Chapter Twenty-Seven

August 31

“Oh, sorry!”

Someone bumps into me. I stumble. Turn around.

It’s Ann, just coming out of the bookstore. She has a bag over her shoulder. Keys in her hand. “Sorry,” she says again. “I

didn’t see you.”

I’m on the sidewalk. I’m on the sidewalk in front of In Between, and she’s closing the door behind her, locking it. Behind

the frosted window, the store is dark.

“No problem,” I say automatically.

I’m here. I’m here.

What’s that mean?

“I heard it’s your birthday tomorrow?” Ann says, tucking her keys in her bag.

“Yeah.” I don’t know how she knows this, but it’s Oak Falls. Everyone knows everything.

“Happy birthday,” she says, and then she turns and walks up the sidewalk.

I stare after her and then look back at the bookstore. I go up to the window and lean close to it, cupping my hands around

my face.

It’s dark. I can’t see anything except the faint outline of shelves.

“Darby?”

I turn.

It’s Michael. He’s standing farther down the sidewalk, the steeple of First Church rising into the sky behind him. And he’s

looking at me, anxiously.

What’s going on?

I’m in the present. In my present. Everything looks just the same as it did before I went into the bookstore. I still remember fighting with Michael

at my birthday party—my 2009 birthday party. Does that mean nothing changed? Does that mean Young Darby didn’t trust Michael

after all? Didn’t tell him the truth, or they got in a fight anyway?

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

Michael walks toward me. “I followed you. Or... I tried to.” He glances away and rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, I

actually kind of lost you... You’re fast. But I had a feeling you might be heading here.”

I glance up at the clock on the side of First Church. Just past eight fifteen.

Am I still here because back in 2009 Young Darby hasn’t gotten to that birthday party yet? Does that make any sense?

Time has been moving in parallel ever since I first walked into the bookstore. Every time I went back, it was the same date,

the same time, as it was outside. So maybe it’s still working like that. Maybe the minute my younger self talks to Michael—if

that happens—will be the moment everything changes here in my present.

Or maybe the change will happen at midnight, once it ceases to be August 31 anymore.

Who knows? All of this is supposed to be impossible anyway.

“And you didn’t pick up your phone,” Michael says.

I jerk out of my thoughts, focusing on his face. “I... my phone died. The battery ran out.”

He stops a few feet away. “What’s going on?” he asks.

Selfishly, a small part of me wants to ignore him. Because I don’t know how much time I have left. Because it still seems

like I could stop existing, and I have no idea when it might happen.

But then again, if I’m going to stop existing, I don’t want to leave things like this, do I? I gave Young Darby a chance to

fix things. I should fix things too.

I think, for a second, about just saying fuck it and telling Michael the whole truth, as wild as it sounds. Tell him I’m a

time-traveling existential crisis with gender feels and just see what he does. I might disappear in a few minutes anyway,

so what does it matter?

But I can’t do it. Maybe I don’t want him to think I’ve lost it. Maybe I don’t want him to ask a million questions. Maybe it’s just that there’s some truth I do want to tell him, and I don’t want to waste time trying to explain everything that’s happened in the bookstore first.

“I had to catch Ann,” I lie. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but there was a book I really wanted to get for my mom, and I had

to order it today for it to get here in time, and...” I do my best to look rueful. “I forgot to go earlier and my phone

died, so... I wanted to try to catch her.”

A frown passes across Michael’s face. He doesn’t look like he totally believes me. “It couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

“No.” I let my breath out. “But I... I really did mean it. I’m really sorry.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’s kind of a weird reason to run out in the middle of—”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry for everything that happened back then. I really didn’t know you were gay, and I had no idea anybody

was giving you a hard time...” I stop. This isn’t what I want to say—not what I want to focus on when I don’t know how

much time I have. “I was really wrapped up in my own shit. I think... I think I knew I was trans, but I couldn’t even really

admit it to myself. I got convinced nobody else would understand. That the only way to be myself—all of myself—was to leave.

And somehow being at my birthday party... it just made it all so obvious. I said you wouldn’t understand because...

because I thought nobody would.” I take a breath, and it hurts, like it’s slicing right through me. “I thought it would be

easier if I just started over. If I never gave anybody the chance to see the real me and decide to run.” I swallow. My throat

is closing up again. “I guess I started with you.”

Michael has gone very still. “I didn’t...” His voice cracks. “I thought you were rejecting me.”

“Yeah, well...” I tip my head back, because my eyes are prickling, and maybe if I look up, gravity will keep the tears

in. “When you didn’t talk to me after I got back... I guess I kind of thought the same thing.”

He looks down at his shoes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I think some part of me knew you weren’t okay, even before you left. I mean, I could tell you weren’t comfortable in... well... the way you were.” He looks up. Takes a breath. “I think I hoped you were gay. That’s... that’s why I thought you might guess about me. Sorry.” He flushes. “I didn’t know what trans identity was back then...”

A smile tugs at my mouth. “That makes two of us.”

The corner of his mouth turns up. Just for a moment. And then the smile fades. “You didn’t call me,” he says. “Or email. That

whole semester you were gone.”

His voice is so full of leftover hurt that I desperately wish the sidewalk would open up and swallow me, just so I don’t have

to face it. “I know. I... I’m bad at that. I let distances get too big, and then I tell myself it’s better that way. I

didn’t know how to fix it. So I just... didn’t.”

He shrugs one shoulder, but it looks... sad. “I wish you’d told me.”

