Chapter 9 Good August
CHAPTER NINE
GOOD AUGUST
IS NOT SMITTEN
“Are you sure it’s not worse than you’re making out? Because a few hours ago, you said my coffee can’t hold yours.”
“Bad analogy. There’s nothing wrong with your decaf. I’ll think of a better one next time.”
It’s still eighteen forty-four, and I’m still walking the streets of old London with myself from another reality.
He swears we had to take a longer, roundabout route because the area between my house and the pub is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
But I don’t recall this being the history of St. John’s Wood.
I also slightly wonder if he’s enjoying himself as much as I am.
He’s incredibly easy to talk to, like an old friend.
He gets my jokes, and I laugh at his. I guess that makes sense.
But I’m still looking at his soft, black jumper, wondering how much that cost. Listening to all these bright things he says, and…
I suppose he must be quite different to me, deep down.
In the ways it counts. Walking around with a brain like that.
“I still want your help,” he assures me. “I should… I could really use someone to… go over the maths with.”
“I’m terrible at maths.” And even if I’m laughing on the outside, as usual, I’m dying inside.
I don’t want him to know how hopeless I am, at maths or at anything else.
I don’t want him to see my flat on the inside.
I don’t want him to know how bad things are for me.
And I really don’t want him to know that I’m such a useless fuckup.
“I don’t believe that. You’re the most like me that…” He stumbles over his words, hacking out a fake-sounding cough and winding a hand in the air before finishing, “that a person could be. Obviously. Because you’re me.”
“Kind of.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
What? “What?” Those words came out of absolutely nowhere.
“Just wondering,” he says casually, “if I’m taking you away from anything…”
Taking me away from anything?
He’s not flirting, calm the fuck down.
“No. Um. I was seeing someone, but… that blew up. A little while back.”
“What a shame.” Why is he smiling like that? Why did he say it like that?
I’m probably imagining it.
“Yeah, it was… It needed to happen. Did you ever have a thing where you knew it wasn’t right, and you just kept going? Waiting for the stars to align or something?”
“Not really. That’s not how stars work.”
“No, I don’t mean like… I know that.” He walks on, waiting for me to talk, so I mumble out, “It was never going to work. I think I was just… flattered that someone like him liked me.”
His eyes are sharp but brief on me, that smile wider and accompanied by a scoffing sound. “What are you talking about? You’re gorgeous.”
The surprise of the comment shoots a lead weight straight to my foot, and failing to lift it, it collides with the edge of a cobblestone, sending me tripping forward.
His arm shoots out to catch me, and we two come to a dead stop in the middle of this late-night Victorian street scene.
It would probably feel romantic if I weren’t keenly aware that I’m here with myself.
But even then, there’s a strange breathlessness that tightens my chest. Nineteenth-century air?
The corner of his lips is still upturned, but his voice is a little softer now.
“Sorry. I hope that’s not weird coming from me.
From you. Sort of. You probably don’t think the same thing about me.
” But before I can even attempt to disagree, he walks on, talks on, face turned away from mine so I can’t read his expression.
“You’ve put in the effort with your looks, you know?
Going on runs. Exercising in the park. Doing karate. ”
“Just how long have you been watching me?” is the best I can manage at the unexpected shift in conversation.
“Not long. A few days. Maybe… closer to a week.”
“Only a week, huh?”
Ignoring my sardonic reply, he waffles on. “It shows. All that exercise you’ve been doing. You’ve got beautiful skin. And I guess you got your eyes lasered?”
“I did.” Feeling slightly overwhelmed, both at the compliments and the reminder he’s my actual stalker, I hasten to add, “But now that I see those glasses on you, I’m kind of regretting it.”
Maybe I just needed those frames all along? He does look really good in them.
He also ignores my return compliment. “And you’re not all pasty and white like me, from spending all day in the lab. You’ve got that nice tan—that sun-kissed glow about you.” His eyes dip down to my hoodie. “I bet you’ve got abs and everything.”
A laugh slips out, and I just know I’ve gone pink again. This guy could be so good for my ego. If he weren’t me. If I didn’t know better. It’s sweet that he’s trying to big me up, but we both know he’s just being nice. I wish I were like this with myself more often.
I’m not inclined to interrupt his flow of compliments, and thankfully, he’s not quite done.
