Because the bottom line is—I trust Brayden.
I trust him not to take advantage of me.
I trust him to keep me safe.
And I trust him to be my friend.
My best friend.
I trip as we turn the corner toward Brayden’s truck, and he tightens his hold on me.
“Let’s stop for a second so you can get your bearings,” he says.
I glance up at the sky littered with stars. I can pick out the Big Dipper and Orion clearly, and as I keep looking…
“A shooting star!”
“Cool.” Brayden stares at the sky. “Do you know what shooting stars are?”
“They’re little chunks of rock in space. The same as a meteor.” My drunken mouth won’t shut up as I ramble on about how meteor showers happen when the earth passes through the path of a comet. “But shooting stars happen nightly.” I tell him how you’re supposed to be able to see more shooting stars just before dawn than earlier in the night, “Because we’re facing the direction in which the earth is moving at that time. So we intercept more of the stuff in space.”
“Do you remember everything that you learned in school?” Brayden teases me. “Or just the questions I’ve happened to ask?”
“I remember things, but apparently that didn’t help with my defense.” I laugh. “I’m great at trivia games, though, if you ever need a partner.”
Long pause. Then, my tongue still loose from the alcohol, I say what’s been on my mind all afternoon and evening.
“I’m thinking of dropping out of the PhD program.”
Until I say it out loud to somebody else— somebody who won’t judge me—I didn’t realize I was that certain about it myself.
Brayden’s focus shifts from the sky to my face. “Wow. When did you decide?”
“When I left campus today and I went home…” I stop. “I guess I just realized something felt off.”
“Because you don’t love it anymore?” he asks me.
“Because I never loved it,” I say, and I realize it’s true as I say it. “I loved taking tests, and being right, and knowing if I was right that there was a test that would prove it, you know? I loved having a teacher with me, at all times, to tell me what was right and what was wrong. Life felt safer that way. Especially after what happened at the party. I lost trust in my intuition. I guess I felt like I needed a mentor, someone to instruct me on what to do.”
Like Phillip. He’s been my instructor since I was sixteen.
“Maybe you’re still making up your mind about all of it,” Brayden says as he watches my face.
“No,” I say, and I shake my head. “I think it’s made up. I’m not going to go back. I’m going to look for a job, and I’m going to paint, but I’m not going to continue in the PhD program. I’ll go see my advisor this week.”
We look at each other in silence, and I know Brayden’s on my side. It feels strange to not have to justify dropping out, especially when I know telling the other people in my life isn’t going to be nearly so simple.
I flick my gaze to his. “My parents will flip out. They’re scientists through and through. That world is all they know.”
“They must get along well with your fiancé.”
“Of course,” I say as we start walking again toward Brayden’s truck. “Sometimes it seems like they like him better than me.”
Brayden squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is,” I insist. “He and my father are like twins.”
We reach his truck, and Brayden opens the door for me.
