21. Chapter 21 — Jonathan
Ihave delivered remarks to hostile boards. I have negotiated across tables from men who'd already decided against me before I opened my mouth. I have never once spent twenty minutes in a parking lot reconsidering my wardrobe.
This morning, I did.
The grey sweater was correct. Ava's text yesterday said don't wear a suit. No explanation, no follow-up. That's how she gives instructions she considers self-evident. I listened.
Her display board is the neatest one in the row. She used a ruler. The methodology subheadings are structured the way I've seen them in peer-reviewed papers. Not seventh-grade science fairs.
She sees me arrive. Gives me a single nod.
In Ava's language, that's a standing ovation.
"You're not wearing a suit," she says.
"You told me not to."
"I didn't think you'd listen."
"I'm learning."
She smiles. Turns back to the board and adjusts a label that doesn't need adjusting. That's what she does when she's pleased and doesn't want to show it. I'm learning to read it.
Her project is on decision fatigue. A controlled study, twelve classmates, three weeks. She built a regression model her biology teacher told her belongs in a university thesis. She explained it to me on the phone for fourteen minutes. I took notes.
At the bottom of the board, in smaller text than everything else, as if she considered leaving it out entirely:
Further research should examine whether decision fatigue affects emotional decisions differently than logistical ones.
I read it twice. Then a third time.
There it is. The real question underlying the project. Not the regression model. The question is whether the decisions that feel most personal are the ones most susceptible to depletion. Whether the more important something is, the more it costs to get it right.
She filed it in a footnote. In smaller text. Like she decided not to make a thing of it.
I don't make a thing of it, but I also don't let it go.
Cecelia arrives just before the awards. Her coat half-buttoned and bag slipping off one shoulder.
She spots Ava first. Crosses straight to her, fixes the label that's come unstuck from the top corner of the display board without being asked, and pulls her in.
Over Ava's head, she glances at me once. A nod. That's all.
Ava lets herself be held for exactly three seconds. Then she straightens. "You're late."
"I'm here." Cecelia smooths the back of her blazer. "How did it go?"
"The judges understood about sixty percent of it."
"And the other forty?"
"Confused them." Ava says it without apology. "I'm not simplifying the regression model."
Something moves in Cecelia's expression. Pride, maybe. "I know you're not."
I watch from two feet away and feel it land somewhere I wasn't prepared for. The unstuck label. The three seconds. A history I wasn't part of. I can't undo that. The only thing I can do is be here now. Thursday. The Thursday after that.
The awards are announced, and Ava wins second place.
She accepts the ribbon with a handshake and a nod and no visible disappointment.
First place goes to a circuit board. It's an excellent circuit board.
Ava watches it receive its ribbon with the expression of someone who has assessed the competition and arrived at a verdict she's keeping to herself.
She chose accuracy over accessibility. She got the outcome that choice produces. The accounting, for Ava, is complete.
In the parking lot, Ava stands beside me with her ribbon and her rolled display board, squinting into the flat October light.
"You've been thinking about Harper," she says. Not a question.
"I was thinking about the footnote," I say.
She looks at me. The look of someone who's identified a deflection and is deciding whether to press it.
"Also Harper," I admit.
She nods. A beat. Two. She shifts the display board under her arm. "You're going to let her disappear." Not a question. The flat register she uses when she's identified a structural error. "At some point working on it and doing it have to be the same thing."
The words land with the precision of everything Ava says.
Cecelia appears at her shoulder. Looks between us with the practiced eye of someone who misses nothing. "Ready?"
"Yes," Ava says. She looks at me once more. The assessment running its final check. "Don't be an idiot," she says, and walks toward Cecelia's car.
Something flickers in Cecelia's face. Gone before I can name it. Then she follows Ava.
I stand in the parking lot until the car is gone.
I'm back at the penthouse by two.
I stand at the window with my jacket still on.
Harper.
Not a plan. Just the pull of her. The fact that she is the only person I want in this room right now. Not to deliver something to. Not to hand over a document or a clause. Just to be in the same room with. Just that.
I pick up my phone. She deserves better than a phone call. I set it back down.
Soon. Before Ava has to tell me again that working on it and doing it has to be the same thing.
I close the blank document. Open a new one.
This time, I start with the true version.