The Soulmate Equation (24 page)

She chose not to answer this.

Are you leaving now?

Yes.

HE LIVED ONLY
ten minutes away, but River was at her door in eight. Before, if he'd shown up at her apartment after Juno was asleep, Jess would have been in his arms immediately. But tonight, they both seemed to know that affection was on hold.

Wordlessly, he stepped inside, breathless from what Jess could only guess was a jog from his car. “Hey.”

She swallowed back a sob that seemed to rise out of nowhere. “Hey. How was the rest of the interview?”

He nodded, wiping a hand over his forehead, still catching his breath. “Good. Yeah, I think it was good. Is Fizzy okay?”

Shaking her head, Jess walked over to the dining table and sat down, shoulders slumped. “Rob is married.”

River slowly removed his messenger bag from his shoulder, setting it down on the table. “You're kidding.”

“No. And I guess they just sent in his DNADuo kit.”

River winced. “Shit.”

And then they fell quiet. The proverbial elephant was standing directly on top of them. With a mumbled “Well…” River pulled out a sheet of paper from his bag and handed it to her. It was well-loved, wrinkled and worn, like it'd been picked up and put down again and again, studied a thousand times.

“Our data.” He reached up, wiping his forehead again. “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”

The colorful scatter plot was printed in a landscape view and took up the entire page. A masterful display of computational skill, and a statistician's best friend: principal component analysis. After only a handful of seconds, Jess could tell it captured every data point she saw on the tables in David's office.

The plot had two axes: The vertical Y-axis was labeled zero to four—the composite scores Jess was already familiar with. The horizontal X-axis had twelve different labels. She assumed they represented the categories of the gene families included in the DNADuo: Neuroendocrine, Immunoglobulin, Metabolic, Signal Transduction, MHC Class I/II, Olfactory, Regulatory Proteins, Transporters, Heat-Shock, SNARE, Ion Channel, and FGF/FGFR. And on the graph itself, there were thousands of tiny dots, seemingly one for each of their scores on each individual gene, color-coded and clustered by category.

It was a much easier way to look at the raw scores—Jess could immediately see trends here that she couldn't in the table—but because there was so much data, it was clear to her that if this was all River had seen, it would have been almost impossible to decipher that it was nearly identical to a plot he'd seen years ago.

And, most importantly, the information that tipped her off—the run end time, the date, the DNADuo machine—wasn't included in this plot. This graph only had client numbers, the compatibility score, and, in the lower right corner in tiny print, the date this plot was generated.

Maybe River didn't know. Hope was a weak light shining on the
darkness of her mood. As casually as possible, Jess asked, “Is this the way you always look at the data?”

He laughed quietly. “I'm sure for a mathematician, it's maddening to not look at actual numbers, but we've come to rely on these scatter plots. It's easier to see outliers this way and to know if we need to rerun the assay for any reason.” He leaned in, pointing to a large cluster of dots in their plot. “See, you can tell that we are particularly well aligned in metabolic genes and immunoglobulin. And our lowest scores seem to be for regulatory proteins, but that's not a very meaningful conclusion because even those scores are all pretty high. Once you get a score above eighty, most of the plots look similar.”

She swallowed back a relieved gasp. It confirmed that it might not immediately jump out to him that the data had been manipulated. “How do you generate these?”

“This actually
is
the raw data. Everything in a table is shown here. Tiffany just worked with the Caltech guys to have the neural network create this plot for us as a team because it's way easier to look at. But we can generate one of these for any couple who matches.”

“So Fizzy would have a million of these,” she said.

He laughed again. “I mean, in theory. We don't upload these to the apps or even routinely generate them anymore unless requested because the files are huge, but sure, you could theoretically create scatter plots like this comparing you to every other individual in the world. That just wouldn't be very useful.” He met her eyes, almost shyly. “But of course we did one for our assay. I wanted to look at it really closely. At first because I was skeptical, and then because it was sort of amazing.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she bent to rest her head on the table. Relief washed over her like an analgesic, a paralytic. Jess's head felt so heavy, and before she could stop it, a sob ripped from her throat.

“Holy—Jess.” River leaned over, pulling her into his arms. “Sweetheart, what's wrong?”

