# CHAPTER 10: Love, Time, and the Eternal Echo of Memory
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing today? I'm so excited to continue this journey with you as we dive into Chapter 10 of "The Love Proof" — a chapter that will absolutely break your heart while simultaneously expanding your mind. This is where the story truly comes alive, weaving together quantum physics, undying love, and the profound question of whether time is merely an illusion. So grab a cozy blanket, settle in, and let's explore this beautiful, melancholic chapter together.
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The chapter opens with Professor Peter Malchik standing at a podium, his heart racing with anticipation. He's been waiting for this moment ever since receiving an email from Sophie Jones — an email that revealed she would be enrolling in his Time Theory lecture as a PhD student. Four years have passed since Sophie graduated, and in that time, she's only managed inventory at a clothing store. But Peter, ever the Einstein enthusiast, wonders if monotony freed her mind the way the patent office freed Einstein's. He's spent the entire week scanning faces, searching for her, feeling an unfamiliar budding energy with the new school year.
And then she appears.
Sophie — but not the Sophie he remembers. Her bony cheeks taper into a sharp chin, her hair is thinner and limper, and though she was always pale, she now verges on translucent beneath her hoodie. Meanwhile, Sophie finds herself overwhelmed by vulnerability, standing in a life-size replica of her past. Yale hasn't changed. Sterling Library still stands like a cathedral. Silliman's dining hall still features the same long tables. And this very lecture room — she and Jake once took a class here together. Two dozen rows of seats still face the stage. Retractable desks still separate chairs. This was her world at eighteen.
As she opens her spiral-bound notebook, a sweeping flashback transports her eight years into the past. Jake is beside her, typing notes on his MacBook, his dark eyelashes distinct and countable, smelling aggressively clean. For a heartbeat, she feels euphoric — until the moment slips away. She breathes deeply and dates a page corner, writing "Ep 1" in curly script.
Professor Malchik introduces himself to the class, his carefully crafted introduction deflating when he sees Sophie in person. But then she raises her gaze, and her blue eyes are sharp, filled with a sense of purpose not apparent in her frail body. He quotes from Sophie's own college essay — "the world is much richer than what we see" — and challenges his students to improve upon what the field believes today.
After class, only the two of them remain. Their reunion is tentative, awkward, filled with unspoken words. Sophie wants to discuss block theory — the idea that all events in the past, present, and future exist simultaneously in a frozen "block" of space-time. Peter has published extensively on this topic. He invites her to talk tomorrow, mentioning his wife Maggie is expecting him home for dinner. Sophie offers to walk with him.
As they climb Hillhouse Avenue, Sophie confesses that her interest in block theory comes from intuition — not logic. She tells him she's become aware that the past isn't gone; it's happening right now. When Peter gently asks how this happened, she says simply: "I fell in love." She explains that falling in love shifts your perspective, allowing you to see and feel parts of reality you didn't see before. She describes an Anish Kapoor sculpture in Maine — a metal plate made of mirrors that scrambles your image, shattering you into a million pieces. To her, love is when you can see someone that way and feel like nothing has changed. It's when you can scramble their appearance — their atoms, really — and what you feel for them remains the same.
Peter stops in front of his house and invites her in. She declines, but he insists. She politely refuses again, promising to return with more of his old work.
That night, Sophie lies in her tiny studio apartment, wearing the same clothes from the day, covers pulled to her chin despite the lingering summer heat. She puts in earbuds and shuffles her library — John Mayer's "You're Gonna Live Forever in Me," Kygo's "Fragile," The Weepies' "The World Spins Madly On." The songs water her sadness. During the day, her work comforted her, energized her with every step toward the truth. But now, she misses Jake acutely. She considers calling her mom but fears the conversation will feel stilted. She doesn't have the energy to connect. She resigns herself to falling asleep to songs that understand her, wondering where the one person who truly understood her has gone.
The next day, Sophie meets Peter in his office, wearing the same hoodie. He's never seen anyone so determined inside a body so frail. He wants to ask if she's okay, but her research is so deeply intimate that addressing it means probing the issues closest to her heart. Peter shares that he hasn't stopped thinking about her idea linking love and time. If she's correct, she might've answered her own thesis question. The way you see time is to fall in love — and that connection allows you to see beyond your single point in the block. This would explain why she sees the past.
