“I’m sorry,” I force myself to say. It’s not even a lie. I’m pretty fucking sorry right now. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Okay,” he says after a long moment. Accepting. A bit sad. “Okay. If . . . if you change your mind. About dinner, that is. Let me know.”
“Okay.” I nod. “When are you leaving? What’s my deadline?” I add, attempting some lightheartedness.
“It doesn’t matter. I can . . . I travel here a lot, and . . .” He shakes his head. “You can change your mind whenever. No deadline.”
Oh. “Well, if you change your mind about fucking . . .”
He exhales a laugh, which sounds a little like a pained groan, and for a moment I feel the compulsion to explain myself. I want to tell him, It’s not you. It’s me. But I know how that would sound, and I know better than to put the words out there. So we regard each other for a few seconds, and then . . . then there’s nothing left to say, is there? My body goes through the motions automatically. I slide off the desk, take a moment to straighten the monitors behind me, the mouse, the keyboards, the cable, and when I walk past Ian through the door he follows me with his solemn, sad eyes, running his palm over his jaw.
The last words I hear from him are, “It was really good to meet you, Hannah.” I think I should say it back, but there’s an unfamiliar weight in my chest, and I can’t quite bring myself to do it. So I make do with a small smile and a halfhearted wave. I stuff my hands in my pockets while my body is still thrumming with what I left behind, and wander slowly back to the Caltech campus, thinking about red hair and missed opportunities.
He’ll make for a great boyfriend, I tell myself, leaning back in my bed and staring up at the ceiling. There is a weird green thing in one corner that I suspect might be mold. Mara keeps telling me I should just move out of this shithole and find a place with her and Sadie, but I don’t know. Seems like we’d get too close. A big commitment. It might get messy. He’ll make for a great boyfriend. For someone who deserves to have one.
The following day, when Mara asks me about my meeting with her cousin-or-something, I say only “Uneventful,” and I don’t even know why. I don’t like lying, and I like lying to someone who’s rapidly becoming a friend even less, but I can’t make myself say any more than that.
A couple days later, when I get an email from [email protected], my heart stumbles all over itself. But it’s just an empty email, no text, not even an automatic signature. Just an attachment with his NASA application from a few years ago, together with a handful of other people’s. More recent ones that he must have gotten from his friends and colleagues, a few more examples to send me.
Well.
Two weeks later, I turn in a reflection paper as part of my Water Resources class requirements.
I must admit, Dr. Harding, that I initially thought this assignment would be a total waste of time. I’ve known I wanted to end up at NASA for years, and I’ve known that I wanted to work with robotics and space exploration for just as long. However, after meeting with Ian Floyd, I have realized that I’d love to work, specifically, on Attitude and Position Estimation of Mars rovers. In conclusion: not a waste of time, or at least not a total one.
I get an A-for the class. And in the following years, I don’t let myself think about Ian too much. But whenever I rewatch video recordings of mission control celebrating Curiosity’s landing, I cannot help but look for the tall, red-haired man in the back of the room. And whenever I find him, I feel the ghost of something squeeze tight inside my chest.
Three
Svalbard Islands, Norway
Present
They said they couldn’t send first responders!”
My breath, dry and white, fogs the black shell of my satellite phone. Because Svalbard in February is well into the negative Celsius. Disturbingly close to the negative Fahrenheit, too, and this morning is no exception.
“They said it was too dangerous,” I continue, “that the winds are too extreme.” As if to prove my point, a half-hissing, half-howling sound weaves through what I’ve begun to think of as my crevasse.
And as far as crevasses go, it’s a good one to get stuck in. Relatively shallow. The western wall is nicely angled, just enough to allow the sunlight to filter in, which is probably the only reason I have yet to freeze to death or get horrible frostbite. The downside, though, is that at this time of the year there are only about five hours of light per day. And they’re just about to run out.
“Avalanche danger is set at the highest level, and it’s not safe for anyone to come out to get me,” I add, speaking right into the satphone’s mic. Repeating what Dr. Merel, my team leader, told me a few hours ago, during my last communication with AMASE, NASA’s home base here in Norway. It was right before he reminded me that I’d been the one to choose this. That I’d known what the risks of my mission were, and I still decided to undertake it. That the path to space exploration is full of pain and self-sacrifice. That it was my fault for falling in an icy hole in the ground and spraining my fucking ankle.
Well, he did not say that. Fucking, or fault. He did, however, make sure that I was aware that no one would be able to come help me until tomorrow, and that I needed to be strong. Even though, of course, we both knew what the results of a match between me and an overnight snowstorm would be.
Storm: 100. Hannah Arroyo: dead.
“The weather’s not that bad.” A wave of static almost drains the voice on the other side of the line.
Ian Floyd’s voice.
Because, for some reason, he’s here. Coming. For me.
“It’s a—it’s a storm, Ian. Are you—please, tell me you’re not just strolling outdoors when the worst storm of the year is just hours from starting.”
“I’m not.” A pause. “It’s more of a brisk walk.”
I close my eyes. “In a storm. A blizzard. Winds of at least thirty-five miles per hour. Heavy snowfall and no visibility.”
“You might be wasted in engineering.”
“What?”
“You’re really good at meteorology stuff.”
I cannot feel my legs; my teeth are chattering; every time I breathe, my skin feels like it’s been chewed on by a horde of piranhas. And yet, I find the strength to roll my eyes. At least the cranky bitch inside my heart is holding strong. “You’d love it, wouldn’t you? If I were busy giving the weather on local news instead of at NASA with you.”
The winds are blowing holes through my eardrums. I honestly have no idea how I can hear a smile in his “Nah.”
He’s insane. He cannot be here in Norway. He isn’t even supposed to be in Europe. “Did AMASE change their mind on sending help?” I ask. “Have the storm forecasts changed?”
“They haven’t.” Whenever the static dips, I hear a low, oddly familiar noise through the satphone. Ian’s breathing, I suspect, heavy and loud and faster than normal. Like he’s grunting his way through hazardous ground. “You’re approximately thirty minutes from my current location. Once I get to you, we’ll have a sixty-minute trek to safety. Which means that we should be able to just barely avoid the storm.”