He'd never called her “sweetheart” before, and it only made her cry harder. She was relieved that he hadn't been lying to her this whole time. But now she had to tell him that they weren't a ninety-eight. She was in love with him—and Jess hated how much this was going to hurt him. His trust in David was going to be irreparably damaged. Until she'd come along, GeneticAlly had been River's entire life.

“I hate what I'm about to tell you.”

He went still around her. “What is it? Just say it.”

She moved away from him, standing and going to the kitchen to retrieve the photos she'd printed earlier. Her hands shook as she handed them over.

River seemed familiar enough with the tables to immediately know what he was holding. “Where did you get these?”

“David's office,” Jess admitted. “Be mad at me after you look at them. They were on his desk when Lisa put me in there to wait for my part of the interview. It wasn't my intention to snoop, but when I saw our client numbers, I got really excited. Like you said, it's sort of amazing to look at it and know it's how we started.” She bit her lip. “And then there were some things about it that were strange to me.”

He frowned, looking down, not seeing it yet. “Like what?”

Jess reached up, wiping her eyes. “Just look at them for a few minutes.”

She left him to study, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Ice-cold, it burned a frigid path from her lips to her stomach.

About thirty seconds later, a quiet “
What the fuck?
” came from the dining room.

Jess closed her eyes. Papers rustled with renewed urgency, and the sound of them spreading out on the table was rushed.

“Jess.” She could tell from the strain in his voice that his jaw was clenched. “Can you come back here, please?”

Taking a deep breath, she set her glass in the sink and joined him in the dining room. He was standing, arms braced on the table as he bent and stared down.

“Who circled these values?”

“I don't know.” She put her arms around his waist from behind and rested her forehead between his shoulder blades. Relieved that he knew, Jess thought they could start to figure this out together. “You okay?”

A dry laugh, and then, “No. What am I seeing? Is this for real?”

“Did you know?” she asked quietly.

His voice came out tight, as if through clenched teeth. “Of course not.”

Closing her eyes, Jess squeezed him tighter. But he didn't turn around; in fact, Jess realized he remained completely stiff in her embrace. And for the first time it occurred to her—
how was it only occurring to her now
—that although Jess trusted the magic in statistical anomaly, River might look at their doctored score and see that they were never meant to be.

A
FTER A STUNNED
beat, Jess stepped away and let her arms fall to her sides. River didn't seem to notice; his attention was still shifting over the rows of numbers as he went from page to page and back again. Her heart had lodged somewhere in her windpipe.

River let out a low groan and hung his head. “I should have seen it.”

“How?” Jess asked, incredulous. “There are thirty-five
hundred
numbers there. At this point, you send this information into the black box and it's simplified so extensively you'd never know if something was off.”

“You don't understand,” he said, turning around and ducking past her, out into the living room. “The amount of time I spent poring over the Fuchses' data. I should have seen.”

“Not even a brain like yours can memorize
thirty-five hundred
numbers from almost a decade ago.” Jess moved to put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged away, turning to face the window.

His hands ripped into his hair and he let out a quiet growl. “This is a catastrophe.”

Jess stared at his back. He was right. It was a terrible thing to uncover, and David was going to have hell to pay, but wasn't there a touch of serendipity in it, too? It had still brought them together. “I know you have a lot on your mind,” she started quietly, “but I want you to know that I love you. This doesn't change that.”

He went still, like he was thinking about how to react to this, but then abruptly looked down at his watch. “Shit. David's probably still at the office. I need to head over there right now.”

Jess pivoted as quickly as her heart and brain would let her. “Okay. Yes. Good.”
A plan.
She reached for her phone, swiping to Favorites and pressing Pops's photo. It was already ringing when she brought it to her ear. “Let me just get Pops to sit with Juno—”

“Jess.” He reached for the phone, gently pulling it from her grip. With his eyes on the screen, he ended the call before Pops answered.

“What are you doing? I can't leave without—”

Oh
.

River was still staring at her screen, at the photo of four-year-old Juno dressed as an octopus for Halloween. His eyes were glued to the image. Had he looked at Jess once since he saw the data? “I need to talk to him alone.”

Jess exhaled a shocked laugh. “You're not serious.”

“This is my company, Jess.”

“But this situation involves me, too. I have a right to know why he did this.”

His shoulders stiffened. “
If
he did this. We don't know that this wasn't an oversight or mistake or, or—some kind of computer
glitch. I've known the man forever. I have to give him a chance to explain it, and I need to do it myself.”

