Love and the Laws of Motion

by Amanda Weaver

  The house was full of the usual collection of aunts, uncles, and cousins, with the addition of Teresa, who everyone was curious about, and Dan and Mariel, who everybody was slightly scared of. It made for interesting dinner table conversation, to say the least. Livie had thought Dan Drake’s presence would stifle her usually boisterous family into silence, but Dan had a crazy ability to charm nearly anyone he met, and by the end of dinner, the Romanos had casually accepted him as one of their own.

  After dinner, Livie had expected that Dan and Mariel would take off, but to her shock—and Jess’s—Dad invited him out to the living room to watch the football game with them and Dan went.

  Gemma had been up at three a.m. getting their monster turkey into the oven and now she looked ready to fall asleep on her feet. Jess and Livie chased her out of the kitchen for cleanup, and sent her up to bed for a nap. With a bemused smile Mariel watched Dan cheering along with their dad, Uncle Richie, and the rest of the relatives when the Jets made a touchdown. Then she turned to Jess and Livie. “Well, it looks like we’ll be here for a while. You might as well put me to work.”

  “Oh, no,” Jess protested. “You’re a guest.”

  And her boss, but Mariel waved her away. “Nonsense. I want to help. Why don’t I bring in the leftovers from the table?”

  Jess sighed in defeat before she and Livie got to work scraping plates and starting the dishes.

  There was no sign of Nick, but Livie told herself not to expect him. Maybe he’d even stay over with his parents tonight. They had a lot of catching up to do, right? It would be only natural, she told herself. She absolutely wasn’t allowed to miss him.

  But when she closed the fridge after stowing the leftover turkey carcass, she nearly jumped out of her skin to find Nick standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “You guys know Dan Drake is watching the Jets game in your living room right now?”

  “Please tell me Uncle Richie isn’t telling the shark story again,” Jess groaned.

  “No mention of sharks,” Nick assured her. “But they are talking about fishing. Apparently Dan’s going fishing with your uncle Richie next spring?”

  Jess and Livie exchanged a nervous glance. “Oh, no,” Jess murmured.

  “Liv,” Nick said, motioning back over his shoulder toward the front door. “You got a second?”

  She glanced around the kitchen. “We’re still cleaning up.”

  “Go on,” Jess said. “Mariel can dry dishes until you get back.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She followed him through the crowded living room, wincing when the Jets made another touchdown and the entire room erupted in screams. Dan Drake was high-fiving her cousin Paulie. When she stopped to grab her coat in the front hall, she noticed Nick’s backpack, stuffed full and sitting on the floor by the door. Where had that come from?

  Outside, Nick walked to the edge of the stoop, looking out at the street and not at her.

  “I have to go out of town for a couple of days.”

  The words were innocuous enough, but there was something off about him. He seemed jumpy, distracted, a little guilty. “Okay. Where are you going?”

  “San Jose.”

  “California? Why?”

  “A friend’s working on a start-up and they’ve run into major trouble. I’m going to go sort it out for them.”

  The explanation was simple enough, but she couldn’t believe he was dropping everything to fly to California for some random internet start-up he had no real connection to—today of all days, when he’d just reconnected with—

  “What did your family say?” she asked, as the pieces clicked into place.

  “About what?”

  “About you leaving before dessert was even served. Because that’s what you did, right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They just got you back and now you’re leaving again.” It was easier, asking about his family’s feelings than asking about hers. She wasn’t supposed to have any feelings for him. It had been the deal from the start. She’d foolishly begun to think maybe she could, maybe it would be safe to love him, but it wasn’t. It never had been. Oh, how it sucked that it was too late now, and she did. She’d been side-stepping these emotions for weeks, but now she’d tripped right over them and face-planted. She’d gone and fallen in love with him. The one thing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do.

  “Liv, it’s no big deal. Look, why don’t you come with me?”

  She startled. “What?”

  “Throw some shit in a bag and let’s go. Come on, the flight leaves in an hour.”

  “You’re...it’s... I can’t just leave.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to teach next Tuesday. I have research. We’re in the middle of our project.”

  He scoffed. “Of course you can’t leave. Figures.”

  “Don’t you care about anything? It’s Thanksgiving. We’ve still got a house full of guests. You might feel fine running out on your family, but I can’t do that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think I don’t know what’s going on here? You’re running away again.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not just some job. Running away is easier than staying and fixing things, isn’t it?”

  He took a step toward her, eyes flashing with anger. “Don’t start telling me what I’m thinking and feeling, Livie. You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t I? One afternoon with them and you’re hopping a plane, going backward, not forward. It’s because you’re scared. You’d rather go back to hiding from them instead of fixing everything that went wrong.”

  “Scared? You want to talk scared, Livie? You’re the one who’s scared.”