Some version of me is trying to. “I know. Me too.”

“Do you think if you had...” He hesitates, rocking back on his heels. “Do you think if you had, you would have stayed?”

I almost ask what he means. If he means, would I have stayed and not gone to boarding school? Or would I have chosen a college

closer to home? Or would I have come back to Oak Falls after college the way he did?

I guess it doesn’t really matter—ultimately, they’re all sort of the same question.

If I had told Michael who I was, would I be living in Oak Falls now?

“I don’t know,” I say, because I don’t. Did I run away from Oak Falls because I was trans and I thought there wasn’t space

for me? Or was I always going to leave?

Does the piece of me that doesn’t know how to belong here now, that doesn’t know how to sit through high school football games,

that can’t quite be alone with myself in the nighttime stillness...

Was that piece always there, or is it part of who I became after I left?

I don’t have the answer. It’s such a tangled knot, I’m not sure I ever will.

I let my breath out, looking up at the clocktower again. It’s almost eight thirty.

“Should we go back?” I ask. “I guess we kind of deserted my mom.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go back.”

There’s some distance opening back up between us. I can feel it. We poured everything we’d been ignoring into this space, and even though I finally figured out what drove us apart, and I finally figured out how to fix it... it’s still pushed Michael farther away. And there’s no quick way to get him back. There are too many scars still there that we’ve uncovered. And scars take time to heal.

And time is one thing I’m not sure I have.

But even across the distance, Michael still holds out his hand. I look down at it and then around at Main Street. “You sure?

I mean, there are people around...”

“For now,” he says.

So I take his hand.

We don’t say anything as we walk up the street. But I keep repeating in my thoughts, We’re here we’re here we’re here.

Nobody asks where I disappeared to when we get back to the roof deck. A few of Mom’s older friends are already saying goodbye,

and Liz and Amanda are talking to John and Lucas, and they all seem perfectly happy to let me stand next to them with Michael,

neither of us adding much to the conversation. My brain is turning foggy. I try to stay present, try to burn every detail

of what’s happening around me into my mind. I keep asking Michael what time it is; finally, after the fifth time, he asks

what I’m worried about.

“Just... condo regulations,” I say, which isn’t entirely a lie. “Quiet hours.”

I didn’t need to worry about that. People drift away one by one or in small groups. John says he has to get up early to be

at the farm, and he and Lucas wish me another happy birthday and head out. Jeannie Young assures my mother she can come visit

the yard penguins any time and my mom manages to (fairly genuinely) thank her for the penguin throw blanket.

Eventually, it’s just me and Mom and Michael and Liz and Amanda. And Mr. Grumpy, who seems to think it’s way past his bedtime

and has flopped on the deck under the folding table. We clean up the empty cake pan and the scattered cups and plates. Michael

hauls the trash bag down to the dumpster while Liz and Amanda wrangle the cooler and my mom gathers her presents. I nudge

Mr. Grumpy to his feet. He lets out an annoyed grunt, but he trots after me to the door.

Amanda and Liz manage to get the cooler into Amanda’s car, and they each give me and my mom a hug, and then they drive off into the dark and the quiet. Mom takes Mr. Grumpy’s leash from me and goes to unlock the Jeep, leaving me with Michael, who’s standing, waiting, next to his truck.

“Happy almost birthday,” he says.

I smile. “Thanks.”

He holds out a hand, and I reach out and grasp it tightly. But he doesn’t come closer to me, and I don’t move, either. There’s

still too much between us, filling up this space. And for now, we both need to leave it be.

“See you tomorrow,” he says.

A knot rises in my throat, but I nod. I don’t know what else to do. “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

He lets go and climbs into his truck, and I turn and walk back to the Jeep. I hear the truck’s engine start behind me, but

I don’t look back as Michael rumbles away out of the parking lot.

I climb into the passenger seat of the Jeep and let my breath out, long and slow. “Mom.”

She turns the key and the Jeep sputters to life. “Yeah, honey.”

“You know I love you, right?”

She looks at me, eyebrows raised. “I love you too, Darby.”

I manage a smile, and she smiles back, the crow’s-feet around her eyes deepening. She reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Let’s

get home,” she says. “I’m wiped.”

I don’t know what time it is when I finally fall into bed, but outside, it’s starting to rain—a pitter-patter that turns into

a steady drumming on the roof as I plug in my phone. I manage to take off my pants and then I face-plant in my pillow. I am

more tired than I have ever been.

I consider, for half a second, lifting my head up to wait for the moment when my phone turns itself back on, so I can check

the time. So I can try to guess what my younger self is up to. Whether anything might have changed by now.

How much time I might have left.

But I don’t do it. Partly because I’m actually too tired.

Partly because what’s the point?

I have no idea what’s coming. I have no idea whether I’m running out of time in my own present. Whether I’ll wake up tomorrow morning. If I wake up, whether I’ll remember any of this or if I’ll somehow be a different person.

Whether, if I don’t remember any of this, I’ll even really be me .

Knowing what time it is won’t change any of that.

The door of my room creaks open and Mr. Grumpy wheezes his way in. He sits up and puts his front paws on the bed.

I lean down, hauling him up on the sheets next to me. He flops by my feet with a contented sigh.

And I close my eyes, listening to Mr. Grumpy snoring and the thrum of the rain, and imagine that tomorrow, I’ll somehow find

myself in a random bar in New York, where Ian will be hangry, and Joan will scroll her phone, and Olivia will wrap me in a

hug.