Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

Sincerely,

                J. F. Timberworth, Attorney-at-Law, on behalf of STC





22





ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX: OH, SHIT



I’M NOT SURE how I spend the night after reading the letter. It’s all a blur. The hours go by, and I cry. I breathe. I try to figure out what this mess is. I feel angry, shocked, beaten, lonely, sad.

            Levi calls me, twice, but I remember Rocío’s lone tear glistening down her cheek and feel too dirty and tainted to make myself pick up. What would Levi say if he knew? Would he believe me? How could he, if STC has my real name? I’m not sure I’d believe myself anymore.

            The following day it takes all of my compartmentalizing skills to focus on work—and they’re not very many. Pushing things out of my mind is not one of my talents, but I give a moderately good performance. Levi calls again in the morning, and again I don’t answer, but I text him that I’ve been swamped with BLINK (terrible excuse, since we work together) and that I’m busy picking up Trevor at the airport (not an excuse, but equally terrible).

            “Kramer couldn’t come—something about a WHO symposium—but he’s very happy,” Trevor says instead of Hi or How are you? or other things normal, decent people start a conversation with. “And you know what happens when Kramer’s happy?”

            He gives me a lab far away from you. At least down the hallway, possibly on a different floor, ideally in another building. If I even have a future in academia. If I don’t get outed as a grossly hypocritical racketeer. “Nope.”

            “He funnels funds to our lab, that’s what. When will the suits be ready?”

            I roll my eyes, driving out of Arrivals. “They’re helmets. And theoretically the prototype is ready. Some adjustments will have to be made for each individual astronaut.”

            “Right, you mentioned as much in one of the reports.” I talk about this in all the reports, but reading comprehension was never Trevor’s forte. “The Ward guy, the one who’s leading on NASA’s side? Must be a damn genius for getting this done so quickly.”

            I exhale slowly. I’m having a shitty enough day that I probably shouldn’t complicate it by telling my boss that he’s a urinal cake. Then again, because I’m having such a shitty day, I might not be able to help myself from telling him that he’s a urinal cake. What a quandary. “Dr. Ward and I are co-leads,” I say, my tone harsher than it’s ever been with Trevor. He must realize, because he gives me an irritated glance.

            “Yeah, but—”

            “But?”

            He looks out the window, chastised. “Nothing.”

            Better be.

            Trevor the Urinal Cake is the smallest of the big shots in attendance. There are two Texas congressmen, at least three of Boris’s bosses, and lots of Space Center employees who aren’t directly involved in BLINK. I’m introduced to everyone, but don’t retain anyone’s name. There’s a lot of Impressive, and Can’t wait to see the helmets in action, and This is history in the making being thrown around, which makes me nervous and apprehensive, but I tell myself that it’ll be fine. Right now, my job is the one thing I have under control—thank Dr. Curie for that.

            The goal of the demonstration is to show that the helmet improves Guy’s attention during a flight simulation. Guests will observe on a large screen from the conference room next door while Levi, the core engineering team, and I will be in the control room to make sure everything proceeds smoothly. I toy with the idea of taking five minutes alone with Guy to come clean about the marriage thing, but the throng and chaos make it impossible.

            I’m double-checking my protocols when Levi comes in, making a beeline to me. “Hey.” His eyes are serious. Dark green. Beautiful, like the underbrush of a forest. He drags a chair next to mine, the distance between us blurring the line between colleagues and something more. I should pull back, but no one’s looking at us, and the sight of him overwhelms me anyway: it’s like all those mysterious pangs elevated to the tenth. I realize that last night was the first we spent apart since . . . since whatever us is happened, and that being with him again feels like . . .

            No. It does not feel like home. Home is something else. Home is the new lab this gig is going to get me. Home is the publications I’ll write about today. Home is the community of women in STEM I made for myself that I’ll somehow have to fight for. That’s home, not Levi.