Page 18 of Love and Other Paradoxes

Next Friday. Ten days away. He could have taken Dr. Lewis’s advice and filled the time with work. But he had so much to catch

up on that getting started seemed impossible.

It shouldn’t have been so hard. The Joseph Greene who did the work to get his promised 2:1 undoubtedly existed. He would have

to turn into him any day now. But like the poet who stared out from his mug as he drank endless procrastinatory cups of tea,

that successful version of him felt increasingly distant from who he currently was.

To distract from all the ways he was failing to live up to himself, he overprepared for his meeting with Diana. He went over

and over the script Esi had suggested until the future felt like it had already happened. On the day, he woke tingling and

nauseous. He put on an actual shirt, and made an attempt at applying goop to his hair, but the effortless swoops Esi had crafted

were impossible for him to re-create. He gave up and headed for the door, doubling back to pick up Meant to Be from under his pillow.

As he waited outside Whewell’s Court, he felt the slim weight of the book inside his jacket, a talisman anchoring him to the fu ture. No time travellers were watching: Vera had led them back to the wormhole earlier than usual. He tried not to let the change in routine worry him, but these days, every little thing struck him as a harbinger of disaster.

He had texted Diana as soon as he arrived, but she had obviously decided to keep him waiting. Someone pushed past him, holding

up their card to open the gate. Joe caught it before it closed and slipped inside.

He climbed her staircase and knocked on the door. After two minutes of ostentatious shuffling—he resisted the urge to knock

again—she finally opened it.

“Joseph. How wonderful to see you.” At the sight of her, luminous in a black cashmere sweater, his annoyance evaporated. “Can

I get you a cup of tea?” Before he could accept, she added sweetly, “As long as you promise not to throw it all over me.”

Apologies leapt to his tongue like frogs in a fairy tale. He brushed them away. Act like you meant it. “So that was just a line?” he asked, leaning nonchalantly in the doorway. “You’re not actually offering me tea?”

She put her hands on her hips. “No, I’m not offering you tea! You poured wine all down my boyfriend!” When he failed to wither

under her glare, it shifted into curiosity. “What exactly were you thinking?”

He remembered what Esi had told him to say. Passion blah blah blah, jealousy blah blah blah. He couldn’t do a convincing performance of those, not yet. But when he thought about the Crispin in the book, the misery

hidden in the few terse words describing their marriage, it already made him furious. “I was thinking about how he doesn’t

deserve you.”

She sighed. “Joseph, respectfully, you don’t know anything about mine and Crispin’s relationship. What are you basing this on? An overheard phone conversation, and the fact that he called you my Scottish stripper?” She waved a dismissive hand. “Sorry about that, by the way. It was uncalled-for. But hardly proof that he’s some sort of storybook villain.”

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying he takes you for granted. And if you get back with him, it’s only going to get worse.”

“Get back with him?” She affected a look of confusion. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware we’d broken up.”

Not yet. He was getting ahead of himself. Time to get back on script. “Look. You’re right. Maybe I should have thought about it, taken

a step back. But the truth is, I can’t think straight when it comes to you.”

She smiled a rich, exulting smile. “Is that so.”

Hating himself a little for having said it, hating her a little more for liking it, he nodded.

She came closer, invading his space. He flinched—he couldn’t help it—and she laughed. She slid her arms around him. “Is this

what you want?” she asked curiously.

His heart was hammering. Finally, here it was , said the narrator, the fateful moment when muse and poet would—

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that a book in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?” She reached inside his jacket.

“No. Not a book.” He stepped back. Panic flooded his veins. If she saw, it was all over. Her picture, her name on the cover—

“Joseph. I’m an English student. If I’ve learned nothing else from my degree, I hope I can at least reliably identify a book.”

She made a playful grab. “Why are you being so cagey about it? Is it pornography?”

He danced away, letting out a nervous laugh. “Yes, it’s a hardback book of porn. What am I, a pervy Victorian lord?”

“Perhaps. You do have a certain timeless charm.” She pinned his arm with a surprisingly strong grip. “Let me see it!”

Desperate, he burst out, “It’s a philosophy textbook!”

She made a face like she’d smelt something rotten. “Well, that killed the intrigue stone dead.” Sighing, she went to stand

by the window. “So. Shall we get into it?”

“Sure.” As she began to recite the poem, his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, and his heart thudded. A string of messages

from Esi: the first time he’d heard from her since he’d left the café ten days ago.

Just saw my mum go into Trinity

porters didn’t stop her

must be her college

Diana was reaching the end of the first verse. Surreptitiously, he texted back:

Can’t be. Diana would’ve recognised her.

He turned the phone over in his hand, waiting for her to reply. Midway through the second verse, Diana paused. “That ambiguity

again. ‘Igniting what is to come.’”

“Mm,” he said. “Interesting.” His phone buzzed again.

Unless she was lying

When would she get over that idea? He was typing a reply when another message came through.

Can we just check?

Diana tapped the windowsill. “Did you mean setting it going, or burning it all down?”

