He’s the king of the room right now, the master of his little research domain as he stands before the executive board in their expensive suits and designer glasses, telling them all what modern miracles he’s worked lately. He exudes confidence and control, and every last eye in the room is in his sway. Even I’m enraptured and I have no idea what he’s saying half the time.
God, he’s so handsome it almost hurts.
He looks in my direction time and again, his green eyes drawing my gaze and holding it captive, and I have to remind myself each time that he’s not looking at me. He can’t see me; he has no idea that I can’t take my eyes off of him and no idea just how much he’s reminding me of Isaac right now.
Shame on you. He doesn’t hold a candle to Isaac, I chastise myself.
Nobody I’ve ever met compares to Isaac, and nobody ever will. Nine years of separation and obsession made sure of that. I’ve put Isaac on a pedestal so tall that I can barely see the top of it anymore. As much as I don’t want to admit it, he’d probably be nothing like I remember if I ever met him again; he probably grew up to be just like his parents—blinded by wealth, impossibly snobbish and someone I could never, ever be with.
"So in short," says Terrence, his strong, deep voice booming throughout the meeting room, "Verta’s contracted research is approximately six months ahead of schedule. We expect to file our first-in-human registration documents by the end of next year. Any questions before I turn the floor over to Charlotte for the legal update?"
The audience remains silent until I stand and offer Terrence my arm, and then the entire executive board gives him a round of applause as I lead him back to his seat. He grins from ear to ear at the reception, and I can’t help but crack a smile myself. The strong, commanding façade he’d erected during his presentation is gone, replaced instead by an endearing, almost boyish self-consciousness as the audience applauds his work.
"You did great," I whisper, nudging him gently with my elbow. "I have no idea what any of it meant, but I can tell you that you definitely had everyone’s complete attention. They loved your presentation."
"Thanks," he whispers back with a soft smile. My heart flutters and I suddenly feel short of breath. How can something as simple as a smile have that kind of effect on me?
"Honestly," he continues as we settle into our seats at the far end of the table, "I could’ve told them I’d invented the ham sandwich and they’d still have applauded. They love anything that comes in ahead of schedule."
Charlotte takes the stage for her presentation, pretending I don't exist as she walks past, and Terrence and I brace ourselves as the first slide of dense legalese graces the screen. Whoever first twisted the English language into the monstrosity of legal-speak really ought to have been flogged for it.
"I wasn’t kidding, by the way," I whisper into his ear. "I really don’t know what your slides meant. I get that you invented something but I have no idea what it is. Care to explain?"
"My first project for Verta was a neural-electronic interface. This versice.is on is correcting some flaws in the design plan," he says, and I stare blankly at him.
"Okay... brain cells, electronics... I need something in normal human speak, please."
He smiles at me and butterflies flutter in my stomach again.
"It’s a device that can take nerve impulses and convert them into the sort of electrical signal that a machine can understand," he explains. "So, let’s say you made a mechanical hand for an amputee. It’d take what your brain tells your real hand to do, and then translate it into a language the mechanical replacement can understand and work with."
"That... holy shit," I whisper in awe.
"Don’t give me too much credit there," he whispers back. "One, my research staff deserves most of the credit, and two, it didn’t actually work the first time. Turns out that a binary output for sensitivity wasn’t the best idea."
"Meaning?"
"Imagine that you’re the one who had the surgery to install that mechanical hand, and you’re just now finding out that it can either be all the way open or clenched so tightly that it shatters your wine glass," he says. "Not the most useful invention anymore, is it?"
He reaches out, hunting for his bottle of water on the table, and I catch his hand in mine and guide it to its destination. Just touching his hand makes my pulse quicken, and I snatch my hand away as soon as he’s found his water.
"So yeah," he whispers after taking a drink. "We’re trying to do it right this time."
We fall silent as Charlotte drones on and on about mind numbing legal whatevers, and my eyes start to glaze over. I shake myself awake just in time see Terrence’s eyelids flutter shut. I nudge him with my elbow and he startles upright in his chair again.
"You’re drifting. Pay attention," I whisper, nudging him again, this time more playfully.
"I couldn’t care less what she’s saying anymore," he whispers back. "I hired her to handle the legal shit specifically so I wouldn’t have to care."
He grins mischievously, and I stifle a quiet laugh as everyone stands up around us.
"We’ll be taking a five minute break," calls out Charlotte, "and then we’ll branch into the results of the first-round clinical suitability studies from there."
My stomach growls so loudly that I’m certain everyone in the room heard it, and Terrence snickers at me.
"Sorry," I apologize in embarrassment. "I’m a bit hungry."
"Tell me about it," he says, nodding in agreement. "No food at a dinner meeting? Sure, the champagne and catering they used to serve was going a bit overboard, but not even sandwiches now? Man, these guys are getting cheap."