“I’m just saying, anyone should be proud to have you on their arm.
” Then a few beats of silence, followed by a lowly mumbled, “I hope next time, a bit of flattery won’t be enough to make you throw yourself away. ”
Well, this is embarrassing. Because judging by the beat of my heart, apparently that’s all it takes…
No.
Yourself from a parallel universe is not hitting on you.
Stop being weird.
“He’s… very charismatic, is the thing.” Yep. Talk about the ex. Not the diabolically smart, confident, and surprisingly kind version of yourself that’s walking about in those slutty glasses. “And a lot of people want him. And he chose me. And that felt good. For a while.”
“What do you mean ‘for a while?’”
“Well…” Maybe not such a good idea to talk about the ex. All of a sudden, that evening Victorian air feels suffocating. “The thing about him was… he chose other people too.”
August slows his pace. I wish there were a rock I could crawl under. He’s giving me one of those scrutinising looks of his, and I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want him to think less of me over this. He shouldn’t have to know he’s this much of a loser in another life.
“I knew what I was getting into,” I vomit out.
“He’s not like other guys. He never pretended to be.
He was… always going to need more than one person.
And I knew that going into it. And that was stupid of me.
Maybe. But…” He’s still looking. Jesus. “It wasn’t really cheating, or anything like that, because I knew about it.
You know? It wasn’t like he tried to hide it.
” God, this is getting worse and worse. Why isn’t he saying anything?
“It was open, is what I mean. An open relationship. I guess.” I need to stop rambling.
He needs to speak. I cannot handle the weight of this silence.
“So it was all fine. And above board. Um… And I’m fine. All fine now. Definitely fine.”
Yeah. Sure. You’re doing a great job of showing that.
Finally, thankfully, he soothes my blathering with, “You thought you were going to be alright with that?”
Thank Christ. “Yes. I did.”
“But you’re not?”
“No.” Way to reveal the truth in about a millisecond. “It was complicated.”
Shoes on cobblestones, pregnant echoes as I wonder what he’s thinking, then, “Sometimes you have to find things out the hard way.”
That’s it?
That’s all he says.
I’ve felt so bad about this for so long that I’ve never told anyone. Not a single soul who wasn’t involved. And my own answer, straight from my own lips, is… simple acceptance? “You don’t think that’s bad?”
“No. Why would I?” His feet strike the road, punctuating the stretching night silence. “Unless, for some reason, you didn’t think that was going to be the situation?”
That hits like a knife. He can see it. He can see how stupid I’ve been. I drop my chin, but I know it can’t hide me from the moonlight. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“It matters if you’re sad about it.”
“I’m not.” I am. But for some reason, I don’t want him to know that.
It’s not just because I’m ashamed. I feel the desperate need to clarify my feelings, not for myself, but for him.
“Or… maybe I am sad, but I’m not sad that it’s over.
I’m just sad in general, I guess. Because I still like him.
” And before I know it, I’m very pointedly blurting out, “As a friend,” maybe a little too loud and a little too hurriedly.
“He-he’s really nice. And he didn’t mean for things to be like that. And maybe if I’d had a thicker skin—”
“Then maybe you’d be at home right now wondering who he’s out with?”
That nausea. It’s still so close to the surface. It’s still me, alone in my flat, just like he said. So many endless nights spent exactly that way.
But August snaps the isolated, ill feeling in half with, “It’s a good thing you’re here with me instead.”
He looks over, and my heart’s in my throat. I know he can’t mean that the way it sounds, the way my body’s reacting to it. But after all those nice things he said, after this whole night that’s been so… strangely magical.
A blast of cold wind shifts the hair about his temple.
It’s like looking into a mirror, but it’s also not.
He is different to me. He’s got a strength about him, in the tightly drawn curve about his cheekbones, in the way he holds his jaw with a certain defiance.
I get a weird sense of safety in his presence, while I know full well I would never rely on myself like that.
Why is he so different when he’s so familiar?
“Look around,” he says, and I realise how caught in the moment I am—that I’m staring at him in the middle of the street like he’s… like he’s my date.
It’s the hot flush in my cheeks that makes me turn away even faster than his suggestion, but the second I do… there are the streetlights, bright and electric. There, the driveways and cars. The road beneath us is paved, and the winter wind rips through me like shards of ice.