Page 14 of Wild Skies

Eight

Greg

Maren is quiet on the bus ride home. The others all blast music and sing along at the top of their lungs, or spin around in their seats to flirt with the passengers behind them. They’re jubilant—our trip has been successful, we saw the Thelseid meteor shower and collected prime recordings and data, and not only that, but we’ve had barely any interpersonal drama. Even their hangovers seem mild.

But Maren sits alone, silent and thoughtful, her plump mouth pursed as she stares out of the window. She’s so beautiful, my chest aches.

My gaze tracks to her incessantly, watching her in the rear view mirror, but there’s nothing I can do to check on her while I’m driving. All I can do is worry, forcibly yanking my attention back to the road.Focus.

She’s fine.

I’m sure she’s fine.

Never mind the hurt in her eyes when I rushed her out of my tent this morning before dawn. Never mind how terribly Ihandled that whole thing, too muddled by sleep to recognize that I was behaving like an ass. My gut sinks like a stone at the memory.

I’ve never felt as helpless and ridiculous as I did this morning, crouching in my tent and trying not to breathe too loud. I’m a grown man. A celebrated professor, and this situation has me sneaking around like a reckless teenager.

The bus lurches over a bump in the road and we all sway in our seats, some of the students whooping like they’re in a rodeo. I swallow hard, staring dry-eyed at the highway as the sun beats through the windshield. A bead of sweat rolls down my spine.

Maren.

I can’t help it. I steal another glance, my gaze drawn to her as inevitably as the moon is tethered to the Earth.

She stares out of the bus window, barely reacting to being jostled by the rough road. Maren’s blonde hair is tied back in a fiddly little braid, and her cheeks are pink from the long days of sunshine.

Her mouth is turned down, and her shoulders are slumped. My gut cramps.

She looks sad.

As we drive on, my fingers flex on the steering wheel and I make a silent resolution: this can’t go on. It’s not fair to either of us.

Maren deserves so much better than this lonely bus journey.

* * *

Eight hours later, the bus pulls into its designated bay on campus. The handbrake creaks as I yank it on, killing the engine. The bus ticks audibly as it cools, and I spin to face the students. They’re slumped in their seats, most of them napping from thecenter of travel pillows. Maren is sleeping too, her forehead resting against the bus window.

“Okay,” I call, stifling a smile as a few of them jerk awake. They wipe the drool from the corners of their mouths, blinking sleepily as they elbow their neighbors. Maren wakes too, rubbing at her eyes as murmurs fill the bus. “We’re home, but you’re not off the hook just yet, I’m afraid. There’s one last task for us all.”

A couple of groans break out, but most of them nod, Maren included. They’re used to carrying the equipment as a group, after all, and hauling the telescopes and cameras a short way across campus is far easier than a mile up a mountainside. This will be easy after the last two weeks.

“Come on.” My seat belt clicks open, slithering across my chest, and my muscles are stiff as I stand. “Once more for luck.”

Rex springs to his feet, shaking out his limbs dramatically, and a few others copy him. One by one, the students file off the warm, stale bus to gather with me in the fresh air outside.

It’s cold here. The breeze is gentler than in the mountains, blocked by buildings all around, but the sun is weaker too, smothered by a patchy layer of cloud. Instead of forests and mountain peaks, brick buildings loom in all directions. Instead of birdsong, the rumble of distant traffic and the faint thud of gym music fill the air.

Usually, when I come back to campus after a stretch of time away, it’s a relief. Everything is familiar, everything makes sense. Here, I have the respect of my students and colleagues, and the freedom to research whatever I want in my field. Coming home to that is like slipping into a warm bath.

When I was a lowly grad student, this felt like an impossible dream. And I’ve never taken my success for granted—not once.

But today, coming back to campus after two weeks away with Maren…

It’s claustrophobic. Brick buildings close in on all sides, and blank windows stare down at us, ready to catch me staring at my student for a beat too long. I’m trapped, a specimen under a microscope, and after glancing at Maren every few minutes on the drive back here, I can’t trust myself to even look in her direction now.

Does she care? Is that same hurt swimming in her big blue eyes as this morning? I don’t fucking know, and it eats through my insides like acid.

“Alright, let’s go.” Don’t look at her.Don’tlook at her. “Back to my office, please.”

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