“That explains it.”
“Why I’m immune to your charm?”
“Why you look familiar.” He pretended to look insulted. “And who says you’re immune? You’re smiling.”
“I’m not. . . .”
“Oh, yeah. Right . . . here.” His thumb touched the corner of my mouth, the slightest pressure, his fingers curling under my chin, the Key World’s frequency rising around us.
I didn’t throw myself onto his lap, or anything quite so obvious. But I felt obvious. Clumsy and naive, definitely not the version of myself I wanted to be around him. The charge running through me at his touch must have been written across my face.
He was supposed to look smug. Everything I knew about Simon Lane prepared me for his eyes to light up with triumph, like the scoreboard after a three-pointer. Instead, he looked confused.
“Making progress?” inquired Ms. Powell, wandering past.
Simon let go of me, shook his head as if to clear it. “Excellent progress, ma’am.”
For once, I kept my mouth shut.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Identifying the choice that triggered an Echo is exceedingly difficult. Historical analysis can be used with some degree of success, but unless the pivot formation is witnessed in real time, theories about why an Echo formed cannot be proven.
—Chapter One, “Structure and Formation,”
Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five
ARE YOU SURE you can handle him?” Eliot asked once class was over.
A few feet ahead of us, Bree and Simon were walking together, his dark head bent over her fair one. It was as if our strange, electric moment was even more of an aberration than the time I’d stolen with his Echo.
“Absolutely,” I said, forcing a lightness I didn’t feel. “It can’t be any worse than working with Bree. That looked super fun, by the way.”
Eliot grimaced. “I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with her. Powell should let us switch.”
He doesn’t even know your name, Bree had said. “It’s good for Bree to experience disappointment. Builds character.”
Eliot transferred his frown to me. “Don’t tell me you want to work with him.”
Simon and Bree stopped outside the history room. After a short conversation—one where Bree stroked his arm and tossed her hair and batted her eyelashes, as subtle as a two-by-four upside the head—he ducked inside.
The moment he was out of sight, her friends swooped in with an audible squeal. “Did you ask him?” one asked in a mock-whisper.
Bree’s smile slid away. “Maybe tomorrow.” She caught my eye before they disappeared down the hall, the glare so unmistakable even Eliot recoiled.
“You might want to reconsider going to Mrs. Gregory’s class today.”
“I can handle Bree.” Open hostility was easy to deal with. Simon’s unpredictable, unexpected tension was more dangerous. “Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“To order a pizza,” I said. “Why do you think? We have a sub in history again. I need something to do while she shows the movie.”
“You could try watching the movie for once.”
“Why bother?” I slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and tugged the phone out. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“I’m a pushover. Promise you won’t get caught.”
I blew him a kiss. “I never do.”
The movie was as mind-numbing as I’d predicted. Five minutes after the opening credits, the sub was playing computer solitaire and the class was evenly divided between napping and texting. Simon, legs sprawled in front of him and chin propped on fist, was in the first group.
I was playing with Eliot’s new toy.
I was not thinking about Simon, and the feel of his thumb against my mouth. Or Simon in the rain. Or in the park. I was not thinking about any of those things when I zoomed in on the music room, examining the pivots that had sprung up during class.
Beginnings meant branches. Nobody in history was making decisions except the sub, and the display showed a dim, nearly lifeless room. But in music, each group had made a bunch of choices as we planned our projects—when to meet, how to divide the work, what instruments to use. The screen should have looked like a Christmas tree.
Instead, there was a single, overwhelming glow, growing steadily brighter as the edges of the circle spread out, one all-encompassing pivot.
And then the map crashed.
I tapped the screen and clicked the buttons, but nothing worked. I didn’t know much about Eliot’s gadgets, but whenever they glitched, he’d ask me a million techie questions. “What were you doing when the error occurred? What did the screen say? What settings were you using?”
He’d ask a million more now that I’d broken his baby. I’d be doing him a favor if I checked out the music room in person.
I approached the sub. “Bathroom pass?”
She waved at the door, too intent on her cards to worry about me. A few minutes later I was back in the music wing, phone rebooted and working again. Everything looked normal. Everything sounded normal—freshman band squawking away in one room while swing choir rehearsed in another—the Key World strong and sure. The map shone brightly as I peered into Powell’s empty classroom, and when I opened the door, I caught the buzz of a solitary pivot.
A good-size one, I saw, big enough that the fluorescent lights seemed to catch on the edges of the rift, leaving shadows in midair. It was centered directly over Simon’s seat. I thought back over our conversation. He’d noticed me, but that wasn’t enough. A frequency as jarring as this one came from a deliberate, significant choice. What was it?
He’d touched me.
I’d thought it was his usual routine—heavy on the flirting, light on substance—but the quavering air above his desk suggested otherwise. If he’d touched me in the Key World, what had he done differently in the Echo?
According to Eliot’s map, the pivot was stable enough to visit. I slipped the phone into the pocket of my sweater, found the star I’d been folding in class, and stepped through, holding my breath like I was diving into deep water.
The room I surfaced in stood empty. Whatever choice Simon made wasn’t visible, but the pitch was unexpectedly loud. If I was going to figure out what had changed, I’d need to do it fast.
My best shot at pinpointing the change was to find his Echo. I dropped the star on the piano and headed to history.
No one in Echo history noticed my entrance. The movie played on as I slid into the seat next to his, deliberately jostling him awake. His dissonance sent a shock through me, but he smiled, sheepish and sleepy lidded. “Del. What’s up?”
His whisper found its way under my skin. I squashed the urge to lean in closer, to recreate our connection. Hooking up with Simon was a bad idea in any world, but particularly now, when I was pressed for time and looking for answers.
Certainty is a luxury, whether you’re dealing with the multiverse or a human being. We’re never 100 percent sure what creates a pivot unless we see it form. We never fully understand another person, even those we’re closest to. Best guesses and backtracking were imperfect, incomplete pictures, whether you’re dealing with branches or boys.
I tried to be logicaclass="underline" In this world, Simon hadn’t touched me. We hadn’t had that strange, deliciously tense moment. Powell hadn’t interrupted us. But what was the result?
“Tell me again when we’re meeting?” I rubbed at the back of my neck, trying to quell the gathering tension.