Page 89 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“I’m not just doing it for you. It’s like I said to my dad.” She looked back over her shoulder, as if she could see all the way to the wormhole and beyond. “That’s where I’m from. But here... here’s where I became myself.”

Finally, urgently, he crossed the space between them. They kissed, not the frantic maybe-goodbye of the last time or the dreamlike unreality of the first, but a warm, deep kiss, full of hope and desire and trembling possibility. He stroked her cheek. “Welcome home.”

They sank down on the grass, hands joined, heads tilted together. He just gazed at her, his impossible love, who had appeared one day in a coffee shop and led him into a whole new universe.

She raised an eyebrow. “I know that look. You’re overthinking something.”

“I was trying to remember what I thought of you when I first saw you. But I can’t. It’s like everything I feel for you now has travelled back in time to that moment. I can’t see the past for the present.”

“It’s not like that for me,” she said dryly. “I remember exactly what I thought when I first saw you.”

“Really?” he said, trying not to sound too interested.

“Yes.” She repressed a smile. “I thought,Here’s that fucking nozz Joseph Greene.” He lunged for her, tickling her mercilessly. She giggled, mock-pushing him away. “Then I thought,Uh-oh. He’s cuter than I expected.”

“That statue clearly didn’t do me justice.”

“It’s not funny!” she protested. “You really weren’t supposed to be this much of a problem for me. Just—walking in, with your big blue eyes and your stupid jumpers and your surprisingly-not-being-a-nozz.” She murmured in his ear. “Ruining all my plans.”

Her low, warm voice made him shiver. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not funny.”

She sat back. “You know what the hardest part was? Convincing my dad I’m not making a huge mistake. To him, you’re just some old white guy I used to complain about having to study. I was trying to explain how it is between you and me, but he wasn’t getting it. Until I showed him your poem.” Her lashes lowered. “He said,Here is someone who really sees you and loves you.”

It still terrified him, that he had laid his feelings bare before he was ready to say them out loud. But if it could communicate his love for her across universes, it had been worth it. “I’m sorry I won’t get to meet him.” He turned over her wrist, kissing the tiny scar.No loopholes.Whenever she travelled into that other future, she had to go there alone.

A hundred worries crowded into his mind. What if Vera lost her job? What if the company shut down, the access chip stopped working, and Esi was trapped on the other side? With an effort,he pushed those thoughts away. He had spent enough of his time fixating on what might or might not happen in the future. He focused on her here, now, in the golden light: her soft breathing, her pensive expression. He followed her gaze to its target. Efua, relaxing in the grass, tipping her head back with laughter.

“What is it?” he asked gently.

Her brow furrowed. “We think we saved her, but—how can we know for sure? The wormhole only takes me to the future of the universe I came from. I wish there was a way to go to the future ofthisuniverse.“

He felt himself smile. “There is.”

She looked at him uncertainly. “How?”

He kissed her softly. “We travel there,” he said. “One day at a time.”

She rested her forehead against his. “It’s funny. For the longest time, I thought I didn’t need to plan for my future. I’d become the me I should always have been, and she’d have all the answers. Now, I guess it’s on me to figure it out.”

He put his arms around her. “You could apply to uni.”

She made a face. “Here?”

“Only if you want. I know this place thinks it’s the centre of the universe, but it didn’t invent the concept of higher education.” He smiled. “I mean, anywhere that’d give me a 2:1 is clearly not a reputable institution.”

Her eyes lit up. “Seriously? That’s amazing! Knew there was a reason I brought this.” She reached into her bag and took out a bottle of sparkling wine and two mugs. It wasn’t until she’d opened the bottle and started pouring that he noticed one of the mugs had his face on.

She grinned and mimicked the pose, propping her chin on her fist. “‘If I knew what I meant, I wouldn’t need to write poetry,’” she declaimed, in a surprisingly good imitation of his accent.

He couldn’t repress a grin. “Where did you find that? I chucked it out.”

“And I rescued it.” She sipped from her own mug, raising an eyebrow. “Might be worth something someday.”

He snorted. “I doubt that.”

“Why? Did you stop writing?”

“No. But—I don’t know. What I’m writing now, it’s so different from the poems I was writing about Diana. I’ve got no idea if it’s any good.”

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