Altitude Is My Only Alibi

The night before my dossier for a senior research fellowship was due, my boyfriend secretly submitted my name for a two-year deployment to the Cerro Chajnantor outposta brutal, isolated observatory seventeen thousand feet up in the Andes.

When I confronted him, asking why he would do such a thing, he barely looked up from his phone.

"Mia was using my laptop yesterday," he said casually. "She must have clicked it by accident. It was just a harmless little joke."

"A joke? Theres a twenty-four-hour secondary confirmation. All you had to do was click 'Decline'."

Mia. Mia Warren.

She was the new first-year grad student Carter had taken under his wing this semester. Young, pretty, and constantly hovering around him with wide, adoring eyes.

He knew exactly how the system worked. If a deployment application wasn't explicitly declined within twenty-four hours, it automatically bypassed the grace period and went straight to the approval board.

I was going to be sent to a frozen wasteland, completely cut off from the world, my academic momentum entirely derailed for two years.

To him, my future, my relentless years of grinding, were just material for a cute little prank.

The chill that spread through my chest was instantaneous. It didn't take an hour; it took a single second for my heart to turn to ice.

I didn't say another word to him. I just logged into the portal and hit Confirm.

Days later, when Carter saw the finalized deployment orders on my desk, the casual arrogance drained from his face. Panic set in.

"Thats the high-altitude outpost! Its practically a death sentence for your research right now! There was a twenty-four-hour windowwhy didnt you decline it?"

When the automated email pinged in my inbox, confirming my deployment to the high-altitude observation station, I froze.

Then, a quiet, white-hot fury ignited in my blood.

Yesterday, I had given Carter my login specifically so he could submit the final paperwork for my promotion to Senior Research Fellow.

My phone buzzed against the desk. A text from a colleague in HR.

Hey Nora, did you hit the wrong button on the portal? Youre queued for the extreme-altitude mission. You have a 24-hour cooling-off period to retract it.

Carter and I had been together for seven years. We were the golden couple of the astrophysics institute. Just three months ago, we had returned from a prestigious exchange program in Europe. Everyone in our circle knew we were planning a wedding next year. We had been looking at condos in Pasadena.

My hands were shaking as I dialed his number.

"I just got a deployment confirmation for the Cerro Chajnantor outpost. Why?"

His voice came through the speaker, lazy and entirely unbothered.

"Oh, that. Yesterday Mia came into my office to go over some data sets, and she saw I was compiling your files. She made a comment about how the high-altitude site is desperate for experts in galactic evolution, so she submitted your name as a joke."

He paused, his tone as light as if we were discussing what to order for lunch.

"Shes just a first-year. She has this romanticized view of extreme-environment astronomy. She was just playing around, Nora."

"There is a twenty-four-hour retraction window. Why didn't you cancel it?"

Mia Warren. The fast-tracked prodigy Carter had recruited this year.

She was fresh-faced, overly sweet, and whenever she looked at Carter, her eyes held an undisguised, breathless hero-worship.

Carter knew the protocol better than anyone. He knew that if the application wasn't manually retracted within twenty-four hours, it entered the formal audit process.

Once approved, a deployment to that specific Andean outpost meant a minimum of two years. No reliable internet. Frequent power grid failures. A complete and utter severing from the cutting edge of academic research.

"If I hadn't checked my email in time, this transfer would be legally binding! She used my credentials without my consent, Carter. Thats a massive breach of protocol." My throat felt tight, the words scraping out.

I heard Carter sigh through the receiver, the sound thick with irritation. "God, Nora, since when did you become so uptight?"

"It was a joke. Mia was going to tell you today anyway. Even if you missed the email, she would have reminded you by tomorrow at the latest."

"You want to report her to the ethics board? Fine, report me too. Im the one who gave her access to the terminal."

He hung up.

I stood by the window in the institute's hallway, staring out at the empty, pre-dawn streets of the city.

Suddenly, the last seven years felt like looking at a stranger through a distorted lens.

All I had to do was click the Decline button at the bottom of the email. One click, and it would be over.

But instead, I opened the observatorys database.

I started downloading the high-altitude acclimatization guide, the extreme-cold equipment manuals, the winter survival protocols.

My finger hovered over the Decline button. Slowly, deliberately, I moved the mouse away.

A knock at the door of the duty room pulled me back. "Dr. Jackson? Someone's looking for you downstairs."

I found Mia standing in the main lobby, right in front of the showcase of our recent academic posters. She was holding two steaming cups of coffee, and when she saw me, her face broke into a radiant, sunny smile.

"Dr. Jackson!"

