“Right now?” Will rolls his eyes at me and I dutifully copy him and roll mine back. “Okay. Just in a café. Be there in five.”
Will puts his phone away and stands up, grabbing his ancient laptop off the top of the coffee table, and I know I shouldn’t touch anything on this timeline, shouldn’t be screwing around, this thread is so delicate, so fragile, so easy to—
“Back up,” I blurt.
Will pauses in packing away his laptop. “Sorry?”
“Back up.” I point to his computer. “Your files. Back them up. Onto a hard drive or a cloud or a stick or whatever.” He frowns, so I quickly add: “I just have this...thing. Where I remind people to back up their laptops regularly. So just...back up. That’s all I’m saying. Okay?”
It’s a bit of a romance killer, but I couldn’t just sit there and let him lose important files with the knowledge I have: it would be entirely unethical.
“I never back up.” Will smiles. “So thanks for the reminder.”
I nod as he zips up his bag, watching his face closely, waiting to see what will happen now. Have I knocked everything off track again? We’re back to the unknown, to people-reading and desperate guessing; to a constant state of confusion, where every social interaction is a bewildering smorgasbord of clues that never quite add up. I guess I’ll just have to take my moments of predictable, familiar bliss when they come.
So, I urge him silently, I don’t suppose you’d fancy hanging out again, would you? We could grab a drink, maybe?
“So...” Will slings his bag across his shoulders. “I don’t suppose you’d fancy hanging out again, would you? We could grab a drink, maybe?”
I may not be able to read Will’s colors, but I can certainly read mine.
“I would like that,” I say as casually as I can while the air around me suddenly fills with gold and pink. “I’m Cassie.”
“Hi, Cassie,” my future boyfriend says. “I’m Will.”
11
The Titan Eos has a really unfair reputation.
Essentially the Bridget Jones of Greek mythology, the rosy-fingered bringer of dawn is known for two things: opening the gates every morning so her brother Helios can drive the sun across the sky, and being cursed by Aphrodite with a really shit love life for all eternity. So, while most of Olympus is indulging in endless torrid love affairs and pairing up like penguins, the immortal Titan Eos dates, and fails, and dates, and fails. She’s the original rom-com heroine: forever focused on finding love, wearing shades of pink, seen by all the other gods as a bit of a desperate loser.
But, of all the goddesses, I think Eos is the most powerful.
Love is a courageous thing to pursue, and to me Eos represents hope, and resilience, and light in the darkest hour. She represents the strength to keep trying, even when you know you’re doomed. She represents new beginnings and refusing to accept defeat. She also represents the ability to change your husband into a cicada when he gets very old and kind of annoying.
What could possibly be more inspiring than that?
“Hello?” I open the front door. “Is anybody in?”
I vibrated with happiness all the way home, and now I need to go and lie down: all this joy is making me a little nauseous.
“Hey hey.” Sal wanders into the hallway and looks me up and down, wiping flour off her eyebrow. “Wow. Look at you. That dress is off the charts.”
There’s something missing in my flatmate’s eyes and it takes a full three seconds to work out what it is. In all the excitement of restarting my life with Will, I’d totally forgotten that I’ve simultaneously restarted everything. We’re now four months ago, back at ground zero: The Time Before.
The relief is so intense, I almost fall asleep on the spot.
“Off the charts which end?” I check. “Good end or bad end?”
“Good.” Sal laughs. “Very, very good.”
“In that case, do you want it?”
My love for my new blue dress abruptly died on the way home, when I realized that the material feels like sandpaper and the neckline is suffocating and the elastic around each giant sleeve grips like hands and the waistline—ugh. A waistline must either be secured very tightly with a wide belt—holding my body together—or left completely loose, but it cannot just linger, touching me whenever it feels like it. Within a twenty-minute tube journey I went from being extremely pleased with my new purchase to wanting to set it on ceremonial fire and throw its ashes out at Vauxhall.
