She gasped and turned. Henry was sitting on the tabletop of one of the picnic benches. So much for being alone and finding peace. “What?”
His face was so serious. Naturally he had to be here, sitting there with his graceful body and handsome face. “What do you see when you look up at the sky?”
She shook her head, trying to figure out why he was here. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who just looked up at the sky as his evening’s entertainment. “Why do you care?”
His head turned up, and she could see the way he squinted, his face bunching up as he looked at the sky. “Because I see a bunch of stars that died a long time ago, but I don’t think that’s what you see.”
“No,” she replied. She glanced up. The night sky was so beautiful. Velvet and diamonds. “That’s not what I see, but I’m not dumb. I took science classes. I know the light we see is old.”
His face turned back down, staring at her. “Light travels at a speed of one hundred and eighty-six thousand, two hundred and eighty-two miles a second. Given that speed and the relative vastness of the universe, it isn’t hard to deduce that some of those stars we look at every night are already gone, turned supernova and blasted from existence, but hey, it’s pretty, right?”
Maybe Henry was as cold as the snow under her feet. She was starting to shiver a little. She had on galoshes and they weren’t doing a lot to keep the chill off her feet. She should have put on a fourth pair of socks. “You want to bring science into something that should be emotional. Should we not find a flower in bloom lovely?”
“A flower in bloom is dying.” He pointed a finger at her like she’d just stepped into a trap he’d set.
Was she back in debate club? “Yeah, well, a baby just born is dying.”
“My point exactly.”
She felt her head shake. Why was he killing her perfectly pleasant alone time? She was supposed to be able to come out here and let him go, not listen to his nihilistic views of the universe. “If I listened to your argument and gave it an ounce of credence, I would just kill myself because nothing matters.”
He shrugged as though that was a foregone conclusion. “Hence my question. What do you see?”
She sighed. She should leave, but there was something deep inside her that just couldn’t shy away from a fight. “I see light and life. Yes, it might be from a long time ago, but I’m alive in this moment and that’s all that matters right now. I see a blanket of life. I see the cradle of creation.”
He snorted. “You’re going to tell me you believe in God?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re a crazy, bleeding-heart liberal.”
She took a long breath. All in one day she’d been called a lesbian and an atheist. Neither one was a bad thing to be, but getting labeled hurt. “You’re really more small-minded than I thought you would be. I believe that love exists at the heart of the universe. I don’t know how or really why we exist, but I know deep down that it’s to serve that love and to learn from it. It might not be God as you know it, but it’s real and valuable to me.”
“How do you know?” He whispered the question, but there was an odd desperation behind it.
“What do you mean?”
He jumped off the table, his feet hitting the snow. His face was a perfect, gorgeous blank. “How do you know there’s some pocket of love at the center of the universe? How do you know we’re not just fucking random and we live and we die and that’s the end and nothing matters? What’s your empirical evidence?”
Henry seemed to be a professor right down to his soul. She tried to find a way to explain it that he would understand. She went back to her college physics class. “All right, the first law of thermodynamics teaches us that nothing is lost.”
He shook his head and gave her a little grunt. “That describes energy in closed systems, Nell. Do better.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, standing her ground. “No. You think bigger. Energy converts. It changes form. It isn’t lost. Why would our souls be lost?”
There was a brisk laugh that came out of his mouth. “You’re running on the very sketchy theory that we humans have souls in the first place.”
She sighed. He wasn’t the one for her if he didn’t even believe in souls. “I have a soul, Henry. You do, too. Nothing in the universe is wasted. Everything evolves for a reason. There’s no real reason for the ability to love, for the human need to sacrifice for others. Tout Darwinism all you like. I believe in the theory, too, but only to a point. It isn’t present when one human being sacrifices his life for another. It isn’t there when a man runs into a burning building on the off chance that he can save the people inside. It isn’t there when a thousand soldiers run onto a beach they know they will die on because they want their children to be free. Darwinism isn’t there when people risk their lives to stand up for what they believe in when they know they’re going to die for it.”
He was silent, just standing there, his big body stiff and unmoving. There was a flat line to his mouth that told her she hadn’t gotten through to him. He’d been perfectly polite during dinner, but at some point he’d changed his mind about her because he thought she was a flake.
The funny thing was she still would have gone to bed with him. All she’d required from him was that he be polite and somewhat kind. She was ready to understand sex. She felt something deep for him. It didn’t necessarily matter that he didn’t love her. She couldn’t control that, and he was only here for a little while, so she’d been okay with it. But he didn’t even like her. He was like a million other people. He thought she was a dumb flake. She couldn’t sleep with a man who didn’t even like her. She was too picky. She’d finally found a man who called to her and he was like so many. Closed-minded. Unwilling to listen or to think even for a moment that she had something important to say.
She couldn’t sell herself so cheaply.
Perhaps the time had come to ask Holly about a vibrator. Holly talked about sex toys sometimes. She could name it and have a relationship with it. When she wasn’t in the mood, maybe she could watch the news with it sitting on the pillow beside her.
God, even her potential sex life with an inanimate object was boring. Henry was still standing there staring, and it was time to cut her losses.
“Uhm, I guess I’ll go back inside. Thanks again for dinner.” He’d been a gentleman, insisting on paying for dinner. She turned to go. She would just read until she fell asleep, if she could fall asleep. But she had to get out of here. She couldn’t stand how cold her feet had gotten.
Nell had moved exactly two steps before he was in front of her, his big chest a wall blocking her progress.
“I don’t understand you,” Henry said, his face a complete blank.
“You don’t have to.”
He was close. So close. She could feel the heat of his body. “I should leave you alone.”
Then why wasn’t he? Tears threatened. God, she hated that. She couldn’t just be calm. She always had to get emotional. No matter how many times she got kicked, her heart still got involved. Her brain was willing to let go, but her heart still wanted and she couldn’t seem to make it stop. “Then go away, Henry. I didn’t come out here looking for you. I’m not going to follow you around. I promise I’m not going to bug you. It was a bad date. We can both walk away.”
He frowned, his face setting in hard lines. “It wasn’t a bad date. It was nice. I liked talking to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Henry. You didn’t have a good time. You got rid of me as fast as you could.”
“No, I didn’t. That blonde lady who was dressed like Annie Oakley said there was a storm coming in. I wanted to get up the mountain before it hit. I’m not used to driving in the snow.”