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I wait for the fist of devastation, the collapse of a year’s worth of hopes, the roar of sadness And I do feel it The pain of losing hi else, so quiet at first, so I have to strain for it But when I do, I hear the sound of a door quietly clicking shut And then the ht is calm, but I feel a rush of wind, as if a thousand other doors have just silance toward Wille "Finished," I say

But I suspect the opposite is true That really, I’

Thirty-nine

I wake up to bright blinking sunlight I squint at the travel alar Wren has decided to stay on a few more days There’s a bunch of weird museums she just found out about that she wants to see, one devoted to s, and Winston has told her that he knows soht keep her here another week But I have three days left, and I’ve decided to go to Croatia

I won’t get there till tonight, and I’ll have to leave first thing Monday ht back home So I’ll have just one full day there But I nohat can happen it just one day Absolutely anything

Wren thinks I’ a mistake She didn’t see Wille that she could be anyone--his sister, for instance I don’t tell her that Willem, like ht, she begged o to the party, to see how it played out "I knohere it is Robert-Jan told me It’s on, oh, I can’t remember the street nahty-nine"

I’d held up o"

"But just iine," she’d said "What if you’d never met Willem before, and Broodje invited us to the party, and ent, and you two met there for the first time and fell in love? Maybe that’s what happens"

It’s a nice theory And I can’t help but wonder if that would’ve happened Would we fall in love if we met today? Had I really fallen in love with him in the first place? Or was it just infatuation fueled byto wonder so else If maybe the point of this crazy quest I’m on wasn’t to help me find Willem Maybe it was to helpdressed when Wren opens the door, clutching a paper bag "Hi, sleepyhead I made you some breakfast Or rather Winston did He said it’s very Dutch"

I take the bag "Thanks" I look Wren, who’s grinning like crazy "Winston, huh?"

Now she’s blushing "He just got off work and he’s going to take me for a bike ride and introduce me to his cobbler friend as soon as you leave," she says, her grin now threatening to split her face "And toame with him" She pauses to consider "It wasn’t on my list, but you never know"

"No, you don’t Well, I should go soon Let you get to your, ues yet"

"That’s okay I want to leave enough ti"

I pack up the rest of o downstairs with Wren Winston points me toward the train station

"Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you to the station or the airport?" Wren asks

I shake my head I want to see Wren ride away on the pink bike as if I’ll see her again toht and then kisses me three times like the Dutch do "Tot ziens," she calls "It ood-bye" I s the lu black bike and Wren gets on the little pink bike, and they pedal away

I hoist my backpack up and make the short walk to the train station There are trains every fifteen minutes or so to Schiphol, and I buy a ticket and a cup of tea and go sit under the clattering destination board to eat h Because Winston has et to try this particular delicacy

I take a bite The hagelslag crunches, then melts into the butter and still-warm bread And what’s left over tastes just like him

All at once, I finally understand what it means for time to be fluid Because suddenly the entire last year flows before , so that I’, and at the same time, I’m in Paris, his hand on my hip, and at the sa the countryside whiz by, and at the same time, I’m in the line for Ha my eye On the train, his jeans still unstained, me still unstained On the train to Paris, his thousand shades of laughter

The destination board shuffles, and I look up at it, and as I do, iine a different version of time One in which Willem quits while he’s ahead One in which he never makes that reood-bye on that platfor me to Paris Or one in which he never stops to talk to me in Stratford-upon-Avon