I stand up and stretch my aching legs while the board members raid the small table of sodas and bottled water, and Terrence braces himself against the table and clambers to his feet.
"Mind joining me for a quick walk?" he asks. "I need to move around a bit and get the blood flowing to my legs again."
I loop my arm through his and guide him out the door, and the second we’re outside, he yanks out his cell phone—a fancy, new-fangled smart phone easily worth a month of my old apartment's rent—and hands it to me.
"Our driver’s name is Alex," he tells me. "Call him and tell him to meet us out front with a pizza as soon as he can. Screw going back into that meeting."
"Wait, isn’t the board going to notice you’re gone?" I ask, staring at him as if he has three heads.
"Yep, and I’m my own boss, so they can’t do a damned thing about it," he answers in smug satisfaction. "I’ll stay for the full thing when they stop being cheap bastards and actually provide food. For now, though, order that pizza and let’s get the hell out of here."
****
I hold the passenger-side door of the limousine open for Terrence, and suddenly the scent of cheese pizza hits me. Tomato sauce, melted cheese, a shiny black car... I’m back in New Haven again.
Isaac holds open the door for me, and as I get into his black Mercedes, his face is somehow all green eyes and gorgeous smile. We’re going to finally see the stars together—we’re going to watch the meteor shower from his rooftop for once instead of hiding up on mine like we’ve been for nearly six months now.
"Irene? Are you okay?"
Terrence’s low, concerned voice breaks me out of my flashback, and I quickly pull myself together and help him into the limo.
"Sorry about that—the smell of pizza was just... reminding me of something."
Limousines are so strange. It’s as if someone sat down one day and said, "I think I’ll invent the most inconvenient car ever and market it as a luxury." It’s twice as long as Cassie’s old, taxi-style Grand Marquis, and yet it’s almost entirely wasted space. The back passenger compartment—comfortable or not—only has one long, brown leather seat taking up the entire driver-side wall. A full bar and mini-fridge claim domain over the rest of the passenger compartment—or they would if the bar wasn’t entirely empty. Instead, we have a cheese pie from Mystic Pizz
a and a two-liter bottle of Rocket Pop instead. I have no idea what brand the knock-off soda is pretending to be, and I suspect that I’ll regret it when I find out.
"Oh thank God—I am so, so hungry," moans Terrence as I hand him a slice, and he munches happily on it.
"Got any napkins or plates up there?" I call up to the driver.
"Nope – sorry," he answers, shaking his head as we pull away from the curb. "Forgot to ask. My bad."
"Right... I’ll just be careful then."
My stomach grumbles loudly and I delicately take a slice for myself. The pizza smells so good that I can hardly contain myself. It’s all I can do not to inhale my slice and go back for seconds, stuffing myself like a total pig.
"You’d better dig in before I eat it all, Irene," teases Terrence as he goes back for his third slice already. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu hits me again, and I stare at him in silence for a long time before taking a bite.
It can’t be a coincidence... can it?
"You know," I tell him, carefully picking my words as I try to remember what I said so many years ago, "I’m eating pizza in a car worth more than everything I own added together. What if I spill grease on the seats? I don’t want you to flip out on me."
Terrence freezes in place, his third slice hovering a mere inch from his lips, and it feels as if the world has stopped around me.
Suddenly, I can’t seem to get enough air. I’m getting dizzy and my pulse races faster and faster. No. It can’t possibly be. Could it?
He has Isaac’s eyes. He recognized what I said—after all these years, is he Isaac? But... but how?
Impossible thoughts spiral around and around inside my head, and then time suddenly catches up to me again. Terrence takes a bite of his slice and shakes his head.
"I’d rather you didn’t spill grease on the limo," he says, his mouth still full of food, "but the driver forgot napkins, so what’re you going to do? I’ll deal with it, Irene."
My heart sinks. That wasn’t his line. The spell is broken and the magical moment passed—he’s just Terrence, and I’m just an obsessive lunatic who can’t move on from her old boyfriend.
"Okay," I whisper. "I’ll be careful."
Time flies past as I go back for a second slice and Terrence for his fourth, and I still can’t get over what I just felt. The similarities are just so strong, his initial reaction to what I said so compelling...
I have to ask.
"Terrence?" I ask, my voice suddenly weak and nervous. I feel like I’m shouting at him, but what comes out is little more than a squeak.
"What’s up?" he answers, putting down his slice and almost looking straight at me. His gaze is aimed a little off to my left, but it’s close enough. I scoot to my left so I’m in his line of non-sight, and I immediately lose my nerve as I stare into his eyes.
I suddenly don’t want to know the answer.
I... I want him to be Isaac—I want so badly for it to be true, but I know it can’t be. Most of all, I don’t want to hear him say, "No, I’m not Isaac. Who’s that?"