Sophie emphasizes these aren't memories. She knows she's in another time. The visions are "thicker" — they have smells, temperatures. Memories have never made her feel hot or cold the way these do. They're intricate. When you remember a staircase, you can't count the stairs. Memories are wispy. But when she sees the past, she can count everything. She can read the title on every book. She's there — and here.
Peter introduces her to "An Experiment with Time" by J.W. Dunne, who claimed to have prescient dreams. Dunne proposed that when people are fully conscious, they can only see the here and now — attention is narrow. But when they sleep, they slip into a state that allows them to see beyond the present. Peter wonders: what if love radically alters perception the way Dunne suggested sleep did? What if love changes your view as much as dreaming?
Sophie takes notes as they discuss, and after an hour of spirited back-and-forth, they walk around Science Hill, wondering how to prove something so massive. New Haven cools. Blue State Coffee advertises #PUMPKINSZN. Sophie and Professor Malchik talk every day. She stays late after every Time Theory lecture and walks him home, eliciting dozens of invitations inside — "Maggie always makes more food than we can eat," "A cup of tea?" "Hot cocoa, maybe?"
Finally, on the edge of November, she agrees. Professor Malchik leads her into the kitchen, where Maggie is stirring a pot of beef stew. Her kind smile creases every wrinkle, and her handshake is eagerly maternal. "Welcome, child," she says. Finally, in person.
Maggie has lived through Peter's high expectations for Sophie almost a decade ago. She endured months of his frustration, asking herself over uneaten dinners why Sophie was so distracted. What had he done wrong? Maggie went to bed alone for weeks, passing Peter hunched over problem sets in his study. Now Sophie is back — with passion and pain.
That night, Maggie watches Sophie push a chunk of beef around her bowl. The discussion between Sophie and Peter is seamless, sharp — but none of the questions Peter asks are the ones Maggie wants answered. Everything skirts the most glaring topic: Sophie's darkness. Maggie teaches special education in New Haven, and some of her students are brilliant children struggling with emotional issues. Years ago, she wondered if Sophie was on the spectrum. But now, Maggie doesn't think there's anything deficient about Sophie's ability to feel. This young woman is thoughtful, listens wholeheartedly, never interrupts Peter. If anything, Sophie is as gifted with empathy as she is with intellect. She's extraordinarily kind — and sad.
"She's grieving," Peter explains that night over the dishes. For who? Someone she still loves. But Peter doesn't ask her about it. Maggie wonders: if Peter isn't asking, is anyone?
Sophie becomes a regular at their dinner table. Their first conversations orbit block theory, but Maggie begins to interject, asking where Sophie lives ("Right by the 24-hour deli") and with whom ("By myself"). Maggie backs into information about Sophie's health, family, and apartment. She cooks heartier foods on the nights Sophie comes over — pumpkins stuffed with cheese, pecans, and kale; beef stroganoff with extra-heavy cream; multilayered cakes with frosting. She hugs Sophie after every evening, insists she hang her jacket on the family's rack.
Over time, Maggie learns that Sophie is blindsided by news events — midterm elections, wildfires, the #MeToo movement — as if she doesn't read anything about today. When Sophie asks Maggie questions about herself, she focuses oddly on youth. Maggie has to volunteer facts about their lives now. She tells Sophie about Zack and Benji, their sons, leading up to their first night home from the University of Connecticut. That fall, they fill the now five seats around the dining room table. Peter places a fifth chair next to his, identical to the other four.
Zack and Benji visit a few more times that year. The dynamic they create — talking over each other, erupting into belly laughs, slapping the table — can feel so overwhelming that Sophie escapes to the bathroom during dinner for peace. There, alone with her phone, she self-soothes by listening to old voicemails from Jake.
February hangs white coats on skeleton trees. Sophie sits across from Peter in his living room while Maggie sets the table. Sophie grips the notebook on her lap — numbers cover the page so densely it could have started out black or white. Peter asks if the old problem sets he gave her helped. She admits, "Sort of." The most interesting part was a tangent on color. Color is light, which can be broken into wavelength and frequency — the number of waves per second. Sophie had written in a margin: "Color is a function of frequency. Frequency is a function of time." Since color is visible and just a mathematical string away from time, she thought the secret to seeing time could be in that relationship.
