B could be our point D, her point E could be our point C. It’s not linear for her. She can be in 1980 one moment and 2005 the next and 1996 after that, because she came unstuck.”
August scrunches her hands up in her hair, trying to wrap her brain around it.
“Okay, so like … like music on the radio,” she attempts. “Like, the radio waves start in one place and they’re picked up by whatever receiver catches them. She’s the transmission, and her receivers are—”
“All at different moments in time, right,” Myla says. “So, if we look at it that way, she’s the music, and we’re the receiver picking her up.”
“And the other people that have seen her and interacted with her on the train over the years, those were—”
“Like antennas on cars catching a radio station as they pass through town. She’s—she’s always broadcasting out of the same tower.”
August feels like her brain is going to melt out of her nose. “The Q. She’s broadcasting out of the line.”
“Right. So … whatever it was must have happened while she was on the train,” Myla says slowly. The fries are going soggy. “We just need to figure what.”
“How do we do that?”
“No idea.”
August straightens, shoving her glasses up her nose. She can do this. Her brain is wired to solve things. “I mean, a big enough event to throw a person out of time—there would be a record of that, right?”
Myla looks at her. “Girl, I don’t know. This is all hypothetical.” She must see the frustration flash across August’s face, because she picks up a fry and points it at her. It flops over pathetically, dripping ketchup onto the table. “Look, you might be right. But it could have been totally localized. People could have missed it completely.”
August sighs. Props her elbows up on the table. Tries to avoid the ketchup. “What about her memories? Why are those gone?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Could be because she’s not rooted to anything. She’s not fully real, so her memories aren’t either. The important thing is, they’re not gone for good.”
“So…” August says, “so we have to get her to remember what happened. And…”
“And then maybe we can find a way to fix it before the end of summer.”
August lets that settle in the air between them: the idea that they could get Jane out. She’s been so focused on helping Jane figure out her past, she hasn’t thought about what comes after.
“And then wh-what?” August asks, wincing at the way her voice goes shaky. “If we figure out what happened and how to fix it, what happens when we do? She goes back to the ’70s? She stays here? She … she’s gone?”
“I don’t know. But…”
August puts down her French fry. She’s lost her appetite. “But what?”
“Well, she said it’s only felt like a few months for her, until now? I think she’s gotten anchored here and now. And from what you’ve told me, this is the first time that’s happened.”
“So, we might be her only chance? Okay,” August says. She folds her arms across her chest and tucks her chin down, jaw set. “No matter what, we try.”
* * *
So, that’s it. August kind of knew, but now she knows. She can’t do this and have a crush on Jane at the same time.
It’s fine. It’s only that August used to love Say Anything before life intervened to make her hate everything, and Jane is the first person to ever make her feel all John-Cusack-and-Ione-Skye. It’s not a big deal that Jane’s hand is the perfect size to brace against August’s waist, or that when Jane looks at her, she can’t look back because her heart starts doing things so big and loud that the rest of her can barely hold the size and sound. She’ll live.
The bottom line: there’s no chance. Even if somehow Jane feels the same, August has a deadline. She has to help Jane figure out who she is, how she got stuck, and how to get her out.
And if she manages to pull that off, Jane’s not exactly here permanently. She’s not exactly here at all. And, well, August has never truly had her heart broken before, but she’s pretty sure that falling in love with someone only to send them back to the 1970s would, as first heartbreaks go, win the Fuck You Up Olympics.
Anyway, she can compartmentalize. She spent her childhood getting paid in Happy Meals to break into people’s