Chapter Twenty-Eight

September 1

I wake up.

It takes me a minute, blinking at my bedroom ceiling, to recognize it. My eyelids are heavy. I feel groggy and far away, like

I was really deeply asleep. Maybe I was. For the first time in days, I can’t remember dreaming...

My stomach clenches and my heart hammers so hard I feel sick. I sit up—too fast. My head spins.

Mr. Grumpy grunts awake, picking his head up off my feet. He gives me a sleepy look and yawns.

I gasp for breath, hands sinking into the mattress behind me. Warm sunlight filters through my open bedroom window, along

with a faint earthy smell of wet pavement and muddy ground. Leftover hints of last night’s rain.

I scramble for my glasses on the nightstand. Pick up my phone. Thursday, September 1. 9:43 a.m.

The screen is a jumble of text messages.

JOAN CHU

Welcome to your thirties, loser

IAN ROBB

Sending you virtual beers and fries, Darb

OLIVIA HENRY

Happy birthday, babe. Love you and miss you

IAN ROBB

Sexier fries. In case that wasn’t clear. The gay ones.

I pull my feet away from Mr. Grumpy and swing myself out of bed. I feel practically loopy. I stagger over to the window and

stare through the screen. The sidewalk and the street are still dark from the rain. Drops of water sparkle on the grass. Steam

rises off the rental car where the sunlight hits its roof.

It definitely rained last night. Just like I remember.

I remember everything. The party. Deserting Michael. The bookstore. Michael waiting for me outside...

I glance around my room. It looks just like it did last night. Empty and bare, except for my open suitcase and the clothes

scattered around it.

I take a deep breath, trying to slow down my heart. And then another one, because I realize I’m breathing.

I’m breathing.

I’m here.

I exist.

Outside the window, a cicada starts to buzz. Which makes me realize that aside from that cicada, it’s quiet. No radio vibrating

the walls from the kitchen. No NPR.

Panic knots my insides. I yank open my door and race down the hallway.

And there’s my mom, turning around from her spot at the kitchen table. “Good morning! You slept late!”

She’s here.

The panic evaporates so fast, I have to lean against the wall to keep from folding up right on the kitchen floor.

Mom frowns at me. “What’s wrong with you?”

I open my mouth, but I have no idea what to say. I can’t exactly tell her that I messed with my own future, and a part of

me was terrified that I now existed alone in some weird purgatory. Even though that doesn’t really make any sense.

All I say is “You’re not listening to NPR.”

She gives me a very patient look. “Of course not. I packed the radio yesterday.”

I look at the counter. It’s empty—no radio, no dishes, no toaster or coffee maker.

Right. Moving. Duh.

“Are you okay?” Mom asks.

“Yeah.” My voice sounds hoarse. My throat feels dry and gritty. I look around at the stacks of boxes in the living room and

next to the dining table. The bare walls. The bare windows, devoid of their dated country curtains. And the date I read on

my phone finally catches up with me. “It’s September first.”

“Yes, it is!” Mom pushes herself up from the table and wraps her arms around me so tightly that I cough. “Happy birthday,

sweetheart.”

I’m thirty.

I wait for it to hit me. For the realization to really sink in. For Saturn to return or whatever is supposed to happen according

to the Astrology Queers.

But all I feel is a desperate urge to get to the bookstore as fast as I can.

“I have to go,” I say over my mom’s shoulder.

She lets me go and steps back. “What? Now?”

“Yeah. Just a quick errand.” I’m already retreating back down the hallway. My heart thuds again, almost painfully. “I just

need to run to Main Street.”

“Okay.” Mom sounds doubtful. “Well, pick me up a pretentious coffee while you’re there, would you?” She sighs and puts her

hands on her hips, looking around the bare kitchen. “I clearly packed the coffee maker too early...”

Back in my bedroom, I throw on clothes, grab my wallet and keys, and leave the house without even brushing my teeth. I’m definitely

pushing well over the speed limit as I drive toward Main Street, swinging around the bends in the road fast enough that the

Jeep pulls to the side and leans rather alarmingly.

I slow down when I get to Main Street. It’s two minutes after ten and Main Street is barely awake. The only signs of life

are the stroller moms, back at their café table in front of Magic Beans.

I park the Jeep right in front of In Between Books. The sign in the window is flipped to open . My heart pounds so hard that I feel lightheaded as I reach out and grasp the doorknob. The bell jingles as I cross the threshold.

I stop. The doorknob slips out of my hand. The door creaks closed behind me.

Everything inside me sinks.

The mustiness of books and paper is gone. The store smells flowery. The handwritten signs have been replaced by typed ones,

and where the magazine stand should be there’s just the table of journals and mugs. The new releases are all covers I don’t

recognize and none of them are the shiny red of Catching Fire .

This is the bookstore of the present. I know it is, but I still can’t stop myself from pulling out my phone, just to be sure.