The front door swings open to reveal Zack and Benji, their shaggy hair dusted with snow. Maggie hugs them, squeezing the puff out of their parkas. Sophie closes her notebook and waves, but Peter notices her grip stays tight — she clings to it like a map she needs to find her way home. Dinner is spaghetti and meatballs to power the boys for a ski weekend in Vermont.
Sophie keeps the notebook open beside her plate. She pokes her plain pasta, spins some around her fork, but the spiral fails to hypnotize her. She isn't interested in food. She mulls over the link between color and time — it connects the visible and the unseen. She jots a note every few minutes, the intervals getting shorter. She starts writing the words between her thoughts — "pause," "thinking" — afraid of putting her pen down and missing something vital. She strings whole sentences together with a single line of ink until —
"Sophie, dear," Maggie says.
She twitches and comes back to her senses. Zack and Benji have stalled over their empty plates, marinara rouging their lips. Frosted windows blur the storm outside. Sophie feels Maggie's fingertips on her shoulder and looks down at the pen in her hand, disassociated from her own body. The page is covered in illegible equations. She closes the notebook. "I'm sorry," she stutters.
Maggie takes the plates, and Sophie looks around for a clue as to what they'd been discussing. Peter excuses himself to the restroom. Sophie faces Benji, alone. "B-r-b," he spells, getting up. The kitchen door swings closed behind him.
"What's her deal?" Benji whisper-asks.
"Shh!" Maggie orders.
"Cut her a break," Zack says.
"It's fucking weird," Benji whispers. "She was dumped."
"What?" Benji asks.
"Shh, I mean it."
"I thought they were just on the rocks or something," Zack murmurs.
Sophie's stomach cinches. "I heard him on the phone with her sometimes. Like, in the bathroom. She'd come out and look like she'd been crying. Then I realized they weren't on the phone. I saw her screen. She was listening to old voicemails. From him."
"What a psycho," Benji says.
Sophie stands up and takes quick, feather-light footsteps to the front door. She couldn't have made less noise crossing the carpet if she were gliding an inch above the faded pattern. She keeps her head bowed as she dresses in her parka, gloves, and boots.
Outside, Hillhouse is dark except for streetlamps. Sophie pulls out her iPhone and goes to her voicemail tab, where Jake's name — "Jake :) Kristopher" — is stacked in rows. She doesn't want to delete them. She doesn't want to move on. How could she? Her flashbacks are as vivid as ever. She can't get through a day without being thrown into the past for one more ecstatic breath beside him. She keeps appearing in moments she'd forgotten, seeing details beyond her ability to recall. They're together — now.
As she walks home, her tears freeze in wave-shaped tracks down her face. She unlocks the door to her building, where her studio waits on the second floor. She calls her mom.
"Sophie? What is it?" It's been a week since they spoke.
"Am I crazy?" Sophie asks.
"What do you mean?"
Sophie locks her door. She sits on her bed in the dark. "Am I crazy to go on like this?" She hinges forward at the waist and cries through the words. "Everyone else moves on —"
"Sophie, dear, breathe."
"— but I can't. Why am I so different?"
"Darling, please."
"I always have been."
"No," Isabel insists. "You're more aware than other people, but what you're feeling is the same. That's the way you've always been. Other people feel what you're going through; you just experience it... more." Of course, no one ever wanted to move on. No one ever wanted to fall in love again after they gave their heart away to someone who didn't come back. Isabel hadn't wanted to date anyone after Aidan. But few people actually swore off others the way Sophie staunchly had.
"Thanks, Mom."
"I love you." Isabel hasn't been able to say that in a while, and she misses her girl. Behind her, water cascades down a stack of dinner dishes. "You're not crazy. Not even a little bit, I'm afraid."
"I love you, too, Mom."
Sophie eyes her journal. "I should go," she adds. "Work."
Sophie would've liked to keep talking, but if they did, her mom would start asking the wrong questions. If she were spending time outside, if she were making friends. They say good night. After Sophie hangs up, she pulls the pen from her pocket, plays the latest song on "The Classics," and feels his old soul in the room like a change in temperature.
