Chapter 32
Sumner doesn’t make fun of me or say I told you so.
He doesn’t try to explain the lack of logic behind the experiment.
The disappointment rooted in the lines on his face match my own, and that’s when I realize he’d also hoped it would work.
Despite my own foolish optimism, deep down, a tiny piece of me knew it wouldn’t. No matter how much I wanted it.
There’s quiet defeat in William’s demeanor. He doesn’t express his disappointment, but it’s apparent in his lack of vigor. Even Lionel withdraws into himself without any usual encouragement. When I try to apologize, Sumner reminds me it was worth pursuing even if we didn’t get our desired outcome.
Our only remaining chance is the isoborometer.
“There’s something here,” Sumner says the following evening in Danforth’s room. We’ve made it a priority to meet up every evening until we’ve made significant headway.
I glance up from my seat across from him. “What?”
He flips to the end of my dad’s journal, then whirls it around so it’s facing me.
“You know how Maxwell simplified Faraday’s law of induction?
It looks like your dad did the same thing with the equations in the academic article.
” He points to a series of symbols and numbers scrawled at the top of the page. “See?”
To me, math has always seemed like its own language, one Sumner can easily translate.
It takes me several minutes to piece together what he grasps, and he’s right.
My dad was able to streamline the original equations.
I hadn’t recognized them as one and the same.
They’re so far back in his journal that I didn’t pick up the connection.
If only I hadn’t been quick to get ahead of myself; if only I’d lent Sumner his entire journal earlier. Would any of it have made a difference?
“You’re sure?”
“Almost certain.” He places his elbows on my desk and folds his arms, chin atop his wrist as he looks up at me. His glasses slip a millimeter down his nose. “Between you and me, we can solve the rest. I know we can.”
He says it with such conviction that I’m overcome with emboldened determination.
Over the next two weeks, we focus on unlocking the rest. Adjustments are made to the isoborometer’s specifications, and we plug them into Lionel’s software to ensure there aren’t errors.
When we do hit a snag, we backtrack and try again.
Sumner is patient as we tip our heads together and pass guesswork and guidance back and forth.
“If we widen the area around the armature by a millimeter, it decreases the chances of stalling without compromising the function,” I explain one evening, showing him the math to back up my claim. “See?”
Sumner double-checks my work. “That’s brilliant.”
“Please,” I say dryly, “don’t sound too shocked.”
I don’t miss the way his mouth bends into that tilted smile.
Lionel and William take over implementing this while Sumner and I get closer to our breakthrough in the equations.
Once curfew hits, we FaceTime each other from our rooms and continue working late into the night.
We have to keep our voices down to ensure no one reports us for noise violations, and more than once we fall asleep mid-conversation.
One morning, I open my eyes to Sumner’s sleeping form, his phone propped against his pillow, glasses tangled in his hair as his bare chest slowly rises and falls.
There’s something so strangely raw seeing him like this that it stirs a fervid tingling across my skin.
My thumb taps to end the video call before he wakes.
All of my focus is narrowed into this inexplicable cosmic puzzle, so much so that I begin running late to my meetings with Mrs. Vidar-Tett.
I scramble to do homework assignments last-minute because I forget to pay attention to due dates, and I drop one more slot in the ranking.
We have close calls with evening curfews so frequently that Lionel begins setting an alarm, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters except figuring out how we’re going to stop time from folding in on itself.
“December sixth,” Lionel says as he slides his iPad along the table where William, Sumner, and I are eating lunch. “That’s when we should aim to have this complete, if not earlier.”
The night of the gala. Months ago, this might have been my largest concern. But not anymore.
Sumner leans over me to look at the screen, causing centripetal force to kick-start in the center of my chest. Old feelings have snuck up on me, no longer subdued.
I try not to let him dominate my thoughts—our attention is commandeered by more important matters—but there’s so much we’ve suppressed discussing.
He must sense it, too. I don’t think it’s all in my head.
Sometimes I’ll catch him watching me like I’m the only person in the room, a tender ache behind his eyes.
His touch will linger when he passes me a dry-erase marker, or his shoulder will faintly brush mine when he scoots closer to me on the couch.
