Page 42 of Love and the Laws of Motion
Chapter Sixteen
Livie sank into one of her pensive silences.But the thing Nick was discovering with Livie was that her silences were never really quiet.She didn’t say a word or fidget at all, but he couldsenseher brain busily at work.Livie’s silences practically shouted.
Reaching out, he tugged gently on a lock of her hair.She jumped, swiveling around to look at him with those big brown eyes.She had Bambi eyelashes, long and curling.They were totally unexpected in her serious face.
“Want to tell me why I’m here?”he asked gently.
“You said you wanted to come.But you don’t have to stay.You can go, I’ll be fine.”
Okay, maybe he hadn’t been the kind of friend who offered emotional support before, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of it.“No, Livie, stop.I do want to be here.I know Finch, too, remember?I like her.I want to be here for her with you.I meant hospitals.Why couldn’t you come in here by yourself?It was the hospital that freaked you out, right?”
She hesitated, biting her bottom lip, but then nodded.“I haven’t been in a hospital since my mom died,” she said at last.
He’d noticed, of course, the absence of her mother, but he hadn’t wanted to pry.John Romano was a nice guy, and he didn’t want to go asking the guy about his wife if the story was an abandonment or an ugly divorce.Now that he knew, it made a kind of sense.For all their cheerful, loving connection, something felt missing in the Romano house, like they were all actively working around a gaping hole in the middle of the room.
“I’m sorry, Livie.How old were you?”
“Eleven.It’s been fourteen years.It’s ridiculous that I still have this...”She shook her hands in frustration.“This stupid, irrationalthing.I didn’t even realize I couldn’t do it until I had to do it.Then I pictured it...the lights, the beeps, the smell...and I froze.”
“Hey, it’s okay.Everybody’s got stuff that gets to them.”
“Why?Why do I still get so freaked out?I mean, I know she’s gone.I know I’m not going to walk around the corner and see—” She stopped, fighting back tears.“What am I afraid of, if it’s not that?”
Shit, she was going to cry.He’d never seen Livie cry before.He leaned in, until his shoulder touched hers.After a second of hesitation, she leaned back.“Human beings are weird, illogical machines.Computers I get.But people...We have all these funny twists and turns.Blind alleys.Malware that acts in random ways.”
“Huh.”With a sniff, she swiped at her eyes.“Malware.That’s one way to think of it.”
“Maybe, if it helps, think of it like a bad line of coding.”
“How do I rewrite the code?”Because for Livie, every problem had a solution if you tried hard enough.Next she’d be doing her dissertation onthat.
“Hell if I know.But hey, so you’re carrying around a little bad coding.It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”
“Do you have some bad coding?”
Her question set off a well-worn alarm in his head.He was more than aware of his own malware, but he preferred to go through life pretending that it didn’t exist.“Sure, I do.I mean, I haven’t talked to my family since I was eighteen.Something’s got to be fucked up with me, right?”
But Livie was watching him with those unsmiling Bambi eyes, and she wasn’t letting him off the hook that easy.“That’s really sad, Nick.”
There he went again, baring his soul to Livie in ways he never did with anyone else.Or maybe she could justseeit, whether he’d meant to bare it or not.“It is what it is,” he said, maybe a little too shortly.“My point is, everybody’s got something, right?”
“I guess.”
She was staring into the middle distance, doing her loud thinking again.“Want to tell me what happened with your mom?”
After a long pause, she dropped her eyes to her hands, picking at her thumbnail.“She had pancreatic cancer.It happened really fast.There were—” She cleared her throat, blinked, and went on.“There were other issues, a fight with her insurance company and stuff.But yeah, she got sick and just kept getting sicker.I guess I should have known what was coming, but I didn’t.Near the end, Dad would bring us to the hospital every day to see her, and every day she looked worse, she was weaker.That last day, she was gray.There’s no other way to describe it.Like all that was left of her was a worn-out shell.The living, breathing part had been all used up.Turns out I was right.She died that night.Janet looked the same way today.”
“Hey.”He reached for her, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side.“That doesn’t mean Finch’s going to die.I told you, humans are complicated machines.They can surprise you all the time.”
“I know.But I like her, Nick.She’s only my professor, but I really like her.”
“Me, too.”
He leaned back on the sofa, bringing her with him, her head finding its way to his shoulder.Her hair brushed his chin, and he could smell it, a faint floral smell he wouldn’t have expected from Livie.Not that he’d given much thought to what Livie smelled like.But he liked it.He likedher.He liked her fearsome intellect and her surprisingly tender heart.He liked her loyalty.He liked that she didn’t try to hide who she was or apologize for it.He hadn’t met anybody in a long time—most certainly not in real life—who he respected as much as her.He found himself almost embarrassingly grateful for her friendship, and he hoped—prayed, really—that he wouldn’t do anything to fuck it up.Because he had a pretty good track record of fucking things up with people he cared about.
They sat together in silence for a while, and it was peaceful.A sort of easy, comforting closeness he hadn’t experienced since he was a kid.He hadn’t been lying.He was definitely running some fucked-up malware in his head.The difference was, Livie’s wasn’t her fault.It was a product of a tragedy no little kid should have to face.His?It was all of his own making.
Half an hour later, Gemma Romano burst through the waiting room door and made a beeline for her sister.“Sorry, my phone was under the bar.I just got your text.How is she?”
