“It feels weird, doesn’t it? This early in the day I always pretend the world’s ended, or something dramatic, like everybody’s been wiped out by a plague in the night and it’s all up to me now, like I’m in my very own sci-fi film. I don’t even like sci-fi films. But I can’t help it.”

He smiled. “And now it’s happening. Just you and me.”

“What are the rules?” I said.

“Rules?”

“I mean, what is really happening, and what isn’t?”

“Rules are for fools,” he said, and I told him, “That’s a cop-out.”

“I know you have questions,” he said. “I know you’re full of them. And questions are better than answers.”

“What does that mean?”

“Questions are infinite. Like us. An open door. All potential.”

“And answers?”

“They’re a full stop, aren’t they? A red light. An ending.”

He looked at me. “We are here. We are real. Does it feel real to you?”

“Of course.”

“So why are you asking? You want it locked down? You want the open door shut?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just trying to navigate.”

“And so am I.”

No point in asking if that was a spell or not. Love is pure magic, whoever’s tricked you into it, right? I doubt it helps, finding out who’s in charge.

Novo hugged me for so long, I was the one who leaned back out of it first. I was the one who felt self-conscious suddenly. I pulled away and instantly regretted it, and then I kissed him, under his chin, to feel better, and he took my hand.

We walked out of town on the coast path. Novo walked fast—long legs, big strides—and I had to work to keep up. When the path got narrow I slotted in behind and watched him move and smiled to myself that we were both there, that this was happening and he was even in that Now, right then, with me. Up at the top, the wind bit and old people sat in the still dim of their cars, looking out at the view. We ducked round the side of an ice-cream van in the little parking lot, climbed over a fence, and then half slid, half scrambled down, cutting our own path through the tough, determined shrubs that clung to the flat face of the rocks. On a wide gray ledge, flecked with bird shit, we stopped and stripped, zipping each other into our wetsuits.

The sea to our left was vast and quick and rhythmic, and below us it rolled and slapped with the same rhythm, filling and receding in this narrow deep well, this perfect blue-green O, backlit by pale sand, like the seabed itself was a source of light.