Page 51 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He couldn’t have imagined a more transparent excuse to get away from him. He had sent a vague, pleasant reply, and spent the two weeks since in a spiral of self-loathing. He was supposed to be Joseph Greene, famous romantic, obsessively devoted to one woman for eternity. The kiss felt like a betrayal, not just of Diana, but of his future self.

Dr. Lewis was looking at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, it was good. Can we just...” He gestured at his essay.

“Fine by me. I was trying to ease you in with small talk.” Sheleafed through his essay, which looked like it had been recovered from the corpse of a shooting victim. “Page three. You cite the text as if it supports your argument, but if you’d bothered to read the footnote, you’d see that the author was actually making the opposite point. Attention to detail has never been your strong suit. But this is sloppy, even for you.” She took off her glasses. “Answer me honestly. Did you do any work at all over the break?”

He didn’t want to lie to her. Part of him was convinced she had a sixth philosophical sense for it. He shook his head.

She exhaled. “Okay. This is going to scare you, but I think you need to be scared.” She put her glasses back on. “You are running out of time. I’m serious. If you keep on like this, we’re not talking about a 2:2, or even a Third. You are not going to graduate.” She leaned forward, gazing at him earnestly. “Is that really where you want to be? Three years of your life gone, with nothing to show for it?”

An old, cold terror rushed through his veins. The nightmares where his parents turned away from him, where the whole pub heard the news and started pointing and laughing. A small voice protested that he couldn’t fail. He was going to graduate, with the 2:1 that was printed in black and white in the book of his future. But he couldn’t see a path that led him there, any more than he could see a path that led him to Diana. “Can I ask you something?” he said. “Not about philosophy.”

“Everything’s about philosophy.” When he stared at her beseechingly, she shook herself. “Sorry. Sometimes I have trouble turning it off. Go ahead.”

He looked down at his hands. “When do we become who we’re meant to be?”

She looked at him as though she were pondering a tricky logicproblem. “In my experience, there’s no single moment of becoming. We’re always works in progress.” She leaned back in her chair. “Want my advice? Don’t think about who you’re going to be in twenty years’ time. Focus on what you can do this week, then next week, then the week after. That way, you’ll be in a good position by the time June comes around.”

June, when he would sit his final exams. June, when Esi would disappear from his life forever. He wondered miserably what she must think of him. She had almost got over her bad first impression, even started to think he was a good person. And then he had kissed her, recklessly and impulsively, when they both knew he was destined to be with Diana. He had let a month of enforced proximity amplify a crush he should have been getting over, and in a moment of vulnerability, he had unleashed his stupid infatuation on the last person in the universe who had asked for it. He had disrespected her, he had ruined their friendship, and, as far as she was concerned, he had put her mission in jeopardy. He wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to see him again.

“Mr. Greene?” He started. Dr. Lewis was carrying her sousaphone case. He wondered for a confused second if she was about to whip it out and play him a motivational anthem, but she ushered him impatiently towards the door. “Time’s up. I have band practice.”

He tripped down the stairs in a daze. He had sleepwalked his way through the entire supervision, his body on Dr. Lewis’s sofa but his mind elsewhere. He wandered vaguely into the post room. The porters had emailed him saying his pigeonhole was overflowing and he needed to clear it out. He sorted through the miscellany of gifts: three more white roses in varied stages of wilting, a notebook, and a snow globe of the Eiffel Tower. Hebinned the roses, left the snow globe in a blank pigeonhole, and pocketed the notebook. That one at least might be useful.

The gifts had pushed something else to the back. He reached in to pull it out. It was a mug that, disconcertingly, had his face on it. Underneath was a quote in flowing italic letters:If I knew what I meant, I wouldn’t need to write poetry.

“A flagrant violation of the terms and conditions,” he muttered. He imagined the time traveller who had left it returning triumphant through the wormhole, boasting that they’d given him the idea for the quote. He felt faintly annoyed. He would have liked the chance to come up with it himself.

He turned the mug in his hands. A nudge in the direction of his future.

He sat in the window seat and tried to draft a text to Diana. What did you say to someone whose boyfriend you had deliberately spilled wine all over? There was no emoticon for this situation. He thought of Esi, and the last barrier of resistance inside him crumbled. He needed her help, even if he was the last person she wanted to see.

Outside the gate, Vera and her usual crowd were lurking. He didn’t spare them a glance. He took a circuitous route, walking out of town up Trumpington Street until the gasps and mutters faded behind him. As he crossed Lensfield Road, he cast a surreptitious look over his shoulder to see them on the other side, caught behind their invisible boundary. He double-checked that Vera was shepherding them back towards the wormhole, then headed on in the direction of Mill Road. As he came out onto the narrow, busy thoroughfare, he felt a fizzing apprehension that kept building until he walked into the coffee shop and saw her.

She was serving a customer, looking down with a guardedsmile. Her braids were finer and longer now, hanging past her shoulders. When she moved her head, silver-and-blue threads woven into them subtly caught the light.

He stared at her helplessly. His attention must have been loud, because she looked up and met his eyes. For a moment, she looked like he felt: lost, vulnerable, happy and sad at the same time. Then she shook her head minutely and waved him away. He retreated to a table in the corner. He opened his new notebook and stared at a blank page until she came over.

“Did Vera follow you?” She was looking anxiously out of the window.

“No. I was careful.” He looked up with an unsteady smile. “You really did get your hair done.”

She tilted her head, arms crossed. “You thought I was lying?”

Yes, because we kissed, and you ran away, and I thought you were making an excuse to avoid talking about it, but now it looks like you were telling the truth, so my only possible conclusion is that it meant nothing to you. Which is perfect. I should be relieved. Iamrelieved.He swallowed all of that and said instead, “It looks nice.”

She touched her hair self-consciously, then looked annoyed at herself for doing it. She crossed her arms again. “What are you doing here?”

“I need your help.”

She laughed, a short, angry sound. “Because I’ve been such a great help so far.”

“You have, though. She’d never have spoken to me again if it wasn’t for you. But I’m running out of time. The poetry thing’s on Valentine’s Day. Less than a month away. After that’s done, I won’t have an excuse to see her anymore. Unless—”

“Unless she decides she wants to keep seeing you.” Despair flickered across her face. With a resigned sigh, she sat down opposite him. “Have you been in touch with her since New Year?”

“No. What would I say? I made myself look like a complete bampot.” He put his head in his hands. “I don’t know how to walk this one back.”

“So don’t.” She lifted her chin. “You’re going to have to act like you meant it.”

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