  “Me? What am I scared of?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why did someone so brilliant pass up MIT and McArthur to take a spot at a backwater school like Adams? Why are you wasting yourself in that place?”

  “I told you, I came here for Janet’s research.”

  “She’s gone, Livie, and she’s not coming back.”

  Panic flared up, hot and bright. “Shut up.”

  “She’s not,” he said, his voice gentling. “You’ve got to face it and make a new plan.”

  Her face flushed and she felt nauseous. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I do. You say you came here, that you’re staying here, for Finch, but she’s nothing but your excuse. You couldn’t bear to leave this place, because the thought of leaving terrified you. It still terrifies you. I ask you to leave for a week and you come up with a dozen bullshit reasons why you can’t. If I’m the one always running away, Livie, you’re the one too scared to leave in the first place.”

  “Stop it,” she snapped, but without heat, because she had a terrible, sinking feeling that he was right. There was an uncomfortable kernel of truth at the heart of every justification she ever came up with for choosing Adams, one she’d very diligently avoided ever putting a label on. But Nick had reached right in and stuck his finger on the truth, and it hurt like he’d touched a raw nerve.

  He blew out a breath and dragged his hand through his hair. “Fuck. Livie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He reached out to touch her arm and she stumbled in her haste to get away from him. “Don’t.”

  The last thing she could bear right now was his pity, his well-meaning and devastating sympathy. Not when none of it meant anything. Not when none of it was enough to make him stay.

  Nick drew back his hand, looking like she’d struck him.

  Finally, he drew a deep breath and spoke. “I gotta go. I’m on the last flight out tonight.”

 
She grit her teeth, keeping her eyes on her toes.

  “I’ll call you when I get back.”

  “No.” The word sprang from her lips before she’d even thought it. Nick looked as surprised as she was.

  “No?”

  “No, don’t call me.” She had to stop and swallow down the lump in her throat before she could continue. “Your place is almost ready, and the coding is almost done. There’s nothing you need to call me for.”

  She didn’t mention their relationship, or whatever it was they’d been doing all this time, but she didn’t need to. It pulsed between them like a dark, living thing, impossible to ignore. Nick watched her, waiting.

  “You’re sure?” he asked at last.

  That breathless pressure was back in her chest, making her feel light-headed. This was going to happen sooner or later, and Livie didn’t want to wait around for later. She didn’t want to wait as she fell a little more in love with him every day, holding her breath and bracing for the moment when he said goodbye for good. This was an act of self-preservation, she knew it, but still, every word felt like coughing up glass.

  She nodded, still not looking at him. “I’m sure.”

  The moment of silence felt endless, brittle and raw. She didn’t breathe, didn’t move. Her body felt frozen. In a minute, this would hurt worse than she could possibly imagine, but not yet. If she didn’t breathe, maybe she wouldn’t move forward into the future without Nick.

  “Okay, if that’s what you want,” he finally said, every word landing like a tiny bomb in her heart.

  No, she wanted to scream. It’s not what I want. I want you, but all of you, the way you’d never intended to give yourself to me.

  But the words only echoed in her head, never to be spoken out loud. Wordlessly, Nick retrieved his backpack from inside the front door and hefted it onto his shoulder.

  “I’ll...” He stopped, tipped his head forward, exhaled, and continued. “I’ll see you around, Livie.”

  Then he descended the concrete steps, walked down the path through the front yard, and was gone.

  Livie stayed where she was, her breaths coming in short, shallow rasps. How was she supposed to move from this spot? How was she supposed to move forward into the next minute, the next hour, tomorrow, the day after, when it felt like some vital part of her had just been cut out of her?

  She lost track of how much time had passed since he left. Suddenly someone was there, coming up the steps to the house. She lifted her head. Teresa.

  “Hi there, Livie. Getting cold out here, isn’t it?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but couldn’t. Instead, she gasped, a desperate, panicky sound. Now that she’d moved, she was shaking. Her whole body was trembling so hard her teeth clattered together.

  Teresa peered into her face, concern etched into her features. “Honey? Is something wrong?”

  Frantically, she shook her head, but hot tears broke free, streaking down her face and making a liar of her.

  “Was it Nick?” Teresa asked, with a note of resignation in her voice. “Did something happen?”

  This shouldn’t be Teresa, Livie thought wildly. She shouldn’t fall apart in front of this total stranger. It should be Jess, or Gemma, or even her father. But they were all inside, with a house full of guests. Teresa was here, and now she’d taken Livie by the shoulders and somehow moved her until she was sitting on the edge of the stoop. Teresa sat down next to her, one arm around her shoulders.

  “He’s gone,” she choked out, her breath shuddering as she inhaled.

  “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you really will survive it,” Teresa said kindly.

  How could that possibly be true? How did anybody get through this devastation and come out fine on the other side?

