Page 29 of Love Below Zero

29

LIMINAL SPACE

JAMES

Note slipped under Rebecca’s door:

Mars is home to the largest volcano in the solar system. Olympus Mons is 16 miles high—three times the size of Mount Everest.

I am once again in need of my best friend.

I’m halfway through typing an email to her when Eli barges into my room.

“I see we’re past knocking now.”

He ignores me. “Are you writing to Jules?”

It’s the first time since the mission started that he’s mentioned her. Aside from the photo of the three of us in his room, he gave no indication that he wanted to talk about her. And I respect that. The breakup was hard on her, and while she likes to say otherwise, I think it was hard on him as well.

Eli kicks the door shut behind him before flopping down on my bed. We really need to have a conversation about boundaries.

“Yes, she’s still my best friend.” I want to tell her that she was right about me and Rebecca. And also ask her how the hell I’m supposed to make things work between us.

“I miss her too,” he says and I promptly shut my laptop, turning fully to face him. He must read my dubious expression because he holds up his hands. “Not like that.”

I raise a brow at him. “Like what then?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just miss talking to her, sometimes.”

“You haven’t tried to reach out.” Jules would have told me if she’d had contact with Eli.

“No, she hates my guts.”

“I can confirm that.” He practically packed his bags and fled Cambridge in the middle of the night. At the very least he had the decency to break up with Jules before he left, unlike what Sara did to me. It’s part of the reason why I still talk to him on occasion. He wasn’t a total dick. Maybe just three-fourths of a dick. “She asked me to murder you in your sleep.”

He barks out a laugh. “What is it with women these days? So murderous.”

“We deserve it.” I loop myself in with him, considering the amount of times Rebecca has plotted my demise.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you weren’t in your room last night. Becky is definitely on the opposite end of wanting to murder you.”

I did my best to stay awake after Rebecca drifted off last night, but I was just as exhausted. Her steady breaths lulled me to sleep in no time, and I woke up this morning in a slight panic. It felt wrong, sneaking out of her room and back into mine, but I hope she’ll understand. I slid several sticky notes under her door this morning to make up for my absence.

“We might have come to an understanding about each other.”

His expression turns teasing. “Yeah, an understanding that involves taking each other’s clothes off. I saw the way you looked at each other during the briefing yesterday. You’ve definitely done the dirty.”

I reach for one of the pillows on the bed and smack him over the head with it.

“You’re a real fucking arsehole.” But I can’t be mad at him. I had trouble keeping my eyes—and my hands—off her. Now that I know what it feels like to touch her, to be with her, I want more. And it is absolutely terrifying. She isn’t the only one anxious about this, and technically she’s right. We shouldn’t be together. At least not right now, while we still have a few weeks to go in the dome.

But I am nothing if not slightly obsessive. I might be slow to fall in love, but once I fall, there’s no going back for me. Staying away from her would wreck me, and I’m not sure my heart can take another break. I need to see this through, and I can only hope that she feels the same.

“An asshole who is now ten bucks richer, thanks to you.”

“Ten dollars you’re going to use to buy me coffee once we’re out of here.”

“Fine. But only if you tell me about Jules.”

I sit back in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest. “What about her?”

“How is she? Is she happy? Seeing anyone?”

A surge of protectiveness washes over me and I look at Eli coolly. “She’s perfectly fine. But let me make myself clear. You’re going to stay far, far away from her. Whatever you’re thinking about her, stop. She doesn’t need you waltzing back into her life. You didn’t deal with the fallout of the breakup, but I did. You hurt her more than you realise, and I won’t stand to see it happen again. The two of us can be friends, but Jules is off-limits. Understand?”

He gapes at me, probably not expecting such a high-handed approach. I’m not usually one to police other people’s actions or relationships. But I’ll be damned if I let him near Jules again. She, like me, loves deeply. She would take Eli back in a heartbeat, I know it in my bones. Because underneath all of the hurt he caused her, she still loves him. So I will protect her from him, no matter what.

“I ... that’s not what ... geez.” He rubs at his chin. At some point during the mission he stopped shaving and now he resembles Bigfoot. “I’m not trying anything, I swear. I just ... being in here changes your perspective on things. And I’ve had too much time on my hands to think.”

I nod in understanding. The dome has a way of making you reevaluate all of your life choices, including the current ones. That is the problem. We have too much time to think, the boredom leading to disastrous outcomes.

I see where Rebecca is coming from, thinking my feelings will change after we return to Earth. But I’ve never felt so sure of anything. Everything in the dome is a haze, and she’s the sun cutting through it all. I love her, and that isn’t going to change in a few months’ time.

“Why Jules? Surely you’ve dated other women?” Eli had been a bit of a player at uni, to put it politely. When we first met, I envied the way he could instantly form a connection with anyone, but then I saw just how quickly he could also discard those connections, and my view changed. It’s like he was searching for something, yet never found it. Or maybe he did find it, and it scared him, so he ran.

“I haven’t, actually. Dated anyone.”

Now it’s my turn to gape at him. Their break-up was almost five years ago. That’s out of character for him.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.” He shrugs, grabbing one of my pillows and hugging it to his chest. “Things have been weird for me, even before the dome.”

I eye him warily. “Weird how?”

“I feel restless, but in a different way to the restlessness I felt before. I used to love going to different sites, travelling the world. Now it all feels like such a schlep.”

