I simply have to prove it.
A text comes through from Drake, my big brother.
Brother
Bro, answer my calls. It’s important. Mother wants to know when you’re going to take Marcie out.
Delete. Like clockwork.
My phone lights up with a photo - Drake and Lisa at some charity event, perfect smiles, perfect clothes, perfect lies. Just like our parents. Just like every Spencer marriage for generations.
Brother
Here’s Lisa and I this weekend. What a blast. Raised 1.1 mil, the Montgomery’s only raised 500k at their event - Ha!
I turn back to my data analysis, but the numbers swim on my screen as an unwanted memory surfaces, sharp and visceral despite the years.
Dad’s study. Me at seven, bow tie choking, asking when we’re leaving for the annual Montgomery charity event. The heavy mahogany door creaking open to reveal his secretary bent over his desk. Him straightening his tie afterward, that practiced smile never wavering as he said, “Your mother understands how these things work, son. It’s all part of the arrangement.”
The sickening part? She did understand. Never said a word about his affairs as long as he kept playing his role by attending her charity events, funding her social projects, maintaining their carefully curated image. A perfect business arrangement wearing the mask of marriage.
That massive Spencer family portrait still dominates their foyer - Mother draped in pearls, Father in his bespoke suit, Drake and I posed like expensive dolls. I remember the photographer’s frustrated plea.
“Mrs. Spencer, maybe something more natural? A genuine smile, maybe a laugh?”
Mother’s reply could have frozen hell. “Thisismysmile. Take the photo.”
Drake learned the lesson well. I watch him now, following the same path with Lisa - the society princess with the right connections. She gets status and security; he gets boardroom access through her family. Theirengagement announcement might as well have been a fucking merger filing.
A shadow falls across my desk - Kinsey hovering in the doorway like she’s approaching a cornered animal. Most grad students avoid my lab entirely, whispering about the antisocial Spencer kid who practically lives here. The intense one. The broken one.
Good. Let them talk. Fear keeps people at a safe distance.
Kinsey clears her throat, still waiting with a stack of printouts. Her hands shake slightly. “The new pressure readings...”
“Right.” My voice comes out harder than intended, and she flinches. I don’t soften my tone. “Show me.”
This is why I chose earth science. Rocks are real, they’re hard solid proof of the past. They don’t lie. They don’t pretend to be something they’re not.
My phone buzzesagain.Drake. I don’t even look.
I silence my phone, turning back to the simulation data and Kinsey. At least here in my lab, at UMS, I can escape their world. Here, I can lose myself in studying actual cold, lifeless rocks instead of becoming one.
“The calcium formations are showing unusual patterns,” Kinsey says, spreading out the graphs. She keeps a measured distance from my desk, like she’s learned exactly how close she can get before I snap at her.
“Good.” I lean forward, grateful for the distraction.
At least with science, the only relationship I need to worry about is between pressure and mineral formation. Simple. Clean.
No hearts involved, and therefore none to break.
An email notification pops up:
CALTECH REVIEW - URGENT
Dear Mr. Spencer, CalTech’s Planetary Science Division has expressed interest in your Europa mineral formation research. Dr. Zhang specifically requested to review your preliminary findings during their summer visit to UMS. This could be an exceptional opportunity for your PhD application. As you know, following in your grandfather’s footsteps at CalTech would be...
I stop reading, my throat tight. In my desk drawer, beneath stacks of research papers, lies my grandfather’s old CalTech ID badge.
