Page 55 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“What’s the point?” Despair filled every line of her body. “So I find out which bubble-within-a-bubble she’s at. How does that help me?”

“It gets you a step closer to knowing where she lives. Even better, it gives you a way to contact her. You could leave her a note.”

“Saying what?Beware the twenty-third of June?If someone tries to give you an award, don’t accept it?” Her face was taut with misery. “I don’t have enough details to be specific. And a vague note’s worse than nothing. It might make her do anything. Send her off on a whole new path.”

Her words sank through him, seeding an awful realisation in his gut. “It’s worse than that.”

She looked at him in alarm. “What do you mean?”

“See this award—what if it’s something she has to put herself in the running for? You could give her the idea. Send her on the path that leads to her death.” He knew he should stop talking, but the thought was unfurling in his mind and he had to follow where it was leading. “Maybe what you do when you come back here—maybe it doesn’t stop the accident. Maybe it causes it.”

The horror in her face was too much. “Why would you say that?”

He stepped back. “I don’t know, okay? It just occurred to me.”

“It occurred to you. So of course you had to share it, because you’re Joseph Greene, and every random thought you have is gold. What am I even supposed to do with that?” Her eyes fixed him with fury. “You’re Mr. Destiny, aren’t you. Mr. Meant to Be. According to you, it’s going to happen no matter what I do. I leave her a note, she dies. I don’t leave her a note, she dies. I tear the universe apart with my bare hands and put it back together, it doesn’t fucking matter. She still dies.”

“Esi—” he began, reaching for her, but she drew away.

“The way you think time works,” she said, her voice shaking. “I hate it.”

He gazed at her, miserable, aware somewhere in the depths of his being that he was beginning to hate it too. “I’m just saying. Maybe trying to fix yourself isn’t the answer.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to listen to you?” she lashed out. “You think sleeping with one out-of-your-league woman is going to turn you into a version of yourself you actually want to be?”

Her words didn’t hurt right away. He felt a lurch in his stomach, a premonition of pain to come. “Wow,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

The porter was eyeing them over his newspaper. Joe touched Esi’s arm—she shied away—and followed her outside. Snow was falling, turning to slush the instant it hit the cobbles. “Look. I meant what I said. We can go college-to-college, right now. You can decide once we find her—”

“Wearen’t doing anything. I told you. I don’t want your help.” She emphasised each word with her fist in her palm. “Don’t you get it? I can’t do this. I can’t just—stand here and talk to you like it’s normal, like I’m not aching, like I’m not dying inside.” Her face was wild with an emotion he couldn’t read. “I’ve spent enough of my life wanting something I can’t have.”

He had a beating awareness, her face close to his, of what she meant. There was a moment, trembling and fragile as a bubble, where he could have said something. But his future lay heavy on his tongue, and he stayed silent.

She caught her breath. “I wish I’d never met you,” she said, and walked away.

Chapter Nineteen

Mr. Destiny, aren’t you. Mr. Meant to Be.The words followed him through the next two weeks, as he sat under Dr. Lewis’s glare in two more disastrous supervisions, as he walked the streets with an ache under his ribs and a gaggle of time travellers following behind him like starstruck ducklings. He and Diana met up for two more rehearsals. He was starting to wonder if they were overpreparing for what was, after all, a recital of a twenty-two-line poem. A voice like Esi’s murmured,She’s just using the rehearsals as an excuse to spend more time with you.The thought should have excited him: as the time ticked down towards Valentine’s Day, the moment he had been longing for drew closer. But instead, he found himself resenting it. Why should they have to fall in love to a deadline? Why couldn’t they come together spontaneously, at their own pace, like normal people?

“Joseph.” He looked up. They were at the end of another rehearsal, and Diana was watching him with soft concern. “What are you thinking about, my love?”

My love.She had started calling him that, with no apparent irony. He tried not to read too much into it: she probably did the same with all her actor friends.My sweet, my darling, my dear heart’s beloved.

She touched his shoulder. “Tell me.”

There was a question in her eyes, one he couldn’t quite translate.And this?said the narrator uncertainly.Was this the moment when Joseph Greene and Diana Dartnell would—He interrupted. “Are we maybe overdoing it with all these rehearsals? It’s just a poem.”

She gave him a look of affronted surprise. “On the contrary. I don’t think it’s possible to overdo it. Your poem is perfect, and it deserves a perfect performance.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Let’s meet up again on the thirteenth, shall we? Last chance to get it together.”

She was more right than she knew: that final rehearsal had to be when it would happen. He tried to look forward to it, but it felt less like anticipating a date and more like being an actor in some strange pantomime. They would both perform their parts, they would kiss when the stage directions told them to, and the future would play itself out.

He left Whewell’s Court. Vera stood alone and tabardless across the street, watching him with narrow concentration. He ignored her and took out his phone, looking in vain for a text from Esi. After their disastrous conversation, he had sent her a message to apologise, but she still hadn’t replied. He was still weighing up whether he should try again when he arrived in front of his door and found a box.

It sat at an awkward angle in the hallway, as if it had been dropped there by someone in a hurry. More alarmingly, it was emitting scuffling sounds.

Cautiously, he opened it. Inside was a tiny kitten, looking up at him out of round blue eyes.

Under the kitten was a folded note with his name on. He carefully lifted the kitten’s paw to extract it.

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