Page 71 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He stared at the email address, not daring to hope. He accepted the request and waited.

hi

Nice email, he typed, fingertips buzzing.Is that a quote from something?

just some poet

you won’t have heard of him he’s pretty underrated

He laughed as a host of yellow smileys filled the window.

no more stupid punctuation faces

I feel so free

How did you even find me on here?

Rob told me to add you

bumped into him when I was following my mum

he said this is the best way to reach you when you’re in hermit mode

He remembered what he’d told Rob, leaning over the bridge and staring out into the fog. His heart quaked with vulnerability. How much did she know?

we should talk

can we meet?

He checked a street map, tracing a half-mile radius around King’s Lane.

Do you know Hodson’s Folly? It’s on Coe Fen, just upriver from the boundary.

A pause.

ok

meet you there in half an hour

It would only take him fifteen minutes. Still, he set off straight away, walking with jittery purpose. The Folly was an odd, roofless ruin that looked like a miniature temple, perched on the edge of an island on the river. He sat in the windowsill facing the water and waited.

He heard the gate open, and the soft sound of her footsteps. Then she was there, sitting down on the windowsill across from him. He felt the time since he had seen her collapse and expand simultaneously, as if he had just limped out onto the darkened street, as if centuries had passed since they had spoken. She looked different. Her dress was vibrant red, her hair coiled into twists that bounced as she turned to look upriver. “How’s your leg?”

“Better, thanks.”

Silence hung in the air between them. It had been easier, somehow, to type words to her disembodied self as if nothing had happened. Now, faced with her, he could only think of how badly they’d hurt each other.

She looked down at her hands. “Saw a few time travellers hanging around outside your college the other day. Guess your future’s not broken after all.”

He cleared his throat. “I spoke to Vera. She says I’m still with Diana in the future.”

“Course you are,” she said with a shaky smile. “You’re meant to be.”

Their eyes met for an instant before he looked away. “Anyway, you’re safe. Vera’s not going to be looking for you, unless she sees you with me. I told her all this”—he gestured, vaguely indicating the whole disaster—“was someone else’s fault.”

She laughed with a touch of bitterness. “We both know that’s not true.”

For an instant, he was back there in the darkened coffee shop, the expression on her face burnt into his mind. “I’m sorry for what I said. About you being a bomb.”

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