Page 72 of Love and Other Paradoxes

She didn’t flinch. “You weren’t wrong,” she said quietly. “I did kind of explode your life.”

“I did most of the exploding. You just lit the fuse.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “And you weren’t wrong either. The future in the book—I was acting like it was mine by right. But it never was. I could lose it tomorrow. I could have already lost it.” He imagined going back to college and finding his pigeonhole empty, the spot across the street abandoned. Terror coursed through his veins.

Esi was watching him with fond frustration. “You’re still stuck on that book. Like your whole future’s getting marked against it. But whatever comes next, it’s brand-new. A load of blank pages. What you end up writing on them—it won’t be the same.” She shrugged. “It might even be better.”

He stared past her at the trees on the riverbank, new leaves rustling in the wind. “Huh. I didn’t think about that.”

She smiled. “Yeah, well. Creating a better future is sort of my whole thing.”

A better future without you in it. He focused on her, as if his attention could hold her to the here and now. “How’s that going?”

“I’ve been following my mum. Every chance I get. And I get a lot of chances.” Her brow furrowed. “It’s weird. She was so hard to find before. But whatever she was hiding from, it’s like she’s not afraid of it any more.” Her expression turned curious. “How did you find her?”

“Funny story. She’s Diana’s neighbour.”

Her eyes widened. “Come on. That makes it even weirder that she said she didn’t recognise her.”

He grimaced. “I don’t want to speak ill of my once and future muse, but—given the kind of person she is, it’s really not that weird.”

She smiled reluctantly. “It’s actually kind of hilarious. That whole time you were rehearsing, she was literally next door.”

“I know. I’m such an idiot. I even used to hear her...” He stared at her, finally making the connection. “That tune you hum sometimes. I heard her singing it. She’d been crying, just before. It was like she was trying to make herself feel better.”

She shook her head in wonder, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s a Twi song, from Ghana. Nana used to sing it to her, and my mum sang it to me and my sisters. I sing it to myself whenever I need to calm down. I can’t believe she did...” She paused, revising her thought with a trembling smile. “I can’t believe she does the same.”

He tried to put himself where she was, to conjure the strange, time-piercing depth of what she must be feeling, but his imagination couldn’t grasp it. “What’s it like, seeing her?”

A troubled look crossed her face. “It’s not easy. Sometimes I see what a hard time she’s having, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. But—she has fun too.” A smile broke through. “One time, I was waiting outside Whewell’s Court, and she and her friends came out all dressed up in old-timey gowns. And she’s part of a club that meets up to watch Nollywood movies. I snuck in the week they watchedKeeping Faith.”

He smiled, caught up in her enthusiasm. “Is that a good one?”

“The best. I must have watched that tape a hundred timesgrowing up. Genevieve Nnaji and Richard Mofe-Damijo have such amazing chemistry. The way they look at each other, the way they make each other laugh...” She met his eyes and looked away, suddenly bashful. “Anyway. I just lurked in the back. I wish I could have sat and watched it with her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I can’t risk her seeing me.” She gave him a look. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re not going to change my mind.”

He adopted an innocent expression. “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes saw right through to his heart. “I read your poem, Joe.”

He felt a wave of crushing embarrassment. He had laid himself bare for her, more vulnerable than when she had walked in on him naked in his bedroom. “Oh God. I’m sorry I wrote a poem. I know you hate my poetry. And I didn’t want to make it about me, I just—I wanted to tell you, and the only way I knew how to do that was—”

“I loved it,” she said simply. “The way you see me—I...” She seemed to run out of words. She just looked at him, her gaze soft, her lips parted.

He sensed a chance to say something, to finish the conversation he’d meant to have with her on that terrible Valentine’s night. But he recognised now the selfishness of the impulse that had driven him there. It wouldn’t have been fair, to offer her a conditional fragment of his future; any more than it would have been fair of her to say yes, when the person saying it wouldn’t exist for much longer.

She seemed to recognise the same truth at the same time. Shedashed a tear away, her voice shaking. “Anyway. It was good. Way better than Classic Joseph Greene.”

“I know, right? Fuck that guy.” She laughed, and he laughed too, all the tension melting out of him. “And I can’t think of a greater honour than inspiring your email address.”

She made a face. “I didn’t want to get one. Felt like putting down roots. But Shola insisted. She said I need to stop living in the past.”

“Little does she know.”

“I moved in with her, by the way.” Her glance warned him not to make a thing out of it, even as fondness warmed her voice. “Big mistake. She has the worst taste in music. And she makes jollof all wrong.”

“And there I was thinking I’d have to invite you up to mine again for the Easter holidays.”

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