Page 26 of Love and Other Paradoxes

His first reaction was panic. She wasn’t meant to be here. He had dismissed her, first to an unwritten past, then to an unstable

future. And yet here she was, on his doorstep, taking her fate into her own hands.

“Joseph.” He had caught her before she had time to compose herself. The vulnerability on her face made her look like a stranger.

“Diana.” He stepped back, as if he hadn’t already stepped back from her in every way he could. “What are you doing here?”

She laughed breathlessly. “What else was I supposed to do? I would have called first, but...”

But he had blocked her number. To him, it had been a gesture, part of his grand symbolic walking-back of everything. Now,

he thought about how it must have been for her: cut off with no explanation, left to imagine a reason why. He had told himself

she wouldn’t care, that he meant nothing to her. But the look in her eyes told him that had been a self-protecting lie.

She moved past him, brushing his arm. Her scent caught him, and time collapsed, sending him back into every moment they had shared. He was in her bed, kissing her neck, her fingers tangled in his hair; he was under a streetlight, reciting another man’s poem, transfixed by her cool green eyes. He was in the darkened wing of the theatre, taking her hands, pushing her away.

She turned to face him. “I’m not quite sure how to do this. I’ve never actually been rejected before. God knows Crisp likes

to leave me hanging, but he’s never strictly said no to me.”

She was comparing him to Crispin. He felt ill. “Diana. Look. It’s not y—”

“Please don’t demean me with clichés. Whatever is between us, I think it deserves more than it’s not you, it’s me .” Her gaze dropped. “Besides, I rather suspect it is me.”

Shame crushed him. “Don’t say that—”

“Please. Let me speak.” She took a breath. “I live my life wearing a mask. Most people never get to see behind it. But you—I

let you see me, and then you walked away. Do you understand what that did to me?” Tears of fury shone in her eyes. “I’m supposed

to be the one who decides when something’s over. I’m not supposed to be the one moping, and pining, and turning up at your

door like a lost puppy.” She laughed, cracked and human. “I’m rather pissed off about it, actually.”

He wanted to tell her the truth, that seeing her real self was the closest he had come to falling in love with her. But he

had broken this once before by rushing it, and he didn’t want to do it again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For how I treated you.

I should have given you a proper explanation. I just—I don’t think we’re ready.”

“Ready for what?” Her eyes widened in half-amused perplexity. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Joseph. Or to swear your eternal

devotion. I’m asking you to be with me, here and now.”

Should he say yes? Was this how it could happen, in the new world he’d accidentally created? He was still caught in a spiral of consequence and second-guessing when she added, “I’ve left Crispin, if that makes a difference.”

He felt it like a tremor. Diana wasn’t supposed to leave Crispin. She was supposed to marry him. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Because you were right. I deserve better.”

He heard the echo of what Esi had said by the river. He was still measuring everything against the book, even after he’d shoved

it under his bed and tried to forget about it. But this wasn’t the Diana from the book. This Diana was real, and she was here,

and for some insane reason, she wanted to be with him.

He wasn’t sure. But maybe he wasn’t supposed to be sure. Real relationships weren’t written down ahead of time. You might

look back and think you were always in love, but that could just be your future self telling a story. It might really have

felt like this, a paralysis of indecision, a teetering between outcomes. The world where he told her no, not yet , and she walked away. The other world, this world, where he took her in his arms and kissed her.

Afterwards, he lay with her head resting on his chest, her fingers dancing lightly across his shoulder. “Let’s just stay here,”

she said softly. “Pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.”

He felt like he was watching from somewhere high above, a spectator on this moment. It made him feel like a voyeur. “I’d love

to,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “But I have to make a plan for how not to fail my exams.”

She looked up at him reproachfully. “Really? You’re turning me down for philosophy?”

When she put it that way, it sounded insane. But he had already wasted enough time acting like his future was guaranteed.

“I’m not the only one with finals,” he pointed out. “Don’t you need to revise?”

“What’s the point? I have one plan for my life, and it doesn’t rely on me getting a good degree. I’m not going to waste my time trying to be something I’m not.”

“But that’s not the only possible future,” he argued. “Why not have a backup plan?”

“Because that would mean part of me had already given up.” She propped herself on her elbow, looking at him earnestly. “This

life I’m chasing, Joseph—it’s all or nothing. I’m not going to make any choice that takes me further away from it. I’ll choose

my art. Every time.”

