Page 99 of The Same Backward as Forward

“What?” I say. I am the very picture of innocence—andsheis very right not to trust me. As is so often the case with the two of us, there is a trick to this poem.

Hannah looks back down at the words on the page, and then she flips the paper over. On the reverse side, there is a second poem that expresses a sentiment identical to the first—in different words.

reified

at lover

revolt

a deifier

The entire thing reads the same backward as forward—and every word of it is true.

Chapter 28

Time is a funny thing. Somewhere in my mind is the knowledge that astrophysicists characterize it as an arrow cutting through reality in one and only one direction, with causes always coming before effects. But there have always been those who believe differently, suggesting that time moves in both directions or that it doesn’t flow at all—that past, present, and future all exist simultaneously in parallel, if only we could perceive them.

I develop my own theory of time, and it goes like this: Time has a mind of its own. It lives and breathes, slows and quickens. We don’t move through time; time passes through us, like the wind or a ghost.

When I am with Hannah, time stands still at some moments and expands in others, like the universe endlessly spreading outward, space coming to exist where there was none before. Days pass, then weeks, but my time with Hannah is measured in eternities. My body gets stronger, the pull between us even more impossible to deny, and then one morning, Hannah doesn’t leave.

She stays.

And stays.

And stays.

“Pick a crack on the wall.” It’s midday, but as is the case more and more often, we’re at the lighthouse, inside. Hannah is wearing my flannel shirt—or rather, Jackson’s—and not much else, her bare legs stretched out parallel to mine.

She props herself up. “Any crack?”

“Any crack.”

Her eyes narrow very slightly. “Why?”

“So I can guess which one you picked. Call it ‘The Cracks On The Wall Game.’”

Hannah is nothing if not competitive. “What happens if you guess wrong?”

I love it when she really comes to play. “What do you think should happen?” I can feel my lips curving into the subtlest of smirks. “A penalty of sorts?”

“Only you,” Hannah tells me, “could make the wordpenaltysound like that.”

I turn my head toward hers. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward. I’m sure you could make the wordpenaltysoundveryinteresting if you tried.”

I study Hannah as she studies me. We’re on game number seven, and it’s clear by this point that The Cracks On The Wall Game is an exercise in reading each other—the flit of a gaze, the tilt of a chin.

“Which constellation does the crack you picked look the most like?” Hannah asks.

“We get to ask questions now?”

She’s sitting cross-legged, still clad in flannel. “We do.”

Who am I to argue? “How much do you know about constellations?” I ask her.

Hannah’s shoulders rise and fall in a little shrug. “Enough—about the ones we can see around here, at least.”

That seals my choice to play this her way… and my choice of constellations. “I’m going to go with Volans.”