by Croix, Ada
That startled Allie into a speechless second. “Are you suggesting I would make something up?”
“I don’t know what you’re capable of.”
“I could say the same thing about you.”
“Haven’t you run a full background check on me, with your DNA samples?” Marc indicated the vial she was holding with a toss of his chin.
“These aren’t samples of your DNA,” Allie replied primly. She steeled herself for moving closer to him. It was like he had his own gravity well, drawing her in with more and more strength the nearer she was. Marc might be upset but she worried that touching him might still make her own defenses crumble. She wielded the little brush and asked him to open his mouth, trying to keep her distance as long as possible.
“Is there something to find?” Her genuine curiosity leaked through her attempt at dispassion. It wasn’t really fair to ask him a question and take away his ability to answer. But the scientific routine gave Allie something to focus on other than her inevitable contact with him.
Marc didn’t respond even after she had drawn away. Allie carried on without pause, holding her palm out for his wrist. It took him a moment of staring at her before he decided to set his arm into her hold.
“You know,” Marc said with false conviviality. “You’ve ruined your own study. I used to imagine all the things I was going to do to you, while you stood over me taking my pulse. Now I’m just thinking about how I want to leave.”
Sickly things crawled up Allie’s spine. She stared at her clock but was having trouble reading the numbers. “You were always going to leave.”
His mouth twitched. “You’re right.”
31
The days continued to brighten like gorgeous spring blooms, but to Allie it was as if a cloud had descended. She tried to tell herself that it was better this way. That this was what she wanted, a distraction-free focus on her career. The two week point from the team’s qualifying tournament was fast approaching, and that meant that the endpoint for Doctor Kaitech’s study with Marc was near. His injury had somewhat confounded the study, it was true, and he was still in the observation period instead of being fully cleared. But thanks to Lindsey and Allie’s work, the health factors were all well documented and Allie completed all the relevant annotations for submitting the data into Doctor Kaitech’s sample sets.
Her road to med school was looking clearer every day. So why did Allie feel so miserable?
Kelsey tried to get her to go out, promising they would find places where they wouldn’t run into the boys from the team. Allie begged off, claiming she had too much work to do going into the end of the study and the upcoming departure of the team for the tournament. It wasn’t really a lie. There was a lot of work, and Everett seemed happy to shift more things onto her plate when Allie went to him after completing her daily tasks for Lindsey.
Allie was working over the week’s schedules with Everett when Marc’s endpoint appointment came up. The existing plan was for Allie to drive the both of them up to the university. It would allow her to also check in with Doctor Kaitech’s colleague and go over her work with the data.
“Unfortunately that blockhead never got his driver’s license reinstated after coming back to the States, so I can’t just send him up on his own.” Everett puffed out an irritated sigh before slanting a look towards her. “We’ll drop Marc in a taxi. That way you don’t have to be locked into his schedule.”
Allie smiled, appreciating the easy way out the team manager was giving her. She shook her head. “It’s fine. I’ll take him,” she said with more confidence then she felt. “I’d like to see this project through.”
“You’ll get the data either way,” Everett made clear.
“I can do it,” Allie affirmed. “It’s the job I signed up for.”
“All right.” Everett shifted through the prop of his arms over the table, pulling the next order of business into view. “I’ll lend you my car,” was his last comment on the matter. “It gets better gas mileage then the team hauler, and that way we can get all the guys back from practice while you’re gone for the day.”
They had barely spoken to each other all week. Marc had been riding in the back of the big car ever since he found out Allie had reported him to Everett. Lindsey was working with his injury rehab, so Allie had little cause to see him and plenty of demands on her time between her administrative functions and helping the rest of the team through their standard recovery protocols. As the days went on Allie started to suspect that Lindsey and Everett were also running some subtle interference to keep her and Marc apart. That fact made her uncomfortable and she tried not to think about it too much.
At least they had given her the opportunity to complete this last task of the study. Marc wasn’t any more sociable on the drive to his appointment than he had been all week. Since he declined to plug his music into the stereo, Allie put on the playlist from her own phone. It included some of the songs that the DJ had been playing in the club the other night. When the one came on that they had danced to, she snuck a peek towards her passenger to see if he noticed.
He was running his thumb over his knuckles, one after the other, as he hung his forearm out the window and watched the world speed by. Everett had left the top of the convertible down when he had given her the keys and so the wind was ruffling through Marc’s hair. It made her heart ache, how perfect he looked in his sunglasses as they drove north towards the hills labeled with the Hollywood sign.
After she parked, Marc waited while she got her bag out of the back seat and made sure the car’s top was clicked into place. Allie fussed a hand over her braided hair and straightened her skirt. Given her nerves over meeting the professor, she narrowly avoiding asking Marc how she looked. The way she caught him watching her when she glanced over perhaps was answer enough.
“You’re almost done with this.” Allie tried to keep all emotion out of her voice as she climbed the medical center’s stairs beside him.
Marc edged a brief glance at her and said nothing.