My battery is at 95 percent.

No. No no no ...

I swallow the panic rising in my chest and turn around. I walk back out of the bookstore to the sidewalk. Maybe if I just

give it a minute, the portal or whatever it is will be there again.

But when I walk back in, everything looks the same. Everything is the same. Solidly in the present.

94 percent.

“Can I help you?” someone asks.

For a split second, my throat tightens and my heart leaps, because there’s a teenager behind the counter. One with short brown

hair.

But my heart drops in the next moment because this kid is a stranger. She’s wearing long earrings and eyeliner. And glasses—slim

wire-frame glasses.

“Sorry.” My voice comes out thick. “I was just looking for someone.”

“Oh.” The girl looks around. “I don’t think anyone else has come in yet. We just opened.”

“Right. Thanks.” I turn and wander into one of the aisles. I can’t just leave. I can’t help hoping that perhaps, if I just

wait a little longer, I’ll suddenly round the corner of a bookshelf and find myself back in 2009, even though I know it’s

never worked like that before. I’ve only ever fallen out of the past. I’ve never fallen into it.

I walk up and down the aisles, but every time I turn a corner, the neat printed labels are still on the next row of shelves. Every time I get a glimpse of the counter, the girl is still sitting behind it, scrolling on her phone. I’m running out of aisles to walk through, and a lump is rising in my throat that I can’t seem to swallow, and my eyes are filling up...

I’m here, but my younger self is gone. I can’t ask that Darby what happened with Michael. I can’t ask if they fought, or if

they shared truths instead.

And I don’t remember anything different. I remember everything I remembered yesterday. Nothing has changed for me.

What does that mean?

I reach the last row of shelves, but the bookstore stays the same. Quiet and flowery and solidly part of this new Oak Falls.

I reach out and touch the spine of a book on the shelf. The thick paper of the hardcover’s dust jacket is smooth and weirdly

grounding under my fingertips. The books might be different, but they feel just like I remember them. Just like they always

have.

“You sure you don’t need any help?”

I glance at the girl behind the counter, watching me with raised eyebrows. “No, thanks.” I manage a smile, even though it

feels wobbly. “I used to work here, actually. Just... stopping in for old time’s sake.”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

“Yeah.”

She’s clearly expecting me to say something else, but I can’t come up with anything. I don’t want to make shallow conversation

about working in the store. I don’t want to tell her about back then or when I was a kid.

For one thing, that would make me feel super old. But also... it feels too private. It’s something I want to keep just

for myself.

My eyes wander up to the Sherlock Holmes book clock above the storage room. More faded in the here and now but still ticking

away. The fountain pen hands point to 10:15.

I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Have a nice day,” I say, and walk to the door. Push it open. The bell jingles.

I step back out onto the sidewalk.

And hesitate, chewing my lip. I can’t quite leave it there.

I turn back on an impulse, opening the door again and stepping back inside because what if what if what if...

But the store is the same as it was a second ago. Solidly in the present.

That’s it.

I don’t know how I know, but I know . However I traveled—it’s gone. Finally, really gone. Singularity collapse. Or whatever the technical term would be for something

that shouldn’t have been possible in the first place.

I leave the store and go back out to the sidewalk. Main Street looks exactly the same as it has every day that I’ve been here,

but I feel like I’m staring at it through a window, or a screen. Looking in on something that’s not mine. Like the pull, the

tug, all of the what ifs around me are collapsing too.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. Scroll again through the group chat, past the birthday messages. And then I open my contacts,

and—finally—I call Olivia.

She answers after the second ring. “Darby. Happy birthday. I’m so, so sorry.”

The lump is back in my throat. For a second, I can’t talk.

“Darby?”

“I’m here.” My voice cracks. “Thanks for the texts and everything. And... I’m sorry I was such an ass.”

“No, no, I was the ass,” Olivia says. “I was in fine ass form and you don’t need to apologize. I feel like the worst friend. I shouldn’t

have said any of that stuff about Oak Falls.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not, but she knows it, and I know it, and we both know that what I’m really saying is We’ll be okay. “I mean, it basically is in the middle of a cornfield. So.”

She gives a tiny anxious laugh. “Well... I’m still sorry, and I really... um... I mean, how is everything?”

Everything?

I open my mouth, but it takes me a moment to find words. Everything is too much for me to even wrap my brain around. I have no idea where to start or even what I’d want to say. “It’s...

been a lot.”

She’s quiet. And then—“Are you okay?”

Am I?

I’m here. That’s something.

And also, I feel like a wrung-out sponge. Like I’ve been running for days, or weeks, or, hell, maybe even years, and someone

finally told me I could stop. Like I’ve been searching for something for decades only to find out it never existed in the

first place.

And at the same time, I feel free. Because if there’s nothing to run from and nothing to run to, then there’s just... me.

