I waited, one leg crossed over the other and arms extended, a late afternoon coffee in my hand, on the bench in Cambridge Common. What appeared to be iron canon sculptures were aimed to the right ahead of me and between them stretched a flag pole, though the flag was only raised to half-staff. What was this tragedy? I wondered. Another mass shooting, probably. The world was going to shit.

I didn't let the 75-degree day deter me from enjoying my usual Americano. Gunther promised we would be working into the night on the new project we were all coming together to complete, so I knew I'd better arrive caffeinated.

I'd met Gunther the year before in a graduate course we both were taking on quantum mechanics, and I thought he was one of the most brilliant people I'd ever met. A geneticist who had successfully stretched into just about every other science he could: chemistry, engineering, biology, and even my specialty, physics. At the time, he was curious if there could be a way to track parallel universes through DNA, and if anyone could have figured it out, it would have been Gunther. But this project, he had teased over the phone, would be different. I knew nothing else about it.

Freshmen students in cars full of their belongings drove past the park. It was moving day, and I was set to teach my first college-level course on my own having just received my doctorate. Other than that, I didn't have anything else planned for my time, so what harm would a little side project with a fellow newly doctored Gunther Quail?

As I took another sip of my drink, Gunther turned the corner into the park, followed by another guy, one of the two others he had mentioned he was assembling perhaps. The other guy was shorter than Gunther and looked to be our age in the face, without any wrinkles and clear-faced, but his hair was prematurely greying. His eyes squinted from the sun beaming through his thickly rimmed glasses. They both were dressed in business casual attire appropriate for summer, khaki shorts and polos, and I felt relieved that I'd chosen my salmon Bermuda shorts and short sleeve white button up instead of my first outfit: red gym shorts and old t-shirt.

Gunther hadn't said how professional or official he intended this meeting to be, but seeing as though we were starting off in a park, I thought it couldn't have been more than a business casual event. Still, I always leaned towards dressing fancier than I thought I might need to and behaving more professionally as well. Whether real or perceived, I always felt as though the color of my skin meant I had to prove myself more, and I didn't ever want to slack in that regard. Not even around a guy with whom I'd recently developed a friendship. You never knew when someone might flip a switch on you.

"Winny," Gunther called as he approached with open arms. It was a nickname that I'd not approved of or asked for, but it was also the first time I'd heard it so I let it slide.

"Hey... Gunthy," I joked back with him.

His smile faded a bit. I could tell then that he wasn't a friend to joke around with, and I think he saw that I wasn't going to be either. He saw I was going to give it right back. He seemed to reset and wore a new smile as he introduced the guy beside him.

"This is Alexander Ovis, my oldest and best friend who happens to also be a bit of a chemistry genius," Gunther said, coming to a stop just a couple of feet in front of me. I stood up, towering over the guy, and shook his hand.

"I'm not at all surprised that Gunther's oldest and dearest friend would also be a genius. I'm Winston Fowler, one of Gunther's newest friends. I have my doctorate in Physics."

Alexander nodded. "It's good to meet you."

"We are just waiting for one more and then I will explain a bit more about what Alexander and I have been working on and how you and our fourth can help us," Gunther said, peering around the park. He glanced over my shoulder and smiled. "Ah, and there she is."

I turned around to see our fourth member of this proposed project and saw Phoebe Clark for the first time. Her long blonde hair reflected the golden hue of the sun, making her eyes seem more vibrantly blue than they truly were.

Women in the field still needed to push to be recognized and taken seriously back then, so I would have expected her to be dressed in similar clothing as the rest of us, business casual or potentially even more formal. Not Phoebe. She wore jeans and a grey tank top, and her steps were marked by the clapping of flip-flops between her heels and the pavement. She looked like a model strutting towards us, stone-faced and gorgeous.

Gunther didn't even have time to introduce her before she approached us--me first--and extended her hand. "Phoebe Clark," she said. I took her hand. Her skin was soft and warm, but her grip was strong and confident. She shook my hand in one swift, assertive motion before she quickly moved on to Alexander.

Gunther lifted his arms just slightly enough for me to notice but quickly pressed them back to his sides when Phoebe stepped back, into the now circle our bodies were forming in the park square, and acknowledged him with his name and a nod.

"Phoebe Clark, boys," Gunther said with a smirk. "She'll be our engineer."

I was in love. Instantly. Between her beauty, her confidence, and the intelligence I trusted her to have and would soon learn stretched far beyond my expectations, I was in love. I hadn't ever believed in love at first sight. I hadn't even believed in love before. The relationships I had had were always superficial at best and purely physical. I had envisioned a life for myself as a happy bachelor, traveling and teaching, studying and researching what inspired me. It wasn't until I met Phoebe that the sudden ache for a companion, for someone who could match me, that I realized that vision for my future could be any different.

Gunther took us back to his office and explained his and Alexander's concept: cryo chambers for temporary suspended animation for human beings. I laughed the first time he said it, but Phoebe was intrigued so I kept listening. Alexander and Gunther would work on the compound needed to suspend life in human beings, while Phoebe and I would work on the chambers.

"What the hell," Phoebe said with a shrug as she leaned back in her chair. "Let's try it. We are all teaching this school year, right? So, if it doesn't work, we won't have lost anything but our time."

"And Dean Korman is cool with this? We'll have the space to do this and the time?" I asked, still not as sold as the three of them obviously were.

Gunther nodded. "He's given me the green light. The only thing that will need to change is that one of your night classes, Win, will have to be taught by a TA or something. I have a guy, Declan Kunkle, who I can suggest. That's not a problem for you, is it?"

Alexander, Phoebe, and Gunther all looked at me in anticipation. If this project worked, it could change the world. It was a once-in-a-lifetime attempt at making history, and I knew it. But I also knew that it hadn't been done before because it was such a lofty and seemingly impossible task. If anyone could pull it off, though, it was the four of us.

