Love on the Brain

“NOT TO BE whiny,” I tell the nurse with a desperate-yet-grateful-yet-really-desperate smile. “I appreciate everything you’re doing, but NIH has notoriously crappy health insurance, and if I told you what a recent Ph.D. makes a year, you’d discharge me immediately.” And give me ten bucks for the cab home.

“NASA will cover this,” Kaylee says. She’s on the bed next to me, leaning against my pillow as she shows me the wonders of TikTok. I’m clearly going to have to download this time-sinking black hole of an app.

“Or you’ll sue them,” Rocío adds from the guest chair. She’s sprawled comfortably, a GRE prep manual on her lap and her booted feet on top of the covers. The things I let her do, just because she is, as Kaylee would put it, “my fave.”

“I’m not going to sue NASA.”

“What if they decide to call their next Mars rover The Marie Curie but they end up misspelling it The Mariah Carey?”

I mull it over. “I might sue in that case.”

Rocío gives me a pleased I know you smile. My phone buzzes.

REIKE: OMG you’re on the NEWS

REIKE: HERE IN NORWAY IN THIS PUB I’M AT

REIKE: Is this what stardom feels like?

I close my eyes, which proves to be a mistake. The image of Reike climbing over the counter of a Bergen dive bar and pointing at the TV is disturbingly vivid.

BEE: You don’t even speak Norwegian.

REIKE: No, but the news lady said NASA and Houston, and they put the mugshot of the Guy guy on the screen

REIKE: lol the Guy guy I’m hilarious

BEE: Are you drunk?

REIKE: LISTEN MY FAVORITE SISTER ALMOST GOT KILLED LAST NIGHT I’M ALLOWED TO DROWN MY TRAUMA IN SOME NORWEGIAN LIQUOR THAT I CANNOT PRONOUNCE

BEE: I’m your only sister.

REIKE: Smiley

I lock my phone and slide it under the pillow. I don’t even know why I’m in a hospital. The doctors said that me passing out was concerning, and I almost laughed in their faces. I just want to go home. Stare out of the window. Think wistfully about the ephemeral nature of human existence. Watch cat videos.

“Here it says that ‘abreast’ means ‘up to date’ and has nothing whatsoever to do with boobs.” Rocío stares at the vocab section of her manual. “Sounds fake.”

Kaylee and I exchange a worried look.

“And ‘bombastic’ is a real word? This can’t be right.”

“Babe, I’ll start tutoring you again as soon as NASA’s not being sabotaged anymore.”

I give Kaylee a grateful smile. She and Rocío were in the hospital room this morning when I woke up, and they’ve stuck around since then like the amazing human beings they are. I now know more about body decomposition and makeup palettes than I thought I ever would, but I regret nothing. This is almost nice.

Then Boris enters the room with a bleak expression. Closely followed by Levi.

My heart flutters. When I asked about him this morning, the girls told me he was with law enforcement in the Discovery Building. He meets my eyes, gives me a small smile, and sets a bag and a box of my favorite brand of vegan brownies on my bedside table.

Boris stands beside the bed, rubbing his forehead, looking tired, aggravated, at the end of his rope. I wonder if he slept at all. Poor man.

“I’m at an impasse, Bee.” He sighs. “NASA firmly instructed me not to apologize to you because it would be admissible evidence if you decided to sue, but . . .” He shrugs. “I am sorry, and—”

“Don’t.” I smile. “Don’t piss off your lawyers over this. I was right there with you, thinking that it was my error. I didn’t know Guy was batshit crazy, and I worked with him every day—how could you?”

“Guy will . . . He is fired, of course. And there will be legal repercussions. We’ll resume BLINK the second the Discovery Building is not caked in yellow tape, with another demonstration. I explained everything to NIH and my superiors, and of course I am begging you on my knees to return—”

“You’re standing,” Rocío points out, unimpressed. Levi looks away, biting back a smile.

“Rocío,” I scold her gently.

“What? Make him grovel harder.”

I give her a fond look. “None of this was his fault. Plus, think how good your Ph.D. applications will look when they come with a recommendation letter from the Director of Research at the Johnson Space Center.” I hold Boris’s gaze. After a moment he nods, defeated. He needs a nap. Or nine coffees.

“I’d be happy to, Ms. Cortoreal. You deserve it.”

“Will you mention that I had sex at work with the most beautiful woman in the world?” She glances at Kaylee, who blushes prettily.

“I—” He rubs his temple. “I actually forgot about that.”

“Is that a firm no? Because it’s one of my proudest accomplishments.”

Boris leaves a few minutes later. Levi pulls up a chair and sits next to me to catch us up. “I’m not sure what the charges are, but Guy was so high up, had access to so much information, we’ll have to double-check every single chunk of code we ever wrote, every piece of hardware. It’s a setback—a big one. But BLINK will be fine, ultimately.” He doesn’t seem too concerned.

“He has a kid, doesn’t he?” Kaylee asks.

“Yeah. He had a nasty divorce last year, which I don’t think helped with . . . whatever happened. I was with him a lot, but I didn’t see it. I really didn’t.”

