Hearts Under Ice Read online

  It was Uncle Raymond who had told Donnie that people would be intimidated by him. Apparently, not everyone could appreciate a child genius. A lot of them felt like they were too stupid to hang around him, or that they just couldn’t relate on any level. Even Leila and Vijay, who weren’t much older than him, seemed to treat him like he had the plague. They acted friendly enough, but never wanted to hang out with him. To them, he was their boss. He was smarter than them, had that coveted PhD from MIT, and needed to be respected as such. He would never be seen as an equal.

  “You’re brilliant, Donnie.” Raymond said once when they were eating dinner. Even though he had bought pizza that night, Donnie wasn’t very hungry. He kept poking at the pizza crust, but not bringing any of it to his mouth. “You’re intelligent beyond compare, and that’s what scares people. They think they’ll never be able to understand you. I know that you’re a nice kid, too. I know you want to get along with people, but you might have to hide your genius from them, at least a little bit. People are afraid of what they don’t know.”

  “I could always teach them!” Donnie would point out. “Come on, Uncle Ray! I could teach them not to be scared of me, or of anything I say. I just need to get them to talk to me!”

  Raymond sighed. “You mean well, Donnie. I wish people would see you the way I do. I know you are a kind, warm-hearted individual with a gifted mind. The next time you see a person you want to know, just go up to them and treat them like you want to be treated. Be nice to them. Ask them what they like. You’re bound to find something you have in common.”

  “I’ve tried that,” he mumbled. “It just feels like no one has anything in common with me.” Turning away and looking at the wall, he added, “Sometimes, I wish I could just leave this place and find something new. I want to live a world where people actually like me.”

  Raymond sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think anyone hates you, kid. You don’t need to leave the world because someone isn’t talking to you.”

  “That’s not the only reason.” Donnie finally finished his dinner. An idea was now forming in his head, and he wanted to get upstairs to explore it. “May I be excused? I’m finished.”

  “Just put your plate in the sink and rinse it off.”

  That was where their conversation had ended. This was the same one he’d had with Raymond year after year. Nothing had changed. He was still alone, and he hadn’t become famous enough to stop caring about it. He had nothing to be proud of. That was the worst part of it all—he had the ideas, but no single achievement that made him well up with pride and forget everything else.

  After he’d cleaned up and got changed, Donnie went looking through his old drawings of a new world. He was no artist, but he had the ideas of what he wanted. He had come up with so many ideas for different worlds: a world where every country was a democracy, a world where spirits lived with people, and many worlds where animals were living like people did. He had thought about all the possibilities. Things would be very different if the Earth hadn’t formed in a certain way, or if wars never took place.

  “Of course, some changes would never happen if war had never existed.” He told himself. “Maybe it wouldn’t be for the best.”

  Donnie still wished that he could have someone to talk to about this with. Olivia seemed slightly interested, but would she care the way he did? For her, this would just be an interesting idea. She would not want to go to another world. It was all just fiction at this point. Still, speaking to someone who believed it was nonsense was better than nothing at all. At least she would listen to him, even if she was being paid to do so.

  “I’m in over my head.” Donnie mumbled, pushing everything aside. “I need to stop.”

  It was the same thing he told himself each night, yet somehow he had no idea when to pull the plug. It was always going to be same. He would be left alone, once again, to spend his nights chasing a dream that he didn’t think would come true.

  That was the sad part.

  Chapter Four

  It was around her break time that Olivia noticed that she had forgotten her lunch. Her purse was there now, but she had nothing to eat. It was a good thing she had asked Donnie out for coffee today. Even if he declined, she could go out on her own and get something. As she counted up her cash and made sure that she had enough, there was a knock her door. She twirled around to find Donnie standing there, trying to avoid looking at her in the eye. He had his hands stuffed in his coat pockets, and he kept scraping the floor with the toe of his shoe. If it weren’t for how painfully shy he looked, she would have thought he was attractive. That dark hair of his was a bit messy, and his green eyes looked at everything except her, but they were still lovely. She hated comparing them to emeralds, but it was true. On rare occasions, she could tell that they sparkled, and had a little flicker of light in them. It was too bad he wasn’t excited right now. She wanted to see those green eyes light up and shine for her.

