𝐶𝐿𝑂𝐴𝐾 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐷𝐴𝐺𝐺𝐸𝑅 | 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒 [DISCONTINUED]

𝟏 | 𝐀 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐋𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄

"𝑊𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟, 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠."
—𝑆𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠

𝒩.

"𝐇𝐄𝐘, 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏!"

"Hm?" Natalia slowly blinked her eyes open, squinting at the sudden light as she yawned. "Wha . . ."

"Come on." Diego tugged at the sleeve of her light blue pyjamas as he sat on the edge of her bed. "Get up."

"Why?" she whined as she rubbed her eyes, though she slowly heeded as she sat up. Her eyes moved past Diego's face and to her clock, and she grumbled, "There's still twenty minutes until breakfast."

"I know," he said with a shrug as he adjusted the blazer of his uniform. "But I wanted to study for the chem test."

"You? Study?" she scoffed, and she nearly laughed aloud at the thought. "Since when?"

"If I don't get a passing grade on this test, my mark is gonna drop to below fifty, and Pogo is already on my ass about physics," Diego whined as she slipped off her bed and grabbed her chemistry notebook before sitting down next to him. "God knows what Dad'll say if my average drops below fifty."

Natalia let out a small giggle. "Yeah, yeah, let's study. First, let's go over definitions: What's enthalpy?"

He squinted his eyes, mouthing the word as he thought before nodding. "Enthalpy is heat released and absorbed at a constant pressure with the potential to provide heat, and it's used to predict reaction characteristics."

"Mhm." She nodded. "If delta H is positive, what kind of reaction is it?"

"Endothermic."

She nodded again before glancing down at her notebook. "What's Hess's law?"

"Well, Hess's law . . ." Diego gave a small sigh as he looked up at the ceiling before he shrugged. "No clue."

"Hess's law is the enthalpy or heat change accompanying a chemical reaction, which is independent of its pathway between its initial and final states," she told him, grinning as he let out a small groan.

"I'm gonna fail, Nat."

"You are not," she reassured him as she rolled her eyes. "You answered all the questions right so far—other than this one, obviously."

Diego, however, continued to be stubborn as he drawled, "I'm gonna fail."

"Fine," she sighed as she got off of her bed, putting her notebook on her desk before walking to her dresser and opening it. "Fail then."

"Nat," he groaned as she pulled out her uniform. "I'm gonna fail!"

"What do you want me to do?" she laughed. "I can't write the test for you. Now get out, I have to change."

"I'll be waiting right outside the door," he mumbled as he slipped off the bed and left the room.

Natalia locked the door before unbuttoning her pyjama shirt and slipping her pants off, making sure to fold them neatly before putting them in her dresser.

She then grabbed the white button-up shirt and quickly put it on before slipping on the red-and-grey plaid dress, flattening the skirt. It was February, meaning it was cold, and so she put on the sweater vest over top for extra warmth.

Now that she was fully covered, she decided to let Diego in; he had begun to tap against the door to remind her of his presence.

"You know you're annoying, right?" she sighed as she opened the door, putting an end to his tapping.