Satellites

4. Lover’s Orbit

Lover’s Orbit

Jude

The house was dead quiet when I slipped around the side, the last glow of a bonfire long gone even though embers still popped as I pushed open the gate.

Crickets and frogs filled the silence, loud enough to cover the smaller sounds—like the window screen being eased out of place.

I set it beside the house in the gravel.

Her window was already cracked open. Of course it was.

Solace never listened to her dad about the air conditioning, but I wasn’t complaining.

It was easier to slip inside the bay window rather than the one above her bed.

Still, my chest burned at the thought of anyone else being able to slip so easily inside her room while she was fast asleep.

Not only was Solace clumsy, she was forgetful and had no respect for her safety. Good thing I had tons of it.

I pushed the window open slowly, wincing at the soft groan. Hopefully Mr. Davis was fast asleep or this could be awkward.

“We gotta talk about your self-preservation, Sol,” I murmured. Something flew at my head and I caught it on instinct—a pillow—and blinked.

“Hey!” Her soft voice filled the dark.

I dropped it to the floor and looked up at her.

“You didn’t even hear me remove the window screen.

” I leaned on the sill, folding my arms, grinning despite myself.

“Wanna go somewhere?” Although I wasn’t sure where I’d take her.

Maybe to our favorite perch outside the observatory.

I hated to admit it, but my stomach was cramped with nerves and my chest grew tighter with each passing minute.

The floodlight from the side yard cut across the room, leaving her face in shadow. She was half-asleep. Or pretending to be. She yanked the covers up as if it would somehow help. “Not really.”

“Isn’t everyone asleep?”

“Yes but—”

“Great. Grab a sweatshirt. It’s cold.”

Before she could argue, I retreated back into the dark. If I stayed there, she’d keep saying no. Sol was like that—she liked to dig her heels in and dare the world to move her. She was stubborn as hell, even if she’d often counted herself out before having the chance to experience anything.

It used to bother me when we were kids because I couldn’t convince her to do anything, but then I watched that same fortified heart balk at bullies, soldier through her mom’s cancer, and carry far more than I’d ever let her carry.

I waited by the hollyhock, listening. For shuffled footsteps or for her lamp to flicker on and her to huff in frustration as she rattled through her closet.

A second later, her room was illuminated.

Her head popped out the window, thick braid slipping over her shoulder as she leaned out too far, searching the dark for me.

“Jude?” she whispered.

I bit back a laugh.

“Ransom,” she hissed.

She was wearing teddy bear pajamas that hugged her body and left little to the imagination. I shook it off, but the smile couldn’t be helped. My lips twisted. “Teddy bears?” I said, enjoying her jump as I stepped out of the shadows. “Cute.”

“You’re such an ass.” She disappeared back into the room.

When she came back she was wearing my sweatshirt over her pajamas.

The one I’d given her months ago when I picked her up from prom.

She tried to give it back the next morning, suspiciously not sick, but I pushed it back into her hands.

For no reason other than it looked good on her, even if it was twice her size and swallowed her thighs.

“Your grandma bought them for me on her trip to Korea. She loves me.”

“Mhm.” She did—love her, that is. I don’t remember the pajamas, but I do remember passing along a substantially large bag of gifts specifically for Solace. Even though my own grandmother had gotten me nothing.

The teddy bears were cute though. I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to smile like a complete idiot even though she made one of me. “Grab your shoes.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. I can’t.”

I exhaled slowly. “What did I tell you about that word? You can. You don’t want to.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Won’t.”

“Can’t,” she sang under her breath. “My recital is tomorrow.”

That made me pause. A crease pulled between my brows as I looked up at her again.

“The recital you’re going to be at,” she added, quieter now. “Right?”

I stepped back into the dark, using the few seconds it took to grab a camping chair from beside their firepit to get my head straight.

I forgot about the recital. I didn’t know how.

It had been in my phone for months. We talked about it almost every day.

I’ve watched her fingers bleed over strings as she practiced for it. Fuck.

