“And if Ella wants, she can keep playing at The Gallery with me.”
Those words made me see red. Drunk red. No, man, you already punched him once. Twice? You can’t punch him again. I picked up my second glass of whiskey and drained it, and plunked it down on Milo’s fucking coffee table.
“Whatever,” I choked out. “I don’t fucking care.”
He grinned, a sadistic, cold, smartass smirk. “I was kidding, Dev. I’m afraid of her. She broke up with your ass tonight, and she wasn’t even nice about it. She did it in front of all your friends. Scary bitch.”
“Yeah, scary bitch,” I said without spirit. “You should stay away from her.”
“I will.”
We sat in silence for a while. I studied the neo-Roman fireplace, carved with faux columns and graduated lines. It made me think of history and time, which made me think of Ella. “Do you think she made it home?” I asked.
Milo pursed his lips. “I’m sure Fort and Juliet got her settled in. She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. She’ll be fine.”
He stretched out his legs, still sipping his first drink. “Hey, Dev. Remember when Fort had to take a break from The Gallery?”
“You mean when you banned him for six months?”
“Yeah, when I banned him. It helped him figure out a lot of things. Maybe you should take a break, too.”
I studied him. “Are you banning me?”
“Probably. I don’t think you should come back right away.” He looked at his fingernails, which he kept closely manicured for playing the violin. “You should take some time to think. It helped Fort get some distance, helped him figure his shit out.”
I shook my head. “That won’t work for me. We’re not going to end up together like Fort and Juliet. Ella isn’t interested, for real.”
“Just something to think about. Hey, you want to sleep here tonight? Are you flying tomorrow?”
“Monday,” I said.
He stood and went back to the bar. “Feel like getting plastered, then? We’re going to be sore tomorrow, anyway. A hangover won’t make things any worse.”
“I haven’t been dead drunk in forever,” I said.
I rarely drank to inebriation, but tonight seemed like a good time to do it. If nothing else, it would make some of the lingering pain fade away.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Ella
It was scary to see Devin go off like that, but in hindsight, I was glad it happened. It made it easier to step away from him, to let go of our rapidly developing emotional connection. I’d been falling for him too fast, and his crazy overreaction proved what I’d been telling him all along, that love messed people up. It ruined lives.
He didn’t try to contact me in the days following his outburst, and I did my best to move on. I plunged myself into work, although Leo’s absence made me think of Devin too often. Marc had taken over the project, and he was easy to work for, understanding and intelligent. Best of all, Marc and I didn’t have a complicated past, since I’d never known him before I came to New York. He convinced me to finish out the year when I waffled about leaving, and I decided to stay, since Devin wasn’t bothering me. One week turned to two, two turned to three, and then it had been a month.
Fine. I was glad. Under Marc’s leadership, our team focused heavily on cosmological mapping, and I decided to abandon my forays into the nature of time. Honestly, it was a relief to push it off my plate. I rearranged my research files, burying the time travel ones in a “defunct research” folder, because I’d come to realize the idea was ridiculous. My father could work on time bending all he wanted, but I was done. The next time he called, I had to confess our lab was no longer supporting that line of research.
He was instantly wrought up. “What does that mean, they aren’t supporting it?”
“It means we’re choosing to focus on cosmological measurement—”
“Measurement?” He cut me off, aghast. “That’s foolish. Pointless. The boundaries of space and time are always changing.”
“It’s because of the new lab they’re building,” I explained. “It’s the most sensitive one yet. We’ll be able to take more gravitational readings, make more comparisons than we could in the past.”
My father laughed. “Yes, let’s measure space. Won’t that make us feel big and important here on our miniscule planet in the middle of an ever-expanding universe? Scientists never focus on what’s important, because they want to measure, and organize, and posit provable theories.”
“You’re a scientist,” I reminded him.
“No, I’m a visionary, and you must be too. Tell your research team that you’ll continue to work on the malleability of time, and if they don’t like it, they can fire you. You can come work here in Munich.”
“Dad, no.” That was all I needed, another flight across the ocean. “Look, I have to go. I was just about to make myself some lunch.”
“Oh!” He went from angry to delighted. “What are you having?”
I opened my fridge, surveying the possibilities. “Maybe a sandwich.”
“Sandwiches are boring, honey. Get that man of yours to take you out.”
I pushed a package of questionable lunchmeat aside and got a soft drink instead. “I stopped seeing him last month. I told you. Remember?”
“You stopped seeing the pilot?”
“I’ve stopped seeing everyone.” I filled my glass halfway with ice, then tipped over the soda can, filling it to the top. “I’m busy with work right now.”
“Oh, Ella. You don’t want to spend your whole life alone.”
“Who are you dating?” I asked, to shut him down before he got going. “You’re spending your life alone.”
I could see him puttering around his apartment, navigating flickering computer screens and books. “No. I have your mother.”
I took a big swig of cola. “Really?”
He was quiet a moment, and I thought of Devin, and love, and what it was like to miss someone you couldn’t get over. I missed Devin every day, even though I’d never admit it, and my love for him didn’t even approach the deep bond my mother and father had forged during their years together.
“Your mother is still out there,” he said when he finally spoke. “She’ll always exist somewhere in the backwards and forwards of time.”
“She’s dead, dad. Mom is dead.” I spoke shrilly, in frustration. “She’s been dead since I was fifteen.”
“No, as long as I love her and seek her, she’s with me,” said my old, lonely, crazy father. “Love is stronger than time. Love is stronger than d
eath.”
Love is a myth. Love is stupid. I didn’t say those things, but I felt them so hard. What was the point? My dad would never change, he’d never stop trying to find his way back to my mother’s side.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to work on the time thing anymore,” I said. “I’m just not able to, with work and politics. You know how it is.”
“Sure, honey. It’s okay. But Ella…” He cleared his throat. “I think you should still work on the love thing. It’s more wondrous than any of the scientific projects in the world.”
I watched the bubbles pop in my glass, trying not to tear up. “How can you say that, after the way you’ve lived all these years? After the way you’ve missed mom?”
“When you love someone, you’ll understand. I wish you’d realize that love’s not as scary as you think.” He sighed. I could hear the squeak of him settling into his favorite chair. “My sweet daughter,” he said gently. “Why are you afraid of everything? Why don’t you just live? You don’t have forever. Nobody has forever. You should think about that.”
“If you learn to manipulate time, I’ll have forever.” I was being a bitch. I deserved to have my face slapped, for real this time, but he wasn’t that kind of father. He only tsked at me, and gave another sigh.
“Even if I could manipulate time, there would still be moments you shouldn’t miss, those magical things that happen in real time, every day. You know what I mean? When you think about it, you have to have somewhere—or someone—to travel to.”
Scientifically, that wasn’t accurate, but Devin appeared in my head like a continent on a map. Here be Devin. He’ll love you. He’ll protect you. He saved your life.
“Dad, I should go,” I said. “I’m in a bad mood.”
“Why, honey?”
I heard another creak as he got comfortable in his old chair, which used to be my mother’s chair. I called him a bad father, but he made time when he needed to, time to sit down and be there for me.
“It’s just…the pilot, you know?” I pressed my fingers to my eyes, wondering why I was going here with my father, of all people. “We kind of broke up in a bad way. Not that we were dating, but I liked him. I was just…too afraid to let things get serious.”