The Square Root of Summer(47)

“A little of both, actually,” I say, stealing another pistachio.

“’Splain more.”

“Okay … If you and I went back to a point in time, like to—”

“Summer eleven years ago, after I was banned from the fair,” Thomas interrupts. “What? I’m still incensed. Those pigs were asking to be set free.”

I laugh. Sixteen racing pigs chased by Grey and Thomas’s dad, while Thomas watched gleefully from under the cake table.

“Fine. We write an equation factoring in you, and me, and our coordinates. And we need power, like ten stars’ worth, and we use it to open a Krasnikov tube…” I glance at Thomas to see if he’s following. “Erm, we bake a cannoli. One end is in the present, and we go through it to the other end—to the past.”

“G, I got what you meant,” he says gently. “I understand the word tube.”

I blush. “Then we go through the tube, tunnel, cannoli, whatever, and, er, that’s it. I mean it’s mathematically complex, but what we’re talking about is making a tunnel through spacetime.”

“Two questions,” says Thomas, as he picks up a knife and starts slicing the baklava into little diamond shapes. I keep waiting for the knife to slip, but it doesn’t. “What happens when we run into our past selves—a ‘Shoot us both, Spock!’ situation? And can you get the saucepan? That’s not the second question, by the way.”

I hand him the saucepan, peeking in. The sugar has melted and it’s pink syrup, which Thomas pours over the pastry layers as I explain, “You can’t ever meet your past self.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Ja, because of cosmic censorship.”

“Let’s assume every time you talk science, I eye-roll till you explain it, okay?”

“Ha, ha. Space law. There are rules. If you ever got close enough to see what was inside a black hole, you’d get sucked in. The universe keeps its secrets in there. When you go back, six-year-old you temporarily doesn’t exist—the universe hides you in a little time loop until it’s safe to come out. Like a mini cannoli.”

“Otherwise—kaboom?”

“There can only be one of you.” I nod.

“Huh,” says Thomas, gazing at me like he’s trying to memorize my face. “I wonder.”

I resist the urge to prove my science credentials by pointing out: There aren’t two of me here right now, for instance. Instead, I dip my finger into the syrup and sketch a sticky diagram on the table to demonstrate. “And then vacuum fluctuations, because in algebraic terms—”

“La, la, la, la, la,” he sings, off key. “No algebra. More cake metaphors! Who knew you knew so much about patisserie? That’s also not the second question. Which is: Then what? How do you get home again?”

“That’s the interesting part.” I stand back while Thomas transfers the tin of baklava to the oven, setting the timer. “We could stay, live linearly. Wait for time to pass naturally and end up back here anyway, eleven years later. But by doing that, we’d change the universe.”

“Don’t we want to change the universe? Fight to clear my name?”

“But six-year-old you isn’t there to release the pigs, remember? You’re in a little cannoli, floating around in space until the universe is sure it’s safe.”

“So if we stayed … our younger selves wouldn’t exist?” Thomas asks. He makes a head-exploding gesture with his hands.

“And eventually, teenage us would disappear too, because we’re not meant to be there,” I confirm. “That, or it’d be your basic end-of-the-world-type situation.”

As I explain it, I understand: I can’t stay. I’m not supposed to be here. Five days from now, I’m missing. Whatever happens between us tonight—I’ll have to go back. Find a new wormhole to the future, and leave this Monday unchanged. Thomas will have no memory of this conversation—it won’t ever have happened.

I can’t undo my lie. Even if I told Thomas right now, about Jason, it wouldn’t make any difference. So what’s the point in any of this?

“What, then, if we don’t do that?” He tilts his head at me, waiting carefully for the explanation. “If we don’t stay?”

It’s still hot, but the air smells of roses now. And it takes me a minute to answer him.

“We bake a second cannoli,” I say, “and we leave the past as it was, and return to the present, and nothing will have changed at all.”

“Holy cannoli,” says Thomas. “As it were. Look at that, I understand science. Don’t tell my dad; it’ll only make him happy.”

We go quiet, looking at each other.

“G. Why would you go back at all, then? If in the end, you couldn’t change anything?”

“You could learn something,” I say. “Find out things about yourself.”

“Where would you go?” he asks. “What do you want to learn? And please don’t say ‘How to paint better,’ because I’ve grown to love you at your Wurst.”

I take a deep breath, bunching up my hand, sticking my little finger straight out. I point it at Thomas and he curls his into mine.

“I’d go back five years,” I say, pulling him towards me. I want to make sure we do this in every reality. “And I’d make a really stable pile of books, and I’d find out what it was like to kiss a boy. And even though it wouldn’t change the future—I’d always know what it was like.”