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Part of me doesn’t want to believe him just yet. The relief has morphed, or it’s clinging to the residual fear. The rational part of my brain can’t accept it, even though I’ve been living it for the past one two three days.
“You want me to prove it? That’s fair. It’s what any good scientist would do, repeating the results of an experiment. Making sure they can replicate it.” He nods toward his left. “Do you see that girl throwing away her trash? She’s going to drop her empty cup and let out a sigh like the world has committed some terrible crime against her, before kneeling to pick it up.”
We watch as precisely this happens.
I lift my eyebrows at him, unimpressed. “Is that the best you can do? Anyone could have guessed she was carrying too much.”
“You’re a tough audience. Okay. That guy over there, next to the soda fountain?” He glances down at his smart watch. Taps it. “It’s going to explode all over him in about ten seconds.”
And it does, thoroughly soaking him with brown-orange liquid. A couple of café employees rush over with napkins.
“No,” I tell him, despite all the evidence to the contrary that’s piling up. “No. This isn’t happening. This cannot be happening. I’m going to wake up tomorrow, and it’ll be Thursday, and everything will be fine.”
“You’re probably right,” he says, settling back into the booth, amusement still flickering in his eyes. “I must be a figment of your imagination.”
“Even my imagination wouldn’t be that cruel.”
“You really should try one of these.” He keeps dunking mozzarella sticks in marinara, oblivious to my panic. “They’re crisp but not burnt, and the cheese is so perfectly gooey, it melts in your mouth. I keep trying to pace myself, but I think I’ve eaten them at least every other day since I’ve been—”
“I don’t want a fucking mozzarella stick!” I say, and it’s only when heads whip in our direction that I realize I’ve nearly shouted it. I’m breathing hard, my chest rising and falling with the effort of trying to convince Miles… what, exactly? That we’re not the only two people on campus trapped on September 21? That the strings holding my reality together haven’t been completely and irrevocably severed?
Miles pushes away the basket, the force of it causing a river of marinara to spill down the side of the compostable sauce cup. “Okay,” he says, more seriously now, aware he needs to keep me from losing my shit in the middle of the Dawg House. His eyes meet mine, dark and resolute, and maybe I was wrong. Maybe there’s a trace of panic in there too. “Okay. Let’s back up and try this again. I get it—I was angry at first too.”
“And now you’ve, what? Accepted it? Because you’re acting pretty goddamn nonchalant.”
“I’ve cycled through just about every other emotion, Barrett. I’m not sure what else is left.”
I try to ignore the eeriness that hangs on his words. There’s something hollow in his voice, a weariness that could only come with having been stuck here a very long time. My three days, multiplied by twenty.
The third and final class on my schedule to bring my credit count up to fifteen, an intro psych course, meets Tuesdays and Thursdays. It must be a sign I’m losing it that it crosses my mind at this moment. I don’t have an attachment to the class aside from the fact that it sounded interesting, but now there’s a real possibility I may not even get to take it.
“You lied,” I say. “You said we weren’t going to talk about physics. I feel betrayed.”
As though sensing I’m on the brink of emotional collapse, Miles slides the basket across the table toward me. Reluctantly, I take a mozzarella stick, drag it through the marinara… and, ugh, he was right. They’re heavenly. The cheesy, saucy goodness drops me from an eleven to a ten-point-five.
“What did you do?” I say between bites.
“Do?”
“You’re the one with a raging hard-on for physics. You just said you’ve been here longer than I have. So what’d you do, upset the ghost of Albert Einstein? Piss on Isaac Newton’s grave?” I trail off, out of recognizable physicists. It’s possible Dr. Okamoto’s class would be really good for me.
He’s just staring at me, mouth slightly open. “I’m not even sure where to start,” he says. “The notion that ghosts are real? That you think I’m capable of understanding the intricacies of time travel, something that has eluded scientists for hundreds of years? That I just happened to be in Westminster Abbey, somewhere I’ve always dreamed of going, and would desecrate the burial place of Sir Isaac Newton like that?” He chokes out something that might, in some alien languages, be considered a laugh. “Or the completely inappropriate sexualization of a branch of science that has been at the forefront of—of everything for hundreds of years.”
“I bet you’re fun at parties.”
“You tell me, seeing as we’ve attended the same one.”
I fist a hand in my curls. “I can’t even have a normal conversation with you! At least not one that doesn’t make me want to pepper-spray my own face. How are we supposed to figure out what’s going on?” I pause. “Oh my god. When I asked if you’d been pepper-sprayed before and you were weird about it. Was that—did I pepper-spray you? When you were reliving this day before I got stuck?”
As if on instinct, he reaches a hand toward his eyes, his thumb grazing his scar. “You did. Four times.”
“Ahhhh. I’m sorry,” I say, ignoring how thoroughly bizarre it feels to be apologizing for something another Barrett did. “Wait. You and I haven’t had this conversation before, have we?”
“No. This is the first time I’ve found out anyone was stuck with me. I had an inkling yesterday that something was off. You did something different—you sat in the first row, and you got there before I did. That had never happened before.”
I shake my head, as though that’ll somehow make all these absurd pieces fit together. “I’m not sure I understand some of the finer details. How is it possible that I experienced three days during the same time that you experienced sixty?”
Miles leans forward, one side of his mouth attempting a smile. I wonder how many smiles this boy has to fight on a daily basis. “Are you familiar with the concept of relativity?” He says it as simply as if he’s asking whether I’m familiar with the concept of toast. I give him my guiltiest grimace. “Let’s say you’re somewhere out there, traveling in a spaceship at a fairly brisk speed.”