Allie led the way inside the building, deciphering the directory that was as complex as any hospital’s, and got him checked in at the correct department’s front desk. He started to walk away with the nurse without saying a word to her.
Allie caught at his arm. The quickness with which Marc snapped his attention back to her made her swallow thickly. She just had to get through this afternoon, she reminded herself, trying not to remember how she’d wrongly thought similar before. She forced on a smile. “Text me when you’re done? I’ll do the same. I’m not sure which one of us is likely to be through first, so let’s plan to meet in the lobby.”
“Yeah,” Marc said simply.
“Well …” Allie didn’t know why she was still talking. What was she going to say? Enjoy having your blood drawn? She finished with an awkward nod and backed away from him. She didn’t turn until after he had disappeared through a door with the nurse.
First challenge done with. Puffing an exhale through her cheeks, Allie fished in her bag for the map she’d printed out to find her way to the professor’s office.
“I’m sorry, sir?” Allie reached her hand forward on the desk to catch the professor’s attention. They’d been going over the data she’d been formatting during the past months and talking about the manuscript that he and Doctor Kaitech planned to publish. “You said I might be in the acknowledgements?”
“Yes.” The professor barely let her question sidetrack him. “So as you can see, with these two journals working with different templates, we’re going to need to—”
“I’m sorry,” Allie interrupted again, offering an apologetic smile. “It’s just that I thought I might be an author. An acknowledgement is something else, isn’t it?” An impending sense of trepidation started to peak her brows at the center of her forehead.
This got the professor to take a longer pull of breath. He turned away from his computer to relax back in his chair and settle a paternal smile on her. “That
is correct, Ms. Hillsten, they are different. Authorship denotes involvement in study design, data analysis, and manuscript composition. It is uncustomary for laboratory technicians to appear on the authors list, but Doctor Kaitech is recommending that we acknowledge your contributions to this study. In the appropriate section.”
“Oh.” Allie sat back, her frown deepening. She withdrew her hand, her fingers knitting together in her lap. “But,” she said slowly, stopping the professor in his nod before he could shift back to his computer. “I thought that I was helping Doctor Kaitech with the study design, during our meetings in Colorado. And aren’t I helping with data analysis and the manuscript?” She gestured to the screen the professor had open with the data she’d brought on a flash drive.
The professor’s expression closed more sternly. He slipped off his glasses. “Ms. Hillsten, I am sorry if you did not appropriately comprehend this situation earlier. You have been working on a small piece of this project, which is being overseen by four graduate students in multiple laboratories. And that’s not including the instrumentation facilities that are analyzing the samples sent in by our technicians.” Like her, he pointed at Allie with an arm of his spectacles. “Do you believe that you’ve done more work than all these people?”
“I—I don’t know,” Allie said weakly, shrinking into her chair. She bit her lip, looking towards the computer screen because she couldn’t meet the professor’s eyes any more. “I was hoping to be accepted into a joint MD, PhD program.” The words came tumbling out from her numbing chest. “I was hoping … I thought authoring … I’ve been working so hard.” Her stomach was caving in from the weak pleading she turned to the professor.
The professor shook his head, replacing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed, Ms. Hillsten, I assure you. But if authorship were your goal, perhaps you would have been better served by an internship in an academic lab rather than with a sports team. I am sure you are learning lots of practical skills,” he made it sound dirty, “but that does not justify your inclusion on a list of research authorship. Now if we may move on …”
Allie hardly registered the rest of the meeting. The sense of numbness spread. She was glad of that, she supposed. Otherwise she may have risked embarrassing herself further in front of the professor.
It was fine, she tried to tell herself. This was normal. She had come so far from her small town, and made the most of every opportunity she could grab, and she’d make the most of this one too. After all, it wasn’t as if the professors sounded disappointed in her work. She was just disappointed that it wasn’t everything that she thought it would be.
Clutching tight onto her bag’s strap as if it could hold her together, she walked through the research hospital’s halls and back to the elevator which would take her down to the lobby. She watched blindly as the little circle of light tracked her movement from floor to floor. It was an older building, and the jolt at the end swayed her.
Allie walked out across the shining tile, her gaze forward to the doors, and for a minute she completely forgot that she wasn’t there alone. She blinked when she saw him. Ruggedly gorgeous Marc, sitting in his sunglasses in the streaming sunlight with a sandaled foot propped over his knee. He was relaxed back into one of the lobby’s cushioned chairs like he was perfectly confident; a king of his world.
And he was waiting for her.
It would be okay. Allie almost made herself believe it. And then Marc turned his head to look at her, and he frowned. Like he’d rather be anywhere else besides the same room as Allie.
It shattered her. Allie’s sobs broke loose from every restraint she had thrown over herself and it was all she could do to cup her hands in front of her face as tears flooded down her cheeks. She aimed for the door and she ran.
32
Allie wasn’t thinking what it might mean for her employment, to leave him there. It didn’t make much sense, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. Like she told Violet, she was never thinking clearly when he was around. All she knew for sure was that she didn’t want Marc to witness her falling apart.
