The Duality Principle

by Rebecca Grace Allen

She was pretty, though. Not just pretty—gorgeous. Ridiculously gorgeous. In fact, she was so goddamn over-the-top sexy he could have killed Jamie for not warning him. She should have, should have warned him that listening to Gabby talk about numbers was going to somehow be the hottest thing he’d ever heard. That watching her bite the cake from his fingers would make him beyond thankful the table between them hid the hard-on he couldn’t check. That stopping himself from turning on the charm when he walked her back to her car would be almost impossible.

  It would have been so easy too. He’d pictured it happening as they paused in the parking lot: he’d talk his way into her passenger seat with practiced words. Give her directions to the secluded spots he knew so well he could have found them with his eyes closed, his hand up her skirt and mouth at her neck. Slip into the backseat and do what he’d done dozens of other times with dozens of other girls. But for some reason, he couldn’t do that. Not this time.

  Not with her.

  The water started to run cooler, the heater having given him everything it could. Connor wanted to push it further, eek out just a few more minutes of seclusion in steam, but that would leave his grandmother with nothing to wash the dishes in, and he didn’t feel like getting that particular lecture. Again.

  He shut the shower off and the pipes groaned in gratitude. As he pulled back the curtain and scrubbed a towel over his skin, the cloud of humidity quickly escaped through the crack in the window. The mirror cleared, and Connor examined his reflection.

  Once, he’d been scrawny as shit. At fifteen he’d barely cleared five foot. His voice hadn’t lowered yet and there wasn’t a prayer of stubble on his chin. His grandparents had been worried there was something wrong with him, even took him to a doctor to find out if he needed steroid injections or some crap, but then one day in tenth grade, he finally started growing. It was probably because he wasn’t hungry all the time anymore and actually felt secure enough to sleep at night.

  Now he had muscles. A growth spurt at sixteen followed by the job he’d needed to get had made sure of that. Heavy lifting and hard work were part of the deal. Dropping the towel, Connor lifted his chin and studied himself from all angles. Six-foot-four. Ripped arms. A six-pack that girls he’d been with had licked—actually fucking licked—but did Gabby see all that? Or did she only see the baby face he’d never quite grown out of and the way he’d quickly changed the subject when she asked about his degree?

  There was no point in talking about his stint at Southern Maine Community College, chosen for its easy distance between home and work, while she was getting a freaking PhD. Who was he kidding? He didn’t have a shot in hell with her. Not if she ever found out who he used to be.

  “Connor, dinner’s almost ready!”

  His grandmother’s voice filtered through the walls, a combination of sweet and don’t-slack-or-there’ll-be-hell-to-pay. He knew better by now than to hide in the bathroom feeling sorry for himself when there was a table to set.

  “Be right there.”

  He made his way into the dining room a few minutes later, dressed and dry except for a few last tendrils of hair. His grandfather raised an eyebrow from his chair at the head of the table.

  “When I told you to take hot showers in the summer, I said take a shower. Not a monsoon.”

  Connor smiled and started setting out the napkins and plates piled up at his spot. “Sorry, Pops. I won’t let it happen again.”

  But his grandfather wasn’t done lecturing, and when Reginald Hapwood got on a soapbox about something, it was hard to get him off it.

  “We taught you better than that. Twenty minutes is just a waste. And what’s your grandmother going to wash the dishes with tonight? Water from the tea kettle?”

  “Oh hush, Reggie.”

  Connor’s grandmother came in from the kitchen, a pot roast in a white Corningware dish clutched between her oven mitt-covered hands.

  “There’s plenty of time for the heater to fill back up.” She placed the dish on the trivet in the middle of the table, ignoring her husband’s continued grumbling as she leaned over to kiss Connor’s cheek. “How was your day?”