  “Hey there, Donnie.” She greeted him. “Is something wrong?”

  “So um—I received your note,” he began, looking at the ground. “I don’t have anything going on during that time.”

  Olivia nodded. “Okay, and?”

  “I would like—to go out today.” He finally got out. “If it’s okay with you, I would like to go out for coffee or something.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay with it? I’m the one who asked you.” Olivia pointed out. “So I guess that’s a yes?”

  He nodded. “What time do you want to go?”

  “A little past noon. Let’s say—twelve-thirty?”

  “I can do that.” He waved to her. “So I will see you at twelve-thirty. We can decide where we want to go then.”

  “Okay, sure.” Olivia opted not to tell him that she had left her lunch behind. “Maybe we can go for lunch, instead of just coffee. I mean, it will be lunch time and all.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He slowly stepped out. “Is everything running okay with your computer?”

  “Oh yeah, no problems at all. It looks like the Internet is not working, but everything else runs fine, and I can type these notes in. Pam showed me earlier how to do them. It wasn’t super hard or anything.”

  He nodded in approval. “Well, I’ll call down to IT and see if they can fix your Internet. Hopefully, the issue will be resolved by today.”

  “Thanks, Donnie.” It felt so strange to call him by that name, but he didn’t flinch. Instead, he waved one more time and left. Now alone, Olivia went back to keying the things that Pam had given her. She had come to Olivia’s office around eight that morning with the new work and showed her how to was to be done. It was a simple job that involved putting numbers into tables. While it gave her something to do, it was also very boring. She yawned a few times and kept looking at the clock. Lunchtime wasn’t coming fast enough for her. She was anxious to spend some time with Donnie, and didn’t want to work anymore.

  After what felt like an eternity, twelve-fifteen rolled around, and she decided to call it quits for the time being. She was grateful for it, because her brain was fried from all the data entry. When Donnie knocked on her office door, she nearly leapt out of her chair and grabbed her purse. They decided to go to a nearby bagel place, as it was perfect to get both coffee and lunch. Donnie was pleasant enough to the people who worked there. She couldn’t understand why so many people in the lab were turned off by him. He wasn’t being a prick to anyone, and he never treated them like they were below him. He even put a few dollars into the tip jar at the cash register, which she rarely saw anyone else do.

  “I hope you don’t mind me picking this place.” Olivia found a booth for them and squeezed into one side. She had picked a simple lunch: a turkey and avocado bagel sandwich with a bag of chips and a small iced tea. It wasn’t much, but she was starving, and it fit into her budget. “I wanted to choose somewhere that’s close by. I know you are pretty strict about taking lunches on time.”

  “Oh, you didn’t need to worry about that
. We’re in this together, so no one can complain. Besides, this is just what I needed. I’ve had paperwork up to my chin, and I’ve barely gotten through most of it.” He admitted, getting settled into his seat. “Thank you, Olivia. I wasn’t sure how to interpret your message at first, but I like this. I like being able to talk to someone outside of work for a change.”

  “I know that was kind of unexpected of me, but I’m glad you said yes.” Olivia twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. She considered telling him about forgetting her lunch, but held off. There would be a time to talk about her absent-minded nature, but now wasn’t it. “I don’t really know anyone else here, and my Internet’s not working at the moment, so I can’t waste time there.”

  “I’ll make sure they take care of that problem,” Donnie promised. “You probably won’t be using the Internet that much during our work, but I know what you mean about wasting time. I rely on it, too. It helps make the day go by faster.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Olivia nodded, searching in her mind to keep the conversation going. It felt strange that he was so smart, yet no one really knew him. “Can I ask you a question that might seem a little strange?”