She offered me one of the cups. "I just got off the phone with Dr. Cole. He's taking the team up to the Mount Lemmon observatory this weekend. Do you think it would be okay if I tagged along?"

Her eyes were wide and clear, her tone earnest, as if she were genuinely seeking my blessing.

It had been like this for three months. Ever since she joined Carters lab, she had mastered the art of wearing the most innocent expression while doing the most provocative things.

I took the coffee but didn't drink it. "What do you think?"

Mia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking down.

"I don't know... Dr. Cole said this observation run is critical. But I was worried you might misunderstand. I know you're usually his partner for these things..."

"Then don't go."

She blinked, stunned.

"You came to ask for my opinion, right?" I set the coffee down on the nearest table. "My opinion is that you shouldn't go."

The color drained from Mia's face. Before she could formulate a response, the elevator doors chimed open.

Carter stepped out. When he saw us, a deep crease formed between his brows.

"Mia, I told you to wait in the car. What are you doing up here?"

"I just wanted to ask Dr. Jackson if it was okay... I was so afraid she'd be upset."

Mias voice dipped, lacing the perfect amount of vulnerability and hurt into her words.

Carter walked over and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Don't be silly. Why would you need to ask her? I don't need anyone's permission to bring my own grad student on a trip."

He turned his gaze to me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and impatience. "Look at how much she cares about your feelings, Nora. And you? Are you really going to hold a grudge over that little deployment joke?"

I pointed a finger at Mia, my voice deadly quiet but vibrating with rage. "She cares about my feelings? For the last three months, shes been bringing you breakfast, leaving sticky notes on your desk right in front of me, fighting to sit next to you in every seminar, and posting those ambiguous, cozy photos of the two of you on her Instagram Story. Who exactly is she performing for?"

"I am your girlfriend! Shes trying to edge me out right to my face!"

"Every day its Dr. Cole this and Dr. Cole that. It makes me sick."

"To my face, I'm Dr. Jackson, but behind my back, shes praying I disappear so she can monopolize all your academic resources. Isn't that right?"

Mia went completely pale.

Carter stared at me as if I were a creature he didn't recognize.

"Have you heard enough of yourself, Nora? When did you become so bitter and paranoid?"

"Mia is in my lab! It is my job to mentor her! Why is your mind so entirely in the gutter that you have to twist a perfectly normal mentor-student relationship into something dirty?"

"Mia is generous enough not to hold this against you. Apologize to her right now, and we can put this whole ugly mess behind us."

A sharp, humorless laugh escaped my throat. "Are you insane? Apologize to this manipulative little girl? Not a chance in hell."

Carters lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

"Nora. Do not push my bottom line."

Bottom line.

The phrase hit me like a physical blow. Seven years ago, at the Mauna Kea summit, a freak blizzard had nearly torn the roof off our observation dome.

He had held me in the freezing dark, his voice muffled against my hair. I'll protect you for the rest of my life, Nora. You are my bottom line.

That line didn't belong to me anymore.

"Then let's break up," I said.

Carter let out a cold, dismissive scoff. "Fine. We're done. Just don't call me crying in the middle of the night when you realize what you threw away."

He turned and guided Mia toward the doors.

As they walked away, I heard him murmur to her, "Just ignore her. You're coming with me this weekend."

Back in my office, the glow of my monitor cut through the dim room.

The countdown timer for retracting the deployment application read three hours.

I opened a new tab and started pulling up the latest operational reports from the Andes station.

Just last week, the extreme cold had caused a catastrophic equipment failure. Two engineers had been forced to hike six miles through a whiteout to reach a communication relay. Another outpost had to abandon half their research parameters because supply drops were delayed by storms.

But it was also true that the air up there was thinner, the atmosphere utterly devoid of light pollution. It offered the most pristine view of the cosmos on the planet. The world's top astrophysicists rotated through that site.

If I survived two years there, the data I could collect would guarantee me a tenured professorship anywhere I wanted upon my return.

Suddenly, it didn't seem like a punishment at all.

For years, I had molded my career to fit Carters timeline. I had wanted stability. I had turned down three different high-altitude fellowships just to stay close to him, to build a life together.

I didn't have to shrink myself anymore.

I closed the browser. My phone lit up with a text from my best friend, Sarah.

NORA! I just saw the physics department's group chat. Someone posted a photo of Carter and Mia at the post-seminar drinks. They are practically sitting in each other's laps!

She attached a screenshot. The lighting in the bar was dim, but it was impossible to miss. Carter was sitting in the center of a booth, Mia pressed right up against his side.

