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“They have the original gloves Jane Bennet wore in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice,” I say, pulling into the parking structure. “I know, I know, it’s not your favorite, but they have a bunch of costumes from the original Little Women, and some dishes from Downton Abbey.…”
I trail off, partially because I can’t remember what else they have and because the expression on Miles’s face has made me forget anything I was about to say. His eyes are fixed on the museum, and when he turns them back to me, I can see his jaw working to keep his smile at bay. For what might be the first time, he seems speechless.
“Barrett,” he says after a few long moments, and then he releases that weapon of a smile. It makes the car seat go melty beneath me. Jesus, that’s powerful. No wonder he keeps it locked away—the United Nations might need to intervene. “This is incredible. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Miles in the museum is like a kid in a candy shop. No—like a kid with their own credit card and no spending limit in a candy shop that also sells puppies and video games and Baby Yoda merch.
Most of the time, I’m content to just observe him observing everything else. Because this is something I’ve noticed about Miles: all his passions, science and period pieces and even mozzarella sticks, he throws himself into wholeheartedly. He told me how his brother did this, and I’m not sure he realizes that he has that trait too.
It’s impossible not to admire, and it makes me feel wildly lucky that right now I’m the one who gets to see what lights him up.
After we finish marveling at dresses and top hats and aprons and boots and parasols, we spend the rest of the day exploring the city. We eat too many delicious things at a public market and then wander through the Vancouver Aquarium. I feel out of time, out of place, for the first time since all of this started. Up here, I can breathe.
“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” I tell him hours later. We’re on a picnic blanket in Stanley Park, awash in greenery with the bay spread out in front of us. It’s nearing seven o’clock, and the park is full of families and couples, joggers and cyclists. I roll up my sleeve, running a hand along the place my tattoo was. The tattoo I had for less than a day, the pain that’s lasted longer. “The tattoos we got. Obviously mine’s gone, but yesterday, I didn’t wake up the way I usually do. The pain in my arm woke me up, but there was nothing there.”
“Does it still hurt?” He brings his hand up, until it’s hovering above my arm, and then lifts his eyebrows at me as though asking if it’s okay to touch me there. As though maybe touching my forearm is more personal than the way we held hands in the car. I shift my arm closer, giving him permission.
“Only a little. It’s a shame,” I say. “It was such a beautiful tattoo. Some of Gemini’s finest work.”
He draws his fingertips along it, featherlight, and I’m no longer interested in joking about it. I feel myself take a sharp breath I did not wholly anticipate, but if Miles notices, he doesn’t give any indication. It almost tickles, the way he’s touching me—I have to fight the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. That light touch is jamming my senses, a tiny but significant earthquake.
“A phantom pain, maybe?” he says. “That’s the only way I’ve been able to rationalize it.”
“It’s happening to you, too?”
A nod. “It didn’t used to, but maybe now that we’ve been here for a while, our minds are messing with us. My memory was already starting to blur when you got stuck.” His fingers might be retracing Gemini’s design, or maybe they’re drawing something completely new. Whatever he’s doing, I don’t want him to stop. “It happens sometime with fatigue, too. If I stay up late the previous day, I’m more tired in the morning. It’s difficult to measure, and sometimes I don’t trust my own brain, but sometimes I swear that’s what’s happening.”
“Do you think it’s anything to… I don’t know, worry about?” I laugh off the absurdity of this question, as though our entire situation isn’t enough to worry about on its own.
“I don’t know,” he says softly, and when he drops his fingers from my forearm, my skin still hums. It’s criminal, how badly I wanted him to keep going. Or for him to ask me to trace the spot where his half tattoo was. “It’s not that I’m losing hope. I have to believe that something we try will work. Time isn’t supposed to stop like this. It’s not natural. The universe should want to right itself.”
“If I recall, a very wise man once told me not to personify the universe.”
“Even very wise men are known to make mistakes sometimes.”
“This just won’t do,” I say, nudging his foot with mine. I kicked off my shoes on the grass next to us, and now my mismatched SHITSHOW and plain blue sock are on display. “You’re supposed to have all the answers.”
We fall into a silence again, but not an uncomfortable one. It’s sunset, and if I were a different person, this is the kind of date I’d want to have with someone. Casual and relaxed, enjoying the scenery and each other’s company, wrapped up in our own world in the middle of the grander one that surrounds us.
“Can you tell me more about you and Max?” I ask. “Something from when you were kids?”
The side of his mouth quirks upward. Glitter from his BIRTHDAY BOY shirt has started spreading onto his jeans. “You like those embarrassing stories, huh? Is this practice for all the profiles you’ll write one day?”
“Maybe,” I say, and perhaps that’s true, but I also just really want to know.
Miles adjusts on the blanket, stretching out his legs. He’s still Miles, of course, so his posture is excellent, but he’s more relaxed than I’ve seen him in days. “One year for Hanukkah, my parents got me a crystal-growing kit. After I set it all up, Max waited until I was asleep to swap the tiny crystals for these enormous ones he bought, and I was so convinced for about five minutes that I was the most brilliant scientist who’d ever lived.” A laugh, a shake of his head. “Devastating to find out that I wasn’t.”
“Please tell me you have pictures.”
“Of course I do,” he says, swiping through his phone to find them.
There’s a commotion across the grass about a dozen yards away, and that’s when I notice something strange.
Almost everyone sitting in this park with us is wearing a red T-shirt.
All of a sudden, music starts streaming from a massive speaker propped on a park bench, and all the people wearing red, at least two dozen of them, leap into formation.
“Oh my god,” I say as they start to dance, unable to believe this is happening. “It’s a flash mob.”
