The Time Keeper Part 15

"Terribly," she added.

Each of them squeezed their lips tightly and Victor swallowed hard. He almost told her everything right then, that very moment. But you grab a moment, or you let it pa.s.s.

He let it pa.s.s.

"Me, too," he said.

56.

Ethan was, in her mind, the only boy she would ever love. But he did not love her back.

That became clear on Christmas night in the parking lot of Dunkin' Donuts when, at 9:16 P.M., offering a brightly wrapped box containing an engraved watch from his favorite movie, Sarah finally blurted out how she felt about him, something she had been holding inside like an exploding star, something she had only told the man in the clock shop and the mirror in her bedroom. But before she finished, before she said the last words of "I just really-I know it's crazy-I just love you, you know?" he began rolling his eyes as if he were looking for some friend to say, "Can you believe this?"

She wanted to melt into the ground at that moment, just hot wax into a puddle and disappear through a sewer grate. His eyes. That look. No interest. Total humiliation. The minutes of awkward talk from then until he said, "Look, Sarah, I gotta go" felt like years. She wanted to explain it better, erase the words. She could wait, she could wait forever. Just don't ruin it, don't end it! But when he gave her back the present, still wrapped, and he walked away and dug his hands into his pockets and then half a block down he took out his phone to call-who? Some other girl? Some friend to share a private laugh about this idiot who just told him he was (did she really say this?) her "ideal"? G.o.d, Sarah, what is wrong with you? After that, she turned to a new companion in the parking lot, invisible to all but her, a devil, a misery beast, who put his bony claw around her and said, "You live with me now."

Sarah Lemon was only seventeen, but at that moment, she began to disengage from life. She felt alone, abandoned. And it was all her fault. How could she have blown something that rare, a boy like Ethan who had never looked at her before and would never look at her again? They had kissed and he had wanted her, but she had pushed him off and he'd obviously decided she wasn't worth the bother-which she'd known all along she wasn't-and why hadn't she just shut up and done whatever he desired, who was she saving herself for, honestly, like someone better was going to come along?

Dizzy, her stomach tight, she slipped the gift back into her coat pocket. She wanted desperately to call him, but it suddenly hit her-she couldn't call him, she couldn't see him; it was over, totally over, and she fell to the ground like a dropped sack of rice. She cried on her knees until her chest hurt from heaving. She felt gravel in her palms from pressing on the asphalt. She remained on all fours until a man from the Dunkin' Donuts pushed the door open and yelled, "Hey, what you doing out here? Go someplace else!" She wobbled to her feet. She staggered forward. A heart weighs more when it splits in two; it crashes in the chest like a broken plane. Sarah dragged her wreckage back to the house, up to her bedroom, and down into a deep dark hole.

57.

Dor sat on a skysc.r.a.per, his feet dangling. The city below was a ma.s.sive array of rooftops, spires, and window lights.

He held the hourgla.s.s. He did not turn it. He let time pa.s.s at its normal pace, thinking about what the old man had instructed.

He had found the two people. He had followed them in recent days. He had paused the world around Sarah and Victor many times, trying to understand their lives. He gathered that Victor, for all his wealth, could do little to stop his illness. And by the way Sarah collapsed in the parking lot, she cared for the tall boy more than he cared for her.

But the complexity of their worlds was baffling. Dor came from a time before the written word, a time when if you wished to speak with someone, you walked to see them. This time was different. The tools of this era-phones, computers-enabled people to move at a blurring pace. Yet despite all they accomplished, they were never at peace. They constantly checked their devices to see what time it was-the very thing Dor had tried to determine once with a stick, a stone, and a shadow.

Why did you measure the days and nights?

To know.

Sitting high above the city, Father Time realized that knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.

58.

No morphine. Not yet. Victor needed to keep control.

His breathing had accelerated, as his body tried to exhale carbon monoxide fast enough to battle its growing acidity.

It would not be long now.

A small number of visitors-mostly business a.s.sociates-came to pay final respects. Others wanted to, but Victor told Grace he wasn't up to their good-byes; that was true, but mostly because he didn't feel like he was going anywhere. Other people's dying weeks are filled with fear or farewells; Victor's had been consumed with planning. He had his exit strategy. And it now included this detail: Each year, on New Year's Eve, Victor and Grace traditionally attended a gala in which they presented a large donation to their charitable foundation. The amount reflected the success of Victor's fund that year.