A little later that night, as she lies in bed, a flashback overtakes her. She's suddenly with Jake as he nuzzles into her belly freshman year.
"Another one?" he asks in the dark.
"All right," she says. "Today, I read about how different animals feel time pass at different rates." She keeps stroking his head. "The smaller an animal is, the slower time passes for them." He moans once, happy. "It helps to think about it in terms of flickering light. When a light flashes on and off quickly enough, an animal sees it as a steady stream without pauses. Smaller animals have faster visual systems. So they're able to see light flashing on and off where we would just see a blur — which means they effectively see in slow motion. Flies see the world happen seven times more slowly than we do."
Their chests rise and fall in synch. "Are you asleep?" she asks.
"I'm listening." He kisses her belly.
"Okay," she goes on. "People, too. We feel time pass at different rates depending on what's happening around us. When something unusual happens, we feel time slow down. The brain shifts into overdrive. We analyze every detail. Our visual systems work faster. So we see the world in slow motion, just like the fly."
"So, people can feel time stop?"
When it ends, Sophie is alone in her room — in a different moment, but one as real, as current. She just has to keep working to prove it.
Sophie is gripping both sides of the Malchiks' kitchen sink while Peter and Maggie watch her from the doorway. The running faucet mists her hoodie as she stands immobilized in thought. A bottle of Dial soap lies sideways, dripping bright orange goo.
Peter feels like this is his fault. Now in the second year of her PhD, she still hasn't set any boundaries. Whenever he emails her at 1 or 2 a.m. with readings, she replies with her thoughts by morning. When an idea comes to him in the middle of the day, and he asks her to drop by his office, she appears within an hour without fail. She's been obsessed with the link between color and time for over a year now. It's an inexplicable hunch, she says, that this relates to block theory. However, she hasn't made progress in months.
He'd tried to expand her focus. That afternoon, he'd emailed her a new article on black holes — phenomena created when a star collapses at the end of its life. Inside, gravity is so strong, nothing to cross its borders escapes. It's well known that increasing gravity slows time down, and decreasing gravity speeds time up. Next to a black hole, the infinite gravity inside slows time to the point of standing still. Even though objects are destroyed inside, it takes an infinite amount of time for that to occur. So planets and stars appear to stay on the surface of black holes despite plummeting to the center. Peter saw a connection to their work — an instance where time flowed but had the appearance of standing still. It was the reverse of block theory. Could they use the math in that paper for their purposes?
As he stares, Peter regrets sending that email. She needs more care, not more to read. It's time to address her personal life directly. After all, Sophie eats dinner with them every night. From a distance, she has the same coloring as Zack and Benji.
He clears his throat. Sophie jolts.
"Why don't we go to my study," he suggests.
Sophie grabs her notebook — its weathered pages stacked in waves — and follows. Upstairs, they pass Zack's and Benji's empty rooms on their way to the end of the hall. In Peter's study, bookcases replace wallpaper. Every shelf has more books than room for them. Hard- and softcovers stuff the space above rows stacked two deep and stand in tall piles on the floor.
Peter sits in an armchair with a soft, tasseled blanket hanging over the arm. He offers Sophie its twin facing him. He looks uncomfortable despite plush back cushions. Sophie shuts the door behind them and sits with caution. Peter tents his fingertips.
"I've known you now, awhile?" he begins. She nods. "From day one of your first year in college. And here we are, in your second year as a PhD." He bounces his fingertips off each other, thinking there's only one way to help her. If it compromises their work, so be it. "Maggie is so fond of you. As are Zack and Benji. They don't show it as much, but they care. We always want you to feel welcome here."
"I do."
"I think now's a good time to tell you a bit more about myself." He decides to ease into it. "Part of the reason why Maggie and I clicked was timing. Part of it was we both cared about our work, and I loved how kind she was. People without strong personalities can get described as 'nice' in the filler sense of the word, meaning they have no notable qualities whatsoever. But Maggie is remarkably, proactively nice in a way I never was and always admired. Most important, she and I always had the same idea of family. For better or worse, we wanted to stick together and create our own. Some people have that in them. Some don't. We consider you part of our family. You always have another home with us."
"Thank you."