He stared at his phone. Raw, hurt replies ran through his mind. Thought you didn’t want to see me anymore. Oh, so now you need me? But she was asking for his help, and he couldn’t imagine a world where he would refuse her.

Course , he typed. Meet me outside the Great Gate at 5:30. I’ll do a Vera sweep before.

“Joseph!”

He looked up, guilty. “Yes?”

“Igniting.” She was glaring at him. “Initiating? Destroying?”

He shrugged. “Both.”

“I know it’s both,” she snapped. “That’s what ambiguity is. I want to know what you meant by the ambiguity.”

To give himself time to think, he gazed poetically out of the window. An image flashed into his mind: his own brooding face,

a quotation inscribed below. “If I knew what I meant,” he said, “I wouldn’t need to write poetry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Very profound. Give it a few years, they’ll be printing that on T-shirts.”

“Mugs, actually.” His phone vibrated. He looked down, heart in his throat.

Ok

When he looked up, Diana was watching him. “What did she say?”

He was about to correct her misapprehension when he realised that something in her manner had changed: she wasn’t angry anymore.

She was intrigued. The idea that he might be interested in someone else actually made him more appealing to her.

He tucked the phone into his pocket, a dull ache spreading through his chest. “She said yes.”

He waited for Esi outside the Great Gate. She was late, and that made him worry that she’d changed her mind, that she’d decided

to do this alone. He shifted from foot to foot under the skeletal trees, his breath smoking in the chill. By the time he saw

her hurrying towards him, her shoulders hunched, her head downcast, it was nearly six and he was freezing. “I said five thirty,”

he pointed out.

She looked over her shoulder. “I’ve been watching you for the last half hour. I had to be sure Vera’s not tailing you.”

He bristled. “I told you I was going to do that.”

“Yeah, and I decided to double-check. The stakes are higher for me than they are for you.” She avoided his eyes, heading for

the Great Gate. “Let’s get this done.”

He could hear her humming her nervous tune as they entered the Porters’ Lodge. He checked the E s: a single column of names, interspersed by a couple of dropout blanks. Esi cast up and down them, tender, impatient. Her

face fell. “She’s not here.”

He hadn’t expected anything different. Still, he couldn’t bear the heartbreak in her eyes. “Let’s just do this. Come with

me. We’ll search all the other colleges.”

“What’s the point?” Despair filled every line of her body. “So I find out which bubble-within-a-bubble she’s at. How does that help me?”

“It gets you a step closer to knowing where she lives. Even better, it gives you a way to contact her. You could leave her

a note.”

“Saying what? Beware the twenty-third of June ? If someone tries to give you an award, don’t accept it ?” Her face was taut with misery. “I don’t have enough details to be specific. And a vague note’s worse than nothing. It might

make her do anything. Send her off on a whole new path.”

Her words sank through him, seeding an awful realisation in his gut. “It’s worse than that.”

She looked at him in alarm. “What do you mean?”

“See this award—what if it’s something she has to put herself in the running for? You could give her the idea. Send her on

the path that leads to her death.” He knew he should stop talking, but the thought was unfurling in his mind and he had to

follow where it was leading. “Maybe what you do when you come back here—maybe it doesn’t stop the accident. Maybe it causes

it.”

The horror in her face was too much. “Why would you say that?”

He stepped back. “I don’t know, okay? It just occurred to me.”

“It occurred to you. So of course you had to share it, because you’re Joseph Greene, and every random thought you have is

gold. What am I even supposed to do with that?” Her eyes fixed him with fury. “You’re Mr. Destiny, aren’t you. Mr. Meant to

Be. According to you, it’s going to happen no matter what I do. I leave her a note, she dies. I don’t leave her a note, she

dies. I tear the universe apart with my bare hands and put it back together, it doesn’t fucking matter. She still dies.”

“Esi—” he began, reaching for her, but she drew away.

“The way you think time works,” she said, her voice shaking. “I hate it.”

He gazed at her, miserable, aware somewhere in the depths of his being that he was beginning to hate it too. “I’m just saying.

Maybe trying to fix yourself isn’t the answer.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to listen to you?” she lashed out. “You think sleeping with one out-of-your-league woman is going to

turn you into a version of yourself you actually want to be?”

Her words didn’t hurt right away. He felt a lurch in his stomach, a premonition of pain to come. “Wow,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

The porter was eyeing them over his newspaper. Joe touched Esi’s arm—she shied away—and followed her outside. Snow was falling,

turning to slush the instant it hit the cobbles. “Look. I meant what I said. We can go college-to-college, right now. You

can decide once we find her—”

“ We aren’t doing anything. I told you. I don’t want your help.” She emphasised each word with her fist in her palm. “Don’t you

get it? I can’t do this. I can’t just—stand here and talk to you like it’s normal, like I’m not aching, like I’m not dying

inside.” Her face was wild with an emotion he couldn’t read. “I’ve spent enough of my life wanting something I can’t have.”

He had a beating awareness, her face close to his, of what she meant. There was a moment, trembling and fragile as a bubble,

where he could have said something. But his future lay heavy on his tongue, and he stayed silent.

She caught her breath. “I wish I’d never met you,” she said, and walked away.