“Obviously,” Rocío mutters. Levi and I share an amused look, and . . .

It sticks, a little bit. It’s hard for me to let go of his eyes, and for him to let go of mine. I suspect it’s because the last time I saw him was such a mess, and the time before an even messier mess. And now we’re here, in front of this messy mess, and . . .

It’s difficult to breathe.

“Well,” Kaylee says, jumping up, “Rocío and I gotta go.”

Rocío frowns. “Where?”

“Ah, to bed.”

“But it’s three in the afterno—” Kaylee drags her up by the wrist, but when they’re at the door Rocío frees herself and comes to stand in front of Levi.

“I must thank you. For saving Bee’s life,” she says solemnly. “To me, she is like a mother. The mother I never had.”

“You have an amazing mother back in Baltimore,” I point out, “and I’m only five years older than you.” I am ignored.

“I want to give you a token. To acknowledge your contributions.”

“There’s no need,” Levi says, just as solemnly.

Rocío rummages in her jeans pocket and offers him an unwrapped, slightly squished red gumball.

“Thank you. This is . . .” He looks at the gum. “A thing that I now have.”

Rocío nods somberly, and then Levi and I are alone. Well. With the gumball.

“Did you want it?” he asks me.

“I could never. It’s your reward for saving my life.”

“Pretty sure you saved your own life.”

“It was a team effort.” There is a small lull, a not-exactly-unpleasant silence. I find that I can’t quite meet Levi’s gaze, so I glance around. “Are the brownies for me?”

“I wasn’t sure what the food options were.” He wets his lips. “The bag’s for you, too.”

“Oh.” I peek. Inside there’s something wrapped in newspaper. I put it in my lap and start unrolling it. “It’s not Guy’s heart that you cut out of his chest, is it?”

He shakes his head. “I already fed that to Schrödinger.”

“I—” I pause mid-action. “I’m so sorry. I cannot imagine how hard it must be. He’s one of your closest friends, and the fact that he was so jealous of you and Peter is . . .”

“Yeah, I . . . I’ll go talk to him. When it’s been a while and I want to punch him less. But for now . . .” He shrugs. “You should open that.”

I resume. It’s about five layers before I can make out what it is.

“A mug?” I turn it around and break into a grin. “Oh my God, Yoda Best Neuroscientist! You had it made!”

“Look inside, too.”

I do. “A bobblehead? Is this Marie Curie?” I lift it up, grinning. “She’s standing in front of her lab bench! And she’s wearing— This was her wedding gown, did you know that?”

“I didn’t.” He hesitates before adding: “I won this in middle school. Second place at the science fair. The beakers she’s holding glow in the dark.”

My smile vanishes slowly. I’m too busy staring at Marie’s pretty face to realize that I’ve heard that science fair story once before. No. No, I didn’t hear it. I read it. On my . . .

My arms fall into my lap. “You know. You know about . . .”

He nods. “I reviewed the security footage. I didn’t notice at first, but after you wrote that text—I was jogging, by the way, so maybe next time give me fifteen minutes or so before jumping headfirst into danger alone—after your text I looked at the footage more closely. And saw your computer.”

I stare at him. I’m wholly unprepared for this conversation. “I . . .”

“Did you know all along?”

“No.” I shake my hand vehemently. “No, I— The picture. Schrödinger, was— You tweeted it. And then I . . . I had no idea. Before yesterday.”

Levi just leans forward, elbows on his knees, and looks at me patiently. “Me neither.” He smiles wryly. “Or I wouldn’t have talked about you with you so much.”

“Oh.” I flush as vermillion as a cardinal male at the peak of mating season. My heart thrashes in my chest—also like a cardinal male at the peak of mating season. “Right.”

The things he said.

I want to push her against a wall, and I want her to push back.

The.

Things.

He.

Said.

“Are you okay?” he asks, concerned. It’s warranted: I might be in the midst of a cardiac event.

“I—I’m fine. I . . . Have you ever seen You’ve Got Mail?”

“Nope.” He gives me a hesitant look. “Maybe we could watch it together?”

Yes, I want to say. I even open my mouth, but no sound comes out of my stupid, stubborn, petrified vocal box. I try again: nothing. Still nothing. My fingers clench the sheets, and I study the amused, knowing expression in his eyes. Like he fully understands what’s going on inside me.

“Did you know that she used to be a governess? Marie Curie?”

I nod, slightly taken aback. “She had an agreement with her sister. Marie worked as a governess and helped her sister pay for med school. Then, once her sister had a job, they flipped.”

“So you know about Kazimierz Żorawski?”

I tilt my head. “The mathematician?”

“He eventually became one—a good one, too. But initially he was just one of the sons of the family Marie worked for. He and Marie were the same age, both exceptionally . . .”

“Nerdy?”

“You know the type.” He flashes a smile, which fades almost immediately. “They fell in love, but he was rich, she wasn’t, and back then things weren’t as simple as wanting to marry someone.”

“His parents separated them,” I murmur. “They were heartbroken.”

