The Square Root of Summer(26)

I don’t have to see the day he died.

I grab the nearest textbook and flip through the index. Causality … Einstein … String theory … Weltschmerzian Exception … The words catch my eye, faintly familiar and already highlighted yellow. When I turn to the page, there’s just a brief description:

The Weltschmerzian Exception manifests itself between two points, where the rules of spacetime no longer apply. As well as vortex violations, observers would witness stop-start effects, something like a “visual reboot” as they passed between different timelines. Based on theories of negative energy or dark matter and developed by Nobel-winning physicist

The next page is torn out, cutting off the entry.

The rules of spacetime no longer apply …

Vortex violations—that has to mean wormholes, which shouldn’t be real. But I’ve witnessed them.

The Gottie H. Oppenheimer Principle, v2.0. The world has “visually rebooted” twice now, both times when Thomas mentioned an email. An email I never received. What if that’s because it doesn’t exist in my reality? Thomas and I share a timeline in common except for this, so every time he mentions it, the world reboots? Is that even possible?

As I put the diaries back on my desk, I notice the kitchen light is still on. Cursing Ned, I yank on my sneakers. The earth’s not getting anywhere near my toes, I think, stomping out into the night.

*

When I open the kitchen door, I discover Thomas. Baking.

While I’m still half out of my skin in surprise, he smiles, then goes back to painting something warm and golden-scented onto dough.

The past week clicks into place: the wonky bread, his first morning. The cinnamon muffin in my book bag. The mess in the pantry, which I’ve been blaming on Ned. And he never once came out and said, “It’s me.” He’s as secretive as I am.

“You’ve been making the bread. You bake,” I accuse.

“I bake, I stir, I cook, I roll!” He flips the brush in the air like a baton. We watch as it lands on the floor with a clatter, splattering honey on the tiles. “Oops.”

“Papa used that brush to varnish the table,” I tell him, and he stops trying to pick it up. “But why do you bake now? It’s almost one in the morning.”

“Jet lag.”

I point at the dough. “What’s that?”

“It’s when you travel through different time zones and it takes your body clock a while to adjust.” Thomas manages about two seconds of straight-facedness before his mouth wobbles and he cracks up at his own joke.

“Funny.” My mouth twitches. “I meant that.”

“Lavender bread. Here, smell.” He lifts the baking tray up and starts towards me. I shake my head and he shrugs, spinning on his heel to the oven instead, talking over his shoulder as he slides the loaf in. “Good with cheese—normal stuff, not your weird German ones.”

“Rauchk?se is normal,” I reply automatically, surprising myself. Thomas keeps shaking words out of me. Perhaps it’s friendship muscle memory. “You honestly bake now? This is what you do?”

“Where did you think the food was coming from?” Thomas cocks his head, sitting down sideways in a chair. I sit the same way next to him, and our knees bump awkwardly; we’re both too tall. I still don’t know what to think of him.

“I thought Ned was going shopping,” I explain. “He’s a foodie—well, he lives in London.” We’re probably keeping Ned awake—his bedroom is off the kitchen. Then again, he might have gone out after the Fingerband meeting. He mostly gets in at dawn, dry-heaves in the garden, then sleeps all morning. A blur of glitter, guitar, gotta-go-bye out the door every afternoon.

“You think anyone who can bake more than a potato is a foodie,” Thomas points out, then leaps up with a stop-hand and a “Wait there!”

I sit, confused, till he returns from the pantry, piling ingredients on the table: flour, butter, eggs, as well as things I didn’t even know we had, like bags of fancy nuts and bars of dark, bitter chocolate wrapped in green paper. It reminds me of that first morning, a week ago, when he made me toast and jam and got Grey’s Marmite jars out of their shrine.

“The best way to learn what’s so great about baking,” Thomas says, not sitting back down, “is to do it. I want to open a pastry shop.”

He beams down at me, and I resist the unexpected urge to reach up and poke the resulting dimple.

“A pastry shop,” I repeat, in the tone I’d use if he suggested casual larceny. I can’t imagine the Thomas I knew in charge of hot ovens and knives and edible foodstuffs. Well, I can, but it would end in disaster.

“Ouch. Yes, a bakery. You’ve eaten my muffins—don’t even try to tell me I’m not Lord of the Sugar.”

…

“King of the Muffin.”

…

“Impresario of Flapjacks.”

I pinch my mouth into a hard line. He’s not funny. He’s a hobgoblin. We stare-off, and Thomas gives in first, cracking a smile and an egg into a bowl.

“Honestly? It’s fun, and against all odds, I’m good at it,” he explains. “You know how rare it is to find something that combines those two things? Actually, you probably don’t, you’re good at everything.”