"Of course." He pauses. "Maggie and I've been together almost our whole lives, but we waited a while to have children. When she got pregnant, we were in our thirties. It was a very special time for us. We'd imagined having children together for so long. We had the boys. We'd always wanted three. When she got pregnant again, we were going to have a girl. I think she still has the clothes." He wrings his hands. "She was older by then. The doctors always said losing her was a possibility. For some reason, we always imagined three."
He clears his throat. "I haven't talked about this in years," he says.
"I'm sorry."
"The boys don't know, either. I'm telling you this to say I know what it's like to lose someone special, irreplaceable. We have two sons, but they don't replace Annie. I've learned there's no getting over, but there is moving on. There is life after loss. It's not the same, and you always remember, but it doesn't have to hold you back. I'm not trying to intrude. You don't have to tell me anything. I only know what I see in you. And I recognize it."
In grief, as he well knows, time appears to stop. The rest of the world keeps going and growing, but grievers don't. They're locked in the past as they revisit old photos, mementos, and memories, asking themselves if they'd really done everything they could. They struggle with everything they'll never do again with the one they lost. It's like being frozen on the edge of a black hole — or experiencing block theory — and the signs are all over Sophie. She looks the same way she had when she stepped foot into Time Theory. Peter wonders if she's wearing the same hoodie, if that hoodie was his.
"I know what it looks like," she says. "But I didn't lose him."
Peter furrows his brow.
"I think we're still together. Just... not..." Sophie moves her hands back and forth as if pumping an invisible accordion. It's a motion they've made before to describe the way a person is spread out in a block of space-time.
"Not... right here?" Peter prompts.
"Exactly. Not here, but —"
"Now."
She nods.
Peter taps his long fingers with unusual slowness. Her sadness weighs on his jitters. He still knows nothing about the man allegedly sharing the moment with them. He only sees Sophie — how tightly she clings to her journal, how intently she works, and everything she's sacrificing all these years later to hold onto the idea of them. The fate of block theory and her old relationship are intertwined. If it were true, they really were still together. He really was still with Annie. Maggie and he were still meeting for the first time. There's something desperately sad about Sophie's quest, but something heroic about it, too. He hopes that the love of her life — whoever he is, wherever he is — knows the value of what he'd lost.
"Well," he says at last, "that bastard better deserve it."
---
The next day, Jake eyes his phone in the elevator up to Olympus. His broad shoulders taper to a slim waist under his tailored suit. He's focused and calm to the point of surgical steadiness until Lionel's name graces his inbox.
"A minute?" — Lionel Padington, CEO, Padington Associates.
Usually, when Lionel wants to talk, he just walks across the floor and into Jake's office. The double doors branded PADINGTON ASSOCIATES face the pair bearing OLYMPUS, its offshoot now managing $52 million. Jake has grown Lionel's seed money over 20 percent every year, and the staggering feat has enticed other pocketbooks. He employs four recent college grads and a twenty-four-year-old with only a high school diploma. All are whip-smart, driven kids who'd been rejected everywhere else for lack of experience. They act eager to stay on a winning team in the highest paid industry in the world.
A minute?
Yesterday, they'd talked for an hour. Lionel had knocked on Jake's door wanting to know more about his massive new investment in Roxster. In Lionel's view, it was a strange choice for Olympus. Jake had always bet on proven companies that modeled themselves after winners of the past. But Roxster was a small new smartwatch company. It invested so much in research, it didn't turn a profit. Its pipeline of future products was untested. In rebuttal, Jake compared Roxster to Apple and other tech giants, but Lionel didn't appear satisfied. Eventually, Lionel wearied and sipped his cold half-thermos of coffee. Before he left, he mentioned Giulia's birthday party next week and asked Jake if he'd like that plus one. "No, sir."
Jake strides through the doors of Padington Associates. He speed-walks by people barking on headsets until a scalding slap on his chest stops him.
"Fuck!"
Hot coffee drips down his shirt. A bespectacled assistant freezes with a tray of Starbucks cups.
"I'm so sorry, Jake."
"I shouldn't yell. It's my fault."
The assistant dabs at his shirt with a brown napkin. "Please, don't worry about it," Jake says. "Hi, Jake," two young men in Padington vests say as they pass. Jake doesn't hear them. He takes another napkin from the tray and joins her in drying his shirt. He tries to tell her it's all right. When she finishes fretting over him, he makes his way to Lionel's corner office and knocks on the open door.
