Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

We are exactly who should be out there. We are the only intelligent life-form that we know of in our galaxy who has become aware of the universe and worked to understand it. We are so determined to learn what lies beyond our grasp that we have figured out how to ride a rocket out of the atmosphere.

She said, ‘You have to have something on the line, for it to be called character.’ ”

Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years into the past. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is time.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

“When somebody’s too smooth, there’s nothing to grab on to. Now that you’ve got a little edge to you, I can hang on.”

Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

Bravery, Joan suspected, is almost always a lie. Courage is all we have.

“Why are you calling them doodles? Why are you doing that? All I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve only ever really loved one thing. Being in the sky. But I look at you, and you are so curious about everything. Not just about the planets and galaxies and the stars. But Earth. About the people on it. That’s what I admire.” “My curiosity?” “Your commitment to the world around you. How much you care. You are so thoughtful. About everything.”

“It’s 1981, and I’m done pretending sexist jokes are funny just so men will give me a chance at something I’m probably better at than they are.”

I don’t want to tell jokes at other people’s expense, and pretend I’m never afraid, and refuse to ask for help. I don’t want to hold in how I feel, or hide it if I’ve been hurt, or try to prove to anyone that I don’t cry. Because I do cry sometimes.”

“Science is about figuring out the meaning of life?” “Science is about figuring out the order to the universe. Yes.”

things before, and they will be many things after. The air I’m breathing is the same air your ancestors breathed. Even what is in my body right now—the cells, the air, the bacteria—it’s not only mine. It is a point of connection with every other living thing, made up of the same kinds of particles, ruled by the same physical laws.

But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

They say love isn’t always enough, but Joan knew, in that moment, that it could have been. It could have been for them. She should have told Vanessa that.