There it is again: love.

“Well.” I pull my hands away, gulp down the scalding coffee. “You don’t need to worry about that for a while now.”

“You told me that without fighter pilot experience, you were seriously hampering your chances of becoming an astronaut candidate.”

I wanted to be as well-rounded as possible. Mission essential from both a military and scientific standpoint. I wanted to be a commander. Now I’ll just be another rocket scientist. Much easier to ignore.

“I’ll need to distinguish myself even more as an engineer, but not everyone chosen is military. I’ll still … be in the running.”

I don’t care what River says about not being able to help Hannah. Her brother—that was different. Heroin: that’s a very hard drug, the hardest. Yes, it’s technically the same thing as Nah’s pills, but my sister’s not sticking needles into her arm. And once she’s had time to process the grief and—

Ben hoists himself onto the counter, slides across it, and jumps down next to me, then pulls me close. For just a second, the roaring in my head stops. Hug meditation.

Goddamn you, Heisenberg. My person, in the chaos. But you lose people all the time, in chaos. It’s the easiest way to lose someone. In crowded train stations, for instance. In amusement parks. In waves.

River’s wrong. There’s no freedom in the chaos. None. If you ask me, I don’t think the Buddha knew how to work the problem.

Ben runs his fingers through my short strands of hair. “I want you here, always, but … it’s your dream, Mae. You can’t stay for your sister. It won’t make her better. And you’ll regret it, maybe lose your chance. You’ve worked so hard—”

“She’s all I’ve got, Ben.”

“No,” he says, soft. “She’s not.”

“I know you mean that.” I rest my palms on his chest. “But there are so many variables that can prove you wrong: women named Cathy or Rebecca, waves in Malaysia. Heroin and OxyContin and cancer and all the things, all the things that could take you. So many THINGS.”

“Mae, it’s too late.”

“What?”

“It’s too late to worry about the variables. You and me—this is already in motion.” He rests the tips of his fingers against my cheeks. “Let me put it this way: We’re on the rocket and it’s already blasted off. Anything—everything—could go wrong. But we just have to sit back and—”

“Ride the ride?”

He smiles. “River strikes again.”

I nod. “I saw her on the train today.”

“Dharma insurgency?”