Page 53 of I Know You

I don’t need to read more on the school’s site. Quint did such a good job with it that it still stands today in New York and has an excellent reputation for its work with inner-city girls. I put the tablet back on the table beside the bed, letting the news settle inside me.

“Good job, love,” I say quietly to the room. Maybe I’ve meddled. Maybe some of it has been okay.

Ben and I spend our time in New York wisely, in any case, continuing our tactic of poring over newspapers or any other record we can think of around the time Gibbons would have been in 1928, looking for any clue of his intentions. We continue to come up empty-handed, record after record. Dr. Cooper and Burke’s team have even less luck than we do at locating Gibbons.

I stare blankly at the headline on the computer screen in front of me. English Earl of Bailemore Weds American Heiress in Lavish New York Event. I remember Quint’s teasing over my reading about it. I study the pictures of the glittering event. My thoughts trail to Quint’s offer to take me to that party with the thin excuse of looking for Gibbons—for why would he bother with a social event like this?

“Clara?” Ben’s voice snaps me from the reverie. “Did you find something? You’re staring pretty hard at that.”

“I’m sorry. No,” I say. I offer him a feeble smile and scroll down the page. If only I could confide in him the strangeness of the events that surrounded ill-fated falling in love with Quint Allen, but the uneasy footing of my relationship with Ben prevents me from taking advantage of our friendship. The strain of Ben witnessing my feelings for Quint has changed everything.

“Is your shoulder bothering you?” he asks, his tone somewhat wary.

“It aches now and then. I think we could play it off as a minor accident now, like tripping off the curb while looking up at the Empire State Building or something. If you want to go home…” I add with a shrug—and then a wince.

He leans over to study me, eyes filling with a familiar concern. That concern hasn’t left his expression completely since we came back. He blames himself for my injury.

“It was my fault,” I say, and not for the first time. “I should have been more alert or recognized him quicker, but I was distracted.”

“By Quint,” Ben says, bringing him up for the first time since we spoke about the Allens the day I woke up.

I reach for his hand, squeezing it and wishing I could take away the frustration behind the way he clenches his hands together, fingernails biting into his palms and leaving red marks. He expected more from our relationship. Our flirtation from our time together in 1901 promised that—and perhaps there could still be something. But not until I can shake off the intense regret that leaving 1928 was a mistake.

“And by my family,” I add, though that’s mostly a lie.

With a sigh, Ben gets up and rounds the table in the library at his home. He sits down on the overstuffed couch next to where I’ve curled up with a laptop and puts his arm over my shoulders.

“Okay, spill it,” he says, his tone full of resignation.

I shake my head to myself as I lean it on his shoulder. “I can’t. Not to you. It isn’t fair.”

He lets out a sound that is a cross between another sigh and a chuckle and then leans his head against mine. “We’re friends, Clara—and yes, I’ll admit that I had hoped, still hope, that we have a chance to see where things go between us—but first, we’re friends. And since there’s no one else you can open up to about this particular thing, you should tell me.”

“Well, there are Burke and Dr. Cooper,” I say, playing for time and wishing for more lightness to the conversation. Funny, since that’s usually Ben’s tactic.

Ben laughs, more genuine than before. “Burke does kind of give off the cuddly, teddy-bear vibe with those broad shoulders and muscular arms, huh?” He raises an eyebrow, and I join him in laughing. Burke’s gruff manner suggests anything but “teddy bear.”

Ben squeezes my shoulder and turns to speak softly against my cheek. “Tell me, Clara,” he says in a low voice. Warmth spreads through me at his touch, but also at the way he insists on being there for me even though it might hurt him.

It’s a testament to the genuine friendship I do feel for Ben that at his prodding, the words spill out. “It was like I remembered him—and not just from my childhood. Like … I had known him all my life.” I can’t explain more than that. I won’t tell Ben that kissing Quint was familiar, like Quint had said, as though I had kissed him every day for sixty years or more. How, in the back of my mind, I swear there are memories of him I can’t quite catch. “I can’t explain it—like I can’t explain so much—and it was scary.” But also wonderful and breathtaking.

Ben adjusts so he can look at me. “If your parents were able to time-travel, there’s a possibility you knew him other times, too—that they took you back through your childhood.”

“Wouldn’t I remember those times as I got older? Wouldn’t he?” I shake my head. It’s more than that, and even though Ben has invited me to confide in him, I won’t torture him by going into the details of why.

He purses his lips and looks away, studying the room thoughtfully. “Probably.”

“You have a theory,” I guess.

“That you go back to him, and what you’re remembering is a life with him that technically hasn’t happened yet but also has.” He avoids my gaze as he says it.

I try to grasp at it, but even Ben giving words to it doesn’t make the ghost of memories form. “That can’t be. You showed me—he married someone else.”

Ben’s shoulders relax a fraction as he turns to me and shrugs. “Maybe when you were in 1928 it was a possibility still, and the longer you stay here…” He pauses, and I can swear I read his mind to add with me. “The more those memories will fade.”

I force a smile, though a trail of disappointment winds through me. Of course I can’t go back. How many times do I have to tell myself? “That’s a relief.” Is my smile as wobbly as it feels? Probably, because Ben pulls me to him again, wrapping both arms around me and kissing the top of my head. We sit like that for a while, though I bottle in all the unexplained emotion dousing my insides. I have only known Quint for a few days, and just because there are shadows of memories doesn’t justify the ache that threatens to crack the dam I’m frantically shoring up.

I feel guilty for every second I stay wrapped in Ben’s arms, but I can’t pin the reason. Because I’m leading Ben on when I don’t know where life will lead us or if things between us will always be tainted by my admissions about Quint? Or because whether it had happened or not, my life had been Quint’s and it’s too soon to imagine giving myself to someone else? But I stay. A part of me has still fallen for Ben, and we still have our friendship. He’s proving that.