Doppelbänger

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

BAD AUGUST

THAT’S ME. BUT ‘GOOD AUGUST’ DOESN’T NEED TO KNOW THAT JUST YET…

“Another coffee?”

August’s staring at the barista like he’s seen a ghost. And well he might. Her hair’s changed from purple to green since this morning, and his eyes are the size of Jupiter, all swirling flecks of horrified wonder.

“Yes please, Kelly,” I say. “Same again.”

His gaze slides to mine, a second of almost pitiful questioning in his eyes, then, “De-de-decaf,” he stutters out. “Decaf. Um. Please.”

He watches her cross the room, gaping like a weirdo in the now mostly empty cafe, so I tell him quietly, “I think it’s because you hit me.”

Those eyes again, intent on mine. And they’re startlingly pretty. Makes me think I need to ditch these glasses.

“What do you mean?” he asks, leaning closer, which he’s very welcome to do. “What’s because I hit you?”

“Her hair. It was purple, right? Earlier today.”

“It was purple,” he agrees in an eager, hushed tone. “It’s always been purple.”

“This is what’s happening.” After a quick scan to make sure that no one can hear us, I lean in just as close as he has and lower my voice to match his. “We shouldn’t be meeting. We shouldn’t be talking. And we definitely shouldn’t be touching.”

He glances down at my hand, an inch from his, and pulls back.

He’s smart. That’s exactly why I’m here.

“Alternate reality shit?” he asks.

I could never explain how happy I am to hear him say that. I thought this was going to take a lot more explaining, but we’re already off. “That’s right.”

“Like Back to the Future?”

“Sort of.”

“Or The Avengers.”

“Not really.”

“Or, or—”

“Stop trying to think up pop-culture references to explain this. It’s very complicated, and it’s very scientific.”

“Um. Okay.”

Two glasses and some water plonk down on the table.

August latches eyes with the waitress. She nods severely at me while looking at him, and he blushes in response.

When he nods back and fakes a smile, I can tell he’s faking because that’s my fake smile.

Tight, upturned on the left. And when she walks away, his fingers tap across the table anxiously.

“Is she your girlfriend?” I ask.

“No. No, she um…” He takes out his phone, looks at the blank screen, then puts it down on the table with a shake of his head. “I can’t. I can’t deal with this right now. With any of this. What the fuck is going on?”

He’s about to lose it, so I pour him a glass of water and push it over. “Like I said, I’m you but from another universe.”

“Okay, but why are you in this one?”

“Because mine was destroyed.”

“What? Why?” He shifts in his keenness for an answer, and his foot hits mine beneath the table.

I wrench mine back dramatically. “You’re not supposed to touch me.”

“Well, fuck!” he exclaims entirely too loudly. “What’s going to happen now?”

“I don’t know,” I say, instructively quiet. “I don’t know. Just that… clearly this isn’t supposed to happen. You and I were never supposed to meet. We should be in different worlds, on different timelines. And… here’s the thing.”

Two coffees land on the table. August looks like he’s about to cry when he glances up at Kelly again. He gives her another overt nod, and she smiles, then skips away.

What the hell is going on between them?

Maybe they have a thing. He is cute, actually.

Cuter than me. Cuter than I thought he could be.

Who could blame her? His skin’s so soft and clear from all those workouts I’ve seen him doing.

And there’s a healthy leanness about him.

About his nice cheekbones. Could I look like that if I exercised more?

“What thing?” he asks, a touch of irritation in his whispered tone.

“The ‘thing’ is,” I reply heavily, trying to remember the thing, “that… um… it’s…” He blinks his long lashes, and this is truly so strange. I’ve seen him so many times, but not up close. Not this August. It’s only natural I’d be thrown, because he’s me, again, but he’s so…

Damn, he’s cute.

“The thing?” he prompts.

“The thing…” I’m the one who needs a drink of water.

I take a sip, as much to stall as to wet my dry mouth, to give myself a second to bend my mind back around this mess.

“Look, I’m sure you know all about butterfly effects and timelines.

That one small thing you do can set off any number of possible future realities.

For example, you choosing to drink that coffee sets off the reality where August spends an hour in the bathroom with diarrhoea and misses the bus where he would have found the golden lottery ticket sitting on the empty seat. ”

He eyes his coffee suspiciously, and I try to backtrack to something more pleasant. “Or you spill that coffee on your jumper, and, and, have to go to the laundromat, where you get mugged and shot and fall into a coma for the next thirty years.”

His brow falls, and I’m pretty sure I’ve turned him off his coffee completely.

“Or maybe you drink it, and it’s nice, and…

” What the hell am I doing? “Listen, the point is, all those futures, all those possible realities exist. They exist side by side, sometimes so close together that they’re actually overlapping.

They’re touching. But it’s all in balance. Okay? Good coffee.”

He nods a slow and unsure nod.

“Then I come along.” I pick up my black coffee and pour it right into the middle of his cappuccino froth, more and more in a steaming, steady stream, until the whole thing overflows onto the saucer below.

Hands flailing in light panic, he whisper-shouts at me, “What are you doing?”

“I’m the black coffee, August,” I inform him, placing my cup back down.

And I think it’s a pretty bloody good analogy I just came up with on the spot.

Though I am a super genius after all. “I’m the coffee in your coffee, and now it’s overflowing, and the coffee isn’t where it’s supposed to be anymore. ”

“But I wanted decaf,” he protests.

“That’s exactly right.” I pull the saucer away from him to get his full attention, meeting his eyes when I explain, “You’re ‘decaf August,’ I’m ‘caf August,’ and now everything is fucked.”