  It was like something out of a fairy tale Connor had dreamed up during nights when his father hadn’t come home yet, and his mother was strung out on the couch. A warm meal on the table. Clothes that didn’t reek because they hadn’t been washed. Haircuts when he needed them. Not having to stay home on school picture day because he couldn’t afford to buy them. Family. Security. Love.

  Sometimes he still had to remind himself that this was real life now.

  “It was good.” He waited to put his napkin in his lap until his grandmother sat down at the table. The second she was in her chair, his grandfather cut into the pot roast with vigor.

  “Just good?” she asked with a smile that said she had a secret she wanted to share. “I heard you had a date with the Evans girl.”

  Of course she’d heard. Barbara Hapwood seemed to have a penchant for knowing everyone and everything, even though it also seemed she never left the house. His grandfather kept cutting with his eyes averted, but Connor could tell the old man was listening. It was in the slight pause of the knife against the meat. The way he made slower, nonchalant slices, far too interested in making the portion sizes equal.

  Connor cleared his throat. “I did. We had coffee.”

  And cake. He couldn’t forget the cake.

  “Her grandmother was such a dear,” she said, accepting the plate her husband handed her. “I was so sad to hear she’d passed. She had the loveliest rose garden. Is Gabriella staying at her house?”

  Of course she knew that too.

  “Yup, she is.”

  His grandfather didn’t make eye contact as he handed Connor his plate. “She goes to that fancy engineering school down in Boston, right?”

  “M.I.T.”

  “Hmm,” he grunted.

  What Connor heard, however, was, Then why the hell is she interested in you?

  “So is she nice?” his grandmother asked. “What’s she been doing up here, all summer long?”

  “Yeah, she’s nice.” Connor was talking with his mouth full. He didn’t care. “And she’s doing research. Some kind of math thing.”

  He was being purposely vague, not wanting to answer any more questions. He remembered, though—every word about the principle Gabby was trying to disprove. Duality. That it was mathematically impossible to replace something with its opposite.

  He hoped to God that wasn’t true.

  “Sounds like you were listening real hard on that date,” his grandfather remarked around a forkful of pot roast, his sarcasm louder than the sound of his chewing. He was punished for it with a teasing smack to the top of his hand by his wife.

  “Don’t give Connor a hard time,” she scolded. “And both of you close your mouths when you eat.”

  When they were done and the table was cleared, Connor’s grandfather retreated to the porch for the nightly cigar he was never allowed to smoke in the house. Connor lingered in the kitchen and offered to help with the dishes as hot water began coughing out of the faucet, but his grandmother shooed him away.

  “Go join your grandfather. He seemed like he wanted to talk to you.”

  She turned to the sink and focused her attention on the dishes. Connor let his head fall back against the kitchen wall with a thud. He needed to talk to someone, but he wasn’t sure his grandfather was the best choice. He didn’t have very many options, though. His buddy Mikey wouldn’t have a clue what to say, more from lack of experience than anything else, and Dean was practically useless when it came to giving good advice. What he needed was someone who had been there, someone who could tell him how the hell to turn himself overnight into the kind of guy Gabby would want to be with, even for a little while.

  It made him wish his father was still around, for once.

 
Connor pushed off the wall and walked to the door. The humidity pressed in from the outside, still heavy despite the dwindling sunlight. He opened the screen and let it bang back against the building, announcing his entrance. But there was no greeting from his grandfather as Connor sank down into the Adirondack chair next to the porch swing.

  For a long time they said absolutely nothing. Connor sat there and listened to the sounds of the coast getting ready for slumber—kids playing in the last gasps of twilight, the first chirps from the crickets, his grandmother humming along with the rush of the faucet. She shut the water off, following it with the gentle squeak of a towel against a plate. The porch swing creaked as Connor’s grandfather rocked it back and forth. The air smelled of salt marsh and cigar.

  “You working in the garage tonight?” his grandfather finally asked. It was the starter to a deeper conversation. A warm-up. The opening act.

