Page 26 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“What?”

She started laughing. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how weird this is for me.”

“Oh, this is weird foryou? Me, I’ve had the most normal week I can remember.”

She sipped her blue drink, winding a braid around her finger. “I mean, I get that, but—look at it from my side for a second. Like—who’s a writer you had to study in school that you hated?”

“Walter Scott.”

“Who?” He opened his mouth. She waved a dismissal. “Actually, doesn’t matter. Just think about how you’d feel if you were me, and he was you.”

“That’s who I am to you? Walter fucking Scott?” He groaned into his pint glass. “Jesus, I’m starting to get it. Walter Scott rocks up in my coffee shop, ruins my day, steals my book, I give him a makeover, he buys me a drink...” He looked up at her, horrified. “Wait. Is this—is this creepy? Am I being a creepy old man?”

She laughed. “No, you’re fine. I get the concern, but—it’s not creepy.” She took a sip of her blue drink. “Also, you’re not an old man. Not yet, anyway.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly. “I feel so much better.”

“Want to know what the weirdest thing of all would be?” She rested her chin on her hand and gave him a sideways smile. “If Walter Scott turned out to actually not be a total nozz.”

His heart leapt strangely. “No, sorry. Too far. That’s impossible.” Her words surfaced a thought that had been lurking in the back of his mind since he had met her. The look she had given him, as if he was the last person on earth she’d wanted to see. “Why did you think I would be, though? Is that what future me is really like?”

She picked up a beer mat and started tearing tiny perforations around the edge. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s no way to become a famous poet without turning into kind of a nozz.”

She said it offhand, like it was a neutral observation. He felt like she had slapped him, in some deep part of himself he had thought no one could reach. “So I’m fated to become a bad person?” His voice shook. “Why the fuck would you say that?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “Because I say the wrong thing. Always.” She shook her head wildly. “I don’t know future you. How could I? Future you is famous, and happy, and I’m—nothing. I’m nobody.” She stood abruptly, heading for the door. “This was a mistake.”

Chapter Ten

He surged to his feet. “Wait. I’m sorry. I just—You hit a nerve, I guess.” She stopped, but her eyes stayed fixed on the door. The conviction came to him before he understood it. “You don’t really want to leave.”

She turned on him in frustration. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t saythreshold.”

She rolled her eyes, as if he’d caught her out on a technicality. Slowly, she came back to the table and sat down. “Sorry I called future you a nozz. I only said it because you really don’t seem like one now. And sorry about—that,” she added, gesturing at the door. “It’s what I do. I run away.”

“Oh, me too,” he said lightly. “When I was ten, I made it as far as the harbour before I ran home.”

She hiccupped out a laugh. “I made it halfway across London.”

He stared. “You’re serious?”

“I was twelve, not ten. But yeah.” She picked up another beer mat and started drilling a hole in it with a pencil someone had abandoned on the table. “I wanted to get away from myself. So I walked, and walked, till I figured out I couldn’t walk myself into being someone else. Then I called my dad to come and pick me up.” She slid one beer mat somehow inside the other, pulling itthrough to make a three-dimensional star. “He was so angry. He kept saying he couldn’t believe I’d done it. He didn’t think I was that kind of person. I said I might not have been that kind of person before Mum died, but now...” She shrugged expressively.

He imagined a young Esi pacing across the sprawling map of London, trying to outrun herself. His heart contracted. “Your dad...” He searched for the right words. “He didn’t mean you were a bad person. He was just scared for you.”

She turned the star in her hands, lost in the future past. “I guess. He was always so protective, especially after what happened to my mum.” She dropped the star and looked up, eyes falsely bright. “Anyway. The best way to fix it is to make sure we never have that conversation, because I’ll never have run away in the first place. You were saying something about societies?”

He thought about asking if she’d talked to her dad before deciding that the best way to resolve a conflict was to make it un-happen. Then he remembered it was none of his business. “Can you think of anything your mum might have been into? Music? Rowing? Bell-ringing?”

She shook her head. “I told you. She was really academic.”

“I mean, this is Cambridge. There are some pretty nerdy societies.”

She sighed. “Okay. Do you have a list?”

“There’s one on the university website.” He finished his beer and stood up.

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