Chapter Eight: Anatomy of Determination
The kitchen table had become Amaya's battlefield. Her textbooks sprawled across its surface, colored pens scattered like tiny explosions, sticky notes plastered to every available page. Zoology and anatomy were her new obsession, and the culprit was obvious: she needed to impress Aris.
Heart first. She had memorized the chambers, the valves, the rhythm of blood pumping through the human body until she could practically hear it in her own ears.
"I… I think I've got it," she whispered to herself, tracing the right atrium and left ventricle with her pen, the page smudging slightly under her frantic fingers. "Right atrium… tricuspid… right ventricle… pulmonary… left atrium…"
Liam peeked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. "Amaya… you look like a mad scientist who's just discovered electricity."
"I'm… focusing!" she shot back, not looking up. "It's… it's critical!"
"And by critical, you mean critical for impressing Aris?" he asked, smirking.
She groaned. "Shut up, Liam!" She flipped to the next page: digestive system. "Mouth… esophagus… stomach… small intestine… large intestine…" Her pen paused dramatically at the pancreas. "And… oh no… don't ask me about bile ducts."
"You're lucky Aris doesn't assign pop quizzes through the window," Liam teased, settling into the chair across from her. "You'd combust."
Amaya ignored him, digging deeper into the diagrams, her notes meticulous but shaky from the sheer intensity of her focus. Her internal monologue was on overdrive. He has to notice. He has to see that I can do this. That I can learn, and be… someone worthy of his… attention.
Later that evening, Aris arrived, carrying his usual stack of textbooks. He placed them on the table with a measured thud and looked at her, expression flat. "Heart. Circulatory system. Show me."
She swallowed hard, trying to steady her racing heart. "Okay," she said, fingers trembling slightly as she pointed to her diagram. "The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from the body. It passes through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle, which pumps it through the pulmonary artery to the lungs…"
He leaned in, scanning her work with his usual intensity. "Good," he said flatly. "But your labels are slightly off. The pulmonary vein returns oxygenated blood to the left atrium. You reversed it here." He tapped the page with his finger, close enough that she felt a jolt of awareness.
"Right. Sorry." She corrected it immediately, her cheeks warming.
"Attention matters, Amaya," he said, voice low but not unkind. "This isn't a game." He reached over to guide her hand for the left atrium label, brushing her fingers briefly. Her pulse jumped, but she didn't flinch.
"Next," he said, moving on. "Digestive system. Explain the path."
She took a deep breath. "Food enters the mouth, is broken down by teeth and saliva, travels down the esophagus, into the stomach where acid and enzymes continue digestion…" She hesitated at the pancreas. "And… enzymes from the pancreas assist the small intestine…"
He raised an eyebrow. "You hesitated. Explain bile production."
Amaya winced. "The liver produces bile, stored in the gallbladder, then released into the small intestine to emulsify fats. That's… it, right?"
"Correct," he said, nodding slightly. "But your sequence was messy. Step back. Think logically. The digestive system is… an orchestra. Each part must play its role in harmony."
She nodded earnestly, scribbling furiously. Harmony. Orchestra. He notices everything.
He moved to the nervous system next, diagrams sprawled before them. "Brain. Spinal cord. Peripheral nerves. Pathways. Reflex arcs. Ready?"
"Yes!" she said, nearly bouncing in her seat. "Ready."
"Good. Trace the pathway for a reflex arc. Don't skip steps."
She traced it, narrating aloud: "Stimulus detected by receptor… sensory neuron… spinal cord… interneuron… motor neuron… effector muscle… response produced."
He leaned closer, scrutinizing her work.
"Excellent. But the sensory neuron… label it here. And don't forget the interneuron synapses. Tiny details matter, Amaya."
She bit her lip, nodding. "Right. Details. Got it."
"Good," he said, finally leaning back. His gaze lingered on her hands for a fraction longer than necessary. "You're improving, but you need more… focus."
"I'm trying!" she protested, a little breathless, but secretly thrilled at the intensity of his attention.
The session continued in a rhythm: correction, instruction, minor pinch or tap for mistakes—just enough contact to make her pulse race, just enough proximity to ignite the tiniest spark of something she couldn't name.
By the time they reached cardiovascular pathologies, Amaya's head was spinning. Liam, who had been observing intermittently with a smirk, decided it was time to intervene.
"You look like you're about to combust," he said, leaning on the counter. "Do you want a break? Maybe some ice water?"
"I don't need a break!" Amaya snapped, though her voice wavered. She adjusted her ponytail furiously. "I need to… to memorize the sinoatrial node and… and the AV node and…"
Liam held up his hands. "Okay, okay, calm down. You're literally hyperventilating. You're not even in battle mode yet. This is… just tutoring."
"Just tutoring?" she muttered under her breath. "If he touches me once more… I might combust anyway."
Aris, for his part, ignored Liam completely, guiding her through diagrams and explanations with the same surgical precision he applied to textbooks. Every correction was a tiny reprimand, every leaning gesture a shock to her system.
Amaya made mistake after mistake, yet she refused to let it show. Every time he tugged lightly on her ear or nudged her shoulder to correct her hand, she felt an electric thrill that made it hard to concentrate, but also impossible to stop trying.
Hours passed. By the end of the session, her notebook was crammed with detailed diagrams of the heart, digestive system, and nervous system, each labeled in painstaking detail, complete with sticky notes, arrows, and tiny mnemonic devices she had invented mid-session.
Aris finally closed the textbook with a measured thud. "You've improved," he said, voice flat but firm. "Still sloppy on details, but the progress is visible. Keep reviewing. Next session, more depth. And Amaya…" He looked up, expression almost unreadable, "focus. No distractions. Zoology and anatomy first. Everything else second."
"Yes, sir," she said, sitting back with a sigh of relief. Her pulse was still rapid, her hair slightly mussed, but her notebook was immaculate. She had survived.
As he packed up, Liam leaned against the counter again, smirking. "You're alive. And you didn't pass out. Honestly, I'm impressed."
"I'm not just alive," she said, smiling despite herself. "I'm… getting better. And I… I think I might even… enjoy this."
Liam chuckled. "Enjoy torturing yourself with him, you mean."
"Shut up!" she laughed, rolling her eyes. Then she leaned against her brother, letting him ruffle her hair. "Thanks, Liam. I couldn't survive the aftermath without you."
He shrugged, grinning. "Anytime, little sis. Just… try not to combust next time."
Amaya watched Aris disappear down the path back to his house, textbooks under arm, expression unreadable. And she felt something new: determination, fierce and thrilling. Zoology and anatomy weren't just subjects to survive—they were weapons, tools, a way to impress the boy next door, the boy who had somehow become the center of her academic and emotional universe.
She picked up her pen and began reviewing her notes, heart pounding with a mix of exhaustion and exhilaration. The human body, with all its veins, nerves, and digestive intricacies, suddenly felt alive—not just on the page, but in the way her heart raced every time he corrected her, every time he leaned close.
Amaya Snow had a mission, and nothing—neither red ink, nor Aris Rowon's piercing attention, nor Liam's teasing—would stop her.