I can almost hear his quizzical tone now. I can’t do it.
"Thanks for the pizza," I say, simultaneously relieved and ashamed of myself for not saying what I really meant to say.
"Hey, thanks for sitting through that awful meeting. The least I can do is feed you after all that crap," he answers, smiling that same, butterfly-inducing smile. I close my eyes and take a deep breath as my head starts to spin again.
Terrence might not be Isaac, but he’s so similar that it actually hurts.
He doesn’t say anything to me for the rest of the ride, but instead leans back and stares silently up at the ceiling. One tiny drop of pizza grease found its way onto his lapel, but it matches the black, fitted wool suit well enough that it’s nearly invisible. He’s so handsome that I can’t keep my eyes off of him. I’m the worst employee ever.
"What are you thinking about?" I ask, but he only shakes his head silently. I leave him to his thoughts and let my own occupy me.
The more time I spend with Terrence, the more I understand why he so desperately wanted me as his assistant. It must be terrible to be trapped inside your own head with no way to escape. I can’t give him back his sight, but I can at least let him see the world in a different light.
"The limo2emo, I&#’s flying down the highway," I whisper in his ear as I look out the window into the darkness. "The streetlights zip past, each a bright, orange flash in the night sky, one after the next after the next."
I lean in close to him and feel a strange shiver run through me as our shoulders touch. A flicker of a smile crosses his face, and feeling more confident, I continue the story.
"The bridge over the Mystic River is coming up... closer, closer, here it is. We’re going up and over the river now. The rippling water glows in the moonlight, whites and dark blues in a display of random beauty. Yellow and white lights flicker in the trees along the river—houses, businesses, the few cars still driving down the des
erted night streets. Everything’s serene and peaceful right now."
Sure, maybe I’m going a little over the top with my descriptions, but as Terrence’s mouth falls slightly open in awe and excitement, I know that the magic is working. With my words and his imagination, I can give him back his sight.
Words create worlds, and as Terrence sees the world he lost through my eyes for the rest of the ride home, I can’t help but feel that this is the greatest story I’ve ever told.
wi
wi
wi
Chapter XV
Isaac and I are sixteen...
My stomach turns over as I see Sarah and Jacob leaning against the wall of lockers and pretending not to look at me. This has happened almost every day for the entire school year. They try to make me miserable every single day, and I’m sick of it.
Sarah’s doing her best as always to stretch the school’s dress code to its limits. She’s wearing a navy pleated skirt several inches too short with a white blouse two sizes too tight around the bust, and she’s wearing a black bra that shows straight through the thin fabric. To top it off, she’s clutching a purse that probably costs as much as my mother’s monthly rent. Jacob, meanwhile, has decided to eschew all sense of decency and is wearing a pink polo shirt with a popped collar and what looks like plaid board shorts. Wearing a shirt like that at my old school would have gotten him knifed in the bathroom by lunchtime.
I take a deep breath and keep walking. I have to get my books. I won’t let them bother me. I’ll just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t get a chance to pull something.
Maybe I can go get a teacher to help me, I think.
No... I have to deal with this myself. Dr. Stevens is the only teacher who ever takes my side anyway. The rest of them wouldn’t so much as bat an eye if I never came back to school again.
Sarah and Jacob stare silently at me as I open my locker, and the open door blocks my view of them. I can hear them whispering and snickering to each other. Are they trying to make me paranoid? Are they going to do something to me like they did with the bag of garbage last week?
... what’s that smell? It smells like a toilet inside my locker.
That’s when I notice the knotted plastic grocery bag lying at the bottom of my locker. It’s a bag of dog poop.
"Eew, what’s that smell?" cries out Sarah in her best theatrical effort to date. "Is that you, Nina? You smell like shit! Do you shower? Like, ever?"
My face starts to burn as cruel laughter sprea"c020, ds up and down the hall like a contagious disease, and I bury my head in the locker and pretend I’m still hunting for my books. The truth is that I have no idea what to say back to them. I have no idea what to do because I’d never even dream of doing something like this to anyone else. Who leaves a bag of poop in someone’s locker?
I want to kill both of them, but I know better than to try anything. There’s not a single person in this hallway who would stick up for me if I did. No matt
er what happens, every last person in this school points the finger at me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the month I’ve been here, it’s that everything’s my fault, no matter who started it.
I catch a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I spin around, the boy who helped me last week—I think his name was Isaac—is standing beside me. He’s smiling as he looks down at the bag of crap inside my locker, but the look in his eyes tells me he’s not happy.
"Yo, Isaac," shouts Jacob from the other side of the door, clearly trying to be heard by everyone in the hall. "Does Nina need to shower more, or is that just how people like her naturally smell?"
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