Lionel stands by the window with one hand in his pocket. He seems less animated than usual as he waves Jake in and stares at the brown blotch on his shirt. Lionel sits at his desk and offers Jake the chair across from him.
"I wanted to have a talk," Lionel says slowly.
"Is everything okay?"
Lionel rests one hand, his wrist limp, on a stack of papers in front of him.
"Yesterday, I asked you about a plus one to Giulia's party. It's a minor detail — whether or not you bring anyone — but it got me thinking. About how hard you work. How much time you spend here." Lionel pauses. "Are you happy?"
His eyes squint doubtfully.
"Yes, of course."
Lionel grunts.
"I won't say this again, son. If you're not happy, it isn't worth it."
"I'm happy!" The words come back at Lionel so quickly after his advice that they sound reflexive, not a product of introspection.
"Do me a favor. Go do something for yourself."
"Yes, of course."
"No," Lionel snaps. He recovers himself. "Think about it. For a second. Digest what I'm saying. How old are you now?"
Jake pauses. "I am twenty-eight." Jake leaves space between each word.
"Are you seeing anyone?"
Jake hasn't mentioned a woman's name since Sophie Jones in college. With the hours he logs in the office, Lionel doubts the boy has sat down for a face-to-face date in years. As the silence stretches, Lionel becomes convinced not only that the answer is no, but that answers to derivative and related questions are no: no upcoming dates, no thoughts of them, no intention of them, and no plain vanilla guy friends in the mix, either — relationships that require only a beer every few months to maintain.
"Okay, don't answer that. But think about it. Think about who'll be at your finish line. If no one comes to mind, you won't make it. It won't be worth it. You need other people, or at least to enjoy yourself more. I know you're gifted, but you're a human being. You can't double down on work forever. That's not success, and it's not sustainable. Things that aren't balanced fall down."
Jake collects himself. Lionel has never intervened in his personal life. Their bond has been forged over their shared identity as self-starters and relentless workers. For Lionel to step in and tell Jake to relax — maybe he has gone off the deep end. As Jake lets the pause be, though, he doesn't feel criticized as much as he feels cared for. Lionel is looking out for him.
Lionel's expression softens as Jake wrestles with the advice. He's a stellar kid — imperfect, outstanding. On the floor, his nickname is Einstein. The boy is too intimidating for people to say it to his face, so it stays behind-the-back. Yes, Jake posts genius results, and Einstein was a genius. But Einstein was also famous for disarray: messy hair, cluttered desk. He never wore socks. He never learned his own phone number. In a similar way, Jake doesn't see people standing right in front of him. He sometimes asks his assistant if he'd eaten lunch. He never remembers what day of the week it is. At first, Lionel found it amusing. Then endearing when he realized that Jake's strength — allowing him to channel all his energy into one lane of life at a time — was a vulnerability, too. Jake might not have noticed his lack of personal life. Everyone needs help now and then.
"If you want to talk more — about anything — I'll be here."
"Thank you."
"Course, son."
Lionel shoos him away, overly dismissive to correct for the intimacy. After Jake leaves, Lionel stares ahead at the photo of them shaking hands by the Olympus doors. Lionel likes how similar they look in that shot, like the same person thirty years apart. That was taken on Jake's first morning in the new office. Has the boy stopped working since then? His dedication is supernatural, sure, but the most unusual thing about Jake's work ethic is that it has soul. He loves what he does. It isn't right for someone with spirit like that to be alone. Lionel never found out what happened between Jake and Sophie. He figures that girl must've broken Jake's heart from the way he moped around for months after.
Jake strides back into Olympus. His analysts sit in an open floor plan with Tawny, his assistant, a single mom Janice's age. Everyone turns an inch toward him as he passes. He stays in his own mental tunnel. In his office, he sits in the black chair he saved from his dorm room office in college.
"Enjoy yourself more." How is he supposed to do that?
Jake trails the realtor's high-heeled strut into a $60k-per-month penthouse two weeks later. His only free time that week has come at 10:15 p.m. on a Saturday night. They're alone in the apartment. Beyond her — Stacy? Was that her name? — sleek brown hair, which reflects every chandelier, floor-to-ceiling windows frame a panoramic view of New York City. Manhattan looks like his own personal backyard. Jake nods, impressed.
