Page 73 of Intersect

“I have a motorcycle,” he offers. “Just to warn you though, I don’t have helmets.” I shrug and follow him, already imagining how I will explain this to Nick later:Yes, I know I said I wouldn’t jump but I did. And then I stole some clothes and got on the back of a motorcycle with a stranger who followed me out of a party. Oh, and—fun fact—we didn’t wear helmets. How ironic would it have been if I’d died of a head injury right after recovering from a braintumor?!

I doubt he’d find it as amusing as Ido.

I climb on the bike behind him, not allowing myself to dwell on the stupidity of this venture. He takes off so fast that I’m forced to cling—intentionally no doubt. My nose is pressed to the back of his shirt, which smells like weed. So this terrible idea just got worse, something I didn’t realize waspossible.

We arrive in Cleveland Park a few minutes later. If I’d realized just how close we were and just how poorly he drives, I’d have walked. “We still have all of our limbs,” I say with a shaky laugh as I climb off. “What a pleasantsurprise.”

“You want to get a drink before you go?” heasks.

I flash him a smile. “I’d love to but I’m pregnant, so I probablyshouldn’t.”

He’s still staring at me, jaw gaping, as I turn and walk into thestore.

* * *

Five minuteslater I’m walking back out with a note clutched in my hand. Customer Service lent me pen and paper. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to consult with them on how best to explain to someone that I’ve traveled back in time to warn her about her daughter’s brain tumor. As badly as I longed for subtlety—a casual mention of a case similar to Darcy’s, a newspaper clipping—there just wasn’t time. I went for candor instead and I pray it willwork:

Your daughter’s headaches are more serious than your doctor realizes. She needs an MRI ASAP. Go see Nick Reilly atGeorgetown.

I leave the store, my feet stinging as they slap against the rough pavement. I wish I’d stolen shoes, because God only knows what I could catch. I cross Wisconsin Avenue, narrowly avoiding broken glass, and turn onto Porter. Darcy’s house is two blocks down the road, a tiny Cape Cod. There’s a purple bike dumped in the yard, chalk fading on the sidewalk in front. It takes a second to realize the bike is Darcy’s. I’ve only known the version of her that exists in 2018—pale and bald and far too thin. I’d almost forgotten she wasn’t always that way.Please let this work, I pray, hand pressed to the mail slot for only a moment before I push the paperthrough.

One jobdone.

Now I’ve just got to figure out how to get home toNick.

* * *

I sitin the grass a few blocks away, hidden by darkness, attempting to focus. I think of our little house, our bed. I think of Nick mowing the lawn on a Saturday morning, shirtless. Small flecks of grass clinging to his skin. There’s a flutter in my belly but it’s cut off by a thought—Am I going to wind up back in the house on Saturday morning instead? Whatthen?

What if I can’t get home?Just considering the possibility is enough to make my stomach bottom out. My muscles go stiff, my heart starts to race. Like test anxiety, but with much higherstakes.

I close my eyes and try to focus again. When I open them, nothing has happened. I’m still sitting in the grass, in the oppressive summer heat, the screech of crickets almost painfullyloud.

Our house. Go back to our house. I try again. I picture Nick lying in bed, his profile sharp in the morning light. The sound of birds outside, the twitch of his mouth as he starts to wake, his hand curving around my hip the way it does, as if discovering a lost favorite toy. Even if I wind up there a few days off, it’ll be close enough.Go.

But the air remains still and stagnant, clinging to my skin like something tangible. The tightness in my chest threatens to strangle me.How long have I been gone? Is Nick back from work? Is heworried?

I try again, but all I can see is him—brooding, desperate. When he finds my clothes in a pile, the glass I was holding shattered, he’s going to panic. He’s going to sit there thinking how unlikely it is I will find my way back. Which introduces another terrible question:What if I get home too late?What if it’s two years from now and he’s with someoneelse?

I bury my head in my hands, realizing how right he was when he begged me not to jump. This is no longer about just me—it’s three of us he loses now if I can’t make it back. Andthenwhat??

I try to focus, I try to make myself jump again and again, ignoring my terror. Hours pass and nothing works. I try small steps, like I did this morning: five minutes later, a minute earlier, and my repeated failures make desperation tighten in my gut. If I knew my mother’s address in Georgetown I could ask her what to do. But I don’t. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so unprepared forit?

Daylight is now only an hour or two away. I pull my knees to my chest and press my forehead against them, thinking. I’m not sure how long I can walk around D.C. barefoot and filthy and penniless, before this whole thing gets worse. I could go see Caroline and pray last year’s Quinn doesn’t show up at her door at the same time, but it won’t solve the real problem. And how would I ever explain the problem to her anyway? I can’t tell her the truth. I don’t remember how to time travel, but some sort of ancient knowledge now rests in my gut—telling people you’re not related to has consequences. Terrifying ones. I would die before I’d do that toher.

The inky black of the sky has begun to soften to the east. Daylight right around the corner. I just wish I could rest. I wish I could lean on Nick for a minute, feel his chin against the top of my head while he tells me things will be fine, that he’s going to fix this somehow. Nick is my wall—but I can’t lean on a wall that hasn’t been builtyet.

Or canI?

Nick is here, in D.C., newly back from London. I can’t ask him to hold me, to reassure me, but it might be enough just to see him. He’s religious about his morning swim, so I know where he’ll be. It’s not without risks—if he meets me now as a barefoot, disheveled girl wearing too few clothes, it will change things when we meet later on. He won’t think of me as someone intriguing who knows way more than she should. I might instead become the creepy girl who lurked outside the Georgetown pool the summer before, looking like she was coming off a bender atCoachella.

But I need to see him, so it’s a risk I’ll have totake.

I break into a run, down the long hill to Georgetown. Past the cathedral, past the stores, until I’m sprinting through the very neighborhood where we house hunted a few weeks ago. It’s light outside when I finally arrive on campus, winded and sweating. I stake out my spot in the parking lot beside the gym, and collapse on the curb, debating with myself about what I’ll do when I see him.Could I tell him? Would it changethings?

For the next fifteen minutes, I wait. My heart leaps each time I see a car swing into the lot, and plummets when, again and again, that car is not Nick’s. He should be here by now, and the idea that today might be the day he skipped makes me long to weep, which I’m on the cusp of doing at the precise moment his car pulls into thelot.

He stops about twenty yards away from where I sit. I watch as he steps out, and it’s just sohim: his preoccupation, the slight frown on his face, the morning stubble, the way he slings his bag over his shoulder. It’s so perfectly, absolutely him that I can’t stay where Iam.

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