29
FRACTAL
IT’S STILL TWENTY minutes until our meeting at SSL, but I can’t take another second in Portside. The lab results have shaken me up, and I need to clear my head.
I take the most circuitous route I can think of—up three decks, aft toward the generator room, cross over to starboard, take the stairs back down, where they’ll dump me out around the corner from the lab. It’s quiet, as I suspected. I’ve never had need to go from Portside to SSL like this before—on a normal day, I would have just walked across the deck. On normal days I never have need to go to SSL at all.
I’ll have to remember this route, now thatnormalis a thing of the past.
SSL is blessedly empty when I enter. After finding Yuki and Grace hiding out in here, part of me worried it would happen again. For once, though, something has gone as it should.
I make my way around the pillars, over to the far wall. Unlike Portside, which is bright and white and windowless, there are no overhead lights in SSL except for a few spotlights around themain lab area—it’s lit almost entirely by the glow of the pillars. Also unlike Portside, SSL has an enormous panoramic view of the galaxy on this far wall. Given how dark it is in here, the stars seem to shine even brighter than usual.
I take a seat on the floor, draw my knees up to my chest. What is happening? How is it that, with everything shifting and our problems constantly blooming into complicated fractals, the one constant I’ve come to depend on—the scientific method—has degenerated right along with everything else? How are my tests suddenly useless? It just makes no sense.
I’ll do tests on the saliva next, I guess. I’ll do tests on the hair if I have to, not that the virus will show up there, but maybe just to prove to myself that I still know how to examine a sample—that I haven’t completely lost my mind.
Soon, the sound of a door sliding open echoes from across the room. I’m too far hidden to see who it is; I really should get up, really shouldn’t be late for my own meeting.
“Linds?” a voice says, deep and calm: Leo. “You here yet?”
“Back by the window,” I say quietly.
A minute later, he sits down beside me, doesn’t say a word. With everything that’s been happening lately, I’d almost forgotten how it feels to sit, alone, with Leo: like I’m myself again. Like all of my pieces are in one place, not scattered. Safe.
It isn’t like that with Heath. I feel safe with him, for sure, but it isn’t the same. With Heath, it’s like I’m only just discovering pieces of myself I never knew existed. With Heath, things are new and shiny and distracting. Not in a bad way—it isn’t bad atall. I’d go so far as to say that things with Heath aregood.
But Leo feels like home.
If it had been Leo who’d kissed me, Leo who’d said he’d only just realized he might never get the chance—
No. I stop myself before I go there, before I go too far down that path.
“How’re you holding up?” he says, his voice quiet.
“I’m not,” I say. “Not really.”
From nowhere, a pair of hot tears slip out and run down my cheeks. I wipe them away with the back of my hand. This isn’t me—I don’t cry. If Leo sees, he’ll know things are far worse than I’ve let on. That I’m breaking inside, one brittle piece at a time. I will my eyes dry, stare into the stars until they’re blurred and unfocused.
“Did River find you?” I say, changing the subject.
“Yeah, I took him home.” He studies me, long and slow. I’m not even looking at him, but I feel it. “You’re doing a good job, Linds. You’re doing the best job anyone could do.”
“Not better than my mother,” I say.
“Your mother would be impressed with how you’re handling this,” he says, “and that’s the honest truth.”
Finally, I turn my eyes from the firefly stars, look into his. We’re both illuminated by the faint glow from the nearest pillar, by this small patch of light in a world of shadows. I don’t have words. I can’t possibly express how much I needed to hear what he’s just said.
He puts his arm around me and pulls me close, a thing we’vedone forever on days where things feel impossible—but today,thisimpossible day, it feels different. It feels almost wrong, given how things are shifting with Heath. It feels more intimate than usual.
And yet I don’t pull away.
Maybethisis what I never knew I wanted, what I never knew I needed. Maybe I just wanted someone to be there for me, maybe I thought it was Heath—Heath is wonderful, Heath is my friend. Now that I’m here, though, I can’t say for sure it’s not Leo I need. Leo Iwant.
I blink rapidly. Stay calm, Lindley. First the tears, and now this new thing I can’t unsee, where my best friends are suddenly becoming something more to me: WhoamI? This is the worst time for this. For any of it. For leaning into Leo when I’ve just kissed Heath, for thinking about any of this at all when there is real, actuallifeat stake.
Across the room, the door slides open again. I stiffen at the sound of it, more than I mean to.