Jess felt her jaw clench. “You seriously expect me to just cool my heels here, alone?”

He nodded tightly.

“Will you come over later?”

“I'm not sure.” River took a deep breath and finally met her eyes. “I'm sorry, I've really got to go, now.” He reached for his bag on the table and shoved everything inside before heading for the door. Jess trailed after him, but he couldn't leave fast enough. Mentally, River was already gone.

She stood at the door, watching the burning, familiar sight of someone she loved walk away. “
River
.”

He muttered, “I'll call you,” and then disappeared through the dark courtyard.

BUT RIVER DIDN'T
call. Jess stayed up until almost three, alternating between watching TV and checking her phone. Finally she fell asleep propped awkwardly against her pillows, waking to find the TV still on and her phone still empty of messages.

She was in a terrible mood by the time the morning routine began.

“Juno, I'm trying to make your lunch. Can you leave the cat alone and get dressed? Now, please.”

Juno pouted from where she was crouched on the carpet waving one of Pigeon's toy feathers back and forth. “I don't know what to wear.”

“You had clothes out last night. And bring me your dishes, Bug.”

“But we have PE today, and I want to wear leggings.”

Jess swore her kid had some sort of radar that zeroed in on exactly how short her Mom Fuse was on any given day, and then turned lighting it into an Olympic sport. “So wear leggings.”

“I don't know where they are.”

“You have at least ten pairs of them.”

“I want the black ones with the stars.”

“Did you put them in the laundry?” Jess reached for the grapes in the fridge and tucked a bunch into Juno's lunch box. Her phone was facedown on the counter, but she left it untouched. Looking would only make her feel worse.

Juno rolled around on the floor, squealing as the cat began chewing on the ends of her hair. “I think so.”

“Then look in the dryer.” Jess threw in a cup of applesauce, a bag of carrot sticks, and the last tube of yogurt, making a mental note to go to the store.

“Can you get them for me?” More laughing, more squealing. No getting dressed.

“
Juno!
” Jess yelled. Her voice was so loud it startled even her.

Quietly, Juno pushed herself up and skulked out of the room.

Frantically, Jess wiped down the counter and closed the refrigerator door so hard it bounced back open. Another glance at her watch. Shit. The dryer door slammed and a startled cat bolted down the hall, jumping on the coffee table and knocking over Juno's half-eaten bowl of cereal. Milk and soggy Rice Krispies dripped slowly to the floor.

“How many times do I need to tell you no food in the living room!”

“It was Pigeon's fault!”

“Get dressed!” Her voice seemed to echo through the suddenly silent apartment.

Juno's bottom lip jutted out and she stomped into her room again. Jess dropped onto the couch, exhausted. It was barely eight.

They walked to school in tense silence; Juno was mad, but not nearly as mad as Jess was at herself. She cycled through memories of Jamie having an argument with whatever man she was with at the time and taking it out on Jess or Nana or Pops.

Jess was in a shame spiral by the time they reached the monkey bars.

Needing to fix this, Jess crouched on the grass in front of Juno. “You have your outline for the art fair?”

She nodded but didn't meet Jess's eyes, instead focusing on the playground over her mom's shoulder. Her little forehead was so grumpy.

“And your lunch is in your backpack?”

Another curt nod.

“I'm sorry I yelled this morning. I didn't get enough sleep and woke up in a bad mood. I should have counted to ten.”

“Can Pops pick me up after school?”

Betrayal was a sharp knife twisting in her chest. “He'll be with Nana Jo at rehabilitation. I don't have any meetings, so I get to pick you up today.”

“Can River Nicolas instead?”

The knife pushed in deeper. It wasn't that Juno wanted someone
specific, it was that she specifically didn't want Jess. Jess knew that it was irrational to feel hurt—Juno was mad, and this was what mad kids did—but being a shitty mom this morning was the last thing Jess's heart needed. How could she say that she had no idea where River would be after school? Or next week? Or next year?

If she were Jamie, she would either show up later today with a present two years too young for Jess's interests or call Jess a brat and not show up at all.
I am not my mom.
Jess wrapped her little girl in a hug. “I'll ask him, but either way, I'll be here at pickup,” she said. “I love you the mostest.”

Juno softened in her arms. “I love you the mostest, too.”

FIZZY AND SHE
had been sitting at their table at Twiggs for twenty minutes, but Jess had yet to log into her computer.