"Grace, you should go," he'd said yesterday.

"No."

"You need to present the check."

"I won't leave you."

"It will mean a lot to everybody."

"Someone else can do it."

He lied one more time.

"It would mean a lot to me."

She was surprised. "Why?"

"Because I want the tradition to go on. I want you to do it this year, next year, hopefully many more."

Grace hesitated. The gala had been her idea. Victor had never been crazy about it-he'd even fought her about going in years past. She wondered if, in some way, this was her husband saying "I'm sorry."

"All right," she said. "I'll go."

He nodded as if relieved. "It'll be good for everybody."

59.

Sarah awoke at two in the afternoon, with Lorraine banging on the door.

"Sarah!"

"... What? ..."

"Sarah!"

"I'm up!"

"I've been banging for five minutes!"

"I had headphones on!"

"What's going on?"

"Nothing!"

"Sarah!"

"Leave me alone!"

She heard her mother walk away, then fell back into the pillow and groaned. Her head hurt. Her mouth felt like cotton. Lorraine had thankfully been out when she'd returned home last night, and Sarah had snuck two of her sleeping pills before locking the bedroom door. Now, with her head pounding, she flopped over and relived everything in her mind-what she said last night, what Ethan said. She began to cry when she saw his wrapped package sitting on her chair. She reached for it, threw it against the wall, and cried even harder.

She thought about him walking away. She felt so helpless. That couldn't be the end. That couldn't be their last time together. There had to be something she could do ...

Wait. Maybe she could write him. Take everything back. Make an excuse. The gift was a gag. She'd been drunk. Problems at home. Whatever. She could control things better in writing, couldn't she? Not make the same mistakes, not blurt out all those words that scared him?

She wiped her eyes.

She sat down at her desk.

Common sense would have told Sarah to steer clear of Ethan's waters. But common sense has no place in first love and never has.

She would not send a text.

She didn't want this popping up on his cell phone. But she could send a private Facebook message. She gripped the edge of her desk, thinking of what to say.

She would start with, "Listen, I'm sorry ..." and then she'd go into how she understood why he was put off, how she sometimes got way too deep about things, and how, well, whatever she would say-as long as she didn't take herself too seriously, maybe he wouldn't, either.

She turned on her computer.

The screen lit up.

Once, lovers on faraway sh.o.r.es sat by candlelight and dipped ink to parchment, writing words that could not be erased.

They took an evening to compose their thoughts, maybe the next evening as well. When they mailed the letter, they wrote a name, a street, a city, and a country and they melted wax and sealed the envelope with a signet ring.

Sarah had never known a world like that. Speed now trumped the quality of words. A fast send was most important. Had she lived in an older, slower world, what happened next would not have happened. But she lived in this world.

And it did.

She went to his Facebook page.

Up came his picture, all that coffee-colored hair, the sleepy eyes, the grin that said "mildly amused." But before she could click to send him a message, her eyes found his latest post. They blinked. They welled with tears. A sick feeling began to spread inside her. She read it twice. Three times. Four times.

"Sarah Lemon made play 4 me. Whoa. Ain't happening. That's what u get 4 being nice."

Suddenly, she couldn't swallow. She couldn't breathe. If the room had caught fire, she'd have burned to a crisp, because she could not lift her body from the chair. Her stomach felt as if it were tying itself around a pole and pulling from both ends.

"Sarah Lemon made play 4 me."

Her name was on his page.

"Whoa. Ain't happening."

An unwelcome cat, trying to crawl into his lap.

"That's what u get 4 being nice."

That was it? He was being nice?

She s.h.i.+vered. She hyperventilated. Beneath his post was a long row of faces, people commenting-dozens of them.

"Seriously?" one read.

"U + Sarah = gross."

"C movie: he's just not into u."

"That b.u.t.t's too big, bro."

"Knew she was a s.k.a.n.k."

"Run, dude!"

It was like one of those dreams where you are naked on a stage and everyone is pointing. Ethan had told the world, the world sympathized, and Sarah Lemon was now and forever (because wasn't cybers.p.a.ce instantly forever?) someone you had to be nice to, a pathetic girl who just didn't get it, the scourge of her generation, the lowest rung on the ladder, a loser.

"Sarah Lemon made play 4 me."

For him? But hadn't he been kissing her?

"Whoa. Ain't happening."