The Square Root of Summer(36)

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head like a dog coming out of the sea. “Nothing. Maybe we opened it too soon, I don’t know.”

I twist to look at him, sliding one arm behind his back so I don’t fall out of the tree. With the other, I take his elbow again.

A month ago I didn’t want any memories of this summer. Now, I’m not so sure. I’m starting to remember that there are two sides to every equation.

“Thomas. Listen. It’s empty. So what? We can put something new in there. A time capsule of you and me. Who we are now.”

He turns to take my elbow. The shift means now neither of us can move without totally losing our balance. My face must be as serious as his as we look at each other. I want to ask, Who are you, really? Why are you back?

“So who are we now?” we both ask at the same time.

“Telepathy,” Thomas says. And his smile could light the whole f*cking tree on fire.

The sky turns from sun to rain in an instant. Within seconds, it’s pouring.

Lightning flashes through the leaves, bouncing off Thomas’s glasses. Followed fast by a long, low rumble of thunder.

“G!” Thomas has to raise his voice over the noise even though we’re inches apart. “We have to get out of this tree.”

Lightning flashes again. I can barely see through the water in my eyes, but I nod. My arm is still tucked around his waist, his hand still on my elbow. If either of us moves, we’ll both fall.

“I’m going to let you go,” Thomas shouts. “Jump backwards. On three?”

Instinct says don’t wait, jump—I slide down the trunk, scraping my stomach on the bark. My topknot snags on a twig, tugging at my scalp with a sharp wince. There’s thunder again, then Thomas, tumbling down from above me, grabbing my elbow the minute he’s on the ground.

“You didn’t wait for three,” he yells, his other hand pushing back his soaking-wet hair.

“Neither did you!”

We turn, laughing, jostling, grabbing at each other’s hands in a race to my bedroom. Where Ned’s standing sentry in the doorway, arms folded, his fur coat bedraggled from the rain. He looks like Umlaut after losing a fight with a squirrel.

“Althorpe.” He scowls at Thomas, who drops my hand, which makes Ned scowl more. What’s his problem? “Just had a nice chat with your mum—she’s on the phone, wants to talk to you.”

*

After Ned practically frog-marches Thomas across the garden, I curl up on my bed with Grey’s diary from five years ago. Turn to the autumn, the winter, after Thomas left. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—clues, mentions of a time capsule, something. What I find is:

THE POND FROZE OVER, ICE-SKATING DUCKS

G’S HAIR IS GETTING AS LONG AS NED’S. SHE STILL LOOKS LIKE CARO.

I drop the diary on my bed, go and sit on the floor in front of my mirror. The photo of me and my mum is taped to its corner. My hair’s still wet from the rain, scrolled up in its topknot—and when I take out the elastic, it falls in damp waves all the way to my waist. A stranger looks back at me.

“What do you think, Umlaut?”

Meow?

I consider my reflection, my mum’s face in the photo. Who am I?

I was someone so afraid of making a choice, I held on nine months for Jason. I waited five years for Thomas, silently. I painted The Wurst and never told Sof I was quitting art. I drift, I don’t decide. I let my hair grow long.

I twist it in a wet rope around my hand. This doesn’t feel like me anymore. I opened the time capsule and jumped before the count of three—that’s someone who gets drunk on peonies and dries her underwear in a tree. I think I might want to write Ms. Adewunmi’s essay.

I want to come out of mourning.

Cutting my hair is suddenly a planetary necessity. I high-paw Umlaut, then jump up and tear out into the rain forest, immediately tripping over a bramble and ripping a chunk out of my ankle. Scheisse! I’m going to take a flamethrower to this mess.

Wet-haired and wild-hearted, I burst into the kitchen, where Jason and Ned are sitting round the table. Ned is playing acoustic guitar, half a hot cross bun dangling from his mouth like a cigarette.

“Rock ’n’ roll,” I say, giving Ned double thumbs. The gesture falters when it comes to Jason. I chose to be over him. He told me we were friends. We’ve never been that, I don’t know how. I turn back to my brother and say, “Hot cross buns are for Easter, it’s July.”

Actually, July’s nearly over. Ned’s party’s in two weeks, and then two weeks after that—a year since Grey died. Term will start and time will slip away. It already is.

“Hangovers yield to no season,” Ned mumbles round the bun, even though it’s seven in the evening. All the joy I felt moments ago is draining away.

“If you’re looking for lover boy, he’s in his room,” says Ned, as though I were rummaging for Thomas in the cutlery drawer. I assume Jason’s staring at the back of my neck while I all-over blush at Ned’s foot-in-mouth comment, or maybe he isn’t and hasn’t noticed and, God, how hard is it to put spoons back in the right place, anyway?

“I’ve commissioned him for the party,” Ned adds. “We’re thinking a giant croquembouche.”

“Hey, Gottie, did you see the Facebook invitation?” Jason calls over as I turn around, drawing me into their circle. “Meg drew this cool—”