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I chuckled despite myself. Carla had been briming with excitement since we got off the train. I’d planned to drive, but whoever had knifed my tires had fucked up the rims. I was pissed, but Carla’s excitement forced me to put it at the back of my mind.
“Why are we here again?” she asked.
Once more, I had taken her hand in my own without a second thought. Last night, I’d slept in Carla’s bed again, appreciating the softness of her body against my own. We hadn’t slept together since the first time but sleeping together in bed felt more intimate in a different way.
I led Carla through the campus with ease, knowing exactly where to go. I should. I’d spent every summer here at different camps back before my father decided that higher education was mostly a waste of my time and talent.
“I’m working on a research paper,” I told her. “I need to meet with one of the professors here.”
Carla’s brow rose. “I thought you just finished high school.”
I chuckled. “I did,” I told her. “I was only going part-time since I had plenty of credits to graduate. I filled the rest of the time with this side project.”
This was the first time I’d talked about this with anyone else but my parents. And neither of them really understood what I was doing.
“What’s the research about?”
“Math,” I told her. Carla’s nose wrinkled, and I tried not to laugh at the expression on her face. Her eyes were looking around campus, taking everything in as we walked. I expected her to stare around instead of asking more questions, but as always, she surprised me.
“What about math?”
I stopped slightly, bringing her closer to my body. “Are you sure you want to know?” I asked. “It’s pretty boring.”
“A lot of things are boring. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t learn about them.”
I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down to press a kiss against her lips. She sighed as I cupped the back of her head, bringing her body closer to my own. Carla was wearing one of her miniskirts and a tiny crop top. The feeling of her skin against my hands made me hard, and it took everything in me to pull away from her.
When I did, her eyes were slightly dazed, and her small tongue licked her bottom lip. “I’m working with a software engineer to create a database that uses biographical medical data to discover and alert people of markers who might have genetic illnesses.”
The dazed look that had been in Carla’s eyes disappeared immediately. “Genetic illnesses?” she asked. “Like cancer?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I told her. “Cancer is the focus.” I paused, wondering if I should tell her the rest. I hadn’t thought about what learning of my research would do for Carla, who’d lost a sister. “Pediatric cancer, specifically.”
She inhaled and stepped away from me slightly. I could see the moment that she started to shut down on me.
And for once, I wasn’t sure what to do. “My sister died from brain cancer.” Her words were so soft that if I had not been so close, I was not sure I would have heard her.
“When?” My father told me as much, but he had not gone into details. And Carla did not know that I knew way more about her than the things that she shared. I felt a bit guilty that there was so much I knew, considering what happened between us.
“When we were eleven,” she said. She squared her shoulders, and I could see the hardness that always surrounded her starting to fall back into place. “But she was pretty much sick our entire life.”
“What kind of cancer?” It felt like an odd question to ask, but I asked it anyway. If Carla wanted to open up, I was willing to listen. She was one of the most guarded people I’d ever met.
Carla sighed. “Brain,” she said. “She was in remission a few times, but by the time we were ten it was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to make it. They’d run out of options, and it had spread. My parents had a hard time accepting that.” Her lips thinned. “Hard to believe that there was an enemy that my father’s money and power couldn’t vanquish.”
One lone tear slid down Carla’s face, but she flicked it away as though it were nothing.
“Sorry,” she said. “That really brought the mood down.”
She smiled at me, but it looked more like a cringe.
“It’s fine,” I said. “One of the researchers here narrowed down what they believe to be several markers of disease. My job is really just to aggregate the data.”
We’d resumed walking once more, but this time, we weren’t holding hands. A space developed between us as the seriousness of the past squirmed its way between the two of us, and I hated it.
Not just because I didn’t want to see pain on Carla’s face, but also, because it destroyed the façade that we’d created.
“What made you want to start working on something like this?” Carla asked, her voice soft. “Seems a little depressing.”
