Dr.Miner is an esteemed and ambitious scientist.I’ve learned a great deal from her, but the best lesson she’s modeled for me is how to be alone.She is comfortably numb, and I’ve tried to be more like her every single day.
Even so, it feels jarring that she doesn’t know about Henry, as if I’ve left a blank space on the vital paperwork needed for this arrangement.I know aboutherpeople.I glance at the photos lining the shelf behind her—a prepubescent male with braces holding a violin, a teenager in a cheerleading uniform, and a middle-aged man wearing a blue suit and a half-hearted smile, like he’s at a funeral.Dr.Miner’s son, Allan, daughter, Sophie, and husband Brian—names I know because she mentions them.Significant othersshouldbe mentioned in long-standing relationships, even one as impersonal as ours.
She should know about Henry—my most significantother,if the impact he had,still has, on my life, and the frequency of thought I give him are considerations in such a title.Anyone who knows me beyond a passing acquaintance should, even if our relationship no longer exists beyond a journal he’ll never see.
“Thank you for the safe return of my property,” I say, holding out my hand.She passes it to me.
“That’s not the only reason I called this meeting.”
“Then, why have you summoned me?”
“Venus, you will not continue on this project after we arrive at port,” she says in a long exhale.
“Explanation, please?”
“Your lab work and research notes are thorough and insightful.And your idea to combine okra polymers with sundew polymers for a stickier resin was truly inspired.That one adjustment has advanced our research into the safe extraction of microplastics by months, at least.”
“Thank you,” I say weakly.“Then, why?—”
“It’s your behavior.”She interlocks her fingers on the desk.“You’re difficult with the other team members...”
An internal cringe envelopes me, hearing that word.Difficult—of course, it’sthatword.
“… You disregard the buddy system on dives…”
Only to explore where others refuse to go.
“And there’s Julio and Quinn.”She huffs.
“I was abundantly clear with each of thembeforeintercourse that there’d be no attachments or relationships—sex only.They agreed to my terms.”
“You were seeing them at the same time.They felt threatened by each other.”
I shake my head vehemently.“No, not at the same time—weeks apart.Regardless, I’m not responsible for their actions.”
“You inspired a fellow researcher and the ship’s navigator to have a bar fight—you’re to blame onsomelevel, even if they misunderstood your intentions or wanted more from you unfairly… But that’s not the main issue.It’s yourotherbehaviors that concern me.”
She doesn’t need to elaborate, but she does, like my infractions require an audible acknowledgement.My occasional vodka nights, when drinking too much renders me useless the next day.My spontaneous ocean dives, which raise, frankly, irrational fears in the ship’s crew.My refusal to stay below deck during storms.When I feel trapped or caught up in emotions, my impulses overrule my reason, driving me to these necessary escapes—it doesn’t feel like a choice.It’s a necessity, freeing me, if only temporarily.
Like what’s building right now.I don’t want to be here, closed in.Dismissed.Unwanted.With Henry’s name still lingering in the air.My body clenches, and my fingers curl tightly around the wooden armrest.
Henry once compared my emotional surges to summer storms.They build slowly, without much notice, but happen all at once, fiercely and unpredictably.It’s a heaviness around me,in me, as if I take on the dropping barometric pressure before a storm and can’t find relief until it’s released.Henry understood, didn’t judge, and would hold me tightly until those feelings left me—a vise that only he could unwind.I haven’t felt similar comfort since the last time he held me, in the greenhouse.
I can’t find that release in my cubbyhole of a room.Or in this office.Or on this ship.
Not in the arms of strangers, either.
I hug my journal tightly to my chest, desperate to clutch something, to hold on.To feel the pressure.
But again, I think of Henry.
“If you’re not in the lab or your notebook or exploring a forest somewhere, you seem lost,” she says.
I like getting lost.On busy city streets.In wild countrysides.In untamed meadows, rugged moors, and dense woods.I like venturing off the trail.
Getting lost has not only earned me my beautiful freedom but also my most outstanding scientific credit to date.I discovered a new species of plant—a flowering fern that I namedHenricus filicis, Henry fern, because its long, spry leaves reminded me of his long legs and spindly arms, and its brown flower blossomed from the ends like Henry’s always-unruly hair.
Besides, I owe him a fern, at least.