“Sounds like it’s time to settle down.”

He visibly baulks at the word. “Absolutely not. But something is missing.”

I lean forward, giving him my best intimidating stare. “Figure it out then, before you go anywhere near Jules. Or I swear I’ll get Rebecca to make you disappear. They won’t even find your body.”

He laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh. “I’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“Good.” I thwack him with the pillow again before turning back to my laptop. I’m not going to tell Jules about this little chat we had, but I will be keeping a close eye on Eli.

“Are you and Becky together now or what?”

“Or what, I guess is the most appropriate answer. At least until we get out of here.”

“Well, if there’s one thing this dome has taught me, it’s to not take anything for granted.”

Faint images of Rebecca dragging my unconscious body through the snow flash in my mind, and I suppress a shiver. He’s right about that. We’ve already survived one blizzard—I just hope we can survive the oncoming storm.

We settle into somewhat of a routine over the next few weeks. The excitement of our near-death experience wore off, and days in the dome dragged. We are wrapping up our final studies and reports, getting ready for re-entry. Some nights I manage to sneak into Rebecca’s room and we talk softly under the covers, but I’m quickly swamped with reports and mission data.

It’s hard to think about life outside of the dome, but the end date of the mission is fast approaching. I received an email from Oxford inviting me to apply for the position, and I let Rebecca proofread my application. My anxiety ticks up a notch with every passing day. It feels like we’re trapped in a liminal space. Not together, yet not apart.

Time warps in on itself again, and in a blink it’s our last week in the dome. It’s the busiest one since we got here. We have to put everything back where we found it, and while there would be a cleaning crew coming in, Frances wouldn’t let us leave the dome in anything but excellent condition. I run systems checks and go out with Joanna twice to replace parts on the generator. Eli and Rebecca pack up the hydroponics garden, and Frances organises the workshop.

It’s surreal to think that this time tomorrow we’ll be back in Cape Town. It seemed like our stay in the dome would never end, but now that it’s ending, it feels like the last four months never happened. My memories of the earlier months are already hazy, time blurring everything together .

This really was the strangest experience.

Joanna insists that we have another sleepover for our last night, so we lug our mattresses downstairs again and set up the projector for one last movie night. Eli and Joanna choose some sort of comedy, but I’m more invested in the fact that I’ll be sleeping next to Rebecca for the entire night.

“You’re staring at me,” she says. The movie plays on the screen, but I haven’t been following the plot. Both Frances and Joanna already fell asleep, and Eli is furiously typing away at his laptop.

“Do you want some tea?” I ask. She nods, and we get up. Eli waves us off when we ask if he wants anything. I attempt to look over his shoulder at what he’s typing, but he dims the brightness on the screen.

“Mind your own business, Reid,” he says.

“Just surprised you know how to write, Gallo.”

“Fuck off.”

Still grinning, I join Rebecca in the kitchen. She’s leaning against the counter, two mugs already out. She looks stunning, even though she’s wearing the same thing she wears every day. The concept of wearing normal clothes—jeans and trousers and shoes—is suddenly very foreign to me. I’ve always hated the feel of jeans against my skin.

“Do you know what he’s doing?” I ask, leaning against the counter next to her.

“No, but I have my suspicions.”

“Care to share with the class?”

She shrugs. “No. But we’ll find out eventually, I think.”

The kettle boils and I go about making her cup of tea and my coffee. “That sounds ominous.”

“It’ll be fine, I think.”

I hand her a mug and she wraps her hands around it. “I’m so looking forward to not being cold all the time.”

“I can keep you warm.” I slide my free hand around her waist, pulling her in close. She laughs, but the sound is hollow. She’s been distracted all week.

“That was smooth as butter, James.” She leans into me, pressing her face into my shoulder.

“I try,” I murmur, kissing the top of her head.

“Have you heard anything from Oxford?” She pulls away, sitting down at the dining table. Tomorrow morning we’ll have our last meal of the mission at this table.

“Not yet, the deadline for applications only closes at the end of the week. I should hear back from them the week after.”

She nods, tapping her fingers on the table. Something is bothering her.

“I think I’m going to lose my publishing contract.”

I’m not expecting that. Surely she’s exaggerating? The writer’s block can’t still be that bad? I’ve seen her scribbling on her notepad a few times during the last several weeks. I felt relieved that she was writing again, and I hoped she would make some progress with her book. Even so, authors push deadlines all the time, and her books are wildly popular. Surely they’ll give her an extension?

“I don’t understand.”

Her gaze is locked on the mug between her hands. “I haven’t written a single thing since we got here. I was already behind on my deadline, and the only reason I was able to come on this mission was because I pitched it to the publisher as a research trip. I need to give them a draft in three weeks or they’ll terminate my contract.”

“You haven’t written anything while we were in here? ”

“I think maybe I’ve finally run out of words.” She looks so dejected.

“I don’t believe that for a second. The words are there, love. You just have to look. Tell me how I can help.”

“I wish I knew. But I can’t keep blaming your review for my writer’s block. I need to work on the things in my own head.”

That fucking review. It really shook her confidence, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. As soon as we get home, I’m removing that blasted video from my account.

“We can work on it together,” I promise her.

“No, James. That’s the whole problem.” Her features turn to stone. “I’m too wrapped up in you to see things clearly. When we get out of the dome, I don’t think we should be together.”