Page 52 of Little Pieces of Light

Xander

The Academy locker room was loud with celebration as we changed out of our racing gear. Coach Daniels huddled us up to congratulate us, actual tears in his eyes, then released us to change and celebrate at Orion’s party.

Dean approached and leaned against my locker. “I just want to personally thank you for not puking on me. Especially during the final hundred meters. Damn, that was insane.”

“Insane is right!” Suddenly I was engulfed in Orion’s embrace. “I’ve said it before, but Ford, you’re a fucking madman! And the best bloody stroke seat we’ve ever had.”

I winced, knowing Rhett was a few feet away. Orion read my expression.

“Nah, Calloway was made for bow, aren’t you, mate?”

Rhett, drawing on his jacket, sneered in an approximation of a smile. He spoke to Orion, but his black-eyed gaze was on me. “Been rowing stroke my whole life, but…sure. Anything for the team.”

Orion scoffed. “Don’t mind the Count; he woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning.” He slung his other arm around Dean. “And you, my favorite coxy. A genius, Yearwood. You’re both coming to my party, yeah?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Dean said.

Orion wagged his eyebrows at me. “How about it, Ford? Going to bring Miss Emery, I presume?”

I felt my cheeks redden. “It would appear that way.”

Orion cackled. “It would indeed. She’s not subtle, that girl. See you tonight!”

He joined the other guys, still rowdy with adrenaline and victory.

“Never in the history of the Math the new medication they’d given my dad made him sleep for upwards of fourteen hours a day.

Which was helpful, in a terrible way, since he’d taken to wandering outside lately.

Twice, I’d caught him down the road as I drove back from school.

The days of my Experiment were numbered, and soon I wouldn’t be able to take care of him at all.

I stood in our tidy living room—we had kept Emery’s rearrangement of the furniture—and glanced with apprehension at my dad’s desk. The cyclone of papers with his equations on them, all reaching into infinity for the ultimate solution.

“The answer to life, the universe, and everything,” I muttered.

I tried to harness some of Emery’s optimism. Maybe Dad was close. Maybe he’d solve it before disease stole his mind, and he’d be famous. Rich. The most celebrated physicist on the planet. Then I could steal Emery away from her father and pay for RISD. We could be together…

On leaden feet, I crossed the room and turned on the desk light over my father’s work, where equations—chains of factors—were scribbled across every page.

For the first time, I picked one up and examined it.

Immediately, tears blurred my vision. I blinked them back and took up another page. And another.

“Of course,” I murmured. “The simplest solution is usually correct.”

The pages were covered in gibberish. Algebraic nonsense. Streams of consciousness. Rambling theories that devolved into nothing, or strings of words, or my mother’s name, over and over…

I let the papers fall. I hadn’t known, but I’d always known.

My father’s work was another superposition that collapsed under my observation.

I was losing him, and so I had to lose Emery.

At the very best, I was facing a long separation from her—years even—until my father perished from his disease, because I would not do what my mother did and leave him.

But the only thing I had to do tonight was get good and drunk.

***

Orion had taken over the enormous courtyard in the castle-like “dorm” of Atlas Hall. He was a Mercer, one of the Big Five families that funded the Academy, and I could see his family’s money everywhere I turned.

The fountain in the center was lit up with changing-color lights. Rec rooms led into the courtyard, where tables of food and drink lined one side, and a DJ and dance floor took up the rest.

Both the indoor and outdoor spaces were crowded with people by the time I got there, the music loud and thumping, with a hundred laughing conversations thrumming beneath it.

Students sat and talked on the couches or made out in dark corners.

I spotted my rowing crew standing around a keg, Tucker passing around a flask while Orion kept the punch bowls filled with vodka.

I strode up to my team, plucked the flask from Tucker’s hand, and drained it. Whiskey burned a path to my gut, then headed straight to my head, instantly making the world a more palatable place to be.

I handed it back. “Thanks. I needed that.”

The guys all stared a moment and then broke out in shocked cheers and bellows. Only Rhett stayed apart, his gaze as cool as ever. Did I give a shit? No, I did not.

Thank you, whiskey.

“Ford, you’re a goddamn legend!” Tucker roared, laughing, as if we hadn’t spent the year trading punches. “This is the best fucking crew in CHA history!”

He lifted his now-empty flask in a toast. Another cheer went up amid sprays of beer and punch, and I was engulfed in heavy hugs or pounding on the back. The whiskey was already doing its job, making the night murky, banishing all the pain somewhere I didn’t have to look at it for a while.

