The Square Root of Summer(40)

When I shuffle off my bikini bottoms, they sink away from me. I don’t bother diving down to find them. Instead, I say to Jason: “Race you.” And kick my feet off the side of the boat, slicing through the water, turning circles, living in 3D.

Every inch of me is electric. Without that polyester layer, I feel the water differently against my skin. The sun is hotter on my shoulders, Jason’s mouth when he catches up to me and kisses the back of my neck, it’s all just so much more. This is the most alive I’ve ever been.





Monday 4 August

[Minus three hundred and thirty-seven]

It’s midnight, or thereabouts. A Cinderella time. The witching hour. The mood is magical: dark and starry, hot and close. And I’m wide awake. Ever since I burst out of the past, back into the canal, I’ve got superhero hypersense. It’s like someone cranked the world’s volume up and it’s all blazing color. No more wormholes—I’m here.

It feels both better and worse than before: intense and alive, but farther from my grandfather than ever. Being here means letting him fade away. The diaries are just words on a page.

The kitchen door is open, and the night jasmine drifting in from the garden mingles with the lemon drizzle cake Thomas has just put in the oven. It’s his first practice run for the gluten-free promise I made to Sof. Papa went to bed hours ago. Ned’s finally given up and left us alone. And every inch of my skin is alive. Tingling.

“Here. It’s the best bit.” Thomas hands me a wooden spoon, the air stirring as he passes me on his way to the sink, our fingers fumbling.

I lick the cake mixture from the spoon and try to focus on the paper in front of me. I’m plotting the wormholes. Each time and place I’ve gone back to, and each origin point, gets a dot. If the timelines are converging—I want to know what they’re converging on. It’s ten days till Ned’s party. Twenty-eight till the anniversary of Grey’s death. And a week after that, Ms. Adewunmi is expecting an essay in her inbox.

Behind me, Thomas is washing up, the sink overflowing with bubbles. He hums over the rumble of our creaky plumbing, the ancient tap that I have to constantly tighten with a wrench. Bare feet tapping on tiles.

I smile and turn back to my work, choosing a new felt-tip and charting all those Thomas anomalies, too. The numbers in the churchyard, the way the stars went out in the garden and the rainstorm in the tree. After a moment, I pick up an orange pen and add one last dot—April, in the kitchen. Umlaut.




“Astronomy homework?” Thomas puts his chin on my shoulder.

I look again. He’s right: the dots do look like stars. And not just any constellation—the one Thomas stuck to my ceiling that matches nothing in the galaxy.

Where else will I find this pattern—the sprinkles on top of Thomas’s cupcakes? His freckles? The *Rs scattered in Grey’s diaries?

“Come on,” I say, pushing back my chair. I don’t wait for him as I run out into the garden.

Outside, the moon mingles with the light from the kitchen—illuminating the dandelions on the lawn. It’s the same pattern.

I lie on the grass and look at the apple tree—imagine its branches twisting round each other like ribbons on a maypole, all the timelines coming together. Is the world converging on something, or laying everything to rest? Earth to earth, ashes to ashes. I don’t know that I’m ready to say goodbye.

“Okay, G.” Thomas has finally followed me outside. He lies down next to me, scooching his arm so I can rest my head on his chest. “What are we looking at? The same stars you drew?”

“Sure.” I burrow into him and let him point out constellations to me—“That right there is Big Burrito. Over here we have Ned on Guitar”—till his voice begins to blur.

Then he yawns. It’s huge and Umlaut-y and breaks us apart. I want to wriggle back to how we were, tucked up for bed on the lawn. Then it dawns on me:

“Wait.” I roll onto my side, grass tickling my cheek. “I thought you were jet-lagged?”

“I was—a month ago,” he teases, rolling towards me. Sleepily. “Baking was a distraction. After the chocolate cake, I noticed your light was always on late. I figured, if you were awake, maybe you’d come back to the kitchen. I’ve been setting my alarm.”

He yawns again, squeakily. Shakes it away and looks at me.

“But why?” I whisper. All the creepy-crawlies in the garden hold their breath for the answer as Thomas’s hand finds mine.

“I like you,” Thomas whispers. “I liked you when you were twelve and you told me to kiss you, all scientific about it. I liked you when I walked off the plane and into the Book Barn, and you were passed out and covered in blood. I like you then, and now, and probably forever.”

We move slowly in the dark, finding each other. His hand moves up to touch my face; mine finds his heart. I feel its beat, steady underneath my palm, as he says, “Gottie.”

When Thomas says my name, it sounds like a promise. And for that, and for the frog in the tree and the whiskey on the carpet, for the baking lesson, and for the stars on my ceiling, I take a quantum leap.

I close the last atoms of space between us, and I kiss him.

*

It’s late, almost dawn. Witches and ghosts and goblins.

We’re outside on the lawn again, the following night. Side by side under the apple tree. Thomas has his head on my shoulder, his watch balanced on his knee—inside, a new gluten-free cake is in the oven, hopefully less disastrous. The minutes are ticking away and, somehow, we’re talking about Grey.