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August sighs. Props her elbows up on the table. Tries to avoid the ketchup. “What about her memories? Why are those gone?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Could be because she’s not rooted to anything. She’s not fully real, so her memories aren’t either. The important thing is, they’re not gone for good.”
“So…” August says, “so we have to get her to remember what happened. And…”
“And then maybe we can find a way to fix it before the end of summer.”
August lets that settle in the air between them: the idea that they could get Jane out. She’s been so focused on helping Jane figure out her past, she hasn’t thought about what comes after.
“And then wh-what?” August asks, wincing at the way her voice goes shaky. “If we figure out what happened and how to fix it, what happens when we do? She goes back to the ’70s? She stays here? She… she’s gone?”
“I don’t know. But…”
August puts down her French fry. She’s lost her appetite. “But what?”
“Well, she said it’s only felt like a few months for her, until now? I think she’s gotten anchored here and now. And from what you’ve told me, this is the first time that’s happened.”
“So, we might be her only chance? Okay,” August says. She folds her arms across her chest and tucks her chin down, jaw set. “No matter what, we try.”
So, that’s it. August kind of knew, but now she knows. She can’t do this and have a crush on Jane at the same time.
It’s fine. It’s only that August used to love Say Anything before life intervened to make her hate everything, and Jane is the first person to ever make her feel all John-Cusack-and-Ione-Skye. It’s not a big deal that Jane’s hand is the perfect size to brace against August’s waist, or that when Jane looks at her, she can’t look back because her heart starts doing things so big and loud that the rest of her can barely hold the size and sound. She’ll live.
The bottom line: there’s no chance. Even if somehow Jane feels the same, August has a deadline. She has to help Jane figure out who she is, how she got stuck, and how to get her out.
And if she manages to pull that off, Jane’s not exactly here permanently. She’s not exactly here at all. And, well, August has never truly had her heart broken before, but she’s pretty sure that falling in love with someone only to send them back to the 1970s would, as first heartbreaks go, win the Fuck You Up Olympics.
Anyway, she can compartmentalize. She spent her childhood getting paid in Happy Meals to break into people’s personal archives and pretending that was normal. She can pretend she’s never thought about Jane holding her hand in a cute East Village brownstone with a West Elm sofa and a wine fridge. This crush, she decides, is just not going to work for her.
Which means, of course, the next time August steps on the Q, Jane says, “I think I should kiss you.”
It doesn’t start that way. It starts with August, too busy thinking about not thinking about Jane to check the weather for the morning’s freak thunderstorm, slipping in her own puddle of rainwater.
“Whoa,” Jane says, catching her under the elbow before she hits the subway floor. “Who tried to drown you?”
“The fucking MTA,” August says, letting Jane help her to her feet. She pushes her sopping hair out of her eyes, blinking through the raindrops on her glasses. “Twenty-minute delay on an outdoor platform. They want me dead.”
August takes off her glasses and desperately checks herself for a single dry inch of fabric to wipe them on.
“Here,” Jane says, pulling up the tail of her shirt. August sees the smooth skin of her stomach, hints of a secret tattoo spilling up over her waistband on one hip, and forgets to breathe. Jane takes her glasses to wipe off the lenses. “You didn’t have to come today.”
“I wanted to,” August says. She adds quickly, “We’ve been making good progress.”
Jane looks up, halfway grinning, and stops, August’s glasses still in her hand.
“Oh, wow,” she says softly.
August blinks. “What?”
“It’s—without your glasses, the wet hair.” She hands them back, but her eyes, distant and a little dazed, don’t leave August’s face. “I got a flash of something.”
“A memory?”
“Sort of,” Jane says. “Like a half memory. You reminded me.”
“Oh,” August says. “What is it?”
“A kiss,” Jane says. “I don’t—I can’t remember exactly where I was, or who she was, but when you looked at me, I could remember the rain.”
