The Square Root of Summer(72)

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 4/7/2015, 17.36

Subject: Trouble times two The answer’s yes, obviously.

But I think you already know that.

Hasn’t it always been yes when it comes to us?

I want to see the stars with you.

And whatever you tell me, I’ll believe.

Because remember—

Things can get dark, and fairly terrible

But the scar on my palm makes you f*cking indelible.

I read it a dozen times, and it still doesn’t make any sense. The stars—that’s obvious, the plastic ones he put on my ceiling. But what is he saying yes to? What have I told him that he believes? And I want to throttle him—this is hardly the clear warning you give if you’re flying across the Atlantic to visit! It is, however, thoroughly Thomas—full of heart and gesture and a little bit loony, with no thought to the consequences.

I think I know why I can read it, too, and it’s got nothing to do with the Weltschmerzian Exception. I’ve finally forgiven myself for Grey’s death. I’m allowed a little bit of love in my life.

And I know what I can do for a grand gesture. Still in my pajamas, I grab my book bag from the wardrobe and run through the misty dawn to the kitchen.

By the time I climb the apple tree, the day is full sunshine. While Umlaut chases squirrels around the branches, I check for frogs—I don’t want to accidentally shut one in. Then, moment by moment, I empty my book bag, and fill up the tin box. The seaweed from the beach. Canadian coins, the treasure map and my constellation, the little plastic stars, a pair of Thomas’s balled-up socks, my ice-cream-sticky napkin from the fair yesterday. The recipe he wrote out for me.

And the squashed and terrible results of my first solo baking attempt this morning—a chocolate cupcake.

I close the lid and padlock it for Thomas to open. This time capsule of our summer. It’s the best I can do. Then I lean back against a branch and start writing him an email on my phone.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 24/8/2015, 11.17

Subject: Bawk, bawk, bawk Trouble times two, remember? Turns out, one is worse. I can’t explain it, but I need you to come and open the time capsule with me. I know you’ve got no reason to. But I don’t know how to be without you.

If you need more reason than that … Picture me now, holding out my little finger to you. And saying: Hey, Thomas. I dare you.

I look at what I’ve written. I think about Thomas’s email, and that he told me it was a reply to mine. My fingers move on instinct, adjusting the date to 4 July. And I know it will work, because it already has. I hit send and shove the phone in my pocket, along with the key for the padlock. Now I just need to shower and go find Thomas.

I’m standing up and turning around on the branch, one foot reaching out into the air, searching for a knothole, when the time capsule begins to change. First, the old and tarnished padlock I took from the toolbox this morning becomes shiny and clean. Then the names on the top, THOMAS & GOTTIE, fade away.

“Uh,” I say to no one, to Umlaut, as I pause, half in, half out of the tree. I thought all this nonsense had stopped after the party. After the last wormhole. Except for, um Gottes Willen, Gottie you moron, except for the fact you could suddenly read Thomas’s email this morning! Talk about a screenwipe.

As I watch, captivated, the writing reappears, followed by the tarnish. The lock re-rusts at warp speed. The time capsule pulsates back and forth, faster and faster: clean/dirty, letters/blank, rust/shiny. Past/future, past/future, past/future. The Weltschmerzian Exception didn’t begin when Grey died. It’s starting now.

And a drop of rain falls.

Upwards. There’s not a cloud in the sky. As another drop of rain hits me, I scramble away from the time capsule, and “Oh, shit—”

I think I hear someone shouting my name as I fall out of the tree.





Five Years Ago

“Did you just SEE that?” Thomas shouts through the rain.

It’s pretty dark, but I still saw the ginger cat run past us under the annex.

“Yeah, it’s under here.” I get down on my hands and knees, trying to peer under the building. The grass is gross—all wet and slimy—but my jeans are already soaked. It’s just water though. I’m a twelve-year-old girl, not the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Here, kitty kitty.”

“What? No,” says Thomas behind me. “G, you have to see this.”

“Mmm. In a minute.”

“G,” says Thomas impatiently. “Forget the cat for a minute. A girl just fell out of the tree.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Geee…”

I sigh. Thomas has been weird all day, ever since the head-butt kiss. I don’t want to play his stupid game. I want to get the cat. But I stand up anyway, turning round, wiping my muddy hands on my jeans.

There’s a girl lying on the grass under the apple tree.

Seriously.

It was just me and Thomas in the garden. Grey booted us out the Book Barn, then came home and booted us out the house too. Unbelievable! Thomas is leaving for Canada today, and it’s my last chance to kiss him—to kiss ANYONE in my whole life—and we keep getting interrupted. Then the cat ran through. And now there’s this girl. She sits up, rubbing the back of her head.