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“The universe is a collection of infinite objects in random motion, Gemma. Each with their own path and timeline.” He felt his pants pockets, searching, then reached into the breast pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a stylus with a little rubber tip. “In any system with different parts in simultaneous yet variable motion, there is always the chance for disruption.” He delicately inserted the stylus into the spinning orb in Gemma’s hands, managing to stop one of the axes while the others stayed in motion. “If one piece suddenly becomes stationary, another piece in motion nearby may catch on it. Think of a snag in fabric, or the tiny rough spot on a glacier that carves out an entire valley. For both systems, this small yet mighty disruption can set things on a different course, and in the case of time like you and Jack are experiencing, it can create the perception of a temporal anomaly.”
Gemma glanced at Jack at the mention of the words that had caused her to give up on him back in the coffee shop. Holding the orb in her hands and listening to Dr. Woods’s explanation, she had to admit the phrasetemporal anomalysomehow sounded more reasonable.
“So that’s what you think I am?” Gemma asked. “The snag?”
“Precisely. When Jack first came to me, I told him to look for the thing that felt like an anchor. The universe has a way of ferreting out irregularities, of sifting meaningfulthings to the top.” He extended his stylus again and this time stopped the other axis, leaving only the globe spinning. “And that’s when he told me about you. Thatyouare the single thing each day that feels different.”
Gemma stared down at the globe, wondering at the outrageous romance of it all. The two golden axes held still while the globe spun on. Was it possible that time, her perception of it at least, had stopped so that she could cross paths with Jack? That might explain the pull she felt toward him, but why now after so many cycles through the same day?
“How come it has taken me so long to realize it, and Jack has known for a hundred and however many days?” she asked.
“That is an excellent question,” Dr. Woods said with a smile. “There must have been an event, something powerful, that forced your own perception into perspective.”
“We kissed last night,” Jack chimed in.
Gemma blushed, and Dr. Woods let out a happy little chuckle.
“Ah, well, yes. That may have done it.”
Gemma felt like she was on display in a museum, or perhaps under a microscope, given the setting, with both of them staring at her flaming face.
Dr. Woods flicked the golden axes again, this time to send them spinning in the same direction. “Sometimes all you need is a good jolt to get things back on track.”
Gemma watched the purple-gold blur spin by and thought about the bigger picture. The two golden hoops were in harmony, but the globe spun in the other direction still. She pointed at it. “What about everyone else? If we’re snaggedand stuck in a temporal anomaly, is the rest of the universe spinning on like normal still?”
“That is possible,” Dr. Woods said. “You are only aware of your own perception of time. But of course, there is also the chance that the entirety of reality as we know it is stuck as well.” He poked his stylus into the blur of motion, the rubber tip against the globe and the stem a barrier for the axes, and instantly stopped the whole thing.
Gemma gazed down and felt the weight, literally, of it all. The thought that she and Jack had collided, gotten snagged on each other, and knocked the universe off kilter was almost comical.
She looked up at Dr. Woods. “That feels wildly egocentric.”
He gently laughed. “Perhaps, but a couple’s egocentrism is the hallmark of love.”
Jack loudly dropped the contraption he had picked up. It clattered on the floor, and he accidentally kicked it when he bent down to reach for it, sending it skidding beneath the workbench. “Sorry, Simon,” he muttered, flustered, and sank to his knees to retrieve it. Gemma caught sight of his face flushed a deep shade of red.
Her own face had caught fire. Again. She handed the globe back to Dr. Woods and stood up from her stool, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Oh dear. Perhaps I have said too much,” Dr. Woods said, picking up on the suffocating awkwardness suddenly sucking all the air out of the room. “Forgive me. I know nothing about matters of the heart. No one has discovered any equations for those yet.” He uneasily chuckled.
“Gotcha!” Jack said. His voice echoed from beneath theworkbench, where he was stretching to reach what he had dropped. His shirt rode up to show the ravine of his lower back, and Gemma pointedly looked away from the flash of skin and his whole pleasantly tight back end up in the air. Averting her gaze was pointless because when he crawled backward and stood, his shirt stuck around his middle and showed off a panel of flat stomach with a pair of angled muscles at his hips pointing in and down like arrows for her eyes to follow. He saw her staring and quickly smoothed his shirt. He held up the device. A dust bunny clung to one of its spindles. He blew it off and handed it to Dr. Woods with an apologetic smile.
Gemma was embarrassed for staring but she was also suddenly acutely aware of something. Unspoken words crowded the room in a way that was making her dizzy all over again.
“Thank you for the explanation, Dr. Woods. It was very nice to meet you.”
“My pleasure, Gemma,” he said as she turned to Jack.
“Can I speak to you outside for a moment, please?”
“Sure,” he said, still flustered and flushed.
She turned for the door and heard them murmuring behind her.
“My apologies, Jack. I didn’t realize you hadn’t told her—”
“Yeah, hadn’t really gotten to that part yet...” Jack said. His voice faded as Gemma walked down the hall.
The building hummed in stillness and emitted a smell of burnt rubber that Gemma had not previously noticed. She decided she wanted fresh air to confront Jack about what she had just learned in a roundabout way. By the timeshe made it to the exit, her mind a scramble of complicated thoughts about Jack’s feelings toward her and her own toward him, Jack had caught up.
