Tally’s mouth had dropped open. It stayed open for so long that she might have attracted a fly while she waited for him to say he was joking. He did not.
“Is this a prank?” she spluttered.
“What”—Nate blinked—“aprank? My love. We have not died together in every lifetime, through every dynasty, for you to ask if I am playing a prank.”
“Okay,” Tally said. She pivoted on her heel, then began walking down the corridor. Nathaniel Zhou must have hit his head getting off the plane. He needed a serious, serious evaluation. “I’m going to get the school nurse.”
“Wait!” Nate called. His footsteps echoed on the linoleum as he hurried to catch up. “Your birthday is the eighteenth of February. So is mine. After each death, whether days or decades pass in between, we’re born into our next incarnation on the same day too. What more proof than that do you need?”
“A lot more than mybirthday.” Tally kept walking. “Anyone would know that from my social media.”
“No.” Nate skidded in front of her, stopping her in her path. “I know this because we’re fated lovers.”
Tally couldn’t help her snort, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. “Listen,” she said, not unkindly. “If this is how you usually pick up girls, I don’t want to sleep with you.”
Nate reared back. A look of absolute horror crossed his expression, appearing offended that she would think that of him. “No, I know. You were like this in your other lives too.”
Like... this?
Very carefully, Tally folded her arms. “Like what?”
“You know...” Nate frowned, as if he were being asked a trick question, the answer too obvious to be needed. “Why am I explaining yourself to you?”
“Humor me,” Tally said. The lunch bell rang, signaling their first warning to get to class. “What does your almighty reincarnated knowledge claim to know?”
Nate’s brow quirked the slightest fraction. That should have been Tally’s first indication he was about to say something shocking—he didn’t look panicked in the slightest.
“You seek friendship before you’re able to feel attraction for a person,” Nate answered easily. “I’m not sure what on earth is going on this time, but every other life, you got your memories back the instant you saw me. And then I’m always your exception, because you know me already.”
Tally’s eyes bugged. Nate wasn’t finished yet.
“Plenty of your other aspiring suitors across the dynasties wanted my head for that.” A dazzling smile lit up his expression. “Not that they were competition once I came back. Without fail, we were passionately in love again upon every reunion.”
For a long moment, Tally stared at this boy standing before her, almost willing to believe there might be some truth to his wild story. She hadn’t told anyone at this school that she was demisexual. Not even Ilene. This was interesting. Unexpected.
Then the bell rang above them for their second warning, and Tally shook herself out of her stupor. No, it was a good guess. A very, very good guess that no one had ever made before.
“I have to go to calculus.” Tally turned back toward the cafeteria, where she had left her bag. If they were really past lovers, then Nathaniel could afford to wait until she sent in her college applications before messing with her concentration. Where was her brain?Reincarnation.As if. “See you later.”
The next day, Miss Weaver announced their midterm project in world history. She also announced that it would be completed in pairs, and hummed a tune under her breath as she loaded the projector to get the names onto the whiteboard.
“Oh God,” Tally whispered under her breath. “Please, please, please, don’t—”
“Move your desks once you locate your partner,” Miss Weaver instructed. The whiteboard flickered to life.
Talia Qiu & Nathaniel Zhou
Tally whirled around. Nate was already pushing his desk beside hers.
“Did you orchestrate this?” she demanded.
“I plead innocence.” Nate dropped heavily into his seat. “It must be fate.” He grinned, brushing his windswept hair out of his eyes. It wasn’t even windy today; it was dark and drizzly, damp in a way that made everything feel soggy. The classroom didn’t have its overhead lights on, which meant the looming trees outside the windows drew spindly shadows onto the desks.
“Your last name never changes, did you know that?”
Tally opened her exercise book, ruling a line down the side and writing a nice heading. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s where I start every time I begin looking for you,” Nate said. He ignored her disparaging tone. “I kept hitting dead ends last year, though. I couldn’t figure out why this incarnation’s search was so hard until I looked at my own life for clues and realized that my being put in international school to learn English probably meant you had been born overseas for the first time.”