“Maybe it was destiny. If she’d stayed in Poland, she wouldn’t have met Pierre. The two of them were very happy by all accounts. The idea of radioactivity was hers, but Pierre helped her out. Kazimierz was a mathematician; he might not have been as involved in her research.” Levi shrugs. “It’s all a bunch of what-ifs.”

I nod.

“But he never really got over Marie. Żorawski, I mean. He married a pianist, had children—named one Maria, which is amusing—studied in Germany, became a professor at Warsaw Polytechnic, worked on . . . geometry, I believe. He lived a full life. And yet, as an old man, he could be found sitting in front of Marie Curie’s statue in Warsaw. Staring for hours. Thinking about who knows what. A bunch of what-ifs, maybe.” The green of Levi’s eyes is so bright I can’t look away. “Maybe about whatever little personality quirk of Marie made him fall for her a handful of decades before.”

“Do you think . . .” My cheeks are wet. I don’t bother wiping them. “Do you think she used to cook terrible stir-fries?”

“I can see that.” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Maybe she also insisted on feeding a murder of imaginary cats.”

“I’ll have you know that Félicette saved my life.”

“I saw that. It was very impressive.”

Carts roll in the hallway outside. A door closes, and another opens. Someone laughs.

“Levi?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think they . . . Marie, and Pierre, and the mathematician, and everyone else . . . do you think they ever wished they’d just never met? Never been in love?”

He nods, as though he’s considered the matter before. “I really don’t know, Bee. But I do know that I never have. Not once.”

The hallway is suddenly silent. An odd musical chaos pounds sweetly inside my head. A precipice, this one. A deep, dangerous ocean to leap into. Maybe it’s a bad idea. Maybe I should be scared. Maybe I will regret this. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe this feels like home.

“Levi?”

He looks at me, calm. Hopeful. So patient, my love.

“Levi, I—”

The door opens with a sudden noise. “How are you feeling today, Bee?” My doctor steps in with a nurse in tow.

Levi’s eyes linger on me for one more second. Or five. But then he stands. “I was just about to head out.”

I watch his small smile as he waves goodbye. I watch the way his hair curls on his nape as he steps out. I watch the door close behind him, and when the doctor starts asking me questions about my useless parasympathetic nervous system, it’s all I can do not to glare at her.

•   •   •

TWO DAYS.

Two days, I’m in the damn hospital. Then the doctor discharges me with a squinty, distrustful, “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you.” Rocío picks me up with our rental (“In ancient Egypt, female corpses were kept at home until they decomposed to avoid necrophilia at the embalmer’s. Did you know that?” “Now I do.”), and is just as squinty and distrustful when I ask her to drop me off at the Discovery Building—and to please leave the car in the parking lot.

There’s no police tape inside. In fact, I meet several non-BLINK engineers in the hallways. I smile politely, shrug off their curious, intrigued looks, and head for my office. There’s a Do Not Enter sign on the wall. I ignore it.

I walk out six hours later, not quite gracefully. I’m carrying a large box and I can’t see my feet, so I trip a lot. (Who am I kidding? I always trip a lot.) In the car, I tinker with my phone, searching for a good song, and find none I care to listen to.

It’s dark already, past sundown. For some unfathomable reason, the silent lights of the Houston skyline make me think of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. The Belle Époque, they called it. While Dr. Curie holed up in her shed-slash-lab, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec chugged absinthe at the Moulin Rouge. Edgar Degas creeped on ballet dancers and bathing ladies. Marcel Proust bent over his desk, writing books I’ll never get around to reading. Auguste Rodin sculpted thinking men and grew impressive beards. The Lumière brothers laid the foundation for masterpieces such as Citizen Kane, The Empire Strikes Back, the American Pie franchise.

I wonder if Marie ever went out at night. Every once in a while. I wonder if Pierre ever pried a beaker full of uranium ore out of her hand and dragged her to Montmartre for a walk or a show. I wonder if they had fun, in the few years they had together.

Yes. I’m sure they did. I’m sure they had a blast. And I’m sure, like I’ve never been sure before, that she never regretted anything. That she treasured every second.

The solar lights are on in Levi’s yard, just bright enough for me to see the hummingbird mint, purple and yellow and red. I smile and lift the large, light box from the passenger seat, stopping to coo at it. I know about the spare key hidden under a pot of rosemary, but I ring the doorbell anyway. While I wait, I try to spy into the air holes I carved on the top. Can’t see much.

“Bee?”

I look up. Breathless. Not scared. I’m not scared anymore.

“Hi. I . . . Hi.” He’s so handsome. Stupidly, unjustly handsome. I want to look at his stupidly, unjustly handsome face for . . . for as long as I possibly can. Could be a minute. Hopefully, it’ll be seventy years.

“Are you okay?”

I take a deep breath. Schrödinger’s here, too; staring up quizzically at me and my cargo. “Hi.”

“Hi. Are you . . . ?” Levi reaches for me. Abruptly stops himself. “Hey.”

“I was wondering . . .” I lift up the box. Hold it out to him. Clear my throat. “I was wondering . . . do you think poor Schrödinger would hate us if we adopted another cat?”

Levi blinks at me, confused. “What do you—?”

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.”