"Is it big enough?" Stacy asks. She arches a thin eyebrow. Jake has the distinct impression she's flirting with him. As she gives him the brochure, her red nails graze his palm.
They begin the tour. Every one of the three bedrooms has a walk-in closet and terrace. The building has a seventy-foot saltwater pool next to bocce courts, as well as a golf simulator. He'd have access to a chauffeured Lexus at any time. He nods. At least Stacy moves quickly. The last tour he'd endured was led by a man who'd gone into excruciating detail about the "rustic yet glamorous" trellis pattern on the walls. This handful of tours is the most social he's been in months, maybe years. So far, the only thing they've accomplished is to remind Jake he doesn't get along with most people.
"Do you have kids?" she asks.
"No. Why?"
"This building has great perks for kids. Now, the best for last." Stacy hands Jake one of two bubbling champagne flutes on a table beside double doors. She takes the other for herself. Clink. She pushes the door open to reveal a king bed under a skylight of the same size. "This is my favorite part." She points up. "It's the best view in the whole city." Her tight pencil skirt allows only small steps as she moves to the corner. When she turns off the lights, she turns on emphasis to the sky. The dark view is almost starless, barely freckled with white. "See?" she says. "There's one."
Jake looks at the pinprick she references. "That's not a star," he says.
"Hm?"
"That's Venus," he says. "It's a planet."
"Planet, star." She treats them as synonyms.
"They're different."
Jake and Sophie lay in their bed sophomore winter. Outside their window, the Milky Way glitters. Sophie points at two radiant orbs and identifies Venus next to Uranus. Both glow next to Pisces, the V shape she'd already taught him. Jake tries to memorize the scene. She crooks her leg across him under a blanket up to their chins.
"Do a moon one," Jake says.
On command, Sophie points to Jupiter and its four moons. She names the space lab when it whizzes by like a cosmic firefly.
"Do you ever run out of things to teach me?" he asks. She laughs. "Are you ever just like, 'Shit shit shit what now?'"
"Not really." She kisses his cheek. "Can you see the markings on the moon?" she asks.
"You're so beautiful."
"The shadows?" she prompts.
"Oh." He looks out the window again. "Yeah."
"The moon doesn't have an atmosphere. That means no air. No wind. So, everything on the moon — all the craters, astronaut boot prints, everything — will always be there. There's no water to wash it away. Whatever marks are up there will be there a million years from now." Meanwhile, Jake brings her hand to his mouth. He presses her fingertips to his lips in a slow kiss.
"But I like that. On Earth, life cycles are so short. Down here, everything's always changing and decaying. In space, it's different. If you touch two pieces of metal together in the vacuum, they fuse together forever. After that, you can't break them apart."
He kisses the top of her head. "Another one?" he asks.
"All right," she says. She nestles in his arms. "So, everything in the universe is made of atoms, right?" she starts. He nods, nuzzling his chin up and down against the side of her head. "Inside every atom, there's a nucleus surrounded by electrons in clouds. These clouds aren't that close to the nucleus. There's a lot of empty space..." She trails off. "What I'm saying is, we think of the world as solid, but most of it isn't. Almost all matter — more than 99.9 percent of it — is empty space. If you took all that space out of our atoms, the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube."
"I believe it."
"Well, good. It's true."
He laughs.
"I just meant that when you think about people, the things that stand out about them aren't what you can see and touch, right?" he says. "Does that make sense? I don't know. There's a lot more to you than just what I see."
It was the longest flashback he'd ever had. When it ended, he still felt her with him. Her presence was in the master bedroom, inside him, everywhere. It hadn't gotten any easier for him to deal with the visions. They were all-consuming and packed with details he'd forgotten, down to the specific spray of stars, the spearmint toothpaste on his tongue, and how free it felt to be that young again, in the thick of the greatest luxury on earth: time with the one he loved.
He'd never told anyone about his episodes. No one would believe him. The difference between remembering a moment and being in it is instantly felt, impossible to convey. But he knew. When a flashback hit, he just knew he was in that moment as much as he is here now. It had occurred to him that maybe he'd left so much of his heart in those times with Sophie, he had to rotate among them as a way to stay whole. He'd spread himself out, and the flashbacks held him together. Of course, that didn't make sense, but he accepted the idea like a spiritual truth irreconcilable with fact. He missed her every day.
