“Cece, I can’t read anything that’s one millimeter from my nose.”

“Here.” She drops the phone in my palm and goes back to the tartiflette. I let my eyes focus on the words and—

The floor wobbles. Jerks. Then it drops from underneath my feet.

On the home page of the journal that published Einstein, Feynman, Hawking, there is an open letter written by Jonathan Smith-Turner.

An open letter addressed to the scientific community.

I take a few steps back, stopping when my thighs hit the table. The words on the screen feel like something Jack is murmuring in my ears.

The last time I published in Annals of Theoretical Physics, I was seventeen years old, and motivated by something that had nothing to do with science: revenge.

My mother, Grethe Turner, has long since passed away, but she was a brilliant theoretical physicist. When I was in my mid-teens I started developing an affinity for physics myself, and as a consequence I read her diaries and reached out to her former colleagues, hoping to get a better idea of what a career in physics might entail. That is how I discovered her awful experiences with her former mentor, who had forced her to leave academia.

That man was Christophe Laurendeau, and at the time he was the editor in chief of Annals. When I tried to report him for what he’d done to my mother, I was told that there were no grounds to open an investigation. So I took matters into my own hands.

I knew what kind of article Dr. Laurendeau would look upon favorably, and I knew from the grapevine that he was infamous for being lax when it came to the peer review of works that he believed would further his own scientific agenda. So I wrote something that would fit those criteria. Again: my aim was to sabotage Laurendeau’s career, and as unethical as that may sound, it’s something I stand by. He did suffer setbacks, and for several years he was unable to receive funding or mentor students—an outcome I cannot regret.

But that’s not all that happened. After I exploited one specific weakness within one specific journal to target one specific individual, the scientific community began to use my article as an example of the decline of theoretical physics. And what I regret is that as it happened, I stayed silent.

For over fifteen years I did nothing to dispel the idea that I believed theoretical physics to be inferior. I became a symbol of the enmity between theoretical and experimental physics, and of that, I am ashamed. I am ashamed of how it must have made my theorist colleagues feel, and I am ashamed that I did not quell these assumptions for over a decade. Above all, I am ashamed that I put a person I deeply respect in the position of having to explain to me the consequences of my own actions because I was too proud, too angry, and too self-centered to realize them.

So let me send a message to anyone who still cites my article as a weapon in some petty war within our discipline: don’t. I never believed that theoretical physics was less rigorous, or less important a field than experimental physics. And if you do believe that, you are mistaken, and you should read some of the most meaningful theory work of the past few decades. I am citing several below . . .

“Oh my God.” My hands are trembling. My legs, too. And the floor, I’m pretty sure. “Oh my God.”

“Yup.” I look up. I’d forgotten Cece existed. I’d forgotten to breathe. I’d forgotten the rest of the world was a thing. “That’s, like, the science equivalent of proposing with a flash mob.”

“No.” I shake my head forcefully enough to scroll out everything that’s inside it. Mashed potatoes, probably. “He’s not proposing. He’s just . . .” I crumple in a chair.

“Finally reckoning with his decades-long evil legacy because he wants you to be his girlfriend who sends him cute little heart emojis and sixty-nines with him every other day?”

I shake my head again. The truth is, it feels like it. Like the letter is addressed to me. “No—he—he doesn’t—”

“He does. He has that look. I can just tell he’s into all sorts of filthy stuff.” She grins. “Anyway, just from reading this, Madame Person He Deeply Respects, it doesn’t feel like you two are going nowhere.”

My mind is tottering in circles. No. Yes. “It’s complicated.”

“What is?”

“Jack. Jack is complicated.” I massage my temples. “Or maybe not. Maybe he’s not, but—I am complicated. Too complicated.”

“Okay. Totally. I’m not going to spare your feelings and fib about how complicated you aren’t. You did lie to me about liking David Lynch for seven solid years—unless you do like—”

“No.”

“Right. Well, this man just wrote an op-ed that’s gonna get the STEMlords to throw parsnips at him till the day he dies, and I’m pretty sure he did it for you, so that’s something you might want to consider. I mean, he does look pretty sturdy. He can take a few parsnips. He could probably take a whole cauliflower field. Plus, the power of love will numb the pain—”

“Jesus.” I cover my eyes. “Shit.”

“Elsie?” She kneels in front of me. “What’s the problem?”

“Everything.”

“Right. But if you had to be specific . . . ?”

“He’s right. He was right. I was mad because he lied, and he said that I was scared, and . . . I am scared. That I’m too messed up for him.”

“For Jack?”

I nod into my hands. “I lie all the time about who I am. While Jack is just—”

“Oh, Elsie.”

“He sees everything—”

“Elsie.”

“—and he’ll get sick of my bullshit—”

“Elsie?”

“—and he’s way too tall for me—ouch!” My arms drop. There is a red bruise on the back of my hand. Another cheddar cube on the floor. “What the—”

“Stop whining all over my kitchen,” she commands. “Fear aside, do you want to be with Jack? Do you like being with Jack?”

So much.

So, so much.

So, so, so much.

“I like it. But maybe I still shouldn’t.”

“There are things like that. That feel nice but are bad for you. Like MDMA, or Q-tips for ear cleanings. I don’t think Jack qualifies, though.”

“Why?”

Cece’s eyes are earnest. Her fingers reach out for mine.

“You know me, Elsie: I hate giving credit to a dude who probably went to kindergarten at a French château. But you’ve been seeing him for, what, weeks? And I don’t know what it is precisely that you two have been doing for each other. But he just let go of a very shitty thing he’s been carrying around for half his life. And you . . . I feel like I know you better than I ever did before. And I’m thinking that maybe, I owe it a little bit to him.”

I look at Cece, letting her words swirl around me in messy, complicated, unpredictable patterns. Then they settle inside my brain, and I can taste their truth.

Four weeks ago I was a different person.

No: four weeks ago I was an infinite number of different people. I’ve put myself in a hundred tiny boxes, played a thousand roles, sculpted myself in a million smooth lines. But for the first time in memory I’m fighting against that, and . . .

What do you want, Elsie?

I squeeze my hand tight around Cece’s. Then I stand, pick up my coat, and run out the door.

•   •   •

There’s something new on the door of Jack’s office.

Under the “Jonathan Smith-Turner, Ph.D.” plaque and the “Physics Institute, Director” subplaque, someone taped a printout of the Annals article Cece showed me earlier today.

All two pages.

Including the citations.

One of which is an article of mine.

“Dr. Hannaway?”

I turn to Michi walking down the hallway. “Oh—hi.”

“Hi!” She smiles widely at me. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, I was . . .” I point at the door, which looks a lot like I’m pointing at the paper. I quickly lower my hand. “I was looking for Jack.”