I’m right. Gradually, the world begins to turn. Slow and creaking at first, like a carousel at a funfair, the first ride of the day. A meow as Umlaut starts clawing through my jeans. Wind begins to rustle through the tree. Nettle stings finally blossom on my ankles.
Faster now, the moth flutters through the branches, there’s a whoop from the garden. Faster and faster, the crackle of the fire, the world going dark as the sun dips away.
I stay in the tree, and curl myself up like a caterpillar.
I’m not sure how much time passes, how long I wait until I hear Thomas calling my name. I know that I’m cold and that there’s a pool of dark matter in the hollow of the tree. And I’m afraid of what’s happening. How things that started off as beautiful, cosmic occurrences—stuttering stars and pi, floating in the air—have turned ugly and intense. The world is spiraling out of control.
And I don’t think time restarting has anything to do with what I’ve done, mathematically.
“I’m up here,” I yell.
A few seconds later, his face pokes through the leaves. It’s a question.
Our eyes meet, and I nod.
“I’m really pissed off at you,” I tell him.
“Fair enough.”
“But I’ve got nettle stings. And I’m cold. So I’m coming out of the tree.”
“Okay.”
After I climb down, I let Thomas take my hand.
“I don’t forgive you, or anything,” I say.
As we walk through the garden, Ned and Sof have their heads together, hair mingling as they whisper. She looks up as we go by. “You okay?” she mouths. I nod.
Thomas holds my hand as he leads me inside, into the kitchen. He holds my hand as we detour into the pantry, as he rummages one-handed past the Marmite tower to grab something I can’t see. He holds my hand all the way to the bathroom, and then he holds my hand as I sit on the edge of the bath, and he cranks on the taps. He did promise me friends. He did promise me he wouldn’t let go.
The water is Niagara Falls loud, and we don’t speak as he lets go to undo the jar he grabbed from the kitchen, dumping the entire thing in the water. Bicarbonate of soda.
I look a question at him.
“Grey,” Thomas shouts over the water. “He taught my mom to do this when I had chicken pox. I guess it’ll work for nettles.”
Mutely, I nod, staring at the water as it turns milky white, filling up to the brim. I’m shivering as I stand up and yank off my jeans, and Thomas turns away. I climb into the bath in my T-shirt. The warmth and the relief of the water on the stings is so good I actually growl.
Thomas laughs, sitting down on the floor, his back against the bath.
“You sound like Umlaut.”
“It’s good.” Two-word sentences are all I can manage.
The water’s hot and deep, up to my neck, and opaque. When was the last time I had a bath? The day after Thomas arrived, when I crashed my bike, and all I wanted was for him to go away. Now I’m back in the tub, and he’s leaving. Ironic.
Also ironic: there’s a wormhole in the bath. Life moves forwards and I go backwards. What is it I’m missing? What more does the world want from me? It’s already so fucked up.
“Aren’t I a total gentleman?” asks Thomas, not turning round.
“You are.” I splosh the water with my hands. I could fall asleep in here. “I feel like I’m in a science experiment.”
“Dropping you into a bathful of fizzing chemical compounds?” There’s a smirk in his voice. “Are you … in your element?”
Thomas jazz-hands over his head at me. I want to clamber out of the bath, and kiss him. I want to clamber out of the bath, and clobber him. How can he be going away again? How could he lie to me?
I laugh, at his stupid joke, at his stupid hands. It mutates into a sob.
“G, please don’t—” Thomas breaks off. “Can I turn around?”
I nod, my face buried in my hands, my hands buried in my knees. I don’t care.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” he says, and then his arms are around me as I go into full meltdown, crying into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. For a while, I really did think you knew. Then when I realized you had no idea … I didn’t know what to do. I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I don’t want you to go,” I say, my face hot. I’m falling apart in Thomas’s arms.
There’s a wormhole reaching for me, and I’m bruises and hurt as I hold on to him. I don’t want to disappear. I don’t want to do this anymore, but I don’t know how to stop it. I’m here. I want to exist.
I’m ready to live in the world again, but the world won’t let me.
He’s warm and safe and cinnamon as he promises me, “I have to go. But you remember my promise, right? I’ll always—”
Before I hear the rest, I spin away down the drain.
Thursday 5 September (Last Year)
[Minus four]