I relax slightly. This bodes well for all our future dates too; next time maybe I’ll crack out the laminating machine.
“Hang on.” Will skims the document again. “I’m seeing a bit of a theme. Picnic in the Botanic Gardens. Bike riding. Punting. Treasure hunt. Pub. Look at colleges. Eat fudge. Either we’re going to Cambridge, or King’s Cross has really changed over the last few months.”
Something in my stomach flaps like a pigeon.
“We’re going to Cambridge. Is that okay?” I clear my throat and can’t quite meet his eyes in case he spots something in them I’m not ready to share. “It’s really sunny today, so I thought it might be fun to do something a little less...urban.”
“Absolutely!” Will rubs his hands together, which is an endearing little gesture he always makes when he’s preparing for a big adventure: it looks a lot less villainous than it sounds on paper. “I love it! I’ve not been there for years and years.”
“No.” I smile faintly and study the timetable boards. “Me neither.”
Everything is precisely as I remember it.
Which is probably not surprising for a university founded in 1209—they’re not big on change here either—but it’s both reassuring and discombobulating. As soon we emerge from the train station, I start to feel...a lot. I can’t unpick it—there’s roughly six colors happening at once—but it’s painfully intense. Confusing. Everywhere I look, memories are layered on top of each other, like sheets of Sal’s lasagna: separate but also stuck together in one big lump.
We’ve spent the entire journey chatting about Will’s family dramas—they are legion—so my abrupt silence does not go unnoticed.
“Everything okay?” Will frowns at me. “Cassie?”
In the sunshine I can see my dad waiting for me in the car after I was dropped off from a school trip: squishing his face up against the window to make me laugh. I can see my mum by the turnstiles, fumbling through her velvet pockets for train tickets she always managed to lose before we got on an actual train.
Actually, that’s not accurate. I can see all the times they were here.
Hundreds and hundreds of times: each crossing over and through each other like holograms, shining in every direction I look.
“Absolutely.” I shake myself and smile at Will. “I was just trying to remember our first date activity, that’s all.”
Pulling the plan out again, I pretend to stare at it while I regroup.
Focus, Cassie. Put it all back in the right box and slot it neatly back in the brain cupboard. At least I already know what we’re doing first: punting. I’ve seen all the films; they do it in Venice. I know the cinematic value and the impact it has on couples. We will drift silently down the river, staring into each other’s eyes and holding hands, and at some point in our future we’ll go, “Remember when we fell in love while we were punting?” and our eyes will get misty at how incredibly romantic it was.
Admittedly, romance is yet another arbitrary human construct I don’t entirely grasp, but I remain hopeful that if I stick to the rules I might one day understand it a bit better. It mostly seems to consist of doing nice things with people you’d like to see naked, but I’m clearly missing something.
“Punting?” I suggest as we stroll toward town. “Then bike ride and picnic?”
“Great,” Will says breezily, taking everything in his stride, as usual. “I’ve never done it before, so this is exciting. Did I see fudge on the list? Because I fancy grabbing some of that on the way too.”
I glance at him adoringly, then away again before he sees it. Never have I known a human who adapts to any environment so quickly or with so little fuss: he’s like one of those glorious trees that grows in between the cracks of a cement pavement.
“Of course.” I can feel his excitement in me too. “And then maybe—”
Will has just slipped his hand into mine. It’s large and warm and slightly grainy like wood, and I suddenly realize this is the first time we’ve held hands in this version of time, and it feels like the first.
I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t speak.
After a few moments of my pointed silence, Will clears his throat and reaches for his sunglasses as an excuse to drop hands again.
Fuck.
“Did I see fudge on the list?” Will smiles at me. “Because I fancy grabbing some of that on the way too.”
“Of course.” I wait for his hand to slip into mine and focus on attempting to talk at the same time, like some kind of magical multitasking juggler. “And then maybe we can wander around a few of the colleges?”
“Absolutely. Any in particular?”
