Page 17 of Love and Other Paradoxes

“So,” said Dr. Lewis, facing him down from her armchair. “How was your break?”

He stared at her, wondering how best to sum it up. Oh, it was great. I utterly failed to seduce my future lover. Instead, I assaulted her boyfriend and ended up kissing someone

else. A thrill of guilt ran through him. Not just someone else . Esi.

They had spent the rest of the party avoiding each other. He had awoken the next morning, surrounded by strangers on the floor

of Diana’s basement, to a single text:

staying in London to get my hair done

He couldn’t have imagined a more transparent excuse to get away from him. He had sent a vague, pleasant reply, and spent the

two weeks since in a spiral of self-loathing. He was supposed to be Joseph Greene, famous romantic, obsessively devoted to

one woman for eternity. The kiss felt like a betrayal, not just of Diana, but of his future self.

Dr. Lewis was looking at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, it was good. Can we just...” He gestured at

his essay.

“Fine by me. I was trying to ease you in with small talk.” She leafed through his essay, which looked like it had been recovered from the corpse of a shooting victim. “Page three. You cite the text as if it supports your argument, but if you’d bothered to read the footnote, you’d see that the author was actually making the opposite point. Attention to detail has never been your strong suit. But this is sloppy, even for you.” She took off her glasses. “Answer me honestly. Did you do any work at all over the break?”

He didn’t want to lie to her. Part of him was convinced she had a sixth philosophical sense for it. He shook his head.

She exhaled. “Okay. This is going to scare you, but I think you need to be scared.” She put her glasses back on. “You are

running out of time. I’m serious. If you keep on like this, we’re not talking about a 2:2, or even a Third. You are not going

to graduate.” She leaned forward, gazing at him earnestly. “Is that really where you want to be? Three years of your life

gone, with nothing to show for it?”

An old, cold terror rushed through his veins. The nightmares where his parents turned away from him, where the whole pub heard

the news and started pointing and laughing. A small voice protested that he couldn’t fail. He was going to graduate, with

the 2:1 that was printed in black and white in the book of his future. But he couldn’t see a path that led him there, any

more than he could see a path that led him to Diana. “Can I ask you something?” he said. “Not about philosophy.”

“Everything’s about philosophy.” When he stared at her beseechingly, she shook herself. “Sorry. Sometimes I have trouble turning

it off. Go ahead.”

He looked down at his hands. “When do we become who we’re meant to be?”

She looked at him as though she were pondering a tricky logic problem. “In my experience, there’s no single moment of becoming. We’re always works in progress.” She leaned back in her chair. “Want my advice? Don’t think about who you’re going to be in twenty years’ time. Focus on what you can do this week, then next week, then the week after. That way, you’ll be in a good position by the time June comes around.”

June, when he would sit his final exams. June, when Esi would disappear from his life forever. He wondered miserably what

she must think of him. She had almost got over her bad first impression, even started to think he was a good person. And then

he had kissed her, recklessly and impulsively, when they both knew he was destined to be with Diana. He had let a month of

enforced proximity amplify a crush he should have been getting over, and in a moment of vulnerability, he had unleashed his

stupid infatuation on the last person in the universe who had asked for it. He had disrespected her, he had ruined their friendship,

and, as far as she was concerned, he had put her mission in jeopardy. He wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to see him

again.

“Mr. Greene?” He started. Dr. Lewis was carrying her sousaphone case. He wondered for a confused second if she was about to

whip it out and play him a motivational anthem, but she ushered him impatiently towards the door. “Time’s up. I have band

practice.”

He tripped down the stairs in a daze. He had sleepwalked his way through the entire supervision, his body on Dr. Lewis’s sofa but his mind elsewhere. He wandered vaguely into the post room. The porters had emailed him saying his pigeonhole was overflowing and he needed to clear it out. He sorted through the miscellany of gifts: three more white roses in varied stages of wilting, a notebook, and a snow globe of the Eiffel Tower. He binned the roses, left the snow globe in a blank pigeonhole, and pocketed the notebook. That one at least might be useful.

The gifts had pushed something else to the back. He reached in to pull it out. It was a mug that, disconcertingly, had his

face on it. Underneath was a quote in flowing italic letters: If I knew what I meant, I wouldn’t need to write poetry.

“A flagrant violation of the terms and conditions,” he muttered. He imagined the time traveller who had left it returning

triumphant through the wormhole, boasting that they’d given him the idea for the quote. He felt faintly annoyed. He would

have liked the chance to come up with it himself.

He turned the mug in his hands. A nudge in the direction of his future.

He sat in the window seat and tried to draft a text to Diana. What did you say to someone whose boyfriend you had deliberately

spilled wine all over? There was no emoticon for this situation. He thought of Esi, and the last barrier of resistance inside

him crumbled. He needed her help, even if he was the last person she wanted to see.

Outside the gate, Vera and her usual crowd were lurking. He didn’t spare them a glance. He took a circuitous route, walking

out of town up Trumpington Street until the gasps and mutters faded behind him. As he crossed Lensfield Road, he cast a surreptitious

look over his shoulder to see them on the other side, caught behind their invisible boundary. He double-checked that Vera

was shepherding them back towards the wormhole, then headed on in the direction of Mill Road. As he came out onto the narrow,

busy thoroughfare, he felt a fizzing apprehension that kept building until he walked into the coffee shop and saw her.

