“First…” I lifted a finger. “I never said it was about us. Second, you’re reading too far into it.Satelliteswas a convenient title that matched the tone of the melody. I picked it after watching the shuttle launch you sent me a few months ago.”
He reached across the table, palm open between us. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
I pushed his hand away. “Even if it was about us… it’s a fitting title, wouldn’t you say?” My stomach flipped—light, stupid, uncontrollable. Nothing to do with the food. Everything to do with the fact that we were circling something we’d never once said out loud in all our years of friendship. And I was letting it happen. I was letting him. “Don’t you think it’s kind of funny? It’s never quite worked out between us. I’m going to college in the fall, and you’re leaving for boot camp in a few weeks.” I didn’t even want to think about it—otherwise I’d start crying—so I shrugged lightly. “Pretty ill-fated, if you ask me.”
“Nah.” Jude caught my hand before I could pull away and laced our fingers together on top of the table. His other hand slipped beneath it, settling on my knee. My breath snagged. “Just near misses,” he said, thumb brushing over my knuckles. “I’ve waited this long. What’s a few more?”
What’s forever.
8
Distant Dreams
Jude
The porch was ensconced in darkness when I saw her headlights turn into the drive. I swung gently back and forth, watching the beam cut across the lawn, as her dad’s old Ranger rolled over the gravel. The engine cut out, and Solace stepped out, slamming her door shut. She was in her work clothes, curls fanned around her in a fuzzy halo.
I watched her come up the steps, tip-toeing as if she didn’t want to wake anyone even though she’d probably already done that with the car door.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” she chirped, stopping in front of me for a half second.
I reached for her waist and tugged her down on top of me, where she slithered off the side of my lap with a huff. The chains rattled as the swing shifted. “You didn’t text.”
“I had to work late and then my phone died.”
I figured as much. Solace’s phone was always dead. “I leave at four tomorrow morning.”
“I know.”
The swing moved slowly, back and forth, Solace’s shoulder brushing mine as I slid my hand over her jean clad thigh.
“You could change your mind.” Her voice was quiet, but it didn’t match her words.
She’d doubled down on working to convince me to forget the military entirely. So much for always supporting me.
“You don’t have to serve to get into NASA. You’d get accepted anywhere and you could get the same degree.”
I let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh. “Sol.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.” My own voice was harsher than I’d meant it.
There were things I couldn’t tell her, things I probably wasn’t supposed to know if it hadn’t been for SOL. Nothing was what they said it was. When they’d asked about the potential of atmospheric monitoring—I naively thought it meant: hey, let’s install SOL into a bunch of satellites and send them up to space to monitor closer than we already are. Except there was a lot of hidden meaning between what they said, and what actually came across my encrypted email.
When I designed SOL I’d pictured it becoming a tool in climate change. A useful contrivance that might one day detect cancer faster than any MRI or CT Scan. The options were endless. So when I opened the briefings, radiation mapping caught me off-guard. The questions were changing and becoming more specific, and to put it bluntly, a lot less like science and a whole lot more like preparation. What happens to radiation dispersion if the magnetosphere continues to destabilize? How quickly can SOL read the levels? What regions might become uninhabitable first—and how fast?
Solace shifted away from me; I mourned the space immediately. “There’s a lot going on right now.” She twirled a curl, fingers frantic as her voice took onthat wary edge. “You watch the news. The protests. The—everything.”
Everything meant panic dressed up as news. Government statements that contradicted themselves depending on the day. Evacuation rumors, that if I was being honest… weren’t really rumors anymore.
Her voice tightened. “Jude, there’s so many better ways—”
“I’m not deploying,” I added quickly. Not yet at least.
“You don’t know that.”