Someone put a red plastic cup in my hand. I downed the entire vodka-punch drink in one go and took another. Then another. Then I grabbed a fourth and wandered the party, blissfully free of thinking so goddamn much. My mind, always analyzing, observing, calculating…the alcohol made that impossible.

Time became slippery as I slid into random conversations with random people, the night taking on a strange, carnival-like atmosphere, with each part of the party like a different sideshow.

I even thought I saw Harper and Orion having a heated conversation before she stormed away, angrily wiping tears.

I frowned and started after her, but someone grabbed my arm.

“Hey, you’re that genius, right?” a guy asked, standing with a group of friends.

“Yep,” I said. “I’m a fucking genius. Which is why I’m so obviously winning at life.”

He and his friends laughed. “Can you do a trick? Like, demonstrate?”

“Pfft, I don’t do tricks . But wanna hear a joke?

” I endeavored to keep from slurring, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

“A police officer pulls Erwin Schrodinger over for speeding. The cop is suspicious, so he checks the trunk. He says to Schrodinger, ‘Hey! Do you know you have a dead cat in here?’ And Schrodinger says, ‘Well, I do now!’”

The group gave me pitying looks and snickers. “Uh, sure. Good one, man.”

I flapped a hand at them and wandered away. “Emery would’ve loved that joke,” I muttered petulantly, and then sadness whacked me right in the chest.

Where was Emery? At some stupid dinner with her horrible father, who was probably being just nice enough to make her believe he saw how fucking beautiful and perfect and talented she was.

That was never going to happen. But I saw her, so it was up to me to help make her dreams come true.

Me. The one who wanted to keep her forever was the one who had to get her to a galaxy far, far away.

“How’s that for a fucking paradox?” I said to no one.

I spotted Dean in the rec room, talking with Rhett, and was overcome with the need to pour my guts out to my best friend. Dean would understand. He would help me. Fuck, I loved that guy. One of the best people…

I staggered closer. They both looked around surreptitiously, then Rhett put something in Dean’s hand. Dean pocketed whatever it was, and they went their separate ways, both melting into the crowd.

“Hey!” I cried, but the floor was tilting out from under me. I sat down heavily into a chair—unoccupied, luckily—and held my face in my hands. The room was spinning, and I needed it to stop. Something wasn’t right.

“ Nothing is right,” I corrected, and lay back in the chair because my head was too heavy to hold up anymore and if I didn’t close my eyes, I was going to puke. On Dean? No, I promised him I wouldn’t. Where was he, anyway…?

My thoughts broke apart and I fell into a strange, drunken blackness—not awake but not unconscious either. Music and voices created a wall of sound around me, and I tucked myself into the dark to wait until I could move again.

It felt like minutes but was more likely an hour later when a scream pierced the blackness. I bolted upright, the shock sobering me slightly, and shot to my feet. A crowd had formed in the corner of the rec room and a girl was screaming and screaming…

Dread sank sharp teeth into me as I shoved people aside, and then a strangled cry tore out of my throat. Sierra Hart was kneeling on the floor in a tight blue dress. Dean was lying on his back, his head in her lap, mouth ajar, eyes staring at nothing.

Terror whipped my sluggish, drunken muscles and I staggered to Dean and fell to my knees just as Orion burst through the crowd. He pushed Sierra aside and knelt to do chest compressions on my best friend. I watched, stupefied, as his mouth formed the words: Call an ambulance! But no sound came out.

Orion was shouting for help, and Sierra was still screaming, but I could hear nothing but my own blood rushing in my head and see nothing but Dean’s staring eyes. Finally, I broke free from the terror and grabbed his jaw.

“Dean, wake up.” I blew air into his mouth, dizzy with alcohol and abject dread. “Wake up, Dean, this isn’t fucking funny. Please…”

Orion’s eyes—stricken and tear-filled—met mine. He never stopped his compressions but shook his head, and a hollow cry ripped out of me.

“ No! ” I slapped Dean so he’d wake up and feel hurt that I’d hit him like that. But he didn’t react. Didn’t move at all.

Because he’s not here anymore…

I blew into his slack mouth. Orion pressed on his chest until finally EMTs arrived and took over. Then Harper was in my arms, clinging to me, sobbing into my shirt because nothing they did was working. Because it was too late.

Because Dean was dead.