After returning to the bedroom, my stomach plummets. “No, no, no.” I poke at the part of the mattress that’s soaked through. Good news: it’s no longer wet. Bad news: it’s ruined. The sealant, which is flexible in thin enough layers, becomes a weirdly hard, spiky blob when spilled in large quantities.
I groan and flop over on the dry portion. I want to cry, not because it’s ruined, but because I can already hear the voice in my head telling me I should’ve known better. It’s a good thing that Tristan pays me as much as he does, since I’m going to need a new mattress after this.
Frustrated with my failure, I shove the mattress off the box spring. I manage to tip it on one side, but I can’t make it through the door on my own. The angle is weird, it’s surprisingly heavy, and thin enough that it keeps flopping whenever I try to drag it.
Which is why, when Tristan gets home fifteen minutes later, I’m crying in the hallway.
“Whoa, what happened?” He rushes to my side and kneels so that we’re more or less at eye level. His hands hover around me, unsure of where to land.
I wipe my eyes on my hoodie sleeve and sniffle. “Science.”
Tristan takes a moment to absorb this. “Oh…kay. Are you hurt?”
“Only my pride.”
“Would you like a hug?”
“Please.” I collapse into his arms. I almost always want hugs from Tristan, but the fact that he asked first makes the tears dry up. If my mother had found me this way, her question would have been, “What did you do?” Tristan cares about me. He wants me to feel safe. That’s worth more than any failed experiment or stupid floppy mattress.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.
I explain my failed experiment. Tristan’s expression suggests that he finds this amusing, but he doesn’t laugh outright.
“Were you trying to move the mattress out on your own?” he asks.
“Um.” I sniff again. “Yeah.”
“Were you going to tell me what happened?”
“...no? I mean, I was going to handle it.”
This time, Tristan pulls back. He places his hands on my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length. “Did you think I’d be mad?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
He takes a deep breath. “Am I in the habit of getting mad at you?”
“No.” The answer comes easily.
“But other people are.” The weary way he says this makes it clear that it’s not a question. “Okay. Next question: what would you have done if you couldn’t get a fresh mattress in here before tonight?”
I don’t have to think about this, either, because I’d already decided on my plan earlier. “Sleep on the floor.”
“Because you’d rather be uncomfortable than admit that you made a mistake?”
Floors can’t be ruined. Floors can’t disappoint anyone.
I bite my bottom lip. If I made a mistake at home, my parents blamed me, but for this, they’d have been furious with Kepler. They might have told me that I had to get rid of him, even if this mistake was my fault, not his. I’m the human. I should have put him in his crate before I started working.
What if Tristan got mad at me and told me that Kepler couldn’t stay here anymore?
“I didn’t want you to…” My face betrays me before I can get the words out. I can feel it crinkling up like old paper; my lips tug downward against my will. “To punish me. I’m sorry, that’s stupid, you would never—”
“You’re not stupid, Min.” Tristan rubs my back.
“I was stupid enough to ruin a mattress!”
He licks his lips. “Was Ada Lovelace stupid?”