He felt like he was looking at her from the other side of a glass wall. He wanted to live in her world, where art was all

that mattered, and everything else was subordinate to that one consuming purpose. But he suspected her world came with a hefty

financial cushion from her parents if she didn’t turn out to be employable.

“Anyway, I can take a hint. I’ll leave you to your darling books.” She climbed over him and started getting dressed.

He sat up, feeling guilty. “Let me walk you out.” He threw his travel-worn clothes in the corner, put on whatever was at the

top of his suitcase, and made a token effort to fix his hair.

In the mirror, Diana was looking at him with something like alarm. “What on earth are you wearing?”

He looked down at the little boats and trees decorating his front. “A jumper?”

She pulled a face. “It’s not very you.”

It was a stark reminder that for as long as she had known him, he had been pretending to be someone else. “Actually, it is,”

he admitted sheepishly. “I was only wearing all that fancy stuff to try and impress you.”

She slid her arm into his as they descended the stairs. “I see. And now you’ve impressed me, that’s it? You’re just going to stop making an effort?”

Her tone was teasing. “Och, I don’t know,” he said with a smile. “Maybe I’ll buy another shirt.”

“A whole shirt,” she said, mock-amazed. “I’m a lucky girl.”

A wave of relieved fondness ran through him. Maybe this could work after all.

As they approached the gate, the Chapel clock was striking two. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t nail down what,

until he pulled the door open and saw Vera and a tour group waiting across the street.

Time travel hours. He swivelled, flattening himself against the door.

Diana looked at him curiously. “First you kick me out, now you’re not letting me leave?” He took her arm and marched her away

from the gate. “Where are we going?”

“Back gate. It’s handier for Trinity.” It absolutely wasn’t. He would just have to hope Cambridge’s maze of streets was sufficiently

confusing to obscure his lie.

“Joseph.” She stopped him as they reached the tree-lined shade of the Bursar’s Garden. “Are you trying to hide me from someone?”

He winced. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

She crossed her arms. “What are we talking about here? Another girlfriend?”

The word girlfriend momentarily short-circuited his brain. Diana wasn’t his girlfriend. She was his one true love, his muse, his destined— He

cut himself off. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about the book. “No! Just—someone who doesn’t think we should be together.”

“How intriguing. So this...” She stepped close, twining her arms around his neck. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “This

is a secret?”

His breath caught. He nodded.

She looked over his shoulder, then drew him down for a stolen kiss. “I rather like it.”

He spent the next two weeks oscillating between the library and Dr. Lewis’s rooms, trying to climb out of the academic hole

his past self had dug him into. In the moments between, he gradually adjusted to Diana Dartnell as his girlfriend, who he

kissed and slept with and took out on dates, although never during daylight hours. The fact that they had to sneak around

gave the whole thing a thrill of the forbidden. Part of him enjoyed the irony of feeling that way about a relationship that

was sanctioned by fate itself.

And he was writing about her. The poems came to him in fragments, inexplicable as the gifts in his pigeonhole. Only after

piecing them together and reading them back did he understand what it was like to be with her. It was a strange, backwards

way to fall in love with someone. But maybe that was how it had to be with him and Diana. The poems had come first: reality

could only do its best to measure up.

There was just one problem, which he had been successfully pretending wasn’t a problem until Rob had the temerity to bring

it up.

“So when are you going to tell her?”

Joe looked up from revising Hegel. Rob, as usual, was knitting. He’d come back from Easter break with a huge circle made of

black wool, and had been adding to it ever since. “Tell who what?”

“Campbell.” Rob’s acceptance of Esi into their inner circle had been sealed when he’d started calling her by her surname. “About you and Diana.”

He affected a casual tone. “You think she’d care?”

Rob barked out a laugh. “You know she’ll care. That’s why you haven’t told her.” His phone buzzed. “Speak of the devil. I’ll

go and let her in.”

Joe stared into the void of Rob’s knitted circle. Over the holidays, he and Esi had talked endlessly, late-night MSN conversations

that had kept him up till the small hours. But since he’d returned, a distance had grown between them. He reminded himself

that he didn’t have the right to be upset about it. In less than two months, she would be leaving. Diana was his future, and

Esi’s was on the other side of a wormhole.

It was hard to keep that in mind when the door opened and there she was, in a green-and-yellow dress that made her look like

spring come to life.

