Ultraviolet Catastrophe(31)
Author: Jamie Grey

Our gazes met, and I knew the pain I saw in his eyes looked exactly like my own. I wanted to hug him, to make it go away.

He kept talking, like he’d never said the words before. “I know I should forgive her, but I hate my mom for abandoning me. I understand her reason — my dad is the worst person in the world to be married to. He can barely remember to brush his teeth, let alone remember he has a family, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

I nodded. “I have my own parental abandonment and lying issues to deal with. But you already know about those.” I was being more honest with Asher than I’d ever been with anyone. It felt good but scary.

He gave me one of those twisted smiles, and where our hands touched, my body felt like it was on fire. Like there was more than just skin connecting us. “Your parents’ behavior has nothing to do with who you are. You are an amazing person, and if you hadn’t experienced this, you wouldn’t be you, Lexie.”

I nodded. “That’s good advice. Perhaps something you should consider for yourself?” He grimaced, but I continued. “It works both ways. Just because your dad is sometimes too blind to see what an astonishing person you are, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Asher glanced away, his shoulders tense. Both of us had been broken by what our parents had done, but maybe together we could be all right. Maybe together we could work through it. And that first step was to stop feeling sorry for ourselves.

I pulled back. “Wait just a minute, Asher Rosen. Did I hear you right? You hacked into my records? Doesn’t QT have even tougher security than Branston?”

A grin crept to his lips. “You saw my skills. I watched that movie War Games when I was six. When it was over, it only took me half an hour to break into NASA. Mom didn’t let me watch TV again for months.”

“I don’t even want to know what other trouble you’ve gotten into, do I?”

The pain faded from his eyes, and he smirked at me, almost back to his flirtatious self. “Oh, I think you do. Over dinner maybe?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Oh my god, do you ever give up?”

“Not until you say yes.”

His eyes sparkled blue and green, and I had a hard time coming up with a reason not to. Then I remembered Amy’s scowl. I still had no idea if they were seriously dating or not, but that was enough to make me pull back. “How about you give me some of those hacking lessons first? I have a feeling it might come in handy.”

“And give away my secrets? Never. But I will show you how to bypass security and sneak into the kitchens. I might even show you my secret stash of cookies if you’re really good.”

I grinned. “Cookies? How did you guess they’re my Kryptonite? You’re on.”

14

“Let’s go over the original calculation again.” Asher brought up Dr. Avery’s work on his computer. We’d spent every afternoon for the last week in his office, working on deciphering the jumble of letters and numbers and strange symbols filling his huge monitor.

I groaned. “I’m never going to admit it to anyone but you, but I still have no idea what I’m even looking at, let alone how it all fits together.”

Asher lounged back in his chair, arms behind his head. “Well, isn’t it lucky I do? And I’m an exceptionally patient teacher.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” I opened my notebook. “Let’s try again.”

We’d fallen into an easy, joking sort of friendship, and for the first time, I let myself hope I might fit in at QT. I still battled with my own feelings of stupidity, though. I could feel things getting easier, my brain seemed to pick up concepts quicker, but I hated I couldn’t just look at the equation and know immediately what it meant. I hated Asher had to waste his time explaining things to me I would have already known if I’d been at QT for more than a month. Every time I asked a question, I felt like an idiot.

We’d been at it two hours when Asher shook his head and turned off his monitor. “Stop it, Lexicon,” he said. “You have that look again.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’re ashamed of yourself for not knowing something. You need to give yourself a break.”

“You need to mind your own business,” I muttered.

Asher smirked. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you. Listen to me, Lexie. I like answering your questions, and they’re not stupid. They’re making me think about this whole formula in an entirely different way. That’s a good thing.”

“If Amy or Zella or Max were here, you’d already be done.” I frowned at my tablet, and the squiggly line that meant Sigma.

“If they were here, we’d still be working on it, too. This is a tough assignment. Why else do you think I picked you to help?”

“Because you felt sorry for me?”

“Because I knew you were the best person for the job. Sometimes we need an outsider’s perspective and ideas to catch the holes in something.”

My laugh was angrier than I intended. “And what an outsider I am.”

Asher sighed. “I think we’re done for the day. When you start feeling sorry for yourself, it’s time for us to quit.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “How about some dinner? We’ll stop by the lab and let your dad know I’m taking you out.”

I hated he was right. I was feeling sorry for myself. And I could feel myself getting grumpy from being hungry, so I nodded. “Fine. But only because my dad said he might have to work late and I don’t want to get stuck here all night.”

Asher smirked. “You’re always so gracious, Lexicon.” He locked his computer and shoved his tablet into his messenger bag before we left.

As we made our way toward my dad’s lab, I snuck glances at him walking easily beside me, hands shoved into his pockets. It amazed me that we’d become friends. He still tried to flirt with me, but I realized now he usually did it when he was feeling nervous or uncomfortable. His flirty personality was like armor, something he pulled on to face his enemies or hide from his friends. When we were alone together, working on the calculation or talking through one of the lines of formula, he was just Asher. Brilliant, funny, vulnerable.

“Why so serious?” he asked in his best Joker voice. It bounced off the walls and echoed eerily in the silent hallway. Most of the labs on this floor were empty since Dr. Danvers had transitioned all the Project Infinity staff to Division Nine to work on the wormhole device.