A Break From Reality

Keeley had a lot to think about on the bus ride down to Maryland. She brought a book to read but kept putting it down and picking it back up. She couldn't concentrate. Her mind kept going back to Aaron's offer.

At minimum, it would cost him several hundred thousand dollars to convince a lab to take her on and continue her research where she left it off. She was about to finish her last trial during the first couple weeks of the semester. All that would be left after that was about 100 pages of writing it up.

It was viable research—the gene therapy had been effective in the mice—but was it really worth it to do all of that for her?

She knew this was largely guilt-motivated. Aaron wanted her to be happy and live her dreams because she hadn't been able to do it before. She knew his other motivation as well; he wanted to keep her by his side.