Emma studied me for a moment and I held my breath. I was no expert (clearly), but I’d given this a lot of thought, and it was the only possible thing I could think of for us to try. All my research pointed towards the idea that the principle of a wormhole relied on creating a time difference between the two ends of the ‘tunnel’, then bringing those two timelines together in space. And while they had also talked about travelling faster than the speed of light in order to achieve this, I hoped that our experiment might just push the natural phenomenon to work without that added complication.
Finally, she let out a breath. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
‘Is… is that a good reaction?’ I said.
Her face broke into a grin. ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I think… I mean, obviously I have no idea whether it will work but it’s better than any idea I’ve got, so it’s got to be worth a try, right?’ Her eyes were bright.
‘Right,’ I said, shivering with excitement.
‘So what do we have to do?’ she said.
‘Well, first we’ll have to sync our watches, then we’ll need to work out exactly what we’re going to do in the house, and where,’ I said. ‘I also wondered whether we could give each other one item that belongs to the other one, just to see if it helps to strengthen the connection. I—’ Something in her eyes made me stop in my tracks. ‘What?’
‘If this doesn’t work, we need a backup plan,’ she said softly.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, disappointed that she already seemed to have decided it wasn’t going to work. ‘We can arrange to meet back here again tomorrow, no matter what happens.’
‘That’s one idea.’ She shifted a little and her arm grazed against mine and I buzzed with electricity. ‘But I was thinking of something else we could try too.’
She moved even closer until I could see the flash of green in her eyes, a smudge of lipstick above her top lip, and suddenly my heart was beating so fast and so hard because I knew what was about to happen and I wanted it more than anything else in the whole world.
I held my breath, and then we moved towards each other.
Our lips touched.
It was an explosion; my whole body felt as though it had been set alight, fireworks going off inside my belly and across my skin, every nerve ending tingled and jangled. A feeling like gentle static made my lips fizz and I snaked my hand round the back of her neck and pulled her closer.
It was as though I was outside my body looking down, and yet I couldn’t have felt more present.
It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
It was like magic.
She moved away. I could still feel her breath on my lips and her hand on my thigh and I could barely breathe.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispered. ‘Was that?—’
‘I can’t?—’
We both laughed, and it broke the tension. I shifted away slightly so I could see her clearly, and she was looking at me, searching my face.
‘That’s the first time I’ve kissed anyone since Greg,’ she whispered.
‘And me since Dawn,’ I said. I felt breathless.
I’d never even considered kissing anyone else since Dawn had died, let alone imagined what it would actually be like. In fact, apart from drunken snogs as a teenager, Dawn was the only woman I had ever been with. I’d assumed that kissing someone else, touching them, would feel like a betrayal, as though what Dawn and I had shared had meant nothing to me, when it had meant everything.
But that wasn’t how it felt.
Instead it felt as though I’d simply found a space inside me for Emma to fill; new experiences, nestled alongside the old ones.
Emma shivered.
‘Are you cold?’ I said.
‘Freezing.’
I reached around her shoulders and pulled her gently towards me, and she pressed her cheek against my chest. I wondered whether she could hear the skittering of my heart.
