Discovering the Real Chemistry

         Cecelia Ainsworth pulled the ribbon from her luxurious blond hair just at the right moment for it to cascade into the sightlines of every male in the vicinity of the Riverwood High School senior class entrance.  

          Her hair crowned an outfit worthy of the top runway models at the 2023 New York Fashion Week and a body that would outclass the stars of the runway at any of the highest grossing movies in the year’s cinema lineup.

       All of this came wrapped up in a package of intelligence enabling her to gain first-round early acceptance into the upper echelon of every list of institutions of higher learning across the United States.

      In stark contrast, Freddie Harrison wiped the black stains from the greasy hands he earned by trying to coax a turnover from the faulty transmission on his well-worn previously-owned Chevy Camaro determined to make him late for the first Riverwood homeroom of the year.

     Freddie had a kind of rugged handsomeness guaranteed to catch the eye of many of the school’s middle and working class coeds, and he did work out twice a week in between practices as a second-string running back on the football squad.

     Not known for his enthusiasm for academics, he did manage to retain a solid position in the middle lower rankings in his class. 

      Although Cecelia and Freddie coexisted in the same high school universe the differences in their social strata kept them out of each other’s orbits through much of their high school careers–at least after the school day.

      The teachers at Riverwood tried their best to open the same educational opportunities to each of their students.

      Therefore, Cecelia and Freddie often found themselves attending class together.

        Because they ran in different circles this made little difference. That is, until their chemistry teacher assigned them to become lab partners.

        “Don’t know if we’ll experiment much in this class on the composition of grease,” the rich coed said to the jock at the beginning of their first class session together.

      “Can’t see that we’ll learn much here on the best way to make up smokey eyes,” the athlete shot back.

       It looked like the first hope in a class warfare truce had gotten off to a rocky start.

       As the school year went on cracks began to develop in the respective armors of the two sides.

      Truth be told, Cecelia had become increasingly bored with afternoon female gossip sessions which seemed to center chiefly on tearing down “those other people” and male expectations that the only female role consisted in building up egos by gushing over meaningless accomplishments.

        Freddie certainly had ambitions to open his own auto mechanic’s business after high school, but he didn’t like the prospect of wasting his time maintaining the expensive toys of those who constantly looked down their noses at him.

        During their lab sessions the two teens also had come to realize attractions to each other that seemed to transcend the social barriers.

        They also had discovered a common cause that stirred in them passions they had never suspected in their hereto arms-length relationship.

          Turns out Farah Ainsworth, one of Cecelia’s cousins, had begun asking her for increasing amounts of money every week to help buy painkillers for a leg she hurt in a field hockey game. 

          “Nothing the doctors do for me seems to help,” she pleaded. “The only thing that seems to help is oxycodone, but my physicians no longer will write prescriptions for it.  I have a friend who supplies me. He swears it is not harmful, but it is getting harder to get and more expensive every time I see him.  The pain is unbearable though, and I don’t think I can get through life without this miracle drug.  I wouldn’t ask you, but my parents say I should just learn to live with the injury.  You are the only one I can trust.”

      Jarod, one of Freddie’s friends, had injured his arm during football practice and the team physician had injected him with toradol.  According to Jarod, just when the shots had begun to work effectively, team officials told him they could no longer inject the substance into his arm because of its long-term side effects.

      The same story as Farah–Freddie had become the only person who could finance the cure for his pain.  Although medical evidence had not found toradol a cause for addiction, long-term use of the substance could possibly result in bleeding in the stomach and intestines, kidney problems, heart attack, and stroke. For this reason Jarod’s family and other friends refused to pay for more of the drug. 

      “Maybe I’m a wimp,” Jarod had pleaded with Freddie, “but I don’t want to live in pain the rest of my life.”

         The lab partners wanted to help their friends, but they knew the answers did not lie in continuing to pay for potentially illegal or physically harmful opioids.

          They pledged to use their joint love of chemistry to help develop pain killing treatments that could legally and safely bring the world the relief it needed.

         Throughout the remainder of their high school years they spent many hours studying about current and proposed safe and legal treatments. They also decided that, if necessary, they would go to college and major in chemistry and pharmacology to continue their pursuit of these solutions.

         While working on the chemistry needed to help their friends, the two former social enemies developed a personal chemistry of their own.

         They began dating and eventually married one year after graduating with honors from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

         Although the complete development of pain relief free of the abuses of opioids had only reached its preliminary stages when they received their medical degrees, the Ainsworth-Harrison research studies advanced that science far beyond any previous attempt to deal with the problem.

       Cecelia and Freddie agreed to fight for the rest of their lives against the plague that had taken away the lives of their friends and too many other young people around the world.