Words do not come easily to you the way machines do. You can bend and snap random items into each other until they make something beautiful but language is far too complex. So your infrequent speech is littered with scientific phrases that make sense to you. Family and love haven’t been in your vocabulary before now and it’s difficult for you to express but you do your best, nonetheless, because the little blonde girl who used to get in trouble for taking things apart would want to know that you finally found a family.
1992
You are eight years old and you don’t understand why the other kids are so mean. You don’t understand why they pull your hair but you know it needs to stop so you take your father’s scissors from his office. You tuck them into the waistband of your pajama pants and pull your shirt over them. When your mother says goodnight with a pat on your shoulder, you screw your eyes shut and hopes she doesn’t see the intent written on your face.
You start with an inch and watch the tuff of blonde fall to your feet. It feels… You don’t know how it feels but it doesn’t feel bad so you keep going.
When your mother finds you in the morning with choppy hair and a twisted smile on your face, she screams and doesn’t stop until your father grabs you roughly by the arm, shoving you into the backseat of his car, still in your pajamas.
He tells the hairdresser to fix it and stays silent and she evens out your clumsy work. When she asks you if you like it you offer her a crooked smile and a small nod. You don’t like it, you love it. But you act remorseful when your mother asks you what you have to say for yourself.
They banish you to your bedroom for the weekend without supper. They do not like it when you step out of line. They do not like their only daughter presenting as anything other than perfect. That weekend you are desperate to ignore the pangs of hunger, so you take apart the alarm clock. It doesn’t work when you put it back together so you take it apart again. You have forty-eight hours to fix it and you do. Oh, how you fix it.
You learn at eight years old that food is scarce sometimes.
1997
Being a twelve year old in high school is not ideal. This is where you discover girls in the worst way possible. The way your lab partner’s hands move, the way the student body president wears her hair up, and the way they smile at you sometimes.
Not only are you two years younger than the youngest freshman, but you are also, as you discover, gay. This fact, cuts deep with you. You ignore it until it settles in your bones and resonates with every step you take.
Your parents have given up with their odd punishments and allow you to pursue your interest in mechanics. They give you the basement which you treat as a lab and a bedroom. It is littered with scraps of metal you scavenge for at scrap yards and twenty some odd cans of pringles nestled around the room.
Your parents have given you freedoms but you still hear the way your father mumbles the word faggots whenever he sees the neighbors with their dog. You know that real freedom is four years away so you screw your eyes shut and hold your breath.
2001
You meet Rebecca Gorin on your first official day at MIT. Most of the professors tilt their heads and your overalls and yellow tinted glasses. They don’t understand that you’ve been stuck in blouses and jeans your whole life. They don’t understand that the best thing that’s ever happened, yes even better than a full ride to MIT, was your discovery of crop tops.
Professor Gorin does not tilt her head at you, she does not even pay attention to you. She is unlike the other professors who pay special attention to MITs resident mascot/child genius. So you overcompensate. You sit in the front row, you talk way more than you’re comfortable with, and still, the woman doesn’t throw you a bone. She calls you Jennifer eight times before you finally give up on correcting her.
It isn’t until right after her final that she speaks to you, not through you, not at you, to you.
“Jennifer, I’d like you to stay here over winter break and work with me in my lab.”
2004
You get your Bachelor's in three years even though you could have done it in two. You were lazy your second year and didn’t take as many credits as you should of. Well, actually, you got a girlfriend.
You try to tell Professor Gorin that you’re gay but every time you try the words get caught in your throat and you end up stuttering about some device you’ve made. Until one day she has enough.
“Rip the band-aid, Jillian.” she says. It is strange for her not to be calling you Jennifer.
“I think I’m gay.”
“Test the hypothesis, Jill. You are a scientist.” She doesn’t even look up from the gadget in her hands.
So you get a girlfriend and it lasts long enough to stall your two year graduation plan. Even though you take fewer classes than you want to, Alison claims you still don’t have enough time for her. So after six months, she dumps you. But not before teaching you how much you love taking things apart. Especially women.
