“No, I heard him. He was talking to Courtney. My ex-girlfriend. Hisfutureex.” The conversation had been indistinct, but he’d clearly heard past-Micah say the word “ghosts.” Which meant that Micah’s intrusions into the studio weren’t going unnoticed. They just needed to time it when the veil of crossed timelines was thin enough to see each other.
Courtney’s voice drifted. It had a hollow quality like she was on speakerphone. “–such thing as ghosts. It’s all a product of human imagination, the way we naturally try to pick shapes out of clouds or figures from the shadows.”
“Or Jesus from a grilled cheese sandwich?” past-Micah replied.
He was never going to get used to hearing his own voice. And past-Micah should have known Courtney wouldn’t believe him. Should have called Everett instead.
“Exactly,” Courtney said. “Hey, you wanna come over tonight? I’ll order takeout, and we can play cards or something.”
“Eh, I’m kind of busy.”
Cosmo cringed. “Ouch.”
Micah leaned to his ear. “They’re on their way out. Don’t feel bad. The only comment she ever made toward my art was ‘It’s nice.’”
Pressing a hand to their mouth, Cosmo feigned nausea and hissed a little too loudly, “Dump her.”
Micah walked into the room, and his shin slammed into something hard. “Ow!” A coffee table had materialized in the center of the room. The past was dangerous. He tucked his composition notebook under one arm and rubbed his shin. “My leg is going to look like a piece of discount fruit tomorrow.”
Cosmo smacked him, and Micah straightened. Past-Micah stood in the hall, mouth agape, with water and soap bubbles dripping from his hands. He’d always called Courtney while washing the dishes.
Past-Micah’s throat worked, his chest heaving. Micah thought about the faint imprint of future memory he’d had of sitting in the freezing shower stream in all of his clothes, completely broken by Cosmo’s death, and Everett hauling him out of the tub. He resisted the urge to give his past self a hug. That future wasn’t going to happen. Not on this timeline.
“We’re not ghosts.” Micah pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “More like time travelers from a couple years in the future.”
Past-Micah blinked and seemed to regain a bit of his composure. “Did you come to give me lottery numbers?”
“No.” Micah stepped forward and offered him the notebook. “I don’t know how much time we have, but everything is in there. We only wrote down things we thought youneededto know, and” – his gaze drifted to Cosmo – “I promise there are no spoilers for the good parts.”
After wiping off his hands, past-Micah took the notebook gingerly and traced the wordsTo Micah and Cosmoon the cover. He looked up. “Are you Cosmo?”
Cosmo smiled and gave a little wave. “You’re cute without the scars too. Please don’t lose that notebook. The warnings inside are very important.”
Past-Micah flipped it open and stared at the pages. Micah imagined what he was seeing: bold red marker that screamed,HIS NAME IS DEREK. DO NOT LET HIM IN.
Cosmo planted a gentle kiss on past-Micah’s cheek, which immediately turned a deep shade of pink. “Take care of yourself, darling.”
And Cosmo. They were taking care of them too. Micah still didn’t understand what the note taped to the last page of book meant, only that it was a message Cosmo had to learn the “hard way.”
Frantic motes engulfed past-Micah’s face. Micah reached through the mist swallowing him and squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t let Cosmo know you hate candy corn.”
Cosmo said, “We should have come back in time to give you some taste.”
The coffee table evaporated, and past-Micah’s phantasmal voice drifted. “Candy corn tastes like you’re eating a greeting card.”
Micah opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony. “It really does. And not a fancy Hallmark one.”
“I feel ganged up on,” Cosmo huffed.
Micah took their hand and led them back to the apartment. Pinpricks of snow floated from the sky, melting as they hit the ground. He stopped at the door, then cupped Cosmo’s cheek and pecked their lips. “Are you okay?”
Drawing in a deep breath, Cosmo nodded. “It’s going to work. It already has.”
Deciding what exactly to write down in the notebook had taken so many nights of arguing and talking over things that neither of them even wanted to discuss in therapy, let alone at the kitchen table. There were descriptions of Derek and the dates Micah would meet him, spacetime theories and details Other Micah might need, and they’d gathered evidence that connected Royce to the murder of the ceramics artist Micah used to know.Even though it wasn’t conclusive, hopefully it would be enough for their other selves to tip off the police with.
This would be the biggest snagged thread of all, and only Other Micah and Other Cosmo would know how drastically it changed things, but sometimes that sensation of presque vu still flared up for both of them, often when they were together, indicating that in this thread and the new one they’d just created they were still safe and in love.
When they walked inside the apartment, Everett looked up from his laptop, which he was awkwardly trying to type on with Phantom in his lap. “Did you see him this time?”