She was serving a customer, looking down with a guarded smile. Her braids were finer and longer now, hanging past her shoulders. When she moved her head, silver-and-blue threads woven into them subtly caught the light.

He stared at her helplessly. His attention must have been loud, because she looked up and met his eyes. For a moment, she

looked like he felt: lost, vulnerable, happy and sad at the same time. Then she shook her head minutely and waved him away.

He retreated to a table in the corner. He opened his new notebook and stared at a blank page until she came over.

“Did Vera follow you?” She was looking anxiously out of the window.

“No. I was careful.” He looked up with an unsteady smile. “You really did get your hair done.”

She tilted her head, arms crossed. “You thought I was lying?”

Yes, because we kissed, and you ran away, and I thought you were making an excuse to avoid talking about it, but now it looks

like you were telling the truth, so my only possible conclusion is that it meant nothing to you. Which is perfect. I should

be relieved. I am relieved. He swallowed all of that and said instead, “It looks nice.”

She touched her hair self-consciously, then looked annoyed at herself for doing it. She crossed her arms again. “What are

you doing here?”

“I need your help.”

She laughed, a short, angry sound. “Because I’ve been such a great help so far.”

“You have, though. She’d never have spoken to me again if it wasn’t for you. But I’m running out of time. The poetry thing’s

on Valentine’s Day. Less than a month away. After that’s done, I won’t have an excuse to see her anymore. Unless—”

“Unless she decides she wants to keep seeing you.” Despair flickered across her face. With a resigned sigh, she sat down opposite him. “Have you been in touch with her since New Year?”

“No. What would I say? I made myself look like a complete bampot.” He put his head in his hands. “I don’t know how to walk

this one back.”

“So don’t.” She lifted her chin. “You’re going to have to act like you meant it.”

He winced. “Can I not just say I had a spasm?”

“No. You cannot just say you had a spasm.” Was that reluctant fondness he could see in her eyes? “Pouring wine all down her

boyfriend is a dramatic gesture. It says, I want you, and I don’t give a fuck who knows it, or what the consequences are .” Hearing those words from her mouth sent his thoughts onto another track entirely. After a moment, she seemed to become

aware of it. She looked away. “What I mean is, if you can sell it to her like that, then it might change how she feels about

you.”

He tried to focus. “So what do I do first? Text her asking if we can talk?”

“No. Pretend nothing happened. Text her saying you want to meet up and rehearse. She’ll say yes, because it’ll drive her crazy

wondering what’s going through your head. Then, when you meet, she’s going to bring it up. She’ll ask why you did it. That’s

your cue. Passion blah blah blah, jealousy blah blah blah, you can’t think straight when it comes to her.”

“‘Passion blah blah blah,’” he intoned, hand on his heart. “Sure it’s not you who’s the poet?”

Her face lit with a smile that she immediately repressed. “One day my genius will be recognised.”

It felt so good, so normal, to be laughing with her again. A glimmer of hope lit in his chest. Maybe he hadn’t irreparably broken everything.

“Okay.” He composed a quick text, showed it to Esi, who nodded her approval, and sent it. He felt immediately lighter. “Right.

Now that’s done, let’s sort out the next steps for finding your mum. There’s all the societies we haven’t tried yet—”

“No.”

He took in her closed expression, her clenched fists. “You don’t think the rest of them are worth a shot?”

“I do. But I can check them out on my own.” More quietly, she added, “It’s not a good idea for me to be around you.”

Ringing filled his ears. She did hate him, and the worst thing about it was, he couldn’t blame her. Mechanically, he got up.

“Okay. I understand. I—I’ll just go.”

“I’d better go too. Before my fascist manager fires me.”

The other barista was talking to the manager, her body angled to block the view of Joe and Esi’s table. He remembered her

name. Shola. “Say yes.”

Esi blinked in confusion. “What?”

He gestured. “To Shola. About moving in with her.”

“I told you, I can’t—”

“Affect the world. I know. But I know the real reason. You don’t want to let anyone close to you, because you’ve got this

idea of yourself as something temporary. Just waiting to be replaced.” The pain was crystallising into a terrible clarity.

“But you deserve a home, and friends, and a life. You do. Even if you don’t believe it.”

She gazed at him, something complicated in her eyes: warmth, regret, and a flash of anger. “I’m not here to stay, Joseph Greene.”

The weight of his full name fell between them like an impassable barrier. “I know,” he said, and left.

When he got back to college, Rob was in the living room, whistling as he smeared the rim of an envelope with jam. “Contact

poison,” he explained.

“Did I ask?” Joe eyed the growing pile of envelopes beside him. “Are all of those for Darcy?”

“For anyone, potentially. The Lent Game doesn’t start for another twelve days. I’m just building up my arsenal.” He looked

up. “You all right, Greeney? You look like you just got shot in the feelings.”

“Yeah. I—uh—things are rough right now.”

“With Diana? Sorry to hear that, mate. Look on the bright side, though. Emotional agony makes for great poetry.”

“Sure,” Joe said emptily, as his phone buzzed. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised to see a message from Diana. Her reply

had been inevitable: just like him, she didn’t really have a choice.

Absolutely. My place, next Friday. Usual time.

He could almost hear her saying it, in her cool, detached tone that gave nothing away.

Rob gave him a questioning look. “Was that her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s—she wants to meet up.”

“Great!” His roommate smeared jam carefully around the rim of another envelope. “That’s all sorted, then.”

Joe stared out of the window. “Aye,” he said. “All sorted.”