The tide retreats.
Holy long division. Last Monday. Thomas stood over a saucepan on a hot, still night. He wore that same T-shirt, and he baked gluten-free lemon drizzle cake for Sof. Thomas never makes the same thing twice. Ach mein Gott—I haven’t come back to the right timeline. I’ve come back to last week!
Ms. Adewunmi’s warning roars in my ears: Do I need to worry about Norfolk getting sucked into the fourth dimension?
This isn’t home, this isn’t safe—this is the past. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to win the Nobel Prize. Water. I need it. Sitting down, that too. Dizzy and delirious, I stagger away from the doorway, into the room.
“G.” Thomas looks up, noticing me at last. When he smiles, it’s all for me: an explosion of dimples and his tongue poking between his teeth with delight. And suddenly I don’t care if I’ve destroyed the whole fucking solar system.
But I can’t speak yet. I manage to make it to the table and sit down, no thanks to my legs. Thomas nods at my outfit and asks, “Aren’t you baking?”
I flush, guiltily, even though there’s no way he can know why I’m dressed for a freezing, rainy night. For another night altogether.
“Aren’t you baking?” I counter, pointing to the saucepan. My tongue is dry.
“Ha. Seriously,” he says, turning down the hob and sitting next to me. Knees bumping again. This time, he sandwiches mine between his. “You look cute in that jumper, but it’s ninety degrees out.”
Flustered by cute, I yank off the jumper without unbuttoning it. It gets stuck over my head and takes my T-shirt with it, the static cling sending out sparks from my hair. “Help,” I say from inside the jumper, and feel Thomas’s hands on my waist, holding my T-shirt down. When I eventually emerge, he’s considering me. A smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Stop throwing yourself at me,” he says. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Are you jet-lagged?” I croak. My brain rapid-fires memories of last Monday at me and I grasp for them, trying to make sure we do things the same way. Because if I change the smallest thing … This is messing with time on a Back to the Future scale. This is Marvin, your cousin Marvin Berry!
“Are you feeling all right?” Thomas asks. He puts his hand to my forehead, pretending to take my temperature. I’m so tired, it’s all I can do not to lean into it. Fall and let him catch me. “Nope, normal—yet asking me about jet lag.”
“Jet lag, it’s, um,” I stammer, “when you change time zones and end up all weird.”
“I know what it is. It’s just a funny thing to ask—I left Canada a month ago. And it’s not any later than we’re usually up. What are you, seventeen or seventy?” Thomas tilts his head, considering me. “Sure you’re okay? There’s something strange about you tonight.”
I freeze. Why did I step through the doorway? From wearing different clothes to saying things before Thomas should, I’ve already made a hundred tiny tweaks that could affect the future. I’m an enormous butterfly, flapping stupidly around the kitchen and triggering intergalactic tsunamis, and it’s going to end in disaster—
“Aha!” He snaps his fingers. “No homework. I barely recognized you without a giant calculator hanging off your arm.”
My shoulders slump in relief.
“Your nose in a book, scribbling things,” Thomas continues. “Stand back, sire. I’m away to the library! There’s math to be solved!”
He’s right. I don’t have my constellations chart. I don’t have the diaries, or my notebook. How do we end up outside, kissing? How do I get home again? I’m utterly, totally lost.
Thomas mistakes my silence, nudging me gently.
“Sorry,” he says. “Look, you are always reading something off-the-charts clever with a scary title, but to be honest … I’m jealous of your homework ethic, especially compared to my own.” He does the breathless half chuckle of someone who’s not entirely joking. Maybe whose dad tells him so.
“You work hard,” I tell him. “You do. I’ve seen you at the Book Barn, you’re the only one who bothers inputting the receipts. And you literally bake our breakfast every day.”
Without warning, Thomas pushes his chair back with a Ned-bothering squeak and darts into the pantry. He emerges, arms laden, and starts flinging ingredients on the table, like that first night. Rosewater, sugar, unsalted butter, and bags of pistachios.
“Forget Sof’s cake,” he says. “Let’s make baklava for breakfast. No project, so … You’re going to help me, right?”