He stares a moment, his mind whirring behind those lovely eyes. Then, “Okay. I think I understand.” He takes up a napkin and slips it under his cup to soak up the mess. “We need to get ‘caf August,’ um… We need to… We, uh.” He puts the cup back down on the sopping napkin. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Correct.”

“And if you’re here, you’re going to fuck up my coffee.”

“Exactly correct. And everything else. This timeline, all the possible timelines and realities, were never meant to include you and me together in the same one. We’re a mathematical impossibility, and the universe—this universe—is fritzing out, trying to meld where I should be with where you are.

Her hair—” I point at the waitress “—is orange in my reality. Or it was. It’s not now because my reality is gone. ”

Totally, surprisingly adorably, his eyes grow big when he whispers, “Where is your reality?”

And here’s another thing he doesn’t need to know.

Not yet, anyway. Better lie. “I don’t know.

I can’t figure it out. And I don’t know how to fix this.

That’s why I’m here, today, with you. Because there’s one other man in this whole universe, that I know of, who’s just as clever as me.

Who can help me solve this problem, and put all the bits back in place. ”

August smiles, so obviously relieved after this abominable morning. He claps his hands together, a determined spark lighting his eyes. “Well, alright. Where do we find him?”

Really, August? “Really, August?”

He looks about the place, as if I’ve dropped a pamphlet on how to find the world’s greatest super genius, and he’s looking to pick it up. “Where? Where is he?”

“He’s sitting right here, you idiot!”

Head turning left, right, back to me, whispering, “Where?”

“Jesus fucking Christ. For a super genius, you’re pretty fucking slow.”

“A super… Me?”

“Yes! Just why do you think I’m here?”

“Stop being…” The smile’s plastered twice as wide across his face, and I can’t help but notice this guy’s teeth are perfect. And his lips are so…

Damn, he’s so cute.

How many sit-ups do I need to do to be like this?

When he laughs, it does something to me that I haven’t felt in a long time. A really long time.

Unfortunately, he then says, “This is ridiculous. I mean… You had me.” Again, he’s searching around, but this time more minutely, looking at the plant pots, searching the sides of tables. “Are you recording this?”

“No, I’m not—what are you doing?”

I try to swat away the hand that’s now on my cheek, fingertips pulling at my jawline. “That has to be prosthetic. How did you manage this?”

I shove my chair back, trying to get out of his reach. “You’re not meant to touch me!”

“Bullshit!” He’s up and around the table.

I jump up, then a sharp pain cracks down my thigh as I bump against another table.

Cutlery clatters to the floor, and the barista and the few other patrons in the place are all looking, but August’s locked onto me.

His hand grips my shirt, and he pulls me in.

He’s strong. He’s way stronger than me, for sure.

It’s such an easy movement, but the power there is…

It’s kind of hot, actually. And I hate that I’m thinking all these things, believe me, I do.

I never thought I’d be crushing on myself like this. But I guess I am… Bad August.

He cannot be thinking the same thing I am, because his face is so close to mine that I could see his pores if any existed in that perfect skin, and he doesn’t betray the slightest blush. He’s intent on examining me, so I do the only thing I can and lift my chin.

“You see there?” I whisper, my heart beating more violently than it did when he punched me.

“There are no prosthetics here. No makeup. Nothing.” I lock fingers around my neckline, pulling my sweater down as far as it will go, the desperate movement fully exposing my neck, my collarbone, and a good portion of my pec.

His hand lands on my bare skin, searching for any sign of disguise. He traces fingers down my chest… until his fingertips reach the scar.

And just as my heart stutters at the realisation that he knows what that is—that maybe he has that same scar—he reels back, white, horrified. “I’m sorry.”

The way he’s apologising for touching it means he definitely understands. In full. “It’s alright,” I tell him.

But I know it’s not, because he passes a swift hand through his hair and mutters, “I can’t process this. I can’t.”

Even if I’m not supposed to touch him, I can’t help it. I can feel his pain. My hands are on his arms before I know what I’m doing. “It’s just going to take a bit of time. Sit back down.”

With a shake of his head, he does the opposite. He shoves my hands away and walks straight out the door.

I know where he lives. I can find him. So I let him go, to give him space. When he’s had some time to adjust, when I’ve had some time to adjust, I’ll talk to him again.

But the second I sit down, the door flies open.

August’s back, and it’s weird, the little heart thump thing in my chest. I can’t help but feel there’s something kind of heroic about him, throwing caution to the wind and facing his fate.

Coming back to associate with me when it’s theoretically dangerous to even…

Yeah, no.

He’s just come back to pay the bill.

Kelly’s talking to him, but he’s keeping his eyes down, concentrating super hard on his wallet. She looks at me, says something to him. He’s even pinker now. He fumbles his card to the floor, and he’s scrambling to pick it up where it’s almost flush with the smooth surface.

He’s a complete mess. And why wouldn’t he be?

He’s not like me, by the looks of it. Not yet.

He’s all soft and sweet.

Like I used to be.

And it honestly hurts a bit, what I’m going to have to do to him.

And that’s weird. Because I haven’t felt this sort of guilt in a long time. A very long time.

But being with him, with that version of me, it’s…

It makes me sick. I feel sick.

He beeps his card, and he’s back out the door and gone.

I should probably go after him. But it’s cold as fuck out there, and he’s not ready to talk anyway.

I wonder how long Kelly will let me stay here if I don’t order any food…