Dr. Gorin helps you apply to schools all over the united states. She doesn’t ask you to stay at MIT even though you offer.
“Jillian don’t you dare hold yourself back for me. I taught you better than that. Now I think New York City is somewhere you will thrive.”
So you go to Columbia.
2006
Rebecca is right. You call her Rebecca now because she wouldn’t like it if you called her mom. You shine at Columbia. You still don’t talk much but the girls you find in bars are charmed and call you things like stoic.
You finance yourself by making fake IDs and selling them at ridiculous rates to naive freshman. You feel guilty once and then one of your customers tells you about his daddy’s private jet.
It is when you are on the phone with Rebecca that you realize what you’ve been doing doesn’t feel like enough. Building alarm clocks that wake you with the scent of coffee and other toys feels meaningless.
“So build something that matters.” she tells you.
And you do. You build a machine that can tell you what people are thinking because you never seem to know. Your mistake is showing it to your professor in lieu of a final. The government comes not long after that. They confiscate your inventions, even the dumb alarm clock and offer you a job. After college, the insist, you could build things like this and better.
You make Rebecca a pin to avoid thinking about it. You like it so much you make yourself a matching necklace and never take it off.
2008
It takes you a while to get your doctorate. You take your time so you can play by their rules. You do not build dangerous things anymore. You build what your professors say you should.
So when the men from the government approach you about a job you tell them your terms: you will not wear a suit or heels and you will not build guns.
They agree and give you a starting salary that makes your mouth water. The relocation to Washington D.C. is a necessary evil because they give you assistants. Lab assistants and you want to cry because these people do whatever you ask of them.
You call them your minions and make them laugh. They adore you as a boss but they’re not your friends. Far from it.
2010
You lose yourself while working for the government. Things blur together. The minions come and go. You don’t even bother to learn their names anymore.
2013
“I said no guns.” you all but scream.
“Miss Holtzmann, you work at the pleasure of your government. You serve your country. Take it or leave it.”
Rip the band-aid, Jillian.
“It’s Dr. Holtzmann and I quit.”
You show up at one of Rebecca’s lectures three days later. She quirks her lips when she sees you. You haven’t seen her in three years and apart from the odd emails, the two of you have drifted apart. She’s wearing your pin and you smirk while propping your feet on the desk in front of you, maintaining eye contact.
Rebecca lets you stay in her guest bedroom for two months before she begins with the questions.
“What’s your plan, Jillian?”
“Plan?”
“You cannot mope here forever. I did not raise you like that. What is your plan?” you respond two days later while she eats an omelette you made her. You’re experimenting with cooking right now.
“I’d like to go back to New York.” You tell her as she takes a bite.
“Okay.”
2015
You’ve been living on the streets of New York City for a year when she finds you. You’ve been going from shelter to shelter and building things in parks. You sneak into lectures at Columbia and flirt with pretty girls. Sometimes, they even take you back to their apartment and you get a bed for a night. You even borrow their showers. They don’t mind.
Abby finds you in a scrap yard.
“Are you Dr. Jillian Holtzmann?”
“At your service.”
“I have a job for you.” The rest is history.
2016
You dance for her with a blowtorch. It’s like you’re a fucking male peacock and she is not taking the bait. You want to sleep with her and be over this infatuation but she doesn't take the damn bait. You want to scream your frustrations at her but you just smile and wink because words are hard.
Your mother visits after you save the city and after Rebecca leaves. Kevin calls you down from your sanctuary telling you that you have a visitor. You slide down the fireman's pole with your usual flair but freeze at the bottom.
“Jillian,” she says moving towards you, “your father’s dead.” Patty looks up from her book in shock and the pen Erin was holding drops on her desk with a thump.
“This is not how you tell her that.” Abby shouts from where she sits. Abby knows all about your parents.
“It’s okay,” you breathe, “thank you. You can go now.” And she does. She leaves. She doesn’t try to touch you. She doesn’t say anything else. She turns around and walks out the door.