“Earth to Jess.”

She tore her eyes away from the window. “Sorry, what?”

“I was asking about Nana.”

“Right.” Jess looked down at the frothy top of her untouched flat white. “She's doing okay. Better than okay, actually. She has outpatient PT every day for a couple weeks. They're working on strengthening exercises and putting some weight on that leg. Her bone density is good, so they aren't too worried about the pins shifting. She's a lightning bolt on that scooter.”

“And Pops?”

“He's happier now that she's home with him,” Jess said flatly. “He's charmed most of the staff at the rehab facility, so of course gets whatever he wants.”

“Let me find my surprised face,” Fizzy said, and then went quiet and still across from Jess as she turned her phone over and glanced at the screen. Nothing. “Do you want to tell me what's with you today?”

“Me?”

Fizzy smiled. “Jess. My bestie intuition is god tier, level five thousand, the top one percent. You think I can't tell when something's off? Are you worried about Nana or those children of the corn in Juno's class?”

Jess laughed for the first time all day. The problem was that she couldn't talk about this. Not only wasn't it her problem to share, she wasn't even sure how big the problem
was
.

“I'm fine, just slept like crap and snapped a little at Juno this morning.” Lifting her cup to her lips, she asked, “Any update on Rob?”

“I'm sure he's tried to call,” Fizzy said, “but I blocked him. From my phone, Insta, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter, and…” She lifted her phone, tapped the screen a few times, and added, “LinkedIn.”

“You have all those?”

Fizzy shrugged, tearing off a piece of muffin.

Jess reached across the table to take Fizzy's free hand. “Do you think you'll see any more of your matches?”

“Who knows. My social boner is pretty limp right now.”

“That sentence makes so much sense.”

The bell rang over the door, and Jess's attention flew toward the sound.
River
. She glanced at her phone. It was well past nine. He was late.

Bypassing the front counter, he walked straight toward their table. His hair was a bit more mussed than usual, and his eyes
looked heavy and red, but his clothes were pressed, his posture perfect. Jess hated how quickly her traitorous body wanted to forget about his abrupt departure yesterday, his lack of communication, and just stand up and step into his arms.

“Hey,” he said to her, and then turned to Fizzy. “I heard about the asshole.”

“Today I'm affectionately referring to him as the douchebaguette.”

“Well, I didn't want you to get an alert, so I deactivated your matching for now, and banned the douchebaguette from the platform. The system may have accidentally sent a duplicate receipt to his billing address, but I obviously wouldn't know anything about that. With any luck his wife is the one getting the mail.”

Fizzy smiled warmly at him and reached for his hand. “I knew you were my favorite of Jess's many lovers.”

Jess just sat there, watching the two of them interact like everything was normal. But it wasn't. He hadn't looked at her again. A rough fissure was forming in the center of her heart.

River gave an awkward laugh. “Well, this is yours if you want it.” He handed Fizzy an envelope with the colorful DNADuo logo embossed on one side.

Wary, she took it from him, turning it over in her hands. “Is this what I think it is?”

“It's your compatibility score with Rob.”

She dropped it like it was on fire. “Ugh. I don't think I can open it.”

True to type, River didn't say anything. He only stared at her with gentle empathy. “Your call.”

“What if it says we're a match?” Fizzy said, heartbreakingly vulnerable. “I'm never going to be with someone who cheated on his wife, no matter how perfect biology says we are for each other.” She slid it back across the table. “Just shred it.”

“You're sure?” he asked. He didn't reach to pick it up.

“If you thought you and Jess might not be soulmates, would you want to know?”

Leave it to Felicity Chen to hit the proverbial nail on the head without even knowing it.

River's gaze flew to Jess's and then away, visibly pained. He reached for the envelope, tucking it into his blazer. “Maybe. I don't know.” When he dragged in a stuttering breath, it felt to Jess like she was witnessing him fraying at the edges. Did River need a particular score to be sure about her?

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Jess asked.

He met her eyes and nodded once.

With a little wince to Fizzy—who was no doubt picking up on every weird vibe they were throwing off—Jess followed him out the door, turning on him as soon as they were outside. “Dude.”

“I know I didn't call last night and I'm sorry,” he said immediately, sending an agitated hand into his hair. “It was a lot to process.”

“Would you like to share any of your process with me?”

“He admitted everything… all of it. He and Brandon both.”