Rob led her to his circle. “Feast your eyes. This is how I’m going to take Darcy down.”

“Amazing.” She looked at the circle, then up at Rob. “What is it?”

“It’s a black hole.” A manic grin lit his face. “Once inside the event horizon”—he tossed the circle into the air above Joe’s

head. It landed, draping him in darkness—“the unlucky occupant gets turned to spaghetti.”

Joe clawed his way out, feeling his hair go static. “There’s no way you’re allowed to use this as a weapon.”

“Course I am. I got approval from the Umpire before I started knitting.” Rob looked eagerly at Esi. “It’s genius, right?”

She looked sceptical. “I don’t know. Feels like you’re overthinking it.”

“Of course I’m overthinking it! Two years I’ve been preparing for this duel.” He jerked a thumb at Joe. “Blame him. He took

my attack animal away.”

“Because I’m not letting you throw my kitten at some confetti-wielding psychopath!”

Rob and Esi shared a look. For a moment, Joe felt intensely left out. He wished he and Esi could have that easy camaraderie

again. But maybe he was rewriting the past; maybe things between them had never been so simple.

“Anyway,” said Rob. “Got to go. Revision supervision.” He looked meaningfully at Joe. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

He left them alone with their silence, full of all the things they hadn’t said to each other. Joe hurried to break it. “How’s

it going with your mum?”

She sat down on the sofa, tucking her feet up. “I feel like I know everything about her life at this point. All her friend

groups, all her lectures, all the societies she’s in. But I’ve still got no idea about the award. And the twenty-third is

six weeks away.” She bit her thumb. “Any ideas?”

“One. But you’re not going to like it.” She looked at him questioningly. “You could talk to her.”

“No. No way.” Her face was half-wondering, half-terrified. “What would I even say?”

“Tell her about the award. Say she needs to refuse it. Or don’t mention the award at all. Just tell her not to come back to

Cambridge on the twenty-third of June, 2031.”

She gave him a look that was so characteristically her that it made his heart ache. “Why would she believe me? I’m just some random stranger.”

“You don’t have to be.” He took her in, the curve of her cheekbones, the shy confidence of her bearing, all the ways the girl

on the staircase had rhymed with her. “You could tell her who you are.”

“I can’t.” He thought he knew why: her old fear, that her mum would be disappointed in her. But she didn’t look afraid. “I

can’t do that to her. It’d be too much. Imagine knowing all that about your future. You’d end up second-guessing every decision

you made. It could ruin your whole life.”

His stomach twisted. “Aye. Imagine.”

A flash of guilt crossed her face. “Shit. I’m sorry.” She touched his arm, a fleeting moment of contact before she drew back.

“How are you doing?”

This was his chance to tell her. I’m with Diana. But he couldn’t. It would open up the box of unspoken things they had silently agreed to keep locked up until she left. “Yeah.

I’m writing, and—it’s good.” Better than good. Last night, he had read over the poems he had written since getting back together

with Diana. They were the best he had written in his life. They weren’t good like the poems from Meant to Be ; they were good in a way that felt like him, but better. Something vital had been missing, and now it was there, burning

through the words, turning them incandescent.

Her face lit up with honest joy for him. “That’s great.”

It was great. He was with his true love, and he was writing good poetry, and thanks to the work he’d put in over the past two months,

he might not even fail his degree. So why wasn’t he happy?

He was still dwelling on it a week later, arm in arm with Diana, walking down the floodlit grandeur of King’s Parade. They had just finished dinner at a restaurant where the waitress had stood staring at him for a good thirty seconds because he hadn’t realised he was supposed to taste the wine.

“I don’t get it,” he argued now, as Diana leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Why should I have to check if

their wine’s any good? Isn’t that their job?”

She laughed, a low chuckle that resonated through his body. “It’s a perfectly normal part of wine service, Joseph. If anyone

had taken you to a decent restaurant before...” She straightened up. “Shit.”

“What?” He looked ahead, madly expecting to see Vera, but striding up the street towards them was Crispin. As he passed, he

shot Joe a glare. Diana held her head high and acted as if she hadn’t seen him.

“Do you know he asked me to marry him?” she said in a neutral voice after he had gone. “I might have said yes, if it wasn’t

for you.”

The weight of everything he knew and she didn’t settled on Joe’s shoulders. “Engaged at twenty-one,” he said distantly. “Old-school.”