  “When my husband left me,” Teresa continued, “I thought my life was over. There didn’t seem any reason to get out of bed, or even to keep breathing. But I had to. My mother was sick. So I got up. I kept breathing. I kept getting out of bed. And one day, it hurt a little less. And then a little less the day after that. Then I met your father again, and I realized somewhere along the way, I’d gotten over him. It happened when I wasn’t even looking, when I was trying to get through all those days, one after the other. It’ll happen for you, too, honey.”

  Her tenderness, her kindness, finally punctured the fragile membrane that had been holding Livie’s misery at bay. She opened her mouth to breathe and instead she wailed, an ugly, inhuman sound. Teresa didn’t flinch away. She only tightened her grip on Livie, raising one hand to stroke her hair out of her face.

  “Eventually isn’t right now, though,” Teresa said quietly. “And right now, it’s really going to hurt, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

  Livie let Teresa fold her into her warm embrace and she let the hurt come. It rushed in like a tidal wave and nearly drowned her. It was only Teresa, holding on tight and refusing to let go, that kept her head above water.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was nearly noon when Livie woke the next day. Not surprising, as she hadn’t slept all night, alternately staring into the darkness like a zombie, or breaking down into fresh onslaughts of tears. Sometime near dawn, she’d drifted into restless sleep, and when she opened her eyes to her bedroom, awash in midday sunshine, she felt gritty and utterly wrung out.

  She sat up in bed and took stock.

  Nick was gone, and he wasn’t coming back because she’d told him not to. Her tender, aching heart—the part that had broken apart over and over all night long—wanted to reach out to him, to tell him she was wrong. Come back. She’d take him, however she could have him.

  But during that long, dark night she’d endured, some other part of Livie had been awoken. And that part was absolutely sure she’d done the right thing. She was tired of performing this delicate balancing act between friendship and love, terrified of tipping too far over the line and scaring him away. If he was so easily scared, let him go.

  Actually, in the harsh light of a spent morning, Livie found herself tired of a lot of things about her life. What the hell had she been doing for the past several months? Being with Nick had been the only bright spot. When she assessed everything else... Well, her life was a fucking mess.

  Her mentor, the woman she’d constructed her entire academic career around, was sidelined. She’d spent an entire semester spinning her wheels fruitlessly, accomplishing absolutely nothing. And her PhD was being systematically sabotaged by that asshole, Langley, while she’d stood by anxiously wringing her hands and doing nothing. She was ashamed of herself.

  On the nightstand next to her bed, her phone buzzed with a text. Hesitantly, she picked it up, half-hopeful and half-dreading who it might be from and what it might say. It wasn’t Nick, though. It was from Teresa.

  How are you doing this morning?

  How bizarre that it had been Teresa, of all people, who’d held her hand through that miserable time last night—Teresa, who she’d seen before this as an outsider, an interloper who could never truly understand the Romano family. But last night, she’d understood perfectly, and she’d said exactly the right things. Another thing Livie had been wrong about, another person she’d been pushing away for no good reason.

  She typed out a response.

  Better. Ready to move on.

  Not entirely true, but wasn’t that what Teresa told her last night? Get out of bed. Keep living your life. Eventually, it would get easier.

  Good girl. Call me if you want to talk.

  Livie read the text over. Actually, she might call Teresa. Teresa would understand.

  Thanks.

  Anytime, Livie.

  If she stopped to think about Nick, it hurt so bad she couldn’t breathe. Teresa promised her it would get better if she kept moving forward, and that’s what she was going to do. Each day further into the future would be a day
further away from this day, when her heart was in pieces. She was done with this day.

  Lying in bed feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Her life was a mess and she needed to do something about it, Nick and her broken heart be damned.

  Scrambling out of bed, she marched to the bathroom to clean up. After splashing some water on her face, she grabbed a towel and straightened up to dry off.

  Who was that girl looking back at her? She was the exact same Livie Romano from the family portraits downstairs, the same Livie Romano she’d been all her life. Why did she look like such a stranger?

  Because inside, she was no longer the same. These past few months had changed her, and as much as losing Nick had hurt—was still hurting—she wouldn’t have taken them back for the world. She was smarter, wiser. And yet, here she was, exactly as she’d been at thirteen, with her stupid curtain of hair, hiding in her father’s hand-me-down flannel shirts.

  It was time, Livie resolved, to grow the fuck up.

  But first, she had work to do.

  Janet was still out for the foreseeable future, but that didn’t mean there was nothing she could do. She and Nick had nearly finished the Hubble program. The application for time on Hubble was nearly done, too. She’d put off actually finishing it, hoping Janet would come back soon to put her own stamp on the work. Why couldn’t she finish it up and submit it herself? She could claim time on Hubble and record the black hole data for Janet herself. She understood what they were doing as well as Janet did. What was she waiting for?