes the truth of it sink in even more.
    “Can you put the one back together?”
    “Sure. If I want my entry to look like something out of
Frankenstein
.” My feet stop in their tracks. An idea takes shape in my mind.
    He’s quiet a moment, then says, “This must be very difficult. Your mother and I, we just want you to know we’re here and supporting you.”
    “Thanks.” I start walking again. I’m going to be so late for our study session.
    “See you on Friday?”
    “What’s Friday?”
    “The Stand Up to Terror event.”
    “Where is—”
    “Richard will send you the details. Listen, I have to take another call. Good luck with the paintings, honey.”
    Even after he’s hung up, I keep walking with the phone to my ear. Guess I’ll see him on Friday.
    The Archives are in an old brick building at the heart of campus. Doric columns rise on either side of the double oak doors. Walking in, I’m greeted with the smells of musty paper and dust. My flip-flops make slapping noises in the entryway, so I tiptoe past a wall of student artwork, toward our meeting place. Warren is already sitting at the table reading, his glasses up on his forehead.
    “You look different without your lab coat.”
    “I’m in disguise.”
    “What are you, a spy?”
    He holds a finger to his lips. “Shhh. I’m casing out the guy behind you.”
    I look. There is no guy behind me.
    He smirks.
    “I’ll go find someone else to study with if you’re not careful.”
    “You’ll fail science.”
    I cross my arms. “And you’ll fail art history.”
    “Touché.” He moves his notebooks so I can set my stuff down.
    We’ve been meeting for a couple of months now, and I still don’t know what to make of him. He’s goofy, arrogant and slightly antisocial. And he wears ankle pants. He’s also super smart and makes me laugh. We’re an oddball pairing. The genius and the artist. Like Einstein and Picasso. We’re also a strangely successful pairing, given that we met through the student message board. Being the governor’s daughter complicates everything—friendships, relationships. I find it best to keep people at arm’s length. But when I saw the ad about swapping science help for art history, it just kind of made sense.
    I take the chair across from him and pull my science notes out of my bag. “You didn’t tell me you were part of the Skylar team.”
    “There are lots of things I don’t tell you.” He leans forward. “So, did you figure it out?”
    “We should get to work.”
    He rolls his eyes. “But the code was so easy.”
    It takes me a while to find the note he passed to me at the press conference. I finally find it in my bag, smashed between a binder and a biography of Rembrandt. “I thought it was going to be something important.” I toss it on the table.
    He looks left and right, then