  “I highly doubt that any question you have will be strange. I have had people ask me about everything, from aliens to zebras.”

  “Well, this one is a little more personal. You may not want to answer.” She took a deep breath. “How come I’m the only one allowed to call you by your nickname?”

  “Everyone’s allowed to call me by my nickname. It’s just that they choose not to.”

  “Have you ever wondered why?” She looked down at her coffee cup. “You told them that it was no problem to call you by that nickname, but they treat you like their boss. I mean, you are their boss, but—”

  Donnie’s face fell. “I know. I’ve tried to be friendly with everyone, but I guess I have always given off that kind of vibe. People just turn away from me, even though I try to be nice. I want to hang out with them, like they do with each other.”

  “Is that why you’ve opened up to me?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. “Was I the first person who didn’t turn you away?”

  “I guess. You were willing to listen to me ramble yesterday, so I figured that maybe you might be interested in what I had to say.” He shrugged. “Tell me the truth, Olivia. Am I creeping you out with all this? I’ll stop. I get a little carried away sometimes.”

  “Huh? No!” she shook her head strongly. “I was a little confused as to why you’ve opened up to me before, but I know why now. I found out from other people, so I guess I felt a little sorry for you.” She immediately regretted the words as soon as she saw the look in his eyes change to one of dejection.

  “You don’t have to pity me, Olivia. In fact, you don’t have to talk with me just because you’re feeling sorry for me,” he insisted. “I’m used to feeling this way. I was so excited that you talked to me that I guess I must have given off the wrong vibe again.”

  “It wasn’t out of pity, and you weren’t giving off any wrong vibes. I just—you intrigued with all your time travel talk.”

  “Really?” he perked up again. “Do you believe in bending time and space?”

  “Not exactly. It’s just that it’s interesting. It scares me a little bit,” she admitted. “I’ve read way too many stories about people who did mess with time, and it altered everything. What if your calculations were wrong and you ended up changing the entire planet? It could be for the better, or could be for worse. Would you want to risk that?”

  Donnie chuckled at the questions. “Well, you’ve definitely given it some thought. I’ve worried about the same thing. I know there are a lot of things to consider here. What would happen if we never had freedom, or never settled in America? What changes would we see if we never entered any wars, or had any major disasters? We will never know until we try. I know it has a lot of risks, but we have to be brave enough to take them sometimes.”

  Olivia nodded and checked her phone. She had received two calls from home, probably to alert her about her missing lunch. Groaning, she put it away and tried not to think about her blunder earlier. “Okay, let’s say that you are right and other worlds do exist. How do you plan to get to them?”

  “Ah, I am an inventor on the side!” he reminded her. “Come on, you think the only time I do work is at work? No, I have dreams, too. I want to achieve them. Haven’t you ever had dreams of your own?”

  Olivia was momentarily stunned by his question. “I want to go to grad school.”

  “I mean bigger dreams than that, Olivia. After grad school, what do you want to do? Are you planning to make some big discoveries? Do you want to travel the world and see every continent before you die? Those are the things I’m interested in. What are those big dreams that you’re chasing?”

  “Big dreams?” she repeated. This was a new turn of events. She hadn’t thought about what would happen after grad school. In fact, she still didn’t know what she wanted to study in grad school. Sure, she had her degree in sociology with a minor in psychology, but getting a master’s in either of them sounded like a lot work. She didn’t even know if she wanted to practice psychotherapy in the future. She was so singularly focused on making money and paying off her loans that her head was spinning from these new questions.

  Donnie realized he might have asked her too much. “Um, I didn’t mean to put any pressure on you. If you—”

  “It’s okay.” She cut him off. “I haven’t really given much thought to it. However, I did do a lot of thinking about your time traveling stuff.”

  “Really?” He tried his best not to smile too hard. “What did you think?”

