I’m free! The doctors were hesitant to let me go, given the “extent and severity of my injuries” when I first arrived. However, after poking and prodding and running me through a machine, they had to concede that I was perfectly fine. Even my parents’ Cadillac insurance isn’t going to pay for me to stay in the hospital when I’m an impeccable specimen of health.
My first task is to email them. I still haven’t told them about my eyes. A strange cosmetic change to my irises didn’t seem worthy of getting them all riled up while my mom was hobnobbing with Japanese artists and my dad was doing his uber-important job. But being attacked and having a smidge of internal bleeding does seem like something they would want to know about.
Still, with my thumbs on my phone, I decide, since I’m fine, that it isn’t worth getting into all that. So I just tell them I had a minor accident and was in the hospital but am fine, fine, fine.
Between the time difference and their busy schedules, I figure it will take them hours to respond. So when my phone buzzes with a response ten minutes later, it startles me.
Konnichiwa from Japan! Did you get the tea we sent you? You must try the matcha.
Glad to hear you’re fine. Hospitals can be such scary places. Please let us know if you need any additional funds.
Also, you sure you’re okay?
Love mom (and dad)
I dash off another email, letting them know the tea kept me company on a recent all-nighter and that I am fine. Fine, fine, fine.
Actually, I’m not fine. But I know what will fix me. I go to the art studio and work on my current project—a vision of a woman alone in a field, but a trippy sort of field—while munching on peanuts and grapes and popcorn. Good artsy sustenance. It’s not ’til I start to put things away that I realize how many shades of purple I’ve used. A shiver descends my spine.
In the afternoon, I find one of my favorite spots by the river that’s nestled within the woods. I take a pack of watercolors and let the H2O molecules drift and blend with the colors, squirming along the paper into images that are out of my control.
I feel better. Art saves me.
It wasn’t always that way. My mom pushed me. No daughter of hers was going to lack artistic talent. But I was scared of the prim, old art teacher at my elementary school. She made rounds around the room, frowning at the glue-and-paint-covered children.
I always got paint all over my skin too. But one time I carefully painted this picture of a cabin in the forest. She came over, her arms crossed. That didn’t mean much because her arms were always crossed. You had to pay attention to her neck and the way it bent about as far as it could, her face almost perpendicular to the floor as she studied your work.
“Good,” she said. “That is very good.” And the corners of her usually stiff mouth peaked, crescendoing into her cheeks.
That’s when I first knew it. I may not have been the brightest kid in class, but I had it.
I had talent.
* * *
I go home to shower and change before getting ready to see Rashid. I spend too long in front of the mirror deciding which perfume to wear, considering I’m not going to socialize, I’m going to pick his brain and see what I can find out that will help Danny and me.
His lab has a window on the door, so I can see him before I knock. He’s bent over, wisps of black hair descending over his forehead as he mixes something together in a Petri dish. His fingers gently seize a test tube. He holds it up to the light, studying it.
Eventually, I make myself stop being a creepy voyeur and I tap my knuckles on the pane. His head shoots up and his mouth erupts into a smile. He puts down the test tube and walks swiftly to the door.
“Hey,” he says. His hand comes down on my shoulder, his fingers press into the skin near my bra strap.
Labs are such desperate places. Sort of like fancy art museums. There’s a lot to see and “ooh” and “ah” over, but you probably shouldn’t touch anything.
He lets me look into microscopes and explains the bacterium he’s working on. “See how they’re sort of pea shaped and have the fibrils sticking out?”
I nod, even though I don’t know what fibrils means. It’s amazing to see these little beings. They exist in our world, yet it seems that they don’t.
Rashid stands behind me, but I feel him get closer, ’til he’s enveloping me. I want it, but I don’t. He has real feelings for me, so it would be cruel. Plus, what about this purple eye shit?
I push back and sway away. “So, are you any closer to curing the rats?”
He rubs his eyes and puts his hands on his hips. He corrects me. “Wood rats, not rats. And yes, we are, which is exciting. But I can’t really talk about the specifics.”
I laugh. “It’s okay, I probably wouldn’t understand them anyway.”
He smiles a knowing, agreeable smile. He wasn’t supposed to agree with me. Even if I was right.
“Well, I’m actually here because I wanted to talk to you about stuff that is way over my head.”
“Like what?” Rashid asks.
“Like, well, about white blood cells and healing and bacteria.”
“Quinn.” He cocks his head. “Bacteria are over your head.”
“Well, I know, but maybe I could understand—”
He grins. “And they’re inside you and inside me and everywhere.”
“Ah,” I say, keeping my voice as serious and wondrous as possible. “Kind of like neutrinos?”
“Ha!” He knocks his head back. I knew this would make him laugh. I watched a documentary with Conrad a few weeks ago on the universe and the speed of light and whatnot, and they had this whole bit about neutrinos. They’re these little beads of things that are everywhere and that dart through you all the time. Kind of like the Force. Maybe.
Rashid’s face slackens, but his eyes stay intense and focused on me. Never a man for subtlety, he takes two steps toward me and brushes a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The thing is, I kind of liked that that strand had been a little unruly. It was free. Then his hand falls to my neck. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss you more.”
He closes his eyes and pulls my face toward his lips. I push against his chest so hard that I bump into a table behind me. I’ll probably earn a bruise. It will be a creepy, fast-healing bruise.
“What was—” Rashid starts.
“I’ve got purple eyes!” After I have some distance from him, I start to pace between the lab tables and tubes and weird-looking equipment. He follows me. He tries to contain me, touching my elbow briefly, then my shoulder, but I’m always turning, always shifting.
“You’re a scientist. Don’t you realize this could be some kind of contagious bacteria? You have to see that, and here you are still trying to kiss me.” Bubbling anger rises in my throat.
He runs his fingers through his black hair. It flops over his confused eyebrows adorably. My face softens.
“I like you, Quinn,” he says. “And so what if it’s contagious? You aren’t sick. A lot of bacteria are good for us.”
He moves toward me. His perfectly normal, perfectly beautiful brown eyes look like they could hold the cosmos. “You aren’t thinking straight,” I say, but partly to myself because I do sort of want to kiss him and have to remind myself I can’t. “I mean, I don’t know much about science, but if this is a disease, isn’t it possible the negative side effects just haven’t happened yet? People can have HIV for years before they develop AIDS.”
His smile is small. “Of course you’re right. But you can’t live your life in a bubble.”
He leans in again. What. The. Fuck?