My golden ticket was the model running beneath it all, taking all that data, and feeding it into an algorithm based on science and math. It took all the numbers andasked one very important question: given everything happening right now,what are your chances of survival?
It was sort of a cancer diagnosis, but for the earth. And it was going to be presented to the team at NASA next year with the help of my mentor.
“Jude, this is—” Solace flipped it over in her palm. “You did it.” Our eyes met. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I think—I don’t know….” I rubbed the back of my neck, leaning forward without really thinking about it, closing the space between us. “I video called Dr. Ebbard. That’s why we’re leaving early. We have a meeting with him tomorrow afternoon so I can demonstrate in person.”
Her expression shifted again, and this time it was brighter. Her soft cheeks turned pink under the glow of the moon. She looked proud.
God. It almost stole my breath.
“What are you calling it?” she asked.
I hesitated, heat crawling up my neck, spreading across my face. “Survival Optimization Logic.”
There was a long beat as I watched her, waiting for the laugh or for her to blush in return but she gave me a soft smile and gave the device back as if she hadn’t even registered that I had named it after her.
“I never doubted you, Ransom.”
My hands closed around hers before I could stop myself. She was warm, and the light was soft around us, my body leaned in. If she’d asked I would have admitted it. I wouldn’t have passed it off as some weird coincidence, I would have told her I named my invention after her because my odds of surviving anything when it came to her were low.
She was close now, lips parted. “Jude,” she murmured. It was messing with my head.
I stood too fast, knocking the chair back with a dull thud. Heat colored her chest, rising to her cheeks and even the bridge of her nose. I was frozen to the spot, and I couldn’t breathe. I almost—we almost…
“There’s something else,” I added quickly, because if I didn’t just tell her, I’d lose the nerve, and texting her goodbye wasn’t an option.
It was better this way. We would be better…
“Dr. Ebbard has extended an invitation to their STEM academy.”
“Okay…” Her head tilted to the side, gaze flicking over my expression.
I reached for her hand again, rubbing circles over the back with my thumb. This is why I came. Why I drove to her house in the middle of the night, parked four blocks away, and tried to sneak in her window like a lunatic. At the risk of getting shot by her father…
I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “It’s a two year college level program at the university. It’s similar to boarding school.”
“You’re moving?”
She dropped her hand, and I missed its warmth. Now they grew tight and clammy as my body vibrated with the pent up energy.
“We don’t have any details worked out yet. My mom can’t leave her job, but I guess Adam is staying nearby between missions.” My dad, Adam, was rarely home enough to fulfill his end of the custody obligations, but when mom called he jumped at the chance to make sure I’d have a place to stay on the odd weekends here and there. It wasn’t my first pick, but if it meant I’d get to goto my dream charter school—well, I’d try forget he’d won worst father of the year since I was in early elementary and suck it the fuck up. “I’ll be home every summer.”
“But not this summer.” There it was again—her attempt to hide her disappointment behind a thin voice and bright eyes. Even though I was missing her big recital in the morning.
When I told Taya I’d be leaving, she cried, whining about how we’d only now gotten back together and how I couldn’t leave her right before her senior year.
Solace looked genuinely—albeit, painfully—happy for me, though. She rose to her knees on her window bench, threw her arms around my neck, and I tried my best not to drag her out the window. I threaded my fingers through her dense curls, burying my face in her neck as I held her close. She would be happy for me because that’s just who Solace was. She never wanted for anything, never asked, never burdened. She’d smile and congratulate me because she cared far more about how I felt, than how it might affect her.
“I won’t be home this summer, but I’ll see you during Christmas break and next summer.”
Untwining myself from her my fingers flitted back and forth over SOL as my jaw went flat, and tight. She deserved more than what I could ever give her. If I could lasso the sun and the moon and every last star I would pull them down, gather them into my arms and hand them to her.
“I am excited for you, Jude.” She shifted, carefully maneuvering herself onto the windowsill, bare legs dangling out the window. “Truly. You’re so damn incredible. You’re going to change the world.”
So are you.
I followed her gaze to the sky, where a line of lights blinked across the dark, moving in perfect formation. In the quiet that stretched between us, another streaked overhead—following the other in its path.
