Chapter Twenty-Two

August 29

I take the Main Street route to Michael’s for dinner the next day so I can stop by the bookstore first. Now that the weekend

is over, Main Street is quieter again. There are plenty of free parking spots, and only one family lingering over ice cream

outside Ethel May’s.

There’s no sign of the younger version of Michael when I walk into the bookstore. It’s Saturday here, but the store is empty.

Young Darby looks kind of at loose ends, sitting behind the counter, staring out the window.

“Have you got a book for me?” I ask as the door creaks closed behind me.

Young Darby’s gaze jerks away from the window. “Oh, hey. Sorry, it’s not here yet. We usually get things fast, but... not

that fast.”

“No problem.” I wasn’t really expecting the book to be here. Twenty-four hours would be fast even for Amazon. It just seemed

like the easiest excuse to give for why I’m here—I couldn’t exactly say, So. Any massive gender revelations yet? “I just thought I’d check. I was in the area.”

Young Darby nods.

I wait, but Young Darby doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else.

Right. My turn, I guess. “So, um... must be weird, not going back to school here.”

“Yeah.”

What’s going on? I thought Young Darby would be... I don’t know, excited? Or at least a little less miserable? I mean,

I just gave myself language and a book that I know I didn’t have when I was sixteen. Didn’t Young Darby at least go home and

google?

“How was the football game?” I ask.

Young Darby’s shoulders hunch forward, chest caving. “It was good.”

Well, that sounds like a lie. “Uh, listen... that book I told you about...”

“Yeah?”

“Did you look anything up about it?”

Young Darby’s fingers tap against one thumb. “I put the order through.”

“No, I mean... did you google anything? Or... I don’t know, I just thought it might interest you, so I wondered if you

looked into it any more.”

Young Darby shifts, and the stool rocks a little. “I found something on YouTube...”

I blink. That’s not what I was expecting. “YouTube?”

“Yeah, um... this guy, or... this person who was—is—transgender.” Young Darby stumbles quickly over the word. “He was...

talking about what it meant. And his life and stuff.”

I never found anything on YouTube. I never even thought of looking there. The hair stands up on my arms. I changed something.

I desperately want to ask, Did you see yourself?

Did you understand anything?

But all I say is “That’s cool.”

Young Darby nods... but not with any enthusiasm. “He lives in Boston.”

Oh .

My younger self goes back to staring out the window, and I think I get it now. Boston is a city. Boston is on the East Coast.

Boston isn’t Oak Falls, Illinois.

“That doesn’t mean anything.” My voice sounds desperate in my own ears. “People can be... anywhere.”

“Yeah.” Young Darby doesn’t sound convinced.

Shit. This isn’t helping the way I wanted it to.

Maybe my younger self just needs more time. Maybe once the book gets here, and Young Darby has a chance to look through it,

my younger self will realize that just because it’s not obvious there are queer people around doesn’t mean we don’t exist...

My thoughts skid to a stop. I could swear I’m hearing music. Some low-key, easy-listening thing floating in from somewhere

far away, muffled like it’s on the other side of a wall...

“What is that?” I say.

Young Darby’s eyebrows go up. “What’s what?”

“That music. Where’s it coming from?”

Young Darby leans over to look out the window. “I don’t hear anything...”

I turn for the door. Maybe it’s a car outside with a radio...

Everything around me shifts. The music is suddenly louder, suddenly here . It’s filtering over speakers in the store. A gentle, jazzy saxophone...

The air smells like flowers. The magazine stand is gone.

No, no, no...

“Hey,” someone says.

I turn toward the counter and feel dizzy.

“Darby, right?” Ann says. “I didn’t see you come in.”

I’m back in the present. Like I fell right out of the past into the new version of the bookstore. Again.

What is going on?

“Hi,” I say weakly. But I can’t come up with anything else, and I can’t return Ann’s smile. My heart is pounding so hard,

it hurts. My vision swims. I turn and push my way through the door, the bell jingling overhead.

I hit the sidewalk. Squeeze my eyes shut. Force myself to count to five. And then I go back inside.

“Forget something?” Ann asks.

Fuck. What the fuck is happening? I didn’t travel. I still didn’t travel. Young Darby is gone.

“No,” I say. “I’m good.”

And I leave again.

I don’t know how I get through dinner. My heart won’t slow down. I push the vegetarian casserole Liz made around on my plate,

too unsettled to eat anything. We sit around the dining table in the kitchen—Michael, Liz, Amanda, and me—and all three of

them talk and laugh, but I can barely follow any bits of conversation.

Something’s wrong.

Something’s happening to the bookstore, to whatever allows me to travel. I still don’t know what’s going to cause Young Darby to fight with Michael, and giving my younger self new language for my identity isn’t the magic solution I thought it would be.

I’m supposed to have two more days. Two more days to fix things or figure things out or whatever the hell the point of all this is. And now I’m not even sure I’ll be able to reach Young Darby again.

We finish dinner and clear away the dishes, and before I’m even really aware of what I’m doing, I say, “I should go.”

Liz and Amanda glance at each other.

Michael says, “You don’t have to.”

I look up at him. He’s wearing his glasses. I didn’t even notice until now. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m just really wiped. All the

packing.”

A frown crosses his face, but he nods. “Um... sure. I get it.”

We walk together down the hall to the front door, leaving Liz and Amanda in the kitchen behind us. I realize, guiltily, that

I didn’t even ask him how his day was. How school prep was going. What he would teach. If he’d figured out what to do with

the books.

But now it feels like too much. Too awkward. I can’t even figure out how to form a question.

Michael opens the screen door, and we step out onto the porch. Twilight is already deepening in the front yard. I can practically

feel the days getting shorter now.

“Well, um... thanks for coming over.” He reaches out and grasps my hand, and the motion trips something in my brain.

I pull my hand away. “You didn’t like me holding your hand yesterday.”

He leans back a little, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“At the park. I took your hand and I thought you were going to kiss me, but you pulled away. What was that about?”

He shifts, glancing away, and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “I just... I’m not big into PDA.”

“Seriously?”

“I told you,” he says, a little defensively, “I don’t usually kiss people in the school parking lot.”

“Well, yeah, but I guess I figured that was more because you... hadn’t had the opportunity.” Something prickly settles in my gut. “Hang on. Is this because you’re gay? Because we look... gay?”

His eyes come back to me, suddenly guarded. “What are you talking about?”

I let my breath out. Sharp and annoyed. “It’s not PDA. You’re fine being gay in Oak Falls as long as nobody has to deal with

the fact that you’re gay. That’s why you go to football games and you manspread and that’s why you wanted me to come over

here for dinner. Because nobody’s watching here. You can kiss me and not be worried somebody might notice you’re not a heterosexual

man.”

Michael takes a step back. “That’s not true.”

But I can’t deal with this anymore. I keep hearing Young Darby in the bookstore saying, He lives in Boston . I keep hearing Olivia asking why the hell I’d want to go back to bumfuck nowhere . I keep thinking about Ian’s text, unreplied to on my now-dead phone.

“I have to go,” I say, and I turn and head for the Jeep before Michael can stop me.