Chapter 12 #2
It’s very much a basement. A small and clearly disused one.
It’s almost empty, strewn with dusty and disowned cobwebs, stains on the floor from leaks, attempted cleanups, spills of whatever’s been stored here through the years.
But he leads me forward to another doorway with a sign on it: ‘Keep Out.’
I can’t help the laugh that slips out at the ludicrous and hastily scrawled warning. “Does that really work?”
“No idea.” He chuckles back, fumbling in his pocket.
“But I haven’t been caught yet.” He pulls out a key, slides it into the lock, then opens the door.
A jolt hits me, like a moving elevator coming to rest. The lights are on, and with a sinking feeling entirely unrelated to an elevator coming to rest, I realise that’s exactly where I am.
August’s brow folds in, and he casts his gaze around. Then, “Fuck.”
“What the hell?”
The elevator doors open on pitch black, B3 lit up on the control panel, the musty smell and cool air hitting me again, and we both stumble out.
“What the fuck is this?” he half whispers.
Faster this time, he steps away, pushes the light on, and his hand’s in his pocket. He unlocks the door, throws it open, and ding! We come to a stop. The elevator doors open.
“Hmm,” he mumbles deeply.
“Hmm?” I ask.
“Hmm,” he reiterates.
But he steps out, so I follow him. And we’re in the dark, and he steps away from me. The whole thing repeats itself. This time, when the light of the elevator is on us again, when the stomach crunch of the landing passes, he says, “Time loop.”
“What do you mean ‘time loop?’” Is this different from a time slip? Does this last as long as a time slip? Because I think I’ll go mad if I have five or six hours of this. Unless we can find a good way to pass the time…
We step out into the dark, and thank goodness, because this stupid blush of mine is heating my face.
But his reply is brisk as he walks away once again for the light.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But it probably won’t go on too long.
” This last part sounds like added-on reassurance.
A little empty, a lot harried. When he finds the key in his pocket, he doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry. For all of this.”
He opens the door. We’re in the elevator. We step out. It’s dark. “I don’t mind. I told you last night.”
“I know.” He pushes the light on, sharp movements and panic rising in his voice. “But it’s more than that. What’s happening around us, it’s… This shouldn’t be happening to you. It’s for me, it’s not for you.” His hand’s deep in his pocket, his arm tense.
“August, I am you. It must be for me. We’re the same person.”
“We’re not the same person, August.”
Key in the lock, door open, my stomach drops. “Wait.”
We’re out, we’re in the dark, and he steps away, but this time I grab him. “What is it? Why are you so worried?”
His eyes meet mine for the briefest moment before the elevator doors shut, plunging us back into darkness.
I think it might be the first time I’ve seen him look scared.
But then there’s nothing, not even the soft glow of the control panel.
Just us and cold dark and a silence thicker than the stale air. “You should be worried.”
“Why should I be? You said we’re fine.”
“August, you’re… You’re caught in a time loop. We’re literally reliving the same moment over and over. And you’re totally okay with this?”
“You said it wouldn’t last.”
There’s a soft tsk of his tongue, preceding his harsh speech. “And last night, it barely even bothered you that we went back almost two hundred years.”
He can’t see my shrug, but it happens anyway, some half-defensive movement. “You told me not to be worried. And it worked out fine.”
“Why do you trust me so much? It’s normal to be upset by these things. It’s…”
I can’t help but interject with, “You seem more upset than I am.”
“I am more upset than you are,” he virtually shouts back.
When the sound ricochets off the concrete walls, it must seep into him like it has me, and he lowers his voice.
“I don’t want you to deal with this. With what happens when you’re with me.
August, look…” Quiet again, his breath and his body so close to mine.
I can’t see him, but if I could, I’m sure I’d see that same sadness in his expression.
More than anything, I don’t think I want him to finish his sentence, so I get in before he can. “I like you.”
“What?” It’s a half gasp, like he can’t believe I’ve said it any more than I can.
“I don’t know. I just… I have fun with you. And that figures, doesn’t it? It’s only natural, since we have so much in common.”
“It’s not.”
But the sound is so small, the argument so weak, that I talk on. “You don’t know what my life was before. I don’t have any friends, no real ones anyway. Not anymore. I don’t have anything to look forward to. I don’t have a single thing on the horizon. And I’m lonely. And I’m…”
Tears prick at the back of my eyes. I hate how easily I keep getting upset around him.