  “Not tonight.” Connor would have, but then he’d probably need another shower. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  Another long moment of swinging and creaking passed.

  “You like the Evans girl?”

  Connor didn’t know if he’d ever really liked a girl. Wanted, yes. Lusted after, chased, fucked standing up against the back of the lifeguard stand while a bonfire roared by the dunes—that was closer to the truth. And God, he wanted that with Gabby. Still, was that what made him hold back today? Because he liked her? Connor’s face went suddenly hot, like he was that voice-cracking, scrawny kid again, and he’d just been busted for having a crush on the head cheerleader.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I like her.”

  His grandfather took a long, slow drag off his cigar.

  “You know what I think?” It wasn’t a question. “I think you need to clean up your act.”

  Connor pinched his lips together. Wasn’t that what the past few years had been? Working himself to exhaustion while he tried to turn his life around?

  “I thought I’d already done that.”

  “You know what I mean, Connor.”

  The familiar wave of anger swelled in his stomach. “You mean don’t be like my father.”

  Through the open window, Connor heard his grandmother pause. The sudden absence of the sound of her towel squeaking against ceramic told him he’d hit a nerve. Regret seared through him, and he lowered his head like a puppy who’d just been admonished. Amazing how she could do that without even saying a word.

  The squeaking started again, and his grandfather continued.

  “That’s not what I meant.” The kindness in his tone made Connor feel even worse. One of these days, he was going to have to stop thinking everyone was against him. “I meant, with the girls.”

  Connor looked out past the porch railing. In the darkness, fireflies winked at him from the lawn. It wasn’t that he didn’t know his grandfather was aware of his not-so-savory past with girls. He just didn’t want him to know about it. It was hard to avoid, though, considering how he’d behaved.

  He picked at the hole in the knee of his jeans, the threads unraveling. “It’s been a while since I acted like that.”

  “Hmm,” his grandfather said again, bringing the cigar to his lips. This time, Connor knew exactly what that hmm meant. It meant he’d heard that before. It meant Connor had been so wild for so many years, breaking laws and breaking hearts, unable to be tamed after a childhood of lawlessness, it was hard to believe he’d come out of it changed.

  “It’s true. Besides, I don’t want to be like that with her.”

  “Hmm.” Another puff. “What makes her so special?”

  Connor tugged on a loosening strand of frayed denim until it snapped.

  “She’s different,” he said, knowing Gabby was a hell of a lot more than just that. She was the kind of girl who went beyond his wildest expectations. The kind he thought he could never have. “She makes me want to be different too.”

  “So be different.”

  Connor had no clue how to reply to that one. Wondering how to do exactly that was the reason he needed advice in the first place. But as the porch swing gently swayed, Connor finally figured it out.

  Duality. Gabby’s theory.

  He could replace himself with his dual and become the opposite of who he once was. He could be a different version of the Connor Starks that everyone in town knew and pitied. A better version. A version Gabby would want to be with.

  Then, maybe, he’d have a shot.

  Chapter Four

  “Are you going on another date with Connor?”

  Gabriella looked up from where she was crouched by her grandmother’s overgrown rose bushes. Jamie was on the other side of them in her own backyard, stretched out along a deck chair, her brown ringlets piled up in a messy bun on top of her head. She’d been lying there slathered in oil for hours while Gabriella attempted to garden, wearing a hat and covered in SPF-80. Jamie was a lifeguard and spent enough of her time outside that she didn’t need to tan on her day off. Still, she’d been simmering in the sun for so long Gabriella was surprised she couldn’t smell her friend’s skin burning.

  “Do you know that ninety percent of skin cancers are associated with exposure to ultraviolet radiation?” Gabriella asked.

  “Do you know you’re really good at not answering the questions I ask you?”

  “Fine,” she answered with a sigh. “Yes, I’m going out with Connor again. He asked me to go out for ice cream before we left the coffee shop on Saturday.”

  “Locking in the next date before the first one ends. That’s good. I think he really likes you.”

