Um. One of us is confused here, and it isn’t me. I don’t have an email address.
There was a point in the autumn when I couldn’t stop going online, watching Jason’s status updates, talking to everybody but me. I knew I had to wait till I saw him, and seeing his life flicker by in real time was lemon on a paper cut, so I stopped going on the Internet completely, turned off my notifications, deleted all my accounts. Waited.
I’m about to tell Thomas I don’t have email, that whoever he sent it to isn’t in this reality, when
time
reboots
again.
Umlaut’s gone. Thomas is no longer in the chair opposite me, but sliding something in the oven and asking over his shoulder, “Want to watch some TV or something?”
“It’s late. I got up to turn out the light,” I mumble, standing up. I like my string theory theoretical, not in my kitchen in the middle of the night. The spell is broken. I’m looking for a do-over on last summer, not five years ago. “Maybe another time…”
I expect Thomas to make a fuss or a chicken noise as I start backing out the door, but he yawns and stretches, pulling his cardigan tight against his arms.
“You’re right. We’ve got all summer,” he says, leaning against the oven as I wave goodnight from the garden. “There’s plenty of time.”
Outside, it’s getting light. Somehow, Thomas and I have talked till dawn. I pass Ned as I trudge back to my room.
“Grots.” He nods formally before serenely throwing up in the bushes.
Back on my bed, I think about what Thomas said. That there’s plenty of time. It’s not true, but it’s a comforting lie. I write it on the wall, then I finally fall asleep. Dreaming of chocolate and lavender.
Friday 18 July
[Minus three hundred and twenty]
I wake a couple of hours later to sunshine and a piece of chocolate cake on my doorstep. Actually, there’s a plate between it and the step, the difference between Thomas-now and Thomas-then. What other midnight baker would be leaving cake outside my room—Umlaut? He’s sniffing round my ankles. Tucked underneath the plate, to stop it from flying away, there’s a folded scrap of paper. In Thomas’s blocky print, it reads:
BEAT BUTTER AND SUGAR TILL CREAMED. STIR IN WHISKED EGGS, THEN FOLD IN SELF-RAISING FLOUR. USE 4 OZ OF EACH INGREDIENT PE`TWO EGGS. ADD 2 TBSP COCOA POWDER WITH THE FLOUR FOR CHOCOLATE. BAKE AT 150°C FOR AN HOUR. EVEN YOU CAN DO THIS. TRUST ME.
There are hydrangeas in bloom, the sun is shining, and I’ve finally slept. Alles ist gut. Confessing The Wurst, if not the worst, has left me somehow able to close my eyes. Are Thomas and I friends? Age twelve, if someone had asked me that, I’d have punched them in the nose. Our friendship just was, like gravity, or daffodils in spring.
I stand on the step with the cake, the note, the kitten, and this thought: we talked till the sun came up. And it only makes me want to say more. Next to me, Umlaut does flips in the sunshine.
I scoop him up and head to the kitchen, where I get my second surprise of the day—a new phone. This comes with a note, too, a more enlightening one: Sie sind verantwortlich für die Zahlung der Rechnung. Dein, Papa. (You’re in charge of paying the bill. Love, Papa).
I abandon my cake on the windowsill and tear open the phone like it’s Christmas morning, plugging it in to charge. Papa has Scotch-taped my old SIM onto the box. I’ll be able to see if Jason’s texted a time for us to meet. I’ll be able to ask him: what happened in Grey’s room—did I disappear?
And the real question: what happened, with us?
“Goog ’ake.”
I look up from my phone-charging vigil to see that a pajama-bottomed Ned, his hair wild, has emerged from his nest. Wednesdays and Fridays are his bookshop shifts, which means he’s up early-ish. And he’s eating my cake for breakfast.
“’Eckon.” He swallows in one gulp, like a snake, and tries again. “Think Thomas would make a massive one for the party?”
This is the first time he’s spoken to me directly about the party—but he still hasn’t asked me if I’m okay with it. For all the hydrangeas and sleep in the world, alles ist not gut. I grab my satchel and my partially charged phone and run out of the house.
*
My phone chimes along with the church bells. I’ve been hiding out in the churchyard for hours, folded like origami between the yew tree and the wall. The text is from Jason. We’re meeting at lunchtime, a week from tomorrow.