"I'll think about it," Jake lies. He checks his watch.
"Would you like to see —" Stacy begins.
"Sorry, I have to get on a call. Great to meet you, Stacy."
"Tracy."
"What?"
"My name."
"Oh." He'd imagined the S? "Sorry. Thank you again."
On the street, the city is dark and bright at once. Light is confined to windows, headlights, and traffic lanterns. Their auras are stark, and beyond them, shadow. Jake heads for the subway home. He's lived in the same studio since graduating and renews the lease every May. After all, he doesn't spend much time there. He doesn't have people over. Does he really need more space? But here he is, "enjoying" himself. He makes a mental note to email Tracy no and take the next apartment without a tour. His only request: no skylights.
He stops at the station, looks up at the sky. Where is she right now? He knows she's getting her PhD at Yale because he googles her every few weeks. He'd been thrilled to see that change to her LinkedIn two years ago. He had made the right decision. Her profile picture is still the same thumbnail she'd had when they graduated. Does she look different? What is she working on? Is she seeing anyone?
He imagines what they'd do if they passed each other tonight. It's a fantasy he usually indulges in the mornings on his way to work. Now, he pictures her walking toward him. Her hair is still long, her eyes still hot blue. She holds a library book in plastic casing. Then what? In one scenario, they both keep walking to steer clear of the wound. In another, they stop and stumble through inadequate conversation, listing basic facts about their lives. Butterflies lift not just his stomach but his arms, throat, and chest. That would precede the agony of remaking his decision to pull away. In another daydream, they continue unquestioningly into each other's arms. He apologizes with his first breath and never lets her go.
But those are fantasies.
He checks the time on his watch, a Roxster prototype he'd put on for the first time this morning. Its sleek black bangle combines his phone, computer, credit card, health records, doctor — everything — and will be on the market next year.
He hasn't told Lionel the whole truth about Roxster. The truth is he'd been reading about the company weeks ago when he'd spotted an unusual footer in its investor presentation. The company had disclosed that it funded academic research on time. Jake had requested a meeting with the company's CEO, Steve Traffy. Steve turned out to be a short man with a tall personality: hyperverbal, quick to laugh. After some get-to-know-yous, Jake had asked Steve about the unusual disclosure. Apparently, Roxster co-funded programs at a few Ivy League schools studying the nature of time itself. Jake realized that by investing in Roxster, he was investing in Sophie's field. He could help her. So he made Roxster his flagship name.
Jake steps onto the subway with Sophie in his heart. Of course, he'll never stop trying to help her. But some things, she has to give herself.
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
Oh, my heart. This chapter is absolutely breathtaking in its emotional depth and intellectual ambition. The parallel narratives of Sophie and Jake — both experiencing the same phenomenon of vivid flashbacks, both unable to move on, both still deeply in love — create a symphony of longing that resonates long after the final page. The way the author weaves complex physics concepts like block theory, black holes, and the relativity of time with the most human of experiences — grief, love, and memory — is nothing short of masterful. Professor Malchik's confession about losing his daughter Annie, his recognition of Sophie's grief, and his simple yet profound statement "that bastard better deserve it" brought tears to my eyes. Meanwhile, Jake's hidden investment in Roxster solely to support Sophie's research, without her knowledge, reveals a love so deep it transcends pride and distance. This chapter is a beautiful meditation on whether time is truly linear or whether, as block theory suggests, everything that has ever happened is still happening — including love.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
## Next Chapter Prediction
The tension between Sophie's quest to prove block theory and Jake's secret support through Roxster is reaching a critical point. I predict that in the next chapter, circumstances will force Sophie and Jake's parallel paths to finally intersect. Perhaps Sophie discovers Roxster's funding of time research and connects it to Jake, or maybe a chance encounter in New Haven or New York brings them face to face for the first time in years. The Malchiks may play a role in orchestrating this reunion, or Sophie's research breakthrough may demand she seek out new collaborators. Whatever happens, the emotional stakes have never been higher — and the question of whether their love can transcend time itself is about to be tested in ways neither of them could have imagined.
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