Two hands wrapped around my shoulders. Clara steadied me. “Four days. It’s going to be rough, but you can handle this. I know you can. I believe in you.”
You shouldn’t, I thought.No one should.
“Tell Addie and Terrence and Leelah to meet me in our HQ. I’ll be there in ten.”
With a nod, Clara evacuated the room, leaving me to spiral.
My existence abided by Newton’s “universal” law of gravity. (Shut up, science nerds—I know about Einstein’s theories of relativity, but I’m trying to make a simple point for the normies.)
What goes up, must come down.That is the basic, observable principle. A pendulum abides by that principle, yes. But there’s an arc to it. A rising action and a similarly arcing decline. A slow burn of movement. A downward curve that gives one time to prepare for the lowest point.
I was a brick dropped from a twenty-story window. A crushing drop straight to the unforgiving pavement below.
I’d fucked up.
Again.
And in the exact same way as the last time.
I’d trusted myself.
Rookie mistake. Everyone knew that Fluorine Scout couldn’t be trusted. Not with men. Not with business. Not with keys, apparently. And certainly not with her own heart or future.
Moving without seeing, I shoved my things into my backpack, saying nothing until Hudson appeared at my side, extending my drafting tablet in uncertain hands.
“What can I do to help?”
“You’ve done enough, thanks,” I said tersely.
He recoiled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The guilt that flooded me was almost as sharp as the bitterness. “No. I’m sorry. You’re right. This wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Totally mine. I should have known better.”
“Scout. What is going on?”
“What’s going on is that I did it again. I did what I wanted, I chased after some guy, and I puteverythingat risk. And for what?For some sex? For a little bit of fun? For the hope that you might…”
“Might what?”
“Nothing. I gotta go.”
I shoved my bag over my shoulder and started for the door. He followed.
“I’ll help you.”
“No, you fuckingwon’t. Because this is what I’m good at. My work. It’s the only thing I’veeverbeen good at. And this is what happens when I let something get in the way of that. I’m not cut out for romance or friendship or anything else, and it’s time I remembered that. I’m sorry, Hudson. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with you anymore.”
They were the hardest words I’d ever forced myself to say. They were inevitable, though, weren’t they? I’d been living in a fantasy world, buying Hudson’s bullshit about me being able to handle myself, about me not being a total failure in everything that isn’t STEM. It was time to wake up.
Hudson scoffed.
“I can’t believe this.”
“Can’t believe what?”
Circling me with long strides, he put himself between me and the door, blocking my path. His face contorted with emotion in ways I’d never seen before. Gone was happy-mask Hudson. Gone was vulnerable Hudson. This was someone else. Fluorine Hudson, perhaps. More reminiscent of his takedown of my parents than anything else we’d been through so far. “That you’re just going to give up. That you’re running away at the first sign of minor trouble. You always do this, Scout. You didn’t fight after the GalacticSolutions disaster. You don’t stand up to your parents, to Lloyd, toJared, even. You didn’t lose your virginity, for God’s sake, until you were twenty-six. Entropy, entropy, entropy. It’s all bullshit. What you really mean is that you’rescaredand you’re letting it hold you back. You’re running away from everything real. Including us.”
“There is no us,” I snapped, thinking of every missed opportunity he’d had to tell me there was one. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