Someone had commented under the photo: Dr. Cole, you lost the bet! The penalty is hugging the woman closest to you for thirty seconds!

In the accompanying short video, amidst the cheers and wolf-whistles, Carter turned and naturally wrapped his arms around Mia, pulling her in.

My heart seized for a fraction of a second, and then, mercifully, it went numb.

I texted Sarah back: I know.

Then I reached for an empty cardboard box and began packing the reference books I would need for the mountains.

I had less than a month before departure.

Two weeks later, an administrative assistant from Carters lab dropped an elegant invitation on my desk.

"Dr. Cole is hosting his grant closure banquet tomorrow night at the faculty club. He specifically asked that you attend."

"I don't have time."

The assistant looked taken aback. "But Dr. Jackson... you co-authored half the papers on this grant."

"I have other plans."

She offered a polite, strained smile. "You get a plus-one. Dr. Cole made a point of saying he really hopes to see you there."

A few junior researchers at the nearby desks glanced over.

I took the envelope.

The night of the banquet, Mia was stationed at the entrance of the dining hall, wearing a blush-pink cocktail dress and clutching a framed 'Excellence in Research' certificate.

When she saw me, her eyes lit up, and she hurried over.

"Nora! You made it. Today was my formal thesis proposal defense. I was worried it wouldn't be much of a celebration on its own, so I begged Dr. Cole to combine my little party with his big grant dinner."

I gave her a curt nod. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson!" Her smile was blinding. "We saved a seat for you at the head table."

I ignored her and found an empty chair at a table in the far corner of the room.

It didn't take long for Carter to find me. He looked sharp in a tailored charcoal suit, his jaw tight.

"Nora. Move to the head table. What are you doing hiding back here?"

"It's quieter."

Carter took a deep breath, reining in his temper. "I let you have your space and give me the silent treatment for two weeks. Haven't you thrown a big enough tantrum?"

"We have sat next to each other at every single celebratory dinner for the last seven years. Are you really going to nuke this over a deployment application that you already canceled?"

People at the adjacent tables were starting to stare.

An older professor we both respected stepped in to smooth things over. "Come on, Nora. Come sit with us. The chair has been empty all night."

Reluctantly, I moved to the main table.

There was an empty seat next to Carter.

Before I could pull it out, Mia glided over, sat down effortlessly, and turned to Carter.

"Dr. Cole, I was hoping we could finalize the itinerary for the Astronomy Society summit next month. Now that my proposal is approved, you promised you'd introduce me to the big names."

She turned her doe eyes toward me. "Dr. Jackson, you're coming too, right? The three of us could go together."

I picked up my water glass.

Just last year, Carter had promised that the next time the international summit rolled around, he was taking me.

You need to network with the heavy hitters, he had said, straightening my lanyard in a hotel lobby. Let the people who say you only get published because of me see what a powerhouse you are on your own.

My heart had fluttered then. I had felt so incredibly seen.

Now, the coldness in my chest was just as real as that love had been.

"The two of you should go," I said smoothly. "I don't have the time."

Halfway through the dinner, I slipped out to the terrace to get some air.

Carter followed me out, his hand wrapping around my wrist. His palms were roughcalluses built up from years of handling heavy equipment in the cold.

"Nora, what exactly is your endgame here?"

"Exactly what I said." I pulled my arm from his grip.

He let out a frustrated, biting laugh. "How long are you going to hold this over my head? Is this still about the deployment?"

"I talked to Mia. She swore to me she was going to remind you! Even if you never checked your inbox, she would have told you the next day!"

I nodded slowly. "Then I suppose I owe her a thank you."

"Stop talking to me in that tone." He stepped closer, his voice dropping into a demanding register. "You are coming to the summit with me next month. I promised you I'd take you, and I am keeping my word."

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and strode back inside, the hem of his suit jacket slicing through the cool night air.

The morning of the summit, at 8:00 AM, I stood by the window of my apartment, looking down at the street.

Carters SUV was idling at the curb. Mia was leaning against the passenger side door, periodically glancing up toward my floor.

I pulled the blinds shut.

My phone vibrated. A text from Carter: Come down. This is your last chance.

I typed back: I'm packing. I'm not going.

Youre prioritizing packing over the most important networking event of the year? If you don't come today, you're going to regret it.

He drove off with Mia.

That afternoon, he posted three times on Instagram.

Every single post featured Mia.

Taking the newest addition to the lab to see how the titans of the field operate. The absolute wonder in her eyes reminds me of the early days.

The kid got overwhelmed after getting praised by Dr. Sterling.

