Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            “But we can still—”

            She’s gone before I can remind her that I’m her boss—I will learn to exert authority, but today’s not the day. I don’t mind too much anyway. Because when the door closes behind her, I spring out of my chair again and jump up and down a little bit more.





8





PRECENTRAL GYRUS: MOVEMENT



FUN FACT: DR. Curie’s BFF was an engineer.

            Seems unlikely, huh? I sit across from the best and brightest of Levi’s team—total Cockcluster™, naturally—and think: Who would voluntarily spend time with the engineering ilk? And yet it’s true, like turkey-flavored candy corn, pimple-popping videos, and many other unlikely things.

            It’s painful even to think about it, but here goes my least favorite Marie fact: after Pierre died, she started seeing a strapping young physicist named Paul Langevin. Honestly, it’s what she deserved. My girl was a young widow who spent most of her time stomping on uranium ore like it was wine grapes. We can all agree that if she wanted to get laid, the only adequate response should have been: “Where would you like your mattress placed, Madame Curie?” Right?

            Wrong.

            The press got ahold of the gossip and crucified her for it. They treated her like she’d boarded a train to Sarajevo and assassinated Franz Ferdinand herself. They whined about the lamest things: Madame Curie is a home-wrecker (Paul had separated from his wife ages before); Madame Curie is tarnishing Pierre’s good name (Pierre was probably high-fiving her from physics heaven, which is full of atheist scientists and apple trees for Newton and his buddies to sit under); Madame Curie is five years older than almost-forty-year-old Paul (gasp!) and therefore a cradle-robber (double-gasp!!). If there is one thing men hate more than a smart woman, it’s a smart woman who makes her own choices when it comes to her own sex life. It was a whole thing: lots of sexist, antiSemitic crap was written, pistol duels were held, the words “Polish scum” were used, and Dr. Curie plunged into a deep depression.

            But that’s where the engineer BFF comes in.

            Her name was Hertha Ayrton and she was a bit of a polymath. Think of your high school friend who always got straight A’s but was also the captain of the soccer team, did lights for the drama club, and moonlighted as a suffragette leader. Hertha’s famous for studying electric arcs—lightning, but way cooler. I like to fantasize about her using her scientific knowledge to burn Marie’s enemies to a crisp, Zeus-style, but the truth is that their mutual love and support mostly translated into vacationing together to escape the French press.

            Sometimes friendship is made of quiet little moments and doesn’t involve lethal lightning bolts. Disappointing, I know. Then again, other times friendship is made of betrayal, and heartache, and spending two years trying to forget that you blocked the number of someone whose take-out orders you used to have memorized.

            Anyway. The moral of this particular story is, I believe, that engineers are not all bad. But the ones I’m attempting to collaborate with are often stabable. Like now, for example. I have Mark, the materials guy on BLINK, looking me in the eye and telling me for the third time in two minutes: “Impossible.”

            Okay. Let’s try again. “If we don’t move the output channels farther apart—”

            “Impossible.”

            Four. Four times in . . . Welp. Still two minutes.

            I take a deep breath, remembering a technique my old therapist used. I saw her for a short time after Tim and I broke up, when my self-confidence was six feet under, partying it up with disgruntled grubs and Mesozoic fossils. She taught me the importance of letting go of what I cannot control (others) and focusing on what I can (my reactions). She’d often do this crafty little thing: reframe my own statements to help me achieve self-realization.

            Time to therapize Mark the Material Engineer.

            “I understand that I’m asking you to do something that is currently impossible, given the inner shell of the helmet.” I smile encouragingly. “But maybe, if I explain what needs to be done from a neuroscience perspective, we can find a way to achieve a middle ground—”

            “Impossible.”

            I don’t head-desk, but only because Levi happens to enter the room right at that moment, nodding his good morning in our general direction and rolling up the sleeves of his Henley. His forearms are strong and insanely attractive—and why the hell am I even noticing them? Aargh. Kaylee let us know he’d be late because of something at Penny’s school. Which, I guess, is the name of his daughter. Because Levi has a daughter. I promise I’ll stop repeating this fact as soon as it becomes less shocking to me (i.e., never).