Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            Inside the box, Félicette explodes in a long, plaintive meow. Her pink nose peeks out from one of the air holes, her paw from another. I let out a wet, bubbly, happy laugh. Turns out I’m crying again.

            Through the tears, I see understanding on Levi’s face. Then pure, overwhelming, knee-shaking joy in his eyes. But it’s only a moment. By the time he reaches over to take the box from my hands, he is grounded. Solid. Profoundly, quietly happy.

            “I think,” he says slowly, carefully, his voice a little thick, “that we won’t know until we try.”





EPILOGUE





HERE’S MY FAVORITE piece of trivia in the whole world: Dr. Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Dr. Bee Königswasser-Ward showed up to their wedding ceremonies wearing their lab gowns.

            Well. Clothes. Gowns aren’t really a thing anymore. Unless you’re walking the red carpet at the Met Gala or . . . well, getting married, I guess. Which I was. But. I was wearing a Target dress—yup, the Target dress—which I sometimes wear at work. And I work in a NASA lab, which technically makes it “lab clothes.” I guess I’m a pragmatic gal, too.

            Levi and I aren’t going to have a ceremony until this summer. July 26, to be precise. I’d explain why I picked that date, but it might shift your opinion of me from “quirky Marie Curie fangirl” to “dangerously obsessive stalker,” so . . . yeah. I’ll let you google it, if you must. Anyway, even though we’re married, only a handful of people know. Reike, for instance (“Should I hyphenate my name, too? Mareike Königswasser-Ward. Nice ring to it, huh?”). Penny and Lily (our impromptu witnesses). Schrödinger and Félicette, of course, but they didn’t care too much when we told them. They just blinked sleepily at us and went back to napping on top of each other, stirring only when a dollop of celebratory whipped cream appeared.

            Ungrateful creatures. I love them.

            It’s a bit odd, the way our elopement came about. I noticed Levi’s frustration when, around the ninth time he proposed, I told him that I did want to marry him, but I was traumatized by the last-minute split of my previous engagement (and by the thousands of dollars wasted in security deposits). But the solution to this mess appeared to me in a dream. (That’s a lie: I was plucking my eyebrows.)

            I secretly applied for a marriage license. Then, on a random Thursday morning, I told him I wanted to drive the truck (he was not a fan, but hid it well). He thought we were heading to work (hence the Target dress), but instead I sneakily navigated us to the courthouse. In the already-crowded early-morning parking lot, while he looked around to figure out where the hell we were, I told him I’d marry him that very day. That I couldn’t be afraid of him leaving me at the altar if we’d already tied the knot. That I wouldn’t even make him sign a prenup to prevent him from claiming rights to my limited-edition Empire Strikes Back DVD, because I wasn’t planning on divorcing him. Ever.

            “I guess I should properly ask,” I said after methodically explaining my reasoning, “will you marry me, Levi?” To which he said, “Yeah.” Hoarse. Tongue-tied. Breathless. Handsome, so handsome that I had to kiss him, a little tearfully. And by “a little” I mean “a lot.” And by “tearfully” I mean that snot was involved. It was ugly, kids.

            And it was beautiful.

            After a ninety-four-second ceremony we drove to the Space Center, made up an excuse for being late, and I had Lean Cuisine at my desk while frowning at the terrible signal dropout in the astronauts’ MRI scans. I only saw Levi once, in public, and the one interaction we were able to sneak was his hand briefly brushing my lower back. Yikes, right?

            It was the best day of my life.

            Unlike today. Today’s going to be the worst day of my life. It’s 8:43 a.m., and I already know it.

            “Are you actually going to do this?” Reike asks, staring at the “#FAIRGRADUATEADMISSIONS RACE, START LINE” banner above our heads.

            “My heart says no.”

            “And your body?”

            “My body also says no. But louder.”

            She nods, unsurprised. “You can probably do it. The 5K, I mean. For the love of the goddess, do not attempt the half marathon.”

            “That’s a lot of trust from someone who has my same wimpy constitution and should know better.”

            “It has nothing to do with constitution and everything to do with Levi training you for . . . it’s been what, eight months?”