When we’re alone, which isn’t very often, he’ll take a breath, almost like he’s gathering the nerve to speak, but then he’ll release it instead.
The tension feels like an overinflated balloon on the precipice of bursting.
“Why December sixth?” William asks.
On his iPad, Lionel’s brought up various charts on the Space Weather Prediction Center website, which can estimate geomagnetic conditions up to twenty-seven days in advance.
The Kp index—which predicts aurora intensity—is at an estimated high on December sixth.
It’s the best shot we have. The solar maximum is on our side, so we’re going to need a large solar flare to produce a strong geomagnetically induced current in order for the isoborometer to work.
In theory—and if we’ve done everything right by then—it should.
Lionel points to the highest peak on the chart. “But we’ll have more accurate data—”
“Day of,” I finish, meeting his eyes. I’ve retained as much from my dad.
He snaps his fingers. “Exactly.”
That’s almost two weeks away.
I’ve pushed my most horrifying theory to the back of my brain.
If Ivernia ceases to exist in this reality, I also cease to exist in this reality.
Because my mother wouldn’t have accepted the substitute teaching position.
She wouldn’t have met my dad, because he wouldn’t have been teaching here.
They’d lead their own separate lives, maybe with other partners.
And what about us? Even if they had kids, they wouldn’t be Jared, Madelene, or me.
Dwelling on this only increases my internal panic, so I focus on what we can control.
I’m working next to Sumner on the couch Thursday evening when a gentle poke prods at my rib cage.
My eyes flutter open. When did I close them?
I’ve somehow melted into his side, my head slumped on his arm.
I’d fallen asleep, but I don’t have time to process my embarrassment because Sumner’s saying, “Your phone.”
A gentle chime bleats from beside me. Jared’s name lights up my screen. Pushing myself into an upright position, I tap the green icon to answer, then launch to my feet and push my way out of the Forgotten Lounge.
“Hey,” I say once I’m in the hallway.
“Hey.” His tone is off.
I still. “What’s wrong?”
There’s a weighted pause. “Listen, Mom is going to call you and tell you herself, but I think you should hear it from me first. We’re not going home for Thanksgiving.”
Anxiety tightens beneath my ribs. “Oh.” I try my best to keep my voice chipper, but I’m failing. “Um. Why?”
“You know how Mads joined the International Thespian Society at her school?” I did not know this, but he continues without waiting for a response.
“She made it to the semifinals of this regional acting competition, which is in Pittsburgh over the break. Mom’s taking her.
And since money’s tight now, it’s a bit of a relief for us not to travel home, I think. ”
My hand flies to adjust my headband. “Right.”
We’ve always been a budgeting family, but finances are different now that my mother is in charge of a single-parent household.
I thought I’d use the money I’d saved from hostessing to book a flight—or hell, even a bus back to Pennsylvania.
Jared and I have always gone home for the holidays.
What if this is my last chance to see my family? Because if we fail—
No, I can’t think like that. Maybe this is for the best. It gives me a chance to continue working alongside William while everyone else is on break, because we can’t stop the progress now. Not when we have a deadline we’re striving for.
There isn’t an ideal scenario here. Either way, I stand to lose something.
“It’s a change, I know, but the winter holidays are right around the corner. We’ll be home before you know it.”
I want so badly for this to be true. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I have a few friends who invited me over for dinner,” he says. “Are you?”
“Of course,” I say quickly. “It’ll give me more time to focus on the gala. And I can get a jump start on studying for finals. Polish my college applications, all that.”
I’m rambling now. This competition is important to Madelene, so it’s important to me, but I don’t understand why she didn’t say anything in the first place.
“I mean, take some time off, superstar,” he says. “Can’t have you turning into Analiese.”
For as much as Analiese and I have drifted apart, I still thought I was somewhat tapped in to her life.
As it turns out, the last time we properly hung out was my birthday.
We’ve stopped eating together, each of us blaming our busy schedules in our texts, and I can’t recall the last time we studied in the library.
With the loss of my entire existence on the line, the isoborometer has become my highest priority.