When I reached her window again, she was still there, watching and waiting. I set the chair down, unfolded it, and nodded toward her. “If you won’t go anywhere, I’ll stay.”

She shifted, pulling her knees into her chest as she settled against the bookcase in her window seat. “You’re not coming tomorrow, are you?” Her chin rested on top of her legs.

I shook my head slowly, forcing the words out. “My mom changed our flights to Texas.”

“Oh.”

I swear my heart broke with that small sound.

She tried to play it off, but I saw it—the way she swallowed and picked at a loose thread on her shorts.

The way her shoulders pulled in slightly.

I noticed and I hated it. I didn’t like letting people down, least of all her.

It was an omen that had been staring me down for months. Hovering above us like a dark cloud.

My grandmother said our red string was tangled, that it would eventually work itself out, and we’d find our way.

But what about my parents thread? What of my father’s absence?

My mother was so certain of her red string, she’d been willing to bet her entire life on it only to end up a broke single mom living with her parents.

My friend, Elias, had a different term for it. Quantum entanglement.

Which was basically just a science way of saying that what I had with Solace was complicated, and it went further than just a random friendship.

I didn’t know if Solace and I shared matter, or particles or whatever. All I knew is that we were so tightly wound around one another, I sometimes didn’t know where she began, and I ended.

In some ways, as much as it pained me to admit, I thought it was better this way.

“Where were you tonight?” Her voice took on a rare hard edge. “You were supposed to stop by.”

For the infamous Davis summer bonfire. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.

I was packing…” My voice trailed off and my fingers caught on the hem of my shirt, twisting the fabric.

There wasn’t a summer I’d missed, but so much shit changed in the last two days I wasn’t sure I would have even made good company tonight.

“I’m leaving early tomorrow, instead of later next week. ”

“What? Why?”

“I finished it.”

That got her attention.

There was really no other way to say it, so I pulled it from my pocket and held it up between us. Even in the low light, her eyes lit up with recognition as she took the round smooth surveyor from my hand.

“Oh my god. Jude. When did you test it?”

I exhaled loudly. “Two days ago. It recognized me, my mom—even the cat.” It was all I could do not to smile. “It actually works.”

She turned it over, studying every rough edge that I’d terribly soldered together. I tried not to cringe. It wasn’t great to look at but the technology inside worked, and thank god because I was beginning to lose my mind.

The science experiment had taken me almost five years if you counted its inception, which—I did.

It was the sixth grade and I was attending my first space camp.

The first few weeks were filled with lessons about Earth and our atmosphere, which then sent me down a rabbit hole of research on nuclear weapons and other threats to the global climate.

Heavy stuff for a twelve year old, but when your dad is a planetary geologist, you get used to the world-ending shit real quick.

When I was seven and visiting my dad on-site, for one of his rare “I feel like being a dad” moments, his coworker told me science was humanity’s responsibility to Mother Earth—when you see a gap, it’s yours to close. Whether through inquiry or intervention. See a need, fill a need.

So I found a need, in the form of software that could predict survivability odds. My hope was that one day it could be integrated into a larger system that had the ability to assist doctors and medical professionals keep people alive. But I wasn’t there yet.

What I had was a prototype.

It was a clunky handheld object built around the old screen of an iPhone and wired with a mess of sensors and data I wouldn’t have even had access to if it had not been for my mentors.

It contained data on weather patterns, thermal activity, air quality, carbon monoxide detection, and even radiation levels.

Though, that one earned me a few weird emails.

It was stuff your average weather app couldn’t tell you, except that wasn’t what was ground-breaking.

My golden ticket was the model running beneath it all, taking all that data, and feeding it into an algorithm based on science and math. It took all the numbers and asked one very important question: given everything happening right now, what are your chances of survival?

It was sort of a cancer diagnosis, but for the earth. And it was going to be presented to the team at NASA next year with the help of my mentor.

“Jude, this is—” Solace flipped it over in her palm. “You did it.” Our eyes met. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I think—I don’t know….” I rubbed the back of my neck, leaning forward without really thinking about it, closing the space between us. “I video called Dr. Ebbard. That’s why we’re leaving early. We have a meeting with him tomorrow afternoon so I can demonstrate in person.”

