“What did you mean, soon?” I ask. “How will we see each other again soon?”
“I mean next year,” he says.
Although I should find the sentiment sweet, I don’t. It’s too illogical. “Um, no. There’s no next year, Jamie.”
“You can come back for graduation.”
“No,” I say, sterner than I mean to. “It’s just, my parents already spend a lot of money on plane flights to Paris for me and Alison. They can’t send me to Tokyo for graduation. And anyway, that’s just graduation. It’s one day.”
“That’s twenty-four whole hours!” he says. “That’s approximately a million seconds! Right?”
“Don’t even joke.”
He seems worried now. The crease between his eyebrows is back. “I’ll get a part-time job. I’ll save money to pay for a flight for you. That way you can save your own money for MIT.”
I’m trying to memorize what he looks like up close. All his freckles, and the green and gold in his eyes. And even though I’m trying not to think about time, there’s still this countdown ticking in my head. Ten minutes from now, I’ll be gone. Ten minutes from now, he won’t be with me anymore. Something inside me threatens to break—I rub my thumb against his arm to remind myself he’s still here.
“Let’s not pretend this is going to work,” I say. “You’ve got two years at the T-Cad, and I’m going to college next year, and it’s not like we can date, because that would be crazy. The semi-adult thing to do is to let each other go. If we meet again someday, then fine.”
He grimaces. “I really hate the sound of that semi-adult thing.”
I remember how upset I was to see him in Shibuya Station at the beginning of the week, all those thousands of years ago. Too much has changed. There’s no going back now.
“You want to know something about black holes?” I say hurriedly.
“Um.” He crinkles his eyes in amusement. “Okay?”
“I know, I know. Just shut up for a second. So the thing is that time moves slower around them. Or anyway, it seems to. So if you were standing at a distance, watching a clock hovering next to a black hole, the clock would tick slower.”
“Right,” he says. “That was a good science fact. Will there be a quiz later?”
“What I mean is…” I hold his elbows tighter. “This is a black hole. Or this week has been, anyway. Every second was longer than just a second, you know? And I mean that in a really good way because I love the idea of black holes. The idea that all of this space and time isn’t really fixed, that we can change it.”
He touches his nose to my cheek, and his voice is a murmur in my ear. “Maybe we’re stuck here. Floating in space. That wouldn’t be so bad.”
“This has mattered so much to me, Jamie,” I whisper, “and I love you, and you are everything I like best about Tokyo, and you are Tokyo, and I will miss you so much.”
He lets go of my elbows and tugs me into him. Now I’m trying to memorize his smell. I wish I could take it with me.
“This sucks,” he whispers. “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to any human ever.”
I roll my eyes, which stops me from crying. “You’re really levelheaded and not at all dramatic about this.”
He keeps hold of me but pulls his face back a little. “I’m going to be an optimist here and I’m going to say ‘See you next year’ because I’m gonna go to North Carolina next summer, and I’ll get my driver’s license, and then I’ll drive to you.”
“This is it, Jamie. Even if I never see you again, what matters is now.”
“Oh fuck.” He laughs. “You really aren’t an optimist, are you?”
“Oh, I totally am.” I kiss him one last time and try to taste every bit of him. Green tea, mint, Jamie. I press my nose to the place where his neck meets his collarbone and wrench myself away before it gets to the point where I physically can’t bear to do it.
On my way to the ticket barriers, I tell myself this isn’t so bad. That I’m glad he’s not running after me. In the station, life goes on. The morning goes on. And he doesn’t seem that far away yet, even though I might never see him again.
Which makes me think it might not be distance or time that takes you away from people. Maybe you decide when you let them go.
But I can’t let go yet.
I get to the ticket barrier and turn around—to find him standing right behind me.
“I’m sorry!” He holds up his hands. “I totally followed you! Again!”
I kiss him with my arms all the way around his neck. I kiss him and ignore the sign above my head that says five minutes until my train leaves. (Mom and Alison probably have seats already. They’re probably freaking out.)
I let go of Jamie, put my ticket through the barrier, and push through. There are people waiting behind him. They think he’s going through as well.
“You’re so much better at this than I am,” he says, anxiety filling his face as the small plastic gate closes between us.
“That is the most wrong thing you’ve ever said.” I feel the tremble in my voice. He touches my wrist, right above my watch. It’s only a watch, but for years, it’s had so much control over my life, over all my endings. But that control was a lie—my endings belong to me. I rip my watch off and shove it into his hand. He grips it, surprised. “See you next year,” I say.
He takes off his leather wristband and crushes it into my palm and then he’s kissing me and I’m kissing him and I’m crying now. Really crying.
There’s a train conductor in the nearby ticket booth gesturing for us to move. I grab my suitcase and take a few steps back, and Jamie does the same. Other people start going through the barrier. They’re shoving me away and away and away from him.
I’m holding the handle of my suitcase with one hand and the leather band against my chest with the other, and I’m holding completely still. Until there are too many people between us. Until I can’t see him anymore.
I fall back, everything inside me snapping. It was only a moment, but now he’s gone.