Summit wrap-up photo. The new blood needs the exposure. The future belongs to them.

The comments from our mutual colleagues started rolling in immediately.

Is Dr. Cole acting as a mentor or a boyfriend here? So attentive!

Wheres Nora? Did the golden duo finally split?

Mia is definitely talented. Carter always had an eye for potential.

Sarah screenshotted the whole thread and sent it to me, absolutely fuming.

This little bitch is doing this on purpose! You guys might not be married, but everyone in the department knows youve been together for seven years. This is disgusting!

She is literally stealing your life in broad daylight.

Are you seriously not going to do anything?

Was it disgusting?

No.

It was just intensely pathetic. But right on the heels of that thought came a massive, sweeping sense of relief.

It only took one first-year grad student to show me exactly what seven years of devotion were worth. The more I had prioritized him, the more entitled he felt to my sacrifices.

The retraction deadline for the Andes deployment was gone. There was no undoing it now.

I threw myself into the preparations.

Surviving at seventeen thousand feet required rigorous work. I stocked up on Diamox for altitude sickness, specialized thermal gear, heavy-duty vitamin supplements, and spent my weekends at the extreme-environment survival training center.

Oddly enough, once I embraced the reality of it, I felt like I was breathing fresh air for the first time in years.

A few days before my flight, I met Sarah for dinner.

I chose a restaurant known for incredibly dense, caloric, heavily spiced stewssomething close to the survival rations Id be eating on the mountain.

Sarah looked at me like I was an alien. "Carters Instagram is a public shrine to Mia right now, and you have the appetite to try out new cuisines?"

"Why shouldn't I?" I smiled, taking a bite.

Work was work, and love was love. For years, I had coddled Carters ego and accommodated his moods, but this time, he had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

The rich, heavy spices and the thick, warming broth were unexpectedly comforting.

Walking back to my apartment, I actually found myself humming.

Sarah linked her arm through mine, studying my face. "Are you really over it? Because from what I've seen online, Carter and Mia have practically been glued together since they got back from the summit."

I didn't answer.

Our path took us past the old brick buildings of our alma mater. I told Sarah Id catch up with her later and walked alone toward the ivy-covered physics building.

The rooftop observatory here was where Carter and I first met.

I had been a terrified first-year master's student; he was already the youngest rising star in the department.

That night, my advisor had brutally dressed me down in front of the whole lab for miscalibrating a telescope, and I had hidden up here to cry.

He found me, gently guided me to the edge of the roof, and pointed down at the sprawling, glittering lights of the city.

Look down there, he had said. One messed-up data set. In the grand scheme of the universe, what does it really matter?

From a weeping grad student, I grew into his most trusted co-investigator.

We had spent countless nights on this very roof, debating galactic evolution, arguing over observation models, celebrating our breakthroughs.

Before every major field deployment, we came here.

Carter used to lean against the railing, staring at the distant silhouette of the university's main telescope dome.

Nora, the speed at which youre progressing is starting to make me sweat, hed say.

I would look at his profile in the moonlight and laugh. Then youd better keep running, Dr. Cole. Don't let me leave you in the dust.

In our third year together, at the Mauna Kea observatory, a piece of hardware I was responsible for failed, corrupting three days' worth of irreplaceable data.

The review board sat in a semicircle, ready to tear me apart and ship me back to the mainland in disgrace.

Carter had stood up, physically placing himself between me and the board.

I am the lead investigator on this project, he told them. I take full responsibility. I signed off on Dr. Jacksons calibration protocols. If anyone is getting penalized, its me.

He absorbed the entirety of the academic fallout and volunteered to stay an extra month in the freezing isolation of the summit to re-run the numbers.

That was the night we crossed the line from colleagues to lovers.

Now, with exactly three days left until my flight, the final approval for my deployment cleared my inbox.

The elevator hummed as I rode it back down to the street.

My phone buzzed. Sarah: Sent you the final checklist for your gear. Take care of yourself out there.

I will, I replied.

Stepping out of the main gates of the university, an alert from the Andes station flashed on my screen.

Extreme wind warning. Ambient temperature -30F. Mandatory equipment checks required every two hours.

Two years.

Maybe more.

But this time, I was walking into the freezing dark because I chose to.

The wind on the rooftop had been biting, whipping the hem of my coat around my legs.

I leaned against the brick parapet, watching the city breathe below me. In the distance, the university telescope dome stood resolute; closer by, the lights in the apartment windows blinked out one by one.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was my younger sister, Emma.

"Nora..."

