The Square Root of Summer(51)

X2


It’s what Grey said about us when we were little. “Uh-oh,” when I walked into a room. Then, if Thomas was following me, “Uh-oh, trouble times two.” After a while we said it ourselves, a little chant when we were up to no good. Water is already pooling inside the letters. Thomas still has one foot in the tail of the 2—his jeans are soaked up the knees, his hair is crazy-curly from the salt and humidity, his glasses sea-flecked.

I stumble through the wet sand to him, but he shrinks back—barely perceptibly—shoving his hands in his pockets so his shoulders hunch.

“Very mature,” I settle for saying, pointing at the letters. “Thank you.”

“You’re so welcome,” he says with exaggerated formality.

“There’s seaweed on your foot,” I tell him.

He flicks his trainer and the samphire jumps into the air—he catches it, then stares at his hand, amazed. “Let’s pretend I’m truly that dexterous on purpose,” he says, and reaches over to tie it to my bag strap. “There. Now you’re a mermaid.”

There’s a pause. I’m missing something.

“What do you—” I start, and at the same time Thomas says, “Listen. Hey, we keep doing that, don’t we?”

“You go.”

“Before I say this…” he begins. Then circles his foot in the air, gesturing to the X2. “We’ve always been friends, right? And I promise this time, we always will be. I won’t let that go. I don’t go silent on you, you don’t go silent on me. Deal?”

“Um, okay.” I prod the sand with my trainer, squelching it underfoot. Obviously, I’ve misunderstood something about Thomas and me, about tonight.

“Ned made me say that bit. It’s true. But I can’t believe he did the whole ‘protective big brother’ thing.” Thomas does his air quotes extra jazzily to make me laugh, but I don’t. For all the hot chips I’ve eaten, there’s still an ice block in my stomach.

“What do you mean? What about Ned?” My voice sounds small and thin.

“He found out … Look … There’s something I didn’t mention, about this summer. Ned found out a few days ago, and when he caught me coming out of your room the other morning, he said I had to tell you, before anything happened.”

“What?”

“I’m not staying in Holksea. When my mom moves back to England, we’re not going to be next door.”

“Where are you going to be? Brancaster?” It’s a stupid question. Thomas wouldn’t be acting this squirrelly if he was moving ten minutes up the road.

“Manchester.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at me. Between us, the X2 is melting back into wet sand. Soon, the marks will disappear, as though they were never there at all. “You know, it’s not so far. We could get the train.”

“It’s five hours,” I guess. Manchester’s the other side of the country, and Holksea’s not exactly well connected. It takes a bike ride and a bus and a train just to get to London.

“Four and a half,” he says. “Three changes. I checked.”

“You were checking train times, but you weren’t going to tell me?” I don’t understand. “Is that why your mum keeps calling? To let you know the plan had changed?”

“Shit.” Thomas hunches his shoulders, blows air up through his curls. “Shit. Look, that was never my plan, okay? Mom got a job at the university in Manchester, it was all arranged for her to get there in September. Then I got your email and thought maybe I could come here first. This—” He gestures round to encompass everything, the moon, the sea, the sand. Me and my airless lungs. “This was only ever the summer.”

“You lied to me?” I take the little voice in my head that’s reminding me I’ve lied to him, and I squish it down. That was a misunderstanding, a one-off. It’s not the same thing. “All those times I said about starting school, or you being back next door? You didn’t think to mention it?”

“Also not my plan.” He shuffles in the sand. “Look, I’m not proud of myself, okay? But things were so awkward between us when I arrived, and I knew if I told you I wasn’t here for long, you’d never talk to me. We wouldn’t have the chance to become friends again.”

He thinks this is friendship? This is five years ago, all over again.

“When?” I ask.

“When what?”

“When everything. When were you going to tell me? When do you go to Manchester?”

“Three weeks.”

Stars swim in front of my eyes. All this time, all this time I’ve spent trying to understand the past, and it goes and repeats itself. Thomas is leaving. And he never even said.

I want to scream the clouds away, punch the moon back out into the sky. I can’t do this. Time is moving too fast. I turned around and it was winter, closed my eyes and it was spring. Summer hot on its heels and it’s already half over, and Thomas is leaving, again, everybody leaves, Mum, Grey, Ned, Jason, Thomas. Grey, Grey, Grey. I’m on my knees and I can’t breathe, I need a wormhole, now—

“Gottie.” Thomas’s voice is soft. “G. I honestly thought, for the first couple of weeks, that you knew.”