“I figured you weren’t a huge fan of the mall,” he said with a grin.
“What gave it away?” I smoothed the thrift-store sweater I’d changed into—dark green with a wide neck and a slim fit—dressier than I usually wore, but comfortable.
“If I said you’re not like other girls, you’d think it was a line.”
“It is a line.”
“Doesn’t make it untrue. Besides, you like it that way.”
“For someone who never spoke to me before this semester, you’ve certainly turned into the expert.”
He raised a shoulder. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Basketball,” I said, desperate for a neutral topic. “The season’s going well?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you end up talking with the scout?”
He stared at me, slowing down enough that the person behind us laid on the horn. “What scout?”
“The one from Arizona. Bree said . . .”
He swallowed. “It’s not in the cards for me right now.”
Of course not. He couldn’t go halfway across the country when his mom was so sick. I touched his sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s my choice, right?”
I bit my lip. Somewhere there was an Echo where he’d chosen to go. “Definitely.”
We pulled up in front of the restaurant. The clean, art deco lines seemed both vintage and timeless, and the bold colors emphasized the structure instead of competing with it. The disparate elements blended together in a quirky, compelling harmony.
“You come here a lot?” he asked when he came around to open my door. He took my hand as I climbed out, kept it as we crossed the parking lot.
“Sure,” I said, pausing at the small bronze plaque next to the doors. The air was filled with pivots, their edges like tattered silk.
The train crash on this site had left thousands of worlds in its wake. Twenty years later, the Echoes formed from those pivots were some of the strongest around. We’d taken field trips to this site every year since I started training. If I crooked my fingers, I could have caught a pivot and Walked to countless realities, but I was perfectly happy in this one.
The Depot smelled like warm bread, candle wax, and coffee. Simon guided me to a table in the back.
“This seat good?”
“It’s my favorite,” I said, and pointed to another bronze plaque on the wall next to my seat. “I like the marker.”
“You are here a lot. With Eliot?”
Happiness evaporated. “Would you lay off the Eliot thing? I’ve known him since I was in diapers. That’s it.”
“According to your sister, you two make a great couple.”
“Don’t listen to Addie,” I said. “I never do.”
“So you and he aren’t . . .” He fumbled with his napkin. “Promised, or something?”
I nearly spewed water across the table. “I’m going to kill her.”
“I’ll take it that’s a no.”
“How about this? You stop giving me shit about Eliot, and I won’t mention Bree again.”
“Bree? I told you—”
“I know. And I know how she looks at you.”
He scowled. “You’ve got a deal. No more questions about Eliot.”
“Excellent.”
“Your sister is . . . intense,” he said cautiously.
“She’s a control freak,” I said. “But that’s a much nicer way to put it.”
“You two don’t get along?”
I made a face and scanned the menu. “We’ve been better lately.”
“Must be. You’re not grounded anymore, right?”
Had I told him I was grounded? I must have, but the fact that I couldn’t remember served as a warning. Too many worlds. Too many Simons. I needed to get a grip. “Kind of. My folks are easing up.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too,” I said, as the waitress approached. After we’d ordered, I leaned forward. “Want to know a secret?”
His slow, dangerous smile muddled my thoughts. “Definitely.”
“I would have come out anyway.”
“Snuck out? For me? I’m flattered.”
“You should be.”
His hand covered mine, his thumb sweeping over my knuckles. “Does this mean I’m your secret now? Like when you disappear at school?”
“Hard to keep you secret when you show up on the front porch. Are you telling people about us?”
He leaned back. “There’s not really an ‘us,’ is there?”
The heat that had been washing over me receded. Stupid, to assume that flirting in the library and one date meant we were together. This was Simon. Charming, casual, loved-by-many, in-love-with-none Simon. I’d been fooling myself.
It was so easy to fall back into old defenses. They fit better than any outfit I might have worn tonight.
“Flavor of the month?” I said, lifting my chin and plucking a roll from the bread basket. Calm. Indifferent. He hadn’t gotten close enough to hurt. “Figured you’d mix it up? Go slumming before you try again with Bree?”
“Dial it down, will you?” His eyes flashed. “It’s our first date. I haven’t even kissed you yet. Can we save the relationship talk until after dessert?”
I paused in the middle of tearing my roll to bits, hearing exasperation, not anger, in his voice. Foolish as it was, I let myself hope.
“Yet?”
He looked at me blankly.
“You said you haven’t kissed me yet. Were you going to?”
His mouth curved. “To start.”
“Oh,” I said, my voice fainter than I intended.
“Yeah.” His eyes met mine again, and now it wasn’t anger sparking in them. “So eat up.”
Both of us made a deliberate attempt to keep the conversation light and inconsequential during the meal. Finally he asked, “Did you want dessert?”
What I wanted was to go somewhere without a table separating us and a crowd of people watching. “Not here.”
“My mom was at the crash, you know,” he said offhandedly, signaling for the check.
I gaped. “Was she hurt?”
“She was running late that day. She spilled tea on her outfit and had to change clothes. She was in her car when the train derailed, but the people she usually sat with? Dead. Every one. Switching outfits saved her life. Hard to believe.”
“Not really,” I croaked, and took a long drink of water.
“That’s where she met my dad. He worked for the NTSB, investigating the accident. She says by the time the interview was over, she knew he was the one.”
I thought about Simon’s dad. I’d never met a version of Simon where his dad was in the picture, but surely, somewhere, he’d made the decision to stay with his wife and infant son. There had to be a world where Simon didn’t have to carry the burden of his mother’s illness on his own. “And you’re really not going to tell him about your mom?”
“He doesn’t deserve—I never told you that.”
“Sure you did.” My stomach dropped.
“No. I don’t talk about him.” Uncertainty crept into his voice.
“You did,” I said, hoping my insistence would overcome his doubt. “You don’t talk about your mom, either. But you told me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I did. . . . Do you ever get déjà vu?”
“Never,” I said, forcing a laugh. “Is that even a real thing?”
It definitely was. Synaptic Resonance Transfer—SRT—was the technical term for when the memory of an event transferred from an Echo to an Original, or vice versa.
But he’d used Doughnut Simon’s song for our composition. Doughnut Simon remembered me each time I visited. Cemetery Simon had known my name. Usually SRT was a familiar feeling, not a concrete memory, but this was too similar to be anything else. I had my answer, and it was harmless.