  “Well, he was nothing but a perfect gentleman.” Gabriella eyed the edge of the bush she was pruning. It had become wild without Nana’s diligent attention, and she’d started the day with a pair of shears in hand, hoping she inherited her grandmother’s green thumb. “He just walked me to my car after our date and didn’t try anything at all.”

  “What were you hoping for? For him to attack you in your backseat?”

  It was a rhetorical question, making it all the easier for Gabriella to say nothing. It was better Jamie didn’t know she’d wanted something exactly like that. She’d been hungry for it after the Cake-Feeding Incident, and again after that when Connor lifted a leftover crumb from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. She wanted to lick it. She’d wanted to lick other things too.

  “You thought he was cute, though, right?” Jamie asked, obviously not needing an answer. “I thought he was perfect for you, you both being geeks and all.”

  “I’m not a geek. I’m a mathematician. There’s a difference.” She snipped some bark away, freeing the last stem from its hardened casing. “But yes. I thought Connor was very—” She shook her head. Scrunched up her nose. “Cute.”

  Connor was more than just cute, with that perfect face and considerable frame, but their date turned out to be more frustrating than anything else. He walked her back to her car, and Gabriella had stared up at that God-forsaken little dip above his mouth, wanting to prove her theory that it was soft and supple. She needed to crane her neck to look at it. He was so tall that even with her almost on her toes she was barely eye-level with his shoulder. She was close enough, though, to tell him she enjoyed meeting him, that she’d be happy to join him for ice cream, and waited for him to take the first step. She wanted him to kiss her or at least give her another raised eyebrow or that glint in his eye again. Connor seemed momentarily torn, as if he were holding himself back from something. His eyebrows pushed together as he stared at her mouth, worry lines forming on his forehead. When he finally leaned in, all he did was give her a polite peck on the cheek, said he would meet her in town on Wednesday and walked away.

  “I just don’t think it’s going anywhere,” Gabriella said. “But I suppose I’ll go out with him one more time.”

  The truth was that she couldn’t figure Connor out, and nothin
g irritated her more than a problem she couldn’t solve. His behavior walked the delicate tightrope between gentleman and bad boy, and she wanted to know why. Why he set her spine tingling with his eyes on her mouth at the café, and why he stopped right when he could have had more. She tossed her shears onto the grass and sat back on her heels. Connor was like a complicated proof she needed to take her time with, but after so much dissatisfaction and nights left wanting, patience wasn’t a virtue she possessed anymore.

  Jamie sighed and shook her head. “Your mom is right. You’re never satisfied.”

  The words stung. Gabriella always thought that it was her mother, not her, who could never be satisfied. Despite all of her accomplishments, despite being accepted to M.I.T., passing her qualifying exams and having her thesis proposal accepted, the fact that she wasn’t paired off to some loafer-wearing doctor-in-the-making somehow made her a failure. Her mother was still in the mindset that the pursuit of a man was more important than a career. It was another archaic conjecture Gabriella wanted to disprove.

  “So when are you seeing him again?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday. Okay.” Jamie sat up. “That gives us two days to figure out what you should wear.”

  Gabriella rolled her eyes. What was the point of putting any effort into figuring out what to wear if Connor wasn’t going to put any effort into taking her clothes off her? She began gathering the roses she’d cut, bunching them together a little too quickly. A thorn scratched against her index finger. She winced and inspected the drop of crimson that beaded up on her skin.

  “My clothes are fine,” she insisted, her tone a little more forceful than she intended. Jamie didn’t seem to notice.

  “No, they’re not. Maybe if you knew what to wear on a second date, you wouldn’t be single.”

  “You’re single.”

  “I’m not single. I’m weighing my options. There’s a difference.” Jamie stuck her tongue out. Then she shook her head again, more dramatically this time, as if to say how hopeless Gabriella was. “I’m going to make some margaritas. You want?”