Which is kind of a relief.

“I think,” I say slowly, “I will be. And... can we call a truce? Because I really fucking miss you guys.”

I hear the rush of Olivia letting her breath out. “Oh my god, yes. Please. I miss you so much. I mean, we all do, but...

but, yeah. I really miss you.”

“Maybe that Saturn return thing hit both of us hard, huh?”

She laughs, and it sounds a little teary. “I’ve been telling you!”

“Yeah, okay, in this particular instance, you were right.”

“I’m always right,” she says. And then quickly adds, “Except when I’m super, super wrong, like when I called the place you

grew up a redneck shithole.”

A smile pulls at my mouth. “I honestly don’t think you’d hate it if you came to visit sometime. I mean...” I glance up

and down Main Street. “You’d probably mostly hate it—but it’s not all bad.”

Another silence. “When’s the move?” Olivia asks.

“Tomorrow. Movers are coming first thing in the morning.”

“How’s the new place?”

“It’s nice. Brand-new, so... nice. And big for a condo. I mean, bigger than a lot of stuff in New York.”

“Probably cheaper too,” Olivia says, and now her voice sounds pained.

“Yeah.”

“So... are you staying?”

That’s the million-dollar question. Or it was the million-dollar question. At some point. It was the whole reason I came here, wasn’t it? Not just to help my mom move.

But because I was flailing and I said, What if I moved back to Oak Falls, and then I decided to do it, because why not...

But now, after everything...

I still don’t know what I’m doing with my life—because I don’t know what career I want, and that’s what everyone really means when they ask what you’re doing with your life. I don’t know if I want to revive my old dreams—publishing job, academia—or if they belong to a previous version of Darby and I need to find something new.

But I know where I belong, and who I want to be with, and I feel like my heart is splintering and mending at the same time.

“No,” I say to Olivia. “I don’t want to stay.”

“Do you think you might come back?” She sounds hopeful. “Because, the thing is... I didn’t want to tell you right away

because I didn’t want to make it sound like I was putting pressure on you—I don’t want to sound like I’m putting pressure on you—but Dan’s moving out.”

My mind draws a blank. “Dan?”

“Uh... our roommate? Ian’s ex? Darby, you’ve met him.”

Oh. Dan. Right. Of course. “I haven’t seen that guy for months. He’s never around.”

“Yeah, because he was basically living with his boyfriend. I guess they’ve decided to make it official now, so he’s moving

out. He kind of told us last minute, but whatever. Anyway, I know it’s me and Joan, and we’re a couple, but we’ve got this

extra room, and Joan doesn’t want to use it for an office, and we kind of want a roommate, so...”

A flutter goes through my stomach. “So?”

“So there’s a room for you, if you wanted to come back. I mean, it’s not like the rent is cheap, but it’s not too bad, and

I don’t think our landlord’s going to raise it, and all of us could help you cover until you find a job or something...”

Every last piece of tension in me evaporates. “I want to come back.”

“You do?” She sounds more anxious than I’ve ever heard her.

“Yeah. Can I move in with you guys?”

“God. Yes. Darby, of course. Please. It’s not a huge room, but it’s nice, and we usually split on groceries and stuff and

take turns doing chores...”

She goes on, telling me the rent—which isn’t cheap, because nothing in New York is, but it’s less than what I was paying for

my studio—and when Dan is moving out, and how they split the chores and the groceries...

But I’m only half listening. In my mind, I’m picturing coming home from whatever job I end up with and not being alone. I’m picturing waking up in the morning and cramming into that tiny kitchen with Olivia and Joan, and probably Ian at some point, all of us trying to make coffee and get breakfast and spell out dirty limericks with the fridge magnets. I’m picturing bringing home bagels and getting annoyed when they disappear a lot faster because it’s not just me eating them anymore. I’m picturing existing in a big city full of people trying to find themselves, and letting myself be one of them, and letting that be more than enough—letting that be wonderful.

I mean, I’ll wish that it all felt more stable and the subway didn’t run slower at night and there weren’t trucks idling at

two in the morning when I’m trying to sleep, but...

“So... can I tell Joan?” Olivia asks.

I jerk out of my thoughts. “Yeah. And Ian. I’ll text when I have more figured out, like when I’m actually leaving and everything...”

“Okay.” Her voice is full of relief.

I hesitate, and then I say, “Oak Falls still means something to me.”

A beat of silence. “I know,” she says in a small voice.

“I need to come back here sometimes, and I need room to get annoyed at New York sometimes.”

“I know. And... I mean, I get annoyed at New York too. I just got so scared about you leaving. You’re... all of you

guys... you’re my family.”

I swallow. My eyes are hot. “Yeah.” And that’s all I can manage to say.

“Keep me posted?” she asks.

“I will.” And I end the call and cross the street toward Magic Beans.