Which, for the record, is precisely why I only wear five of the exact same jumpsuit in specific daily colors for work. I don’t have the space for a tactile-and decision-based roller coaster every day while also trying to hold on to my job.
“What?” Sal blinks. “You’re giving me a brand-new dress? Right now.”
“Okay.” A little surprised, I reach behind me and start tugging at the zip. “Don’t you want me to dry-clean it first?”
“Right now question mark, Cassie,” Sal clarifies with a tiny smile. “I’m not asking you to strip down in the middle of the hallway.”
Embarrassed, I stop unzipping. “Ah. Of course.”
“Do you want dinner?” Sal wipes her hands on her apron and I abruptly remember that this was the three-week stretch where she decided to train as a chef. Before that it was a masseur, and next it will be a bedroom-based YouTuber. It didn’t go well. Maybe I should warn her. “I’ve made a... Well. I’m not really sure what it is, to be honest. It was supposed to be a lasagna, but I didn’t arrange the pasta properly and now it’s kind of goop in sheets.”
“Dead animals,” I point out. “Also, it’s Wednesday.”
“You can just say no, thank you, Salini,” she sighs lightly, flour on the end of her nose. “You know, without the I’m-going-to-vomit face.”
In bare feet, Sal wanders back into the kitchen and I follow, feeling ashamed of myself. I should have said yes, or at least offered to share the garlic bread, but Wednesday is Veggie Chili Day. I have quite enough change to deal with right now—given that I’m busy editing the entire universe—without screwing around with my weekly menu too.
I stick my dinner in the microwave, then freeze as Derek struts into the room wearing a vest with little pre-ripped holes in it. With the consciously mischievous air of a self-appointed Pan, he pinches grated cheese from a plate, gets slapped by Sal and immediately circles back round to do it again.
“’Sup, Cassandra.” He grins, licking his tanned fingers. “That’s a very dramatic outfit for midweek. I thought you were all about the rompers. And don’t worry, by the way. I’ve got a takeaway app ready to go. My girl is a bit of a wizard in the kitchen, by which I mean she magically turns edible ingredients into shit you can’t eat.”
“Bugger off,” Sal says amicably. “I’m trying to expand my culinary repertoire—much to my mother’s dismay. And ignore him, Cassie. That dress is epic. Never take fashion advice from a man who habitually wears a deep V-neck.”
Derek pulls a face at me behind her back and I don’t know what the face is or why he’s pulling it at me or what face I’m supposed to pull back or what it all means, so I panic, stare at the floor and go red instead. There’s a long silence while I desperately search for something friendly and flatmatey to say, to make sure our entire relationship doesn’t fall off a cliff like it did last time.
“Did you both...have a day?” I attempt with difficulty. “That was nice? Participating in your...respective professions?”
They both turn simultaneously to stare at me and I flush further.
How was your day?
How bloody hard is it to say how was your day? and just leave it there?
“Did we have a day that was nice, participating in our respective professions?” Derek laughs. “Sal? Did we?” He turns back to me, and I prepare myself for evisceration. “Is English your first language, Cassie? It’s cool if it’s not, but we can help you if you need extra lessons.”
“Yes,” I confirm bleakly. “English is my only language, apart from an amateur splash of ancient Greek.”
Although I can certainly see why my proficiency might be in question. Sometimes I stop understanding basic words, or how to use them, and get mixed up for no reason. I recently referred to my phone as “my banana” and Will laughed so loudly three pigeons flew away simultaneously.
“So actually I’ve just realized,” I say formally, taking a few steps backward and staring at the top of the kitchen cabinets, “I’ve...got an important thing. To do. In my bedroom. Alone. Have a nice evening. Goodbye.”
“Cassie,” Sal says in frustration as I bolt out of the room. “He was just teasing. Please don’t take it—Stop eating the shitting cheese, Derek. It’s to sprinkle on shitting top. Nigella Lawson doesn’t have to put up with this kind of disrespect.”
“I don’t think you should say the word shit so much when you’re talking about our dinner,” Derek objects, and Sal laughs loudly.