Her expression shifted again, and this time it was brighter. Her soft cheeks turned pink under the glow of the moon. She looked proud.

God. It almost stole my breath.

“What are you calling it?” she asked.

I hesitated, heat crawling up my neck, spreading across my face. “Survival Optimization Logic.”

There was a long beat as I watched her, waiting for the laugh or for her to blush in return but she gave me a soft smile and gave the device back as if she hadn’t even registered that I had named it after her.

“I never doubted you, Ransom.”

My hands closed around hers before I could stop myself.

She was warm, and the light was soft around us, my body leaned in.

If she’d asked I would have admitted it.

I wouldn’t have passed it off as some weird coincidence, I would have told her I named my invention after her because my odds of surviving anything when it came to her were low.

She was close now, lips parted. “Jude,” she murmured. It was messing with my head.

I stood too fast, knocking the chair back with a dull thud. Heat colored her chest, rising to her cheeks and even the bridge of her nose. I was frozen to the spot, and I couldn’t breathe. I almost—we almost…

“There’s something else,” I added quickly, because if I didn’t just tell her, I’d lose the nerve, and texting her goodbye wasn’t an option.

It was better this way. We would be better…

“Dr. Ebbard has extended an invitation to their STEM academy.”

“Okay…” Her head tilted to the side, gaze flicking over my expression.

I reached for her hand again, rubbing circles over the back with my thumb. This is why I came. Why I drove to her house in the middle of the night, parked four blocks away, and tried to sneak in her window like a lunatic. At the risk of getting shot by her father…

I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “It’s a two year college level program at the university. It’s similar to boarding school.”

“You’re moving?”

She dropped her hand, and I missed its warmth. Now they grew tight and clammy as my body vibrated with the pent up energy.

“We don’t have any details worked out yet.

My mom can’t leave her job, but I guess Adam is staying nearby between missions.

” My dad, Adam, was rarely home enough to fulfill his end of the custody obligations, but when mom called he jumped at the chance to make sure I’d have a place to stay on the odd weekends here and there.

It wasn’t my first pick, but if it meant I’d get to go to my dream charter school—well, I’d try forget he’d won worst father of the year since I was in early elementary and suck it the fuck up. “I’ll be home every summer.”

“But not this summer.” There it was again—her attempt to hide her disappointment behind a thin voice and bright eyes. Even though I was missing her big recital in the morning.

When I told Taya I’d be leaving, she cried, whining about how we’d only now gotten back together and how I couldn’t leave her right before her senior year.

Solace looked genuinely—albeit, painfully—happy for me, though.

She rose to her knees on her window bench, threw her arms around my neck, and I tried my best not to drag her out the window.

I threaded my fingers through her dense curls, burying my face in her neck as I held her close.

She would be happy for me because that’s just who Solace was.

She never wanted for anything, never asked, never burdened.

She’d smile and congratulate me because she cared far more about how I felt, than how it might affect her.

“I won’t be home this summer, but I’ll see you during Christmas break and next summer.”

Untwining myself from her my fingers flitted back and forth over SOL as my jaw went flat, and tight. She deserved more than what I could ever give her. If I could lasso the sun and the moon and every last star I would pull them down, gather them into my arms and hand them to her.

“I am excited for you, Jude.” She shifted, carefully maneuvering herself onto the windowsill, bare legs dangling out the window. “Truly. You’re so damn incredible. You’re going to change the world.”

So are you.

I followed her gaze to the sky, where a line of lights blinked across the dark, moving in perfect formation. In the quiet that stretched between us, another streaked overhead—following the other in its path.

“Whoah, were those shooting stars? Make a wish!” Solace mumbled something under her breath, eyes fluttering closed.

They weren’t stars, they were—

“Satellites,” I whispered, barely louder than the frogs. “Like you and I.” Sometimes I wish we’d just collide, but…

My gaze found hers, bright beneath the moon. “Sharing the sky with you is worth more than a single, blazing second.”