“Emmanuel,” I say way too quickly. “Or...you know. Whichever. I’m easy.”
Hand—finally—in hand, Will and I wander through the cobbled streets of Cambridge town center toward the old colleges, stacked like ornate cakes against the river. All the colors are starting to bubble again—now I can see my parents taking me to buy new school shoes, books, a sandwich, all happening at once—so I focus hard on the pressure of my fingers intertwined with Will’s instead.
“What’s up, dock!” A very young man in too-tight shorts, a waistcoat and a straw boater approaches as we hit the river, far too enthusiastically. “Welcome to Pun-ting! An extra-oar-dinary experience, where we take the oar-deal out of punting! Canoe think of a better way to spend your time?”
Will and I glance at each other; our nostrils flare.
“Oar-kward!” the poor university student chuckles with an air of financial desperation. “Excuse me barging in, but tell me exactly yacht you want and I can get you there schooner or later.”
Okay, I may not know much about romance, but I don’t think it involves sitting on a floating bit of wood while a twenty-year-old art history undergraduate makes faintly boat-related puns at us for the next forty minutes.
Our entire relationship appears to be haunted by wordplay.
“You know what?” Will looks at me and lifts his eyebrows. “How about we hire one and punt it ourselves? I think I could do with the exercise.”
“That is a ferry bad idea.” The student grins. “Knot on my watch!”
“What do you think?” Will turns to me. “Cassie?”
I study the elements of his face, trying desperately to work out what he’s thinking. There’s something in his eyes. A small flare in his nostrils. A subtle change in the line of his mouth and eyebrows. With growing panic, I assess the clues, stick them together, compare them to similar expressions from the past and fumble for the message he’s trying to send me. I think it might be: We’re not getting on that bloody boat.
“Sounds good to me?” I guess tentatively.
Will grins at me, obviously delighted that we’re on the same page, and I feel a bolt of triumph: smashed it.
“No, seriously.” The poor boy drops his sales pitch. “That’s a really terrible idea, guys. Like, punting’s deceptively hard. If you’ve not done it before, you’re going to regret it. I promise you.”
I stare at him in surprise: he abruptly sounds a lot like Tiresias, muttering his dark prophecies from the Underworld.
“We’ll be okay,” Will says cheerfully, squeezing my hand.
Giddy with the conspiracy of it—look at us, reading each other’s thoughts with simply the power of our facial muscles and eyebrow hairs—Will and I wander toward the self-drive punts, or whatever they’re called.
“Boat?” the guy barks, and this is a bit more like it.
“Yup.” Will pays and we clamber on. “Any tips?”
“Yeah.” The boatman laughs. “Don’t fall in.”
“Right. Cheers.” Experimentally, Will grabs his pole and staggers to the front of the boat. It suits him. He looks like he was born to be there. “How are you doing, Cassie? Comfortable?”
I glance stiffly over the edge. Of course I am not comfortable.
I’m sitting on what appears to be an elaborately fashioned plank, inches away from green water with duck crap floating in it. I’m wearing the worst possible outfit for this venture, and I’ve had to sit on my bag and tuck my dress around me like a lacy burrito. As I look up and down the river, I can’t help but notice that all the other couples are sitting side by side, smiling in the sunshine, and we’re the only two idiots who decided to Do It Ourselves. This is what happens when you decide to wing it without a proper conversation: you make poorly considered decisions like this one.
“Yup,” I lie tightly. “Supercomfortable.”
“Then off we go!” Popping his sunglasses on with a disturbing wobble, Will pushes firmly away from the bank and I feel the boat tip underneath us. “Which way do you want to go first?”
I look desperately back at solid ground. “Don’t mind.”
“Let’s try this way, then.”
Looking suddenly far too sturdy—this can’t be equal weight distribution—Will begins to punt away down the river and fear rapidly mounts. It’s so dirty. Filthy. And not in the apparently sexy way. How am I supposed to feel romantic when I’m seconds away from being covered in the feces of mallards?