Love on the Brain(10)

I turn around. A few feet away, staring at me with a curious expression, is a beautiful young calico.

“And who might you be?” I slowly hold out my hand. The kitten comes closer, delicately sniffs my fingers, and gives me a welcoming headbutt.

I laugh. “You’re such a sweet girl.” I squat down to scratch her under her chin. She nips my finger, a playful love bite. “Aren’t you the most purr-fect little baby? I feel so fur-tunate to have met you.”

She gives me a disdainful look and turns away. I think she understands puns.

“Come on, I was just kitten.” Another outraged glare. Then she jumps on a nearby cart, piled ceiling-high with boxes and heavy, precarious-looking equipment. “Where are you going?”

I squint, trying to figure out where she disappeared to, and that’s when I realize it. The equipment? The precarious-looking equipment? It actually is precarious. And the cat poked it just enough to dislodge it. And it’s falling on my head.

Right.

About.

Now.

I have less than three seconds to move away. Which is too bad, because my entire body is suddenly made of stone, unresponsive to my brain’s commands. I stand there, terrified, paralyzed, and close my eyes as a jumbled chaos of thoughts twists through my head. Is the cat okay? Am I going to die? Oh God, I am going to die. Squashed by a tungsten anvil like Wile E. Coyote. I am a twenty-first-century Pierre Curie, about to get my skull crushed by a horse-drawn cart. Except that I have no chair in the physics department of the University of Paris to leave to my lovely spouse, Marie. Except that I have barely done a tenth of all the science I meant to do. Except that I wanted so many things and I never oh my God any second now—

Something slams into my body, shoving me aside and into the wall.

Everything is pain.

For a couple of seconds. Then the pain is over, and everything is noise: metal clanking as it plunges to the floor, horrified screaming, a shrill “Meow” somewhere in the distance, and closer to my ear . . . someone is panting. Less than an inch from me.

I open my eyes, gasping for breath, and . . .

Green.

All I can see is green. Not dark, like the grass outside; not dull, like the pistachios I had on the plane. This green is light, piercing, intense. Familiar, but hard to place, not unlike—

Eyes. I’m looking up into the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Eyes that I’ve seen before. Eyes surrounded by wavy black hair and a face that’s angles and sharp edges and full lips, a face that’s offensively, imperfectly handsome. A face attached to a large, solid body—a body that is pinning me to the wall, a body made of a broad chest and two thighs that could moonlight as redwoods. Easily. One is slotted between my legs and it’s holding me up. Unyielding. This man even smells like a forest—and that mouth. That mouth is still breathing heavily on top of me, probably from the effort of whisking me out from under seven hundred pounds of mechanical engineering tools, and—

I know that mouth.

Levi.

Levi.

I haven’t seen Levi Ward in six years. Six blessed, blissful years. And now here he is, pushing me into a wall in the middle of NASA’s Space Center, and he looks . . . he looks . . .

“Levi!” someone yells. The clanking goes silent. What was meant to fall has settled on the floor. “Are you okay?”

Levi doesn’t move, nor does he look away. His mouth works, and so does his throat. His lips part to say something, but no sound comes out. Instead, a hand, at once rushed and gentle, reaches up to cup my face. It’s so large, I feel perfectly cradled. Engulfed in green, cozy warmth. I whimper when it leaves my skin, a plaintive, involuntary sound from deep in my throat, but I stop when I realize that it’s only shifting to the back of my skull. To the hollow of my collarbone. To my brow, pushing back my hair.

It’s a cautious touch. Pressing but delicate. Lingering but urgent. As though he is studying me. Trying to make sure that I’m all in one piece. Memorizing me.

I lift my eyes, and for the first time I notice the deep, unmasked concern in Levi’s eyes.

His lips move, and I think that maybe—is he mouthing my name? Once, and then again? Like it’s some kind of prayer?

“Levi? Levi, is she—”

My eyelids fall closed, and everything goes dark.





3





ANGULAR GYRUS: PAY ATTENTION



ON WEEKDAYS, I usually set my alarm for seven a.m.—and then find myself snoozing it anywhere from three (“Raving success”) to eight times (“I hope a swarm of rabid locusts attacks me on my way to work, thus allowing me to find solace in the cold embrace of death”). On Monday, however, the unprecedented happens: I’m up at five forty-five, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I spit out my night retainer, run into the bathroom, and don’t even wait for the water to warm up to step under the shower.

I am that eager.

As I pour almond milk on my oatmeal, I give rad Dr. Curie the finger guns. “BLINK’s starting today,” I tell the magnet. “Send good vibes. Hold the radiations.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this excited. Probably because I’ve never been part of anything this exciting. I stand in front of my closet to pick out an outfit and focus on that—the sheer excitement—to avoid thinking about what happened on Friday.