Page 54 of The Space Between

Jeanie doesn’t have an easy response to this, because of course it feels better to know that she hasn’t imagined the entire thing in her head, but it also makes her feel worse because she can handle her own feelings quietly, but what she can’t handle is both herself and Bill. It’s enough of a challenge to stay busy and occupied and to keep her mind off Bill, and she’s gone as far as spending most of her free time with Peter Abernathy in order to do it. She’d even tolerated a handful of kisses with Peter—one of them quite long and heated, on his end—but she’d realized quickly that there was no fire between them, and after their third kiss, Peter had sort of realized it too.

“Bill, you have a lot going on. I don’t want to be just a response to the confusion or the trauma in your life. I’m a woman with feelings, and I can’t bear to think that I would simply be some sort of distraction for you.”

Bill’s eyes darken and grow serious. “That would never be the case. It most definitely isnotthe case,” Bill protests. “You are singular, Jeanette Florence. You are brilliant and interesting and funny, and in no way should I be as attracted to you as I am, but be that as it may, the facts of the situation still stand: I am attracted to you, and I think of you far more often than I should.”

It is in these words that Jeanie finds solace: that he thinks of her perhaps as often as she thinks of him. Something about it makes her feel less crazy, less alone. Her long lashes fan outover the tops of her cheeks as she closes her eyes, breathing in the scent of his aftershave. He’s so close that she can feel the heat radiating off his body, and as if he can read her mind, Bill moves his hands to her waist tentatively and pauses there. When Jeanie doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t protest at all, he slides his hands around her waist, placing them on her back as he moves a step closer.

Finally, Jeanie opens her eyes, and she’s looking directly up into Bill’s as they stand there on the stairs. There is a moment that feels infinite as they both seem to consider where they should go next.

Should Bill release her and step away? Most likely.

Should Jeanie pull away and head for the bottom floor? Absolutely.

Do either of these things happen? No.

Instead, Bill leans closer, bringing his face towards hers until their lips touch. Neither of them closes their eyes, instead looking at one another with a million unanswered questions as the thrill of contact courses through Jeanie’s body.

Rather than pulling away, Jeanie lets her arms drift up to Bill’s neck, and she wraps them around him, deepening the kiss. Other than Peter, she’d kissed two boys in college, and neither of them had been very adept. Either that, or there had been nothing between Jeanie and the boys in question that would make the kisses memorable.

This kiss, however, is memorable. Jeanie’s body relaxes into Bill, and they both close their eyes as their lips part.

These are sensations that Jeanie has never had in the arms of a man, and she’s stunned at the pleasure that feels like a jolt of electricity in her core. She presses herself—the entire length of her—to Bill, and he responds by gripping her dress in both hands, pulling the fabric tighter across her back as if he’s holding onto a life preserver.

Just as Jeanie thinks she might burst into flames right there in the concrete cell of the stairwell, the door bangs open below them and a loud male voice screams, “Fire! Fire on the launch pad!”

For a moment, Jeanie feels as though the heat of her own body has caused this, but as Bill jerks away from her she can see the panic in his eyes. Something serious is going on. She needs to push the haze of passion away and clear her head.

“Fire?” Jeanie croaks, wiping a hand across her bruised lips. “On the launchpad?”

Bill’s eyes go wide and it only takes him a split-second to lurch into action.

“We need to go,” he says, reaching for her hand. Together, they race down the flights of stairs to the ground floor and out into the hallway outside of mission control.

Everywhere Jeanie looks, people are fleeing, some in headsets, and others with looks of terror on their faces. Without realizing it, Jeanie is still gripping Bill’s hand tightly.

“Booker. Gemini is on fire,” Todd Roman says as he rushes up to them.

“No,” Bill says, shaking his head. “Oh, God. No.”

Bill tugs her hand and pulls her out the doors and into the cool night air. The sun is almost gone, and the first stars are poking through the blue velvet curtain of darkness. People are gathered off to one side, anguish on their faces as a fire truck screams across the tarmac in the distance, racing towards the spacecraft.

“Bill,” Jeanie says, clasping his hand tightly. “You knew this wasn’t safe, and they didn’t listen to you.”

Bill is clearly in a state of shock, his hand limp in Jeanie’s as he watches the giant ball of fire that had once been their three-man spacecraft. His head is shaking back and forth as if he can hardly believe what he’s seeing. All around them, people aregasping, exclaiming, or covering their mouths as they cry. It is truly a horrifying vision.

“The men,” Bill says slowly. “The men are inside. They’re trapped.”

He says this though they cannot see across the distance to know whether the door has opened amidst the flames to release Derek Trager, Bob Young, and Murphy Hendricks. There is no way for Bill to know that the men are trapped for sure, though they must have been getting down to the wire with the countdown.

“I didn’t like the shoddy door latch,” Bill says, eyes still trained on the fire that lights up the darkness in the distance. “I wanted us to consider readdressing some of the spacecraft’s weaknesses, but I wasn’t sure how to do that until tonight, when I told Arvin North I didn’t think we should do the test.”

Jeanie is hanging onto his hand and looking up at his profile against the night sky. The ball of fire in front of them is reflected in Bill’s shining irises. “You tried, Bill,” she says softly. His shock is reflected in her own, but even with the fire raging and the astronaut’s fates unknown, Jeanie finds herself feeling tender and concerned about Bill. He looks distraught. Emotionally drained. Terrified. “You tried to tell North.”

But she knows it doesn’t matter; Bill will add this event to the mental compartment where he stores the things he cannot cope with. The only thing Jeanie knows for sure is that she has to be here for him, and that she has to have more of him. In the moment, she’d desperately wanted the kiss they’d shared to last forever but also to be their only kiss, their single recognition of the spark between them so that they could both go on with their lives.

Watching him now she knows that’s not how things will play out. For as long as he needs and wants her to, Jeanie will be his confidante. She will be a steadying force in his life, and shewill help to walk him through the dark forest of his mind. Jeanie Florence will follow this path and see where it takes her, just as long as it takes her there with Bill at her side.

She has to.

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