Page 23 of Love Below Zero

23

SELF-AWARE

BECKY

Hi Rebecca,

Due to lack of response on your part, we’re becoming concerned you won’t reach the agreed-upon deadline.

Should you miss the deadline, we’ll consider you in breach of your contract. This will have serious implications for your future projects, as well as your ability to work in the United Kingdom.

Please send us chapters urgently to avoid missing the deadline.

Kind regards ,

Anne

Several mornings passed without more notes from James, and it’s starting to worry me. He’s under a lot of pressure. After a whole four days of doing unspeakable things in buckets, Joanna finally managed to fix the generator, and we are back to our normal way of life.

I’m itching for an excuse to spend time alone with James. We haven’t talked much since the night we ... cuddled in the dark. I can’t tell if he’s purposefully avoiding me because I accidentally drooled on him during the night, or because I gave him a raging boner.

Either way, I just want to be in his company for a little while. Which is a strange turn of events, even for me. The dome blurred any lines between us, and eventually it started to feel like we really are on another planet. So when we got the weather report stating the aurora would finally be visible, I asked Frances if we could go outside to see it. There is a storm to the east, but it’s projected to miss us, and it’s far enough away that Frances felt comfortable letting us go outside in the dark.

“So you two have finally sorted out whatever is between you?” she asks, checking her watch. “It only took you three months. Now I owe Eli money.”

My jaw drops open. “You were in on the betting?”

“There’s not much else to do here.” She shrugs. “Plus, I enjoyed watching you two puzzle it out.”

I should have known Frances wouldn’t miss a thing. You don’t spend 150 days in space by being oblivious to your surroundings.

“We haven’t done anything to impact the integrity of the study,” I tell her solemnly. Except make out after almost blowing up the kitchen, and then feeling each other up in the dark while we were all sleeping in the same room. Nothing at all.

Frances fixes me with a stern look. “I’m aware. You both are too smart for that. Which is what worries me.”

“I’m . . . not following.”

She gestures for me to sit down in my usual seat at the kitchen table.

“This study is about food as much as it is about the human condition. And while it may seem far off, it will end. After we get out we have to return to our lives. What will that look like, for you and James?”

I’m not sure there is an “us” to begin with, but I did think about it. He’ll get that job in Oxford, and I’ll lose my publishing contract and be forced to move back to South Africa.

I don’t know when I just accepted that as fact, but the fear isn’t as sharp as before. My mind has firmly given up on writing. The words won’t come, even though I’ve stopped hearing James’ critiques of my book on repeat in my head. He apologised and did what he could to prove to me that he was wrong.

Maybe James was never the problem and it was my own fear of not being good enough that caused the writer’s block in the first place. He was just someone I could project onto.

“I don’t know,” I lie. Because telling Frances, of all people, what an absolute failure I am is not on the cards.

I should have known my writing career wouldn’t last. My first three books are a fluke. They probably only do well because they have purple alien penis in them. Book four is supposed to be more serious and heartbreaking. I can’t pull it off, so I just blamed James and then I blamed the mission, but really it’s just me.

Frances doesn’t buy it though.

“You know what’s the first thing I thought when I arrived on the space station and caught my first glimpse of Earth?”

I shake my head.

“How infinitely small we are, but at the same time how infinitely wonderful. Everything I loved—music, art, people—were on that tiny blue marble. Space is horrible. It’s empty and devoid of everything that makes us special. Earth is where the warmth is. From that perspective, all of our problems seem so meaningless.”

Her eyes glaze over, like she’s deep in a distant memory. She snorts softly, then looks at me again. “It’s not that serious, Becky. Things may seem impossible to conquer from down here, but from up there they’re just anthills. The two of you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way.”

“But we aren’t on the space station. We’re down here and everything is just piling up.”

“It might feel that way now, but it won’t feel that way forever. You can work it out.”

I’m not so sure. What does being with James Reid even mean? Especially if a very large continent is between us? I am not going to stand in the way of his teaching job, and if I want to stay in the UK without a work visa, he’ll have to marry me, and that isn’t a simple solution either. Just the thought of commuting between London and Cape Town makes my stomach turn. I hate flying, especially over Africa. There is always turbulence at the equator, and there are miles and miles of nothing in between.

And if I’m completely honest with myself, can I stand being with someone that successful if I’m such a failure? I don’t begrudge him his success, don’t get me wrong, but some small part of me will always wonder if he still looks down on me. A failed physics career, a failed writing career. I will be dependent on him entirely, and that kind of lifestyle causes resentment pretty quickly.

In a perfect world where I don’t need an income to keep a roof over my head and to buy very expensive food and meds, maybe. But there is too much in the way, and I am so tired.

“How did you and your husband do it?” I ask. Normally I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking her something so personal, but I need all the help I can get. She’s an astronaut, and if I remember right, her husband is an accountant. Those are two very different jobs.

A fond smile graces her features. “I won’t lie, it was hard. Henry is a worrier by nature. But we decided the worry was worth it. Any time spent together is better than having nothing at all.”

“Why do you have to be so wise and shit?” I groan, rubbing my face.

“Trust me, I didn’t start out that way,” she laughs. “I was cocky as hell. Henry called me an arrogant fool who would get herself killed when we first met.”

I raise a brow. “How did that work out for him?”

Frances flashes me a wicked smile. “I punched him in the nose. And then I used that spite to fuel me all the way to NASA.”

I can picture the younger version of Frances, determined not to let anything stand in her way.

“You never doubted yourself during everything?”

“Sometimes.” She nods. “But the world was already doubting me. I was a Black kid from the middle of nowhere trying to get space, and a woman on top of that. But I kept going. I was going to be an astronaut, come hell or high water. And then I was going to pave the way for others.”

Frances is practically a modern-day Nichelle Nichols. She does a lot of outreach work, especially in Africa, and she runs a space-themed science camp in the US for underprivileged children on top of her work at NASA. I envy her drive.

I crumple like a piece of tinfoil the moment someone lobs any critique my way. I’m self-aware enough to recognise my behaviour, but I never do anything about it.

“Self-doubt can be hard to overcome,” Frances adds, seeing my forlorn expression. “But you’ll get there, in the end.”

If only I can believe that.