Her voice was trembling so violently I could barely understand her. "Mom fell. She fell down the basement stairs. Her tibia is shattered, and she broke three ribs... one of them punctured her lung. Theyre rushing her into emergency surgery right now. The doctor said with the operation and the ICU deductibles... they need a deposit of forty thousand dollars immediately."

My throat locked up.

My mother had raised Emma and me on a threadbare pension. Lately, she had been complaining about a dull ache in her leg, but whenever I begged her to see a specialist, she just brushed it off. Just getting old, sweetie. A heating pad will fix it.

"How much do we have to put down right now?"

"They need forty thousand to clear the major surgical holds, but the rehab is going to cost way more..."

I hung up the phone, gripping the cold iron railing until my knuckles turned white.

I made decent money, but two years ago, I had donated heavily to the institute's new telescope fund. Whatever was left of my paycheck had been dumped into the down payment for the condo Carter and I were supposed to buy.

I pulled up my banking app. Available balance: $24,000.

I scrolled through my contacts and called Carter. It went to voicemail. I called again. Four times. Not a single answer.

Throughout our seven-year relationship, he had always made significantly more money than me, but we kept our finances fiercely independent. I paid the down payment on the condo; he was supposed to cover the renovations.

When he didn't pick up, I swallowed my pride and started calling my old mentors and colleagues. Within an hour, I had managed to borrow another $6,000.

I was still 0-00,000 short.

I rushed back to my apartment at 2:00 AM. While waiting for an Uber to the hospital, I opened Instagram.

Mia had just posted a new Story.

Added to Close Friends.

The photo was dimly lit, but the background was unmistakable. It was the heavy mahogany desk in Carters home office. Sitting perfectly centered on the wood was a dark blue velvet box. Resting inside was a Montblanc fountain pen, the iconic white star logo gleaming under the desk lamp.

The caption read: How incredibly lucky I am to have a mentor who gives everything to his students. Dr. Cole said this is a reward for finishing my first independent data set, and the best birthday present ever. I promise to work twice as hard to be worthy of this trust!

The location tag was set to Carter's apartment complex.

The timestamp said it had been posted three hours ago.

I stared at the pen. I remembered it perfectly. We had seen it at a luxury academic trade show last year.

Carter had lingered over the glass case for ten minutes, murmuring, When I land that Department of Energy grant, Im buying this for myself.

The price tag was $3,500. More than my entire monthly take-home pay.

My stomach violently heaved.

Finally, I dialed Sarahs number.

She answered, her voice groggy but immediately shifting to alert when she heard my breathing. "How much are you short?"

"Ten thousand."

"Send me the hospital's billing portal link. I'll cover it. Pay me back whenever. You're about to leave the country anyway."

"Just focus on your mom, Nora. We'll figure the rest out."

Carter didn't call me back until noon the next day.

I could hear the dull roar of an airport terminal in the background. He was flying to Chicago for an emergency symposium.

"What happened last night? My phone died."

"Mias first paper got accepted by a peer-reviewed journal, so we had a little impromptu celebration."

I sat in the hospital cafeteria, staring at the blurry black-and-white image of my mother's punctured lung on my tablet.

"Thats an expensive pen to give a student, isn't it?"

Silence fell over the line. The terminal noise seemed to fade.

"Nora, are you seriously policing how I motivate my own grad students now?"

"Mia getting published in a core journal in her first year breaks every record our lab has. As her advisor, buying her a pen to encourage her to stay in researchhow is that a crime?"

Encouraging her was fine.

Buying a gift was fine.

But doing it in the middle of the night, in his apartment, gifting her the exact luxury item he had sworn to buy for himself to mark his own greatest triumph? That was not fine.

I hung up.

A moment later, a text from Carter popped up.

Did you get the deployment paperwork sorted out with HR?

None of your business, I typed back.

I wasn't going to tell him that I was already locked in. Once the final confirmation was stamped for the high-altitude post, only a catastrophic medical emergency could reverse it.

Carter sent a voice memo, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "I know you're just going to cancel it at the last second anyway. Weve been partners for seven years. A place like that will break you. Stop throwing a tantrum. Do you really think you can survive in this field without me?"

"You need to formally apologize to Mia. If you don't, you can handle your own liaisons with the international committee. Im not sticking my neck out to introduce you to the board."

We had an agreement.

He was going to use his established network to introduce me to the titans of cosmology at the end of the year. I could build the connections myself, eventually, but having him vouch for me would have shaved five years off the process.

It didn't matter anymore. I wasn't going to be here anyway.

I opened his contact card, blocked his personal number, blocked his work number, and routed his email to the trash.

I was going to the mountains.