"Not a problem. Let's give it a shot," I said.

***

The night was winding down. Gunther had suggested we stop at a bar a short drive from campus so we wouldn't see any students. We were celebrating the start of what would surely be a historic and meaningful collaboration in his words. I wasn't so certain that we would be successful, but I was happy for the opportunity to ditch the night class, work with Phoebe, and get to know her over drinks.

Alexander had to go for reasons he didn't specify but that I would come to learn were simply that he required so many hours of sleep each night and that he hated nightlife. Gunther was not as thrilled to leave, but he was Alexander's ride. As they stood up to go, Gunther groaned and asked, "Are you two heading out, too?"

Phoebe was seated beside me at the four-top, her hair glowing with more of an artificial warmth now that she was sitting beneath the industrial pendant light. She smiled and leaned her elbows on the table. "I could have a few more drinks."

I smiled in response and said, "I could too."

The corners of Gunther's mouth dropped. He looked pissed. It was in that moment that I realized that Gunther must have had some weird, unspoken thing for Phoebe too. It was a feeling that I carried through our entire project but that Phoebe always interpreted as flirty competition to see who could be the smartest, most valuable player for Dean Korman and later for the United States Government.

"Fine," Gunther conceded, "but don't stay out too late. Work starts tomorrow." He winked at us, perhaps in an attempt to recover from his obviously disgruntled attitude and still seem cool; but it was an odd gesture and as soon as he was out of earshot, Phoebe chuckled.

"He's an odd one," I said.

"Very," she agreed and took a sip of her mule. "But he's brilliant, so what can we expect?" She leaned back in her seat. "Although, you don't seem very odd yourself. How did Gunther find you?"

"We had some classes together in graduate school. What about you?"

"He scouted me. I was published in the Scientific Journal and he saw I was coming to teach at Harvard, so he reached out."

"So what do you think about the project? It's insane, but is it plausible insanity or no-fucking-way insanity?"

Her lips smiled around the thin straw from her drink. "I think it might be plausible insanity, but we will see, won't we?"

I wanted to kiss her lips but I knew that would be wildly inappropriate, so I swallowed my breath and said, "Well, you and I will be in charge of the chambers, so as long as I carry my weight, I'm sure you can make it work."

She tilted her head to nonverbally thank me before saying, "I'm sure you're brilliant, too." She flagged down our waiter and gestured for another drink before setting her empty copper cup in the space where Gunther had been sitting on the other side of her. "I'm so sorry, I'm terrible with names. What's your first name again?"

My heart sank. I would never stop hearing her name in my head again and mine was not even part of her--

"Winston," she blurted. "It's Winston, right?"

She remembered.

"Yeah, you can call me Win."

She smiled and her eyes lit up the room. "Hey, Win."

***

I pulled up to the park beside where Phoebe had said she'd parked earlier with Phoebe in my front seat, obviously a bit too tipsy to drive her car. "Let's sit on the bench for a little while longer," I suggested.

"Until I sober up some more? Good call. I don't want to leave my child motherless."

Child? I let the comment linger in the air until we were out of the car and making our way back to the bench where I'd waited earlier that day to meet her.

"So you have a kid?" I finally asked, unable to wait any longer.

She nodded. "A little girl. Her name is Curie."

"Curry? Like the food?"

"No, Curie, like Marie Curie. I wanted her to be named after a strong female in science, and that's what my husband Greg agreed to."

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut and she must have seen it on my face or heard the air leak from my lips, because she asked, "Didn't think I'd be married with a kid, did you?"

"No," I spoke softly. More softly than I'd intended.

"I've been busy," she joked. "My husband and I were high school sweethearts, and Curie wasn't planned. But we love her, and Greg and I make it work. I think that neither of us expected that we'd be the people we are today when we first got together, so that's always an adjustment. But it's okay."

Why is she telling me this? I wondered. "No need to explain," I told her. "I think it's badass that you have a kid."

Her head snapped to look at me and she smiled a big, genuine grin. "Really?"

"Hell yeah. I admire the fuck out of you for accomplishing all that you have while raising a kid. It's incredible. I used to have a snake plant in my apartment and it died. Do you know how hard it is to kill a snake plate?"

She laughed.

"But I did it," I continued, "I killed a snake plant, that's how terrible I am at doing anything other than what I'm paid to do."

She nudged me. "I'll give you some pointers," she joked.

I smiled, but all I could feel was the unreasonable sadness of losing someone I'd just met and never had. The future that I had envisioned, the bachelor one, had been edited in my heart to include Phoebe. We'd be on the cover of science magazines together, we'd be a power couple who went on exotic trips together and enjoyed each others' bodies. It felt attainable every time she laughed at something I'd said or smiled at me, and now I had to forget that future and live in the other one I'd made peace with before, though now it felt too lonely to bear.

Maybe if I kept her close, I thought, then I could keep her in that way. I could continue to love her from a short distance, even if I couldn't ever touch her or hold her or love her out loud. Or maybe I didn't actually love her and I was just stunned by her entire presence and wanted to soak it all in. Either way, I could work with her and be near her, and that could be enough.

She tilted her head the same way a dog does when it's confused. "What are you thinking?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

She squinted her eyes playfully as though she were trying to peer into my soul. "Okay, Dr. Winston Fowler, keep your secrets. I'll learn them soon enough."

I knew then that she never could if we wanted to remain work colleagues and friends. She could never know how I felt about her, how intensely I admired her, how quietly I loved everything about her.

But she would learn all of that, and we wouldn't remain work colleagues and friends, though it would take the world ending to be able to love Phoebe Clark out loud.