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“Gemma, wait!” he said as she stepped back into the sunlight. He followed her outside and onto the path, which was less empty than it had been when they arrived. Students milled about, some hurrying along, others strolling with their noses glued to phones. Summer session was in swing.
She walked onto the lawn to remove herself from their way and to confront Jack with a burning question.
He almost ran into her when she stopped and turned around.
“Did you tell him you’re in love with me?”
His eyes dazzled against the backdrop of sky and the leafy green tree they’d stopped beneath. His lips pressed together as if he were trying to keep the words on the tip of his tongue from spilling out.
Gemma’s heart had positioned itself firmly in her throat, and with the force with which it was beating, she was surprised she could speak at all.
“Jack?”
“Okay, so there’s a little more to my theory than I let on earlier,” he blurted.
She huffed. “Well, please, do share.”
He ran his hand through his hair and looked around as if checking that no one would overhear what Gemma was sure was going to sound senseless. “So, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. It’s not off the cuff, I swear. But I think since the kiss worked—it got you to remember—I think I’m right in that you have to... reciprocate my feelings in order for us to get out of this.”
“What?!”she screeched. Nearby students cast sideways looks at them and rerouted their paths for a wider berth. “So, what are you saying? I have one day to fall in love with you or we’re doomed to repeat all of this over and over again?”
“I think so, yes.”
“That’s the least rational thing you’ve said so far. I’m going home.” She rejoined the busy path and stomped away.
“Wait, Gemma! I know it’s hard to believe, but you heard what Simon said. We’re stuck! We need a jolt! I know you feelsomething, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here with me—and you wouldn’t have kissed me last night!Andyou wouldn’t have gone out with me all those other times!”
He was right about the feeling something part; she couldn’t deny that. And she knew herself well enough to know she wouldn’t have kissed him if she hadn’t wanted to—even if she had only met him that night. There was some truth to his words. But still.
She stopped and turned around to face him. “Jack, I don’t even remember going out with you. How many dates have we been on?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?!”Gemma blurted in disbelief. Her head spun so fast the scenic campus blurred into a green-blue-beige swirl. “And what have we done on these dates?”
“We’ve been out to lunch five times and to Lila’s birthday party three times, not counting last night since we met there and didn’t technically arrive together,” he said with a precision to suggest he’d logged each one in a mental journal.
She silently blinked at him.
Reading her skepticism, he gently held up his hands. “Listen, I know this sounds unbelievable, because you feel like we just met today, but I know you’re vegetarian and you hate cilantro because it tastes like soap. I know you love mimosas and iced lattes, and order dessert with lunch because you believe ice cream can be eaten any time of day. You started playing the piano when you were three. You love dogs and are mildly allergic to cats. Your birthday is in November and you were always jealous of kids who got to have pool parties in the summer. I now know that you dislike crowded bars and loud parties, and really any activity involving too many other people, but you attend anyway when it’s for someone special. I know Lila is your best friend and you met in college and were roommates and you’d do anything for her, and she’d do anything for you.” He paused for a breath that sounded both hopeful and exhausted. His eyes shone. “I know enough about you to want to know more, and I know that I’m going to lose my mind if you don’t remember me because I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
Gemma reeled. Everything he said about her was true—and those were very specific details he couldn’t have known unless she told him. She searched her mind again for a memory of when he could have learned so much about her and developed such feelings and found only blips transplanted from imagination rather than true memories.
She admitted to herself that she must have some kind of feelings for him too if she’d agreed to go out with him eight times, plus kissing him last night at the bar. But the factthat she couldn’t remember any of those eight dates—nor the previous five months in which they’d occurred—left her lost as to what to make of it all.
There was also the fact that she wasn’t ready to put her heart any place vulnerable again. Not even in the hands of a man who was looking at her like he was collecting trivial, personal facts about her as if they were precious gems. Like perhaps getting to kiss her was his calling in life.
Even more, it was also nearing noon and she had to get to work. And she needed to check if Patrick got on a flight. And she needed to go back to Lila’s and get her car.
“I have to go, Jack,” she said, and turned to go.
He grumbled in frustration that she was leaving yet again. “At least let me give you a ride back!”
Gemma kept walking. She had already pulled out her phone to summon a ride. She saw no new messages from her brother but had a few emails from work.
With the sun beating down on her, always hotter a bit inland than in the city, she felt foolish for abandoning such important responsibilities to chase down a wild theory with a complete stranger. Although it sounded like science fiction, Dr. Woods’s explanation of the snagged realities was plausibly credible. He was a scientist, after all. Who was to say what could or couldn’t be possible in the great expanse of a universe humans barely knew a sliver of? But Jack’s proposed solution for unsnagging reality—the thought of falling in love in a single day—thatwas the part that Gemma couldn’t believe. And she didn’t have the time to start trying.
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