“Crispin’s very old-school.” She went on, talking about his insistence on opening doors for her even when it was actively

inconvenient. Joe tried to listen, but his mind kept drifting to the Diana he hadn’t met, who had married Crispin at twenty-one

and lived to regret it. He imagined how it must have felt for her, to go through that and then meet someone new, someone entirely

unexpected. He remembered the picture of the two of them on the day they met, the look of helpless adoration in her eyes.

Whatever happiness he could give her now, he wasn’t sure it could compare.

“I also thought I might take the opportunity to run naked through the town centre,” she said lightly.

“Mmm,” he said, nodding, then, “What?”

She gave him a strange, sad smile. “It’s all right, Joseph. I chose to go out with a poet. The fact that you’re elsewhere half the time is part of the deal.”

He put his arm around her in apology. He wondered if it would always feel like this: like he was looking back at her through

the wrong end of a telescope, trying to reconstruct a love made out of fragments. A white rose, a feather, a snow globe of

Paris. Scribbled copies of poems that had been unwritten. Even if he could write a new version of that love, it would never

belong just to the two of them. He had already turned it into art.

He walked her up the stairs to his room. At the door, she pulled him back against the banister and drew him into a kiss. He

felt a shadow of how it was for her: the passion, the intensity, the in-the-moment thrill of it. He tried to join her there,

but he was a universe away.

Behind him, the door opened. He waited for Rob to make a disparaging comment about public displays of affection. Instead,

there was a silence that felt like ice water on his neck.

He turned. In the doorway was Esi, wearing a look that twisted his heart.

She didn’t speak. Before he could say anything, she ran past them down the stairs.

“Well.” Diana craned over the banister. “At least now I understand why you’ve been hustling me out of the back gate like a

criminal. You’ve been trying to spare her feelings.”

His mind was a whirl of static. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s clearly in love with you, Joseph. I saw it at the party. Do you think I’m blind?” She touched his back gently. “Go

after her. You need to sort this out.”

He didn’t stop to think about what she’d said. He ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and pelted out of college into the night. He caught up with Esi on Pembroke Street, by the arched tunnel that led into the New Museums.

“Esi. Wait. Let me explain.” She walked away from him into the tunnel. He followed. “Vera told me it was fine as long as I

kept it secret. And I have. No one’s seen us. It’s not going to affect the trip.”

She turned, misery written on her face. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they let you be with her now when their whole

business depends on you getting together later?”

He didn’t want this resigned, wrenching sadness. He wanted her to be angry with him. “You tell me! You’re the one who’s obsessed

with changing the future! But only in the way that suits you, right? The rest of us have to stick to the script, so we don’t

mess up your plan.”

She let out a despairing laugh. “Do you really think that’s what this is about? You don’t belong to me, Joe. I don’t get to

decide what you do with your life.”

She was inches from him, backed against the wall of the tunnel. He didn’t want to give her a way out. He wanted to make her

say it. “So what is it about?”

She tilted her chin up, meeting the challenge in his gaze. “Why are you with her?”

The tremble in her voice betrayed what she was really asking. He answered that question as well as the one she had spoken.

“Because she wants to be with me.”

She looked down the tunnel with a heartbroken smile. “And have you been honest with her?”

“Yes. I’m not pretending to be someone else anymore. I’m being myself—”

“You know what I mean,” she interrupted. “Does she know the truth?”

“No. Of course she doesn’t.” All the turmoil of how he’d been feeling for the past month rose up inside him. “Do you know

what it’s like, to try and be with someone when you’ve read the book of your relationship? It’s never enough. Because you’re

not comparing it to reality. You’re comparing it to something perfect. Something that never existed.” He gazed at her, desperate

to make her understand. “I don’t want her to have to feel that too.”

“That’s not how relationships work. You’re in it together, or you’re not in it at all.” She fixed him with a look that knew

him inside out. “Do you really think you can spend your whole life like that? With her, but not with her? Measuring every

moment against a future she doesn’t even know exists?”

He knew the answer. But he knew what that answer meant. If he broke up with Diana a second time, she wasn’t going to forgive

him. She would be gone, and his future would be gone with her.

Esi must have read it in his eyes. She lowered her head with a soft exhalation. “I thought you were better than this.”

The words echoed down the tunnel, ricocheted back to strike him in the heart. By the time he had recovered enough to take

a breath, she was gone.