Sylvie didn’t respond.
“Is she not up to much?” Paul asked.
“She’s doing her best. I’m not sure why the Monterey team chose her as a chaperone, to be honest. She’s a brilliant scientist. But she’s a scientist.”
Ouch. She usually loved Sylvie’s style of straightforward communication, but she had really gotten right to the point there. Did she not think that Ade was good enough for this job? Sylvie’s doubt twisted in Ade’s chest. She shrugged her backpack and turned, scraping the wall.
“Ade?” Sylvie appeared at the open door. “What are you doing here?”
Ade blinked, working out which questions were more important: the thousand firing inside her mind or the one Sylvie had asked aloud.
“Ade? Are you with us?”
“I came back to support Madison,” Ade said, unable to look Sylvie in the eye. “I guess I’m doing more harm than good.”
“Not at all. Please come inside.” Sylvie’s face fell, and she raised her eyebrows in Paul’s direction. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Of course,” he said, approaching the door. “Let me have that incident report by five, please—from both of you.”
Sylvie collapsed at her desk and put her face in her hands while Ade hovered at the edge of the room, a torrent of questions racing through her tired brain. What was the report Paul needed? And what did she have to do with it?
“You heard that, didn’t you?” Sylvie asked, finally looking up.
“I did.”
“I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to highlight to Paul that international exchanges need resourcing properly. You can’t do it on a shoestring.”
“Is that what I am?” Ade asked, not understanding the analogy.
“No, you’re not a shoestring. But you’re not…” Sylvie sighed deeply, “you’re not that experienced in supervising students or leadership. They sent you over here with a mixed bag of emotionally fragile youngsters and left you to it.”
“I have you,” said Ade, her stomach suddenly hollow with worry.
“But that’s just it. This isn’t my day job. I’m leading a completely different discipline. It’s just not okay that we’ve both been left to flounder without the right support in place.”
“But you said I wasn’t up to the job.”
“That’s not what I said. You can remember what I said, word for word. I was suggesting to Paul that he’d fallen short of his responsibilities, not you.”
Confused, Ade recalled what she’d overhead. Maybe Sylvie was right, but it hurt thinking she was inadequate. Of all the things she craved, it was Sylvie’s approval. Not her dad’s, not Stephanie’s; it was Sylvie she wanted to impress. “I should go. I wanted to get to Madison.”
“Wait, please.” Sylvie rose with her arms outstretched. “I’m so glad you’re home. We need to celebrate your birthday.”
Ade didn’t feel much like celebrating. “Doesn’t seem right.”
Sylvie briefly cast her gaze to the floor. “I really missed you.”
Ade shuffled on the spot. She’d missed Sylvie like nothing ever before, but the sting of her comments hadn’t faded. If she could talk her down so casually, what else was she thinking? Was this the reason she hadn’t wanted to take their relationship so seriously? Because she wasn’t really that into someone like Ade? “I missed you too. I really did.”
“Will you come to my apartment when you’re finished at Madison’s?”
“I’ll see how late it is.” Ade turned and left.
It was petty, but she couldn’t just shrug off the criticism. Sylvie had a point: she wasn’t qualified, and this job was a push way out of her comfort zone. The Monterey faculty knew it. So why did it hurt so much that Sylvie held up that mirror? Had she expected Sylvieto see the best in her, to see her potential? She couldn’t even see it herself. How could Sylvie see past her faults when they were so glaringly obvious to everyone else? This whole trip had started as a chance to prove to everyone that she was more than just a lab rat. But now, she’d just confirmed all their assumptions. And that hurt. But the tiny tear in her relationship with Sylvie hurt even more.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“I fucked up, Isa.”Sylvie poured another glass of wine.
