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Okay. This is it. Jane’s been shockingly casual about her entire existential predicament. August wondered when something like this was coming.
“I know,” August says. The seat creaks faintly as she pushes herself to her feet, and Jane watches her sway closer with wide eyes, like she could bolt at any second. August moves until she’s close enough to touch her. She doesn’t. But she could. “I’m sorry. But it’s—it’s not too late to fix some of it. We’re gonna figure it out, and we’ll get you back to where you’re supposed to be, and—”
“I swear to fucking God, August, can you for once not act like you know everything?”
“Okay,” August says, feeling something defensive prick up her spine. Jane’s not the only one who’s spent the last day in a fighting mood. “Jesus.”
Jane’s teeth work her split lip for a second, like she’s thinking. She backs up another three steps, out of reach.
“God, it’s—you’re so sure there’s an answer, but there’s no reason to believe there is one. None of this makes any fucking sense.”
“Is that why you’ve been acting like you don’t care about the case? Because you don’t think I can solve it?”
“I’m not a fucking case to be solved, August.”
“I know that—”
“What if I’m on the line forever, huh?” Jane asks her. “It’s all interesting and exciting right now, but one day you’re gonna be thirty, and I’ll be twenty-four and here, and you’re gonna get bored, and I’m just gonna stay. Alone.”
“I’m not gonna leave you,” August says.
August sees the riot girl in the way Jane rolls her eyes and says, “You should. I would.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not you,” August snaps.
That stops them both. August didn’t mean to say it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” August twists her hands into fists in her pockets. “Look, I’m not the one you’re mad at. I didn’t get you stuck here.”
“No, you didn’t,” Jane agrees. She turns her face away, hair falling in her eyes. “But you made me realize it. You made me remember. And maybe that’s worse.”
August swallows. “You don’t mean that.”
“You don’t know what I mean,” she says hoarsely. “August, I’m tired. I want to sleep in a bed. I want my life back, I want—I want you and I want to go back and I can’t want those things at the same time, and everything’s too much, and I—I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
“I’m trying,” August says helplessly.
“What if you didn’t?” Jane says. “What if you stopped?”
In the silence that follows, August remembers how it feels to hit an ice patch on a frigid morning, those few seconds of terrible suspension before you scrape all the skin off your knees, when your stomach drops out and the only thought is, This is about to kick my ass.
“Stopped what?”
“Stopped trying,” Jane says. “Just—just let it go. Get a new train. Don’t see me anymore.”
“No. No. I can’t—I can’t leave, Jane—if I leave, you’re gone. That’s the whole reason September matters. It’s me, it’s us, it’s whatever the hell is happening between us, that’s what’s keeping you here.” She staggers closer, grasping at Jane’s jacket. “Come on, I know you feel it. The first time you saw me, you recognized me—my name, my face, the way I smelled, it made you remember.” Her hand moves gracelessly to Jane’s chest, over her heart. “This is what’s keeping you here. It’s not just fucking dumplings and Patti Smith songs, Jane, it’s us.”
“I know,” Jane says quietly, like it hurts to say it. “I always knew it was you. That’s why I didn’t—it’s why I shouldn’t have ever kissed you. I look at you, and it feels like I’m realer than I’ve ever been, from right here.” She covers August’s hand with hers. “So big it burns. God, August, it’s beautiful, but it hurts so bad.” And, damningly, “You’re the reason I feel like this.”
It connects like a punch.
She’s right. August knows she’s right. She’s been digging Jane’s life back up, but Jane is the one who has to sit on the train alone and live it all over again.
Something in her recoils violently, and her fingers dig into the fabric of Jane’s jacket, bunching it up in her fist.
“Just because you can’t run doesn’t mean you can make me do it for you.”
