follow. We went to the water, and walked along the edge, and saw a silver fish, too big for the shallows. We pushed it gently out to sea. The silver against the dark velvet-blue seems unreal to me now, but it happened.
Cal told me the night that we saw them he couldn’t sleep for thinking about all the things he wanted to see – the Midnight Sun and its opposite, the Polar Night. He wanted to see the sun stay below the horizon. He wanted to see the light reflected off the sea and the snow, see everything coated in blue.
I tell Henry how we talked our way over the whole world, all the places we wanted to dive – Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, Malaysia, Japan, Antarctica.
‘After, at the funeral, I thought that it was so cruel, that in the month before he died, he thought so much about the life he wanted to have.’
I look up and see that tear-shaped sun. We’re exactly where we were before. Exactly in alignment.
‘I don’t know how to talk to you about this,’ Henry says, ‘because I’ve never been where you are. But I will be where you are, at some stage in the future, because it’s impossible for me not to be. And it seems to me as though you’re looking at it the wrong way around.’
‘There is only one way round,’ I say, letting him know that I want him to stop talking.
‘Listen,’ he says, taking my hand. He tells me he thinks that maybe Cal got lucky. That his last days seemed so beautiful, the way I’ve described them, filled with golden light. ‘Maybe he didn’t get screwed over by the universe. Maybe it was trying to cram everything in for him.’
‘Not very scientific,’ I say.
‘Sometimes science isn’t enough,’ he says. ‘Sometimes you need the poets.’
It’s in this moment, this exact moment, that I fall in love with him again.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Letters left between pages 4 and 5
2 January 2015
Dear George
Happy New Year! Did you do anything? I spent the night on the beach with my sister watching the fireworks. We listed our New Year’s resolutions (my secret one is to try to tell you who I am). I told her I’d like to have a girlfriend, which is true. I would like to have a girlfriend, but only if that girlfriend is you. I know you can’t agree to that without knowing who I am – I’m working on having the courage.
My biggest fear is that I tell you and you’re so disappointed that I never hear from you again. My second biggest fear is that you laugh.
I have to tell you soon because my friend is moving interstate, and this friend has been leaving my letters and collecting yours for me. I moved out of town a while back but I never said because I thought you’d guess who I was.
Anyway, my sister doesn’t have to resolve to have a boyfriend, because she has one. Her resolution is to get her next level diving certificate. That’s one of mine too. I saw this picture of the underwater canyons in California. There were all these glowing creatures. That far under the water, things have to make their own light because there’s nothing, not an inch of sunlight. William Beebe, this explorer, described the deep as outer space, which is maybe why I want to go there so badly. It just looked so beautiful – all that darkness, all that drifting light.
Pytheas (name soon to be revealed)
Dear Pytheas
I’d like to know who you are – I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. I won’t laugh. I know that. I love getting these letters.
I wait for them.
I haven’t once seen your friend leave a letter – so he must be stealthy too. I’m glad he’s going away, because it means you’ll tell me.
I’d like to be your girlfriend. My fear is that when we meet for real, you won’t like me.
George
Dear George
I won’t like you? Never. Gonna. Happen.
Pytheas
Henry
his shadow on the lawn
This week is all about distraction and confusion. I spend it thinking about Rachel and waiting for Amy to come back. Rachel assures me every day that it’s only a matter of time. ‘The kiss will work, Henry. Trust me.’ The thing is, I think the kiss did work – on me. It didn’t stop me thinking about Amy. But it started me really thinking about Rachel.
I distract myself by grilling Martin for