But it’ll be worse if he says what I’m worried he’ll say.
That he doesn’t want me here. That I should leave.
“Last night was… It was scary. Really. For a while, the whole time even, that we were back in time. But it was also magical. It was beautiful. And I just liked it. And I liked the hot Coke. And I like your jokes. And I like catching the train with you. And if we’re stuck down here for a few hours…
I… I really don’t mind. We’re not in danger.
We’re just killing time. Why should that bother me? ”
His long exhale ghosts across my cheek. He’s so close.
Closer than I even realised. I wish I could see his reaction.
Maybe he doesn’t actually want to be down here with me.
Maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe he’s used to being around people he can discuss more than movies and music with.
Maybe the thought of hours with me is grating on his nerves.
“We don’t have to talk,” I say, hollow words in the dark. “If you’d rather—”
“I’d like to talk to you.” Beats of silence heavier than the thrum of my heart.
“I like being around you. I like…” That soft brush of skin, his hand finding mine in the dark, sending a shiver of sparks all through me.
This time it’s his index finger that links around mine, and I squeeze it before he can escape.
I want to take his whole hand. I want to bring it to my lips, kiss it.
What would he do, here in this heated space, if I kissed him?
Here, on our own island of time, where maybe it would stay like this.
Time stopped, just for us, to explore this, whatever it is, whatever is happening, that feels so much to me like magic.
But he hasn’t said it. The touch of his thumb is tender when he runs it along my index finger. His lips must be so close, because I can feel him breathing. What if I just tilt my head up a little…
Ding!
His arm takes my waist. The room spins, then my back hits the wall, that same index finger I just held now pressed to my lips as light sweeps the room. His body pushes into mine, hiding us against the bricks that line the side of the elevator shaft.
A voice drifts from the elevator. “I’m sure it’s one of the basement levels.”
Another meets it. “No, look, that sign says ‘Keep Out.’ There can’t be anything good down here.”
The clack of a tongue, then, “I guess not.”
The doors close, August steps away, and I’m bereft. Embarrassingly bereft.
The light flicks on, dazzling my eyes. As though our conversation never happened, August’s back is to me, and he’s over at the door.
The key’s in, the door’s open, then, “Aha!” Another light, smaller, warmer, illuminates the tiny room he disappears into.
“I knew it couldn’t last too long. Looks like we beat it already. ”
He continues waffling about time loops in fast and casual sentences as I take in the space.
To think I was worried about showing him my place. This is… grim.
He’s got a blow-up mattress on the floor, one small lamp, a (sturdy) wooden desk which is absolutely covered in papers and scrawls, like a serial killer’s den.
There’s a stack of pot noodles in the corner next to a kettle on the floor.
There’s an old-fashioned telephone next to it, looking like an antique, connected to the wall by some ancient wiring I wouldn’t trust enough to sleep near.
And that’s it. Raw brick walls, a dark concrete ceiling, and over against the wall, a stack of maybe five blackboards, sitting on the floor, a burst of coloured chalk sticks fanning out at the base.
Either I’m keeping a positive game face, or he doesn’t notice how taken aback I am to discover this is where he’s staying. He carries on like it’s nothing. “Can you lock the door?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Yes.” I’m on autopilot doing it, barely aware of his transition to the other side of the room.
That is, until he takes the first of those blackboards and turns it around.
Top to bottom, from one side to the other, it’s equations.
Or one really long equation? I have absolutely no clue, and it might as well be written in an alien language.
“I know it’s not much,” he apologises. Guess he has noticed my reticence. “I use the bathrooms in the student lodgings, so this area is just for sleep and work, really. And I needed somewhere no one would disturb me.”
He lays the board down against the far wall, then returns to his stack.
The next one reveals more sums. More letters, brackets, and numbers that are utterly unintelligible to me, and he settles it next to the last. The next, and the next, and the next again are spread out in a confidence-shredding line until I’m faced with five full boards of hard maths that make my head spin.
How did I ever think I was going to help him with any of this?
It makes me ill to take it all in. My stomach turns molten with rising panic. Now he’s really going to find out how stupid I am. And if I thought for one minute he might have actually liked me back…
Well, there goes that shred of hope.