The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(58)

It had been a good choice. The line of equations was clearly either wrong, or right. Having that certainty gave me a lifeline back to … sanity, I guess. It had been a really long time since I had broken like that. It hadn’t happened since before I met him. Not to that degree, at any rate. Now I just had small panics. The desire to flee. Sweats. The occasional vomit session before a television appearance.

That train of thought was not going to lead me anywhere useful. I checked the numbers again, and they were beautifully correct. Taking a slow, deep breath, I set down my pencil and looked up.

Nathaniel was sitting in a chair he’d drawn up to the other side of the desk. It wasn’t designed to be a two-person desk, so he was hunched over its edge like a worried gargoyle. He had a report in front of him and was tapping his pencil against it as he read.

“I think I’m okay now.”

He put his pencil down and regarded me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s not much to say.”

He grunted, nodding, and tapped his pencil against the desk. “May I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“If it distresses you, then we’ll change the subject.”

“I said I was okay now.”

Nathaniel held up both hands in surrender. “Okay. Good.” He set them back down on the desk and cleared his throat. “I understand why you haven’t mentioned it, so I’m not upset, just worried. So … can you tell me the due date?”

“The what?” I looked back at the papers. Due date for the launch? That hadn’t been in the paramet—… And then my brain caught up. I laughed outright. “I’m not pregnant.”

“I don’t know if that reassures me or makes me more worried. Are you sure?”

“I had my … my period last week. You remember that.”

“Oh. Right.” He rubbed his forehead. “Maybe you are now? I mean … we’ve been intimate since then.”

And more than once, at that. “That’s not how it works.”

“But you’ve been vomiting more.”

So much for thinking I was being discreet about it. “Ah. I didn’t know you knew. It’s not … I’m not pregnant. That’s not … that’s not what this was.”

He watched me, and I could feel the question taking shape. It took up space and left little room for air. “Can you tell me what ‘this’ was?”

I dragged in a breath. As much as I wanted to, I could not pretend that he was being vague. Dodging the question would only worry him more. “You know … you know how I tell stories about being the youngest in my class? Okay. Well. I try to make them funny stories, because that helps. But the truth is that I was … Mama called this ‘having a spell.’ It didn’t happen that often, and hasn’t happened in years. I was just … I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t seen it.”

“You understand that I’m just worried about you, right?” He reached out for my hand.

“I do.” Mostly. The science part of my brain could describe what was happening. “The anxiety that I get sometimes—I mean … It hasn’t been this bad since I was eighteen.”

I’d been tutoring one of the boys—by request of my professor—and was subjected to six months of “My grades would be better if you knew anything about teaching.” Being eighteen, I believed the boy. Being eighteen, I’d thought that I couldn’t quit. I’d told Nathaniel stories about the student, but only as jokes. I never told him about going to the bathroom to sob, and then wiping my face and continuing the session.

Until one night when I couldn’t.

All I will say about that is, thank God Hershel was at Stanford too, or I probably would have—he’s a good brother. Never told our parents. Although, in hindsight, he probably should have. It had been exactly the thing that Mama had been afraid of, that I would be too fragile to handle the stresses of going to college when I was fourteen. I got so good at hiding my distress that I don’t think my parents ever knew.

“I am … terrified, every time I have to address an audience. You remember Mama and her ‘What will people think? ’”

He nodded, but was otherwise very still and focused on me.

“I think … Mama was concerned about appearances because she had married up. I didn’t know that. I just knew that I had to be perfect. Always. And, and … I think what just happened is that—well…”

“Clemons represents what people will think.”

Pressing my hands over my mouth, I nodded and tried desperately not to cry again. Crying was weak. It was for children. Or grief. I was my father’s daughter, goddamn it. Nathaniel was already worried enough. He didn’t need me dissolving again.

Nathaniel stood and came around the desk. He knelt next to my chair and wrapped his arms around me. “He doesn’t. Okay? He called me in today because what people think is that you are smart, and brave, and funny, and kind, and they want to be like you. Do you know what President Brannan said?”

I shook my head, my hands still pressed over my mouth.

“According to Clemons, President Brannan said that his daughter asked him why she couldn’t be an astronaut.”

I laughed a little. “Oh, that must have been a fun conversation.”