And yet, through her tears and her clumsy stumble down the steps, it was inevitable that he caught up with her. Maybe it took him a minute to decide to follow, because his longer stride didn’t overtake hers until Allie had made it to one of the winding paths that led back towards the garage. His hand slid along her arm, but it was more a check of his own speed rather than a genuine attempt to stop her. He swiveled his steps, walking half-backward in order to peer at Allie’s face with his frown still in place.
“What’s wrong with you?” That was the first thing Marc asked, and the aggressive demand did nothing to stop her flight.
Allie shook her head and kept plowing on towards the garage and the car and escape. Maybe she couldn’t stop crying, but at least she could try to be quiet about it. She choked on her sobs and hid the horrible wet smear of her face in the cup of her palms.
“What happened?” Marc sounded less annoyed. A hint of what seemed like actual concern leaked into his voice. “Allie.” He pivoted, looking forward then behind and eventually falling into matched step with her. “Did … did you get a phone call?”
“What? No. No, it’s—it’s nothing,” Allie managed to blurt out between the uncontrollable jumps of her diaphragm. “I’m so stupid,” followed in a moan. She swiped her wrist angrily beneath her eyes.
“Allie … Allie. Hold on.” They walked from sun into shade and Marc swiveled to block her path. He had his hands up, like he was showing a referee that he wasn’t committing a foul, but there was still no way to get around him.
She pulled up short so they wouldn’t collide … and then collapsed against him anyway. In that moment, she couldn’t care that Marc was trouble or that he was angry with her. He was solid and he was there and she so desperately needed something to grab onto for support. For a second it seemed like he might pull away, but then his palms cupped over her shoulders and he let her cry into his chest.
When she finally rocked back to the balance of her own feet, Marc did so as well. He adjusted the waist of his jeans and looked around, like he was worried about getting blamed for her state.
Allie did blame him. Would she even be there, if it weren’t for him? Marc was the one who had volunteered for the extended study. Without that, she doubted that she would have been offered the position in California with the team. If she had stayed in Colorado, she could have been working more closely with Doctor Kaitech and his graduate student at the training center. Maybe then she could have been included in work that would have won her authorship.
On the other hand, Allie couldn’t hold him responsible. No one had threatened her or forced her to accept the relocation. She had followed him in the stupid hope that … what?
A small voice whispered in her heart but she couldn’t even admit it to herself.
She had to stay focused on her education, she just had to. As her hopelessness turned to self-reproach, at least Allie could get a little better control of her breathing. She wiped her fingers at the mess of her face. Her nose was runny and she sniffed against the stuffy congestion of her sinuses. Balancing the strap of her bag on her shoulder, Allie rummaged for the little pack of tissues she always had. The law of such things meant it was in the last pocket she checked.
She could see Marc’s toes at the edge of her downcast gaze. He hadn’t budged from his position a few inches in front of her. “You want to tell me what this is all about?” He sounded wary.
“Not really.” Allie sniffed and kept her face tucked down. She found the tissues and tugged too many out from the little plastic sleeve. Her fingers were thick and slow to separate out one so she could dab at her eyes and blow her nose. Once the first was used and wadded up into her palm she started to unfold the next one. Her nose was still running.
She sniffed again. “It’s about the manuscript.” Daring to flick her eyes upward, Allie found Marc watching her skeptically. His knuckles popped faintl
y at his sides.
“They said I—I can’t be an author.” Allie struggled to keep ahold of her wavering voice.
“This is the thing you’ve been working on this whole time?”
Allie shrugged up one shoulder and dropped her gaze again. “I thought I would be an actual contributor.” She fussed with refolding her tissue to find a dry spot. “But I guess I’m just a brainless pair of hands. They don’t even have to acknowledge me. I mean, I should be grateful.” Sobs started to choke out again between her words. “I don’t know why I ever thought anyone would want me as part of their research program.” It didn’t matter if the tissue was already damp, it was a lot drier than her eyes.
“Fucking hell.” Marc’s feet scraped against the pavement as he shifted his weight. “Is that what the guy you went to see said, up in his fucking office? You want me to go up there and smash his face in?”
The offer startled Allie enough that she forgot to worry about her blotchy face and glanced up to meet those steady, dark eyes. “No,” she said, breathless. “Marc.” She looked at him and didn’t want him to be the man who threw Blake against the wall. “No,” her expression crumbled further. “That won’t … that won’t fix anything.”
The muscle along Marc’s jaw ticked. He didn’t look away from her. “You want me to say they can’t use my data?”
Allie’s mouth dropped open. “You’d do that?” For me? She couldn’t quite make the words form on her tongue.
“You’re not just anything, Allie, and if that asshole …” He emphasized the pointing of his arm, glowering off at the building a moment before drawing back his hands to comb through his hair. “He’s just an ivory tower asshole, Allie. Fuck him.”
Allie stared at Marc a shocked moment, unsure of what she was seeing. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. For all of her adult life, all that she had wanted …