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“It’s not.” The smile he can’t see fades as soon as it begins. “When do you fly toUW?”
“Tomorrow. My talk’sTuesday.”
A stone settles in my stomach. “I hope you’re not counting on the strength of my dad’s reference for this job.” His hair brushes my face as he chuckles. “You don’t sound worried,” Iobserve.
Wes shakes his head slowly. “There are a lot of things I’m not good at. This… It’s my thing. There’s nothing in the world like understanding how human beings are wired. What creates us and destroys us are the tiniest things. It’shumbling.”
“So, if you get it—when you get it,” I amend, trying to keep my voice level, “whathappens?”
“They’ll likely let me know within a few weeks. Then I’d go to Seattle and look at places.” The darkness stretches between us, filling my chest as Wes laces his fingers through mine. “Rena… I might not get it.” His voice is quiet in thedark.
“In which case you’d behomeless?”
He turns my question over, treating my teasing as serious. “I haven’t thought much about it. Staying here has never been a possibility I was willing to entertain. But if I don’t go to UW, I’ll keep applying for jobs until I findsomething.”
“Keep teaching at Baden in themeantime?”
Wes is silent for a moment. “Isuppose.”
I want to say, “That doesn’t sound so bad.” Except that I know it is. This is his dream. Wes has a chance to make others’ lives better. Maybe millions of people. I could never ask him to give that up. To settle for somethingelse.
Still, if the decision were out of ourhands…
He wouldn’t goanywhere.
And I feel like a traitor for thinking that would beamazing.
25
Wes
From the momentI step off the plane in Seattle, it’s familiar. The cherry trees, bare for November. The wind, the dampness that hangs in the air. The UW campus brings backmemories.
My potential future colleagues greet me, and I walk through the halls of the building I spent hundreds—thousands—of hours in as astudent.
I stop by the dean’s office, and he looks up with a grin. “Wes. Good to see you. It’s been too long.” We shake hands, and the man who was a professor and mentor to me seems to have aged. “Sorry to hear about yourfather.”
I nod. “Thank you for making thishappen.”
“Not a problem. You had three different offers on graduation in a competitive market. And from the sound of your emails, you can’t wait to get out of NewYork.”
I force the smile, remembering it was only a month ago that I’d been badgering him. “I can understand why you’d thinkso.”
My phone buzzes, and I glance down to turn itoff.
Rena:Science the hell out of them, Dr.Strange.
Rena:P.S. I put something in your phone case forluck.
Ican’t stopthe smile before I tuck the phone away. “Mygirlfriend.”
It takes me a second to realize what I’vesaid.
Mygirlfriend.
I like labels. Giving things appropriate names. But we’ve never talked aboutthat.
Admittedly, we’ve gotten closer the last couple ofweeks.