They say nothing. Your makeshift family says nothing as you drop cross legged on the ground and begin grasping at the air. You can’t breathe. Why can’t you breathe. Oh god, oh god. Erin is at your side first. Your entire body is shaking.
Erin wraps her arms around you.
“Breathe with me.” she says. You feel the rise and fall of her chest against you and you attempt to match it but your breath is jagged.
“I ca...I can..can’t.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. Take your time. I’ll be right here."
It is a half hour before you are breathing regularly again. Patty and Abby sit in front of you. They are watching calmly. Erin stays anchored to your side.
“They used to,” your voice comes out stronger than you expected, “they used to lock me in my room for days when I was little. When I did something wrong, they’d lock me in my room.”
“Oh, baby.” Patty says. Abby gives you a little sad smile. Abby already knows everything.
“No one is ever going to lock you in a room again. Not while we’re around.” Erin's voice is steady and you believe her.
2017
It is months later before you think you love her. The air is thick with the smell of rain. You are testing weapons in the alley behind the firehouse and you think you love her.
You whisper it to yourself as a drop of water splats onto your forehead and then you go into what Abby refers as mommy mode. You lovingly wrap you babies in your jacket to shield them from the offending water and go inside.
Patty is writing her thesis and Abby is sitting on the couch watching a movie. Her hands wrapped carefully around a mug of coffee. You put your weapons on her desk for the moment and go snuggle into her side.
“Hey, Holtzy.”
“I think I love her.” she pauses the movie and makes eye contact with you. She puts her coffee down.
“Do you know how I found you in that scrap yard?”
“I never thought about it.” You lie. She smiles.
“You’re a bad liar, Holtz.” She pauses. “There was this homeless veteran, Dave, who I used to give money to. I bought him lunch one day and he went on and on about this mad scientist with wild blonde hair that he met at a shelter that winter. He said you were a genius and showed me the leg you built him. He told me your name and I spent months looking for you. You were so hard to find and I almost gave up. I thought if it was meant to be, I’d find you and I did. I wasn’t looking for you at that scrap yard. I was looking for a TV.”
“Okay.”
You remember the leg but the man is a blur. He had been struggling with only one leg so you relished the challenge of building him a new one.
“I was meant to find you. I thought it was because I needed a partner at the institute but I was wrong. I found you because you were meant to bring me my family back. You brought her back to me by putting that dumb book online because fate meant for you to.”
“But fate-”
“Doesn’t exist. Ya Holtz, I know what you think but this is what I think. I think you’re our glue and I see the way she looks at you. You’d have to be blind not to see it. Holtz, I know you’re not blind. I think you were destined to meet your match in an uptight, tiny bowtie wearing Erin Gilbert.”
“So?”
“So go get your girl.”
“C’mon, Holtzy,” Patty is behind you, suddenly, “you glorious nerd, you gotta tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Erin walks down the stairs with a book opened in her palms.
Abby and Patty look at each other and make an excuse out of dinner to leave. Time blurs again and Erin is sitting next to you. Her book discarded and her hands on her knees.
"Tell her what?" she asks again. Softer this time.
Rip the band-aid, Jillian.
“I think,” you start, “No, I know that I want to be with you.” She exhales slowly, with purpose. She nods her head thoughtfully.
“Okay,” she says and smirks at you, “Be with me.”
Your first kiss is all teeth. Your mouth mashed against hers and it hurts a little bit but she kisses you back with just as much excitement. You know women. You have studied them and knows what makes them melt. What surprises you about Erin is that she seems to know women as well.
Abby and Patty walk in on you making out on the couch thirty minutes later with bags of food in their hands. You don’t notice until Patty whistles loudly while Abby claps.
“Ghost Girl and the Mad Scientist have finally done it.” Abby shouts. You smile and pull Erin up by her hand and keep your fingers interlocked as you eat Chinese food with your two best friends.
Fate, you think to yourself, may not be as far fetched as you originally believed.