  “It scares me, and it sounds extremely risky. At the same time, I have been thinking about all the possibilities out there. It would be interesting to witness some historic things like the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Declaration of Independence being signed, or watching women get the right to vote. All I would do is watch, though. I wouldn’t dare try to mess with anything, since I don’t want to alter our history. At the same time, could you imagine the future? It could be really dark, or so advanced that we’d never even be able to understand it.”

  For some reason, this admission was making Donnie smile wider. “I’m glad you are thinking about it. I have something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Oh?” She leaned back in her chair and thought about how to break this to him. Now it felt like they were getting a little too close, and she wanted to maintain her distance. “Donnie, look, I’m flattered that you like me, but I think we are moving too fast. You’re a nice guy and all, but we’re just coworkers at this point.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly confused. “I was just going to ask you to witness history in the making with me. Once this is finished, I want someone to see what happens. If something goes wrong, I need someone to help me out. I wanted you to be that someone. You’re the only person who hasn’t laughed at me after I’ve told them my ideas.” He looked both sheepish and hurt at the same time. “I’m sorry I gave the wrong idea. That seems to be a common theme with me.”

  “Um—” Olivia turned bright red and looked down at the table. “I think we need to go back. Lunchtime is almost over.”

  “Yeah, we should.” He agreed, not waiting to see if she would say yes or no to his request. In his mind, she had already made her decision. No matter what she thought about the idea, she probably would not be crazy enough to risk her life. She didn’t care about him enough to help him out. “Thank you for everything.”

  “I’m sorry, Donnie.” She mumbled, picking up her purse and heading towards her car. She got out of the café quickly, but it wasn’t to get away from him. Deep down, she felt like a fool for reading the signs wrong. Donnie only wanted a friend to help him with his project. He told her about it because he had trusted her. He wanted her to witness this, and she’d stupidly turned it down.

  Maybe I can tell him that I changed my mind before the d
ay is over. She thought, looking at her car’s windshield. Something was off about it. Though it was unusually cold today, she didn’t expect to find frost on it. Groaning, she went looking for the ice scraper in the trunk. She couldn’t fathom how it got cold enough for frost to form now. The weather had been perfectly fine when they left. At most, they had been gone for about an hour. There was no way that frost could have formed on her car that quickly. The rest of the cars in the lot had no frost whatsoever, so why was hers covered in it? Nothing was making sense now.

  “This is not my day.” She grumbled out loud as she got out the scraper and went to front of the car. The sun was out, yet the frost hadn’t melted at all. She stared at the frost for a second and realized that there was a message hidden in it. Squinting, she looked closely at it and tried to make sense of what she saw. The letters were blurred together, but the message was very clear. She gripped the scraper tightly and tried to ignore it as she cleaned her car. She would be late getting back, but that wasn’t the thing that bothered her. It was the message that was burned into her mind.

  YOUR HEART IS UNDER ICE.

  Chapter Five

  Donnie tried his best to cheer himself up, but nothing was working. He stayed pleasant with everyone in the office, but it did no good. No one else here cared about his work. Most of them thought he was out of his mind for thinking so far ahead, and the rest were too scared to ask him questions. He gave up and decided to retreat into his office. Olivia hadn’t come back yet, but he didn’t want to see her right now. He knew that he had been sent her the wrong signals.

  “Way to go, Don,” he told himself. “You could have just asked her like a normal person, but you didn’t. Good job. That went real well.”

  He looked at the papers that Vijay and Leila had left on his desk. They were good assistants, smart and willing to learn. He never had problems with them, and they always did as he asked. Still, he could never get them to call him anything besides Dr. Vaughn. It made no sense—they were brilliant as well. Vijay had come from India about ten years ago and did his masters over at Harvard, while Leila had just finished up at Cornell. He figured he would be able to talk with them, since they knew his interests and shared a scientific background. They knew he loved the sciences; he had mentioned it so many times to them. He hoped it would have made for interesting conversations between them, but they usually turned him down. They were always polite, but he could tell they had no desire to talk to him. It was like trying to get a broken car to start up again. He could keep turning the key, but that didn’t mean it would move.