Chapter Seven
Seven
The girl who looks like me is younger, with her hair in a bun the way I wore it all last year.
“Stop,” she says, giggling. She’s wearing a light blue dress I got from a vintage store in Portland when I was visiting my dad. It’s the dress I wore on my first date with Jason a year ago. Our first date to the arcade. Our first date ever.
She is me.
“Stop what? Telling you how incredible you look?” Jason asks, just like he did that night. “Don’t ask me to do impossible things, Zadie.” I watch as Jason puts a hand on her—my—lower back and leads her into the arcade. They disappear inside, chatting and laughing.
It takes a full five seconds for the shock to wear off. Five seconds in which Marcus has somehow made his way over to me. When he holds out his hand, I realize I’m still on the ground. I let him pull me up, surprised for a half second by how small my hand feels encased in his.
“Well, that was awkward,” Marcus says with a smirk.
I say nothing as I start toward the arcade again. In a couple of quick strides, Marcus is caught up to me.
“What are we doing? You up for a game of Sliders?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “We have to follow them. That was us! That was me and Jason on our first date.”
“And you don’t think we should just leave them be?” Marcus asks as he holds open the bright blue door for me.
“Leave them be?” I repeat, hoping he can hear how preposterous that sounds.
I scan the moderately busy arcade, a dimly lit room full of jittery strangers and chirpy machines in mid-game mode.
I follow the music to where I remember playing Dance Dance Revolution with Jason.
We are doing just that now—we, as in Jason and the other me.
Laughing at Jason’s two left feet as I kick his butt in the first dance-off.
“Argh!” Jason says, his cheeks flushed from either the dancing or embarrassment. “That was just a warm-up. Best of three?”
“Best of five,” the other me says, and Jason and I shake hands. “May the best dancer win.” Conveniently, I hadn’t mentioned that I had an advantage over Jason: I danced most of my life, until ninth grade when I heard that track and field was looked upon more favorably on college apps.
I remember all this, being so nervous for this date that my palms were sweaty the whole time. By the time I got home and called Amber and Mo to tell them, much of the night had receded into fuzzy detail.
Beside me, Marcus shifts uncomfortably as we watch Jason and Zadie flirt, making excuses to touch each other and bump hips and hold hands.
Marcus is leaning against an old pinball machine but somehow, incredibly, he’s not going through it.
And yet when he reaches out to touch Other Me and Jason, his hand passes right through them.
Because, well, dream logic. If this really is a dream.
“Wait, so how do you get your hips to do that shimmy thing?” Jason asks Zadie.
“It’s really happening,” Marcus grumbles. “I’m going to have to watch my cousin try to get laid all night. This must be what actual hell feels like.”
“Shhh,” I hiss, because he’s ruining it. The night is going so well, and they are totally vibing, Jason and the other Zadie. “Isn’t Jason just, like, electric?”
“Yeah, you know what? This isn’t going to work for me,” Marcus says. “It’s been really…really fucking weird. But all the best to you.”
“Where are you going?”
I watch him get all the way to the door of Dot’s Arcade, lift the handle…and then he appears next to me again, like magic.
“What the fuck,” he growls.
I’m incredulous. “Did you just…” I begin, but he’s already walking determinedly back to the door. He’s reaching for it. Nothing is going to stop him this time. Nothing can stop him this time except…the same thing happens again.
Holy shit.
He’s beside me again.
“I don’t think you can leave me,” I say, not unsmugly, despite the plethora of questions I have myself. It’s almost as if Marcus and I are tethered by some invisible force.
Marcus curses repeatedly under his breath, clearly displeased about the latest turn of events, as we go back to watching Zadie and Jason.
“I feel like I’m watching a movie,” I say out loud.
Zadie and Jason are characters I vaguely recognize. This Zadie looks confident and sure of herself, not at all like how I feel on the inside. She doesn’t look worried about if her hair is out of place or if her breath will be okay by the time Jason kisses her good night.
All the other reasons Jason is the model boyfriend aside, he had a way of bringing out this Zadie, and I think it’s a little bit miraculous the way certain people and things make you a certain person in their presence.
I miss the way I was with him, the way we were together.
So sure of our place in the world, so right.
“Jay,” I say, reaching for his hand on his machine. “Can you hear me?” I say quietly. “It’s me. It’s Zadie.”
Jason just keeps playing, saying something to the Other Zadie and laughing with his head thrown back. He looks happy, lively. So, nothing like the Jason I saw earlier today.
“Jason, can you hear me?” I say, slightly more forceful. I try to grip his arm, but my fingers slip through him instead of wrapping around his bicep. “Jason!”
“He might be a one-Zadie type of guy,” Marcus says with a half-hearted smirk.
I sigh and go back to quietly watching, mentally running through solutions to this impossible problem: how to get someone to notice you when you’re not in the same reality or dimension.
Jason doesn’t seem to have felt a thing, not a chill or a shudder, nothing that alerts him to my presence.
In front of us, Jason and Zadie are sharing popcorn and Jason leans in to wipe some salt off the top of Other Zadie’s lip.
“Thanks,” she whispers as their eyes lock.
His gaze lingers on her mouth, and she self-consciously licks her lips.
I remember this exact moment, but being able to zoom out on it, to see both of us, is so different.
Not only do I not hear or feel Zadie’s thundering heartbeat, but from this angle, I can see how much Jason likes her.
“Marcus,” I say in a whisper. “He totally wants to kiss her.”
Obviously, I know how this story ends. Jason waits until they’re outside, going home for the night, before he leans in.
He’ll walk her to her door, kiss her again.
Then he’ll go home. She’ll go inside her house and scream because there’s no one to hear her.
As she changes into her pajamas, she calls her friends and tells them it was amazing.
Everything was perfect. Jason is perfect.
“Yeah,” Marcus says flatly. “Seems like it.”
As they finish up the last game, Jason’s hand rests on Zadie’s lower back and my heart flitters. Marcus trails behind as we follow them out of the arcade.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Jason says when they reach his car.
“You’ve been thinking about me?” Other Zadie takes a brave step closer to him. Jason touches her cheek.
“Of course I’ve been thinking about you,” he says. “And I’d really like to kiss you now, if that’s okay with you. But I don’t want to push my luck…”
Zadie leans up and presses her mouth to his. It catches him by surprise, but then he kisses her back, holding her face in his hands.
I don’t even notice Marcus has tried to leave again until he reappears beside me.
“Just don’t watch,” I tell him, feeling a little guilty that he’s so uncomfortable. “I’ll tell you when they’re done.”
I’m playing with the ring Jason’s mother gave me as I watch them.
“He’s so respectful.” I know if someone zoomed in on me—the real Zadie or dream Zadie or whatever I am—they’d see me starry-eyed, practically swooning at the couple in front of me.
I feel butterflies in my stomach at the phantom touch of Jason’s lips on mine.
“Sure,” Marcus says. He pushes his hands into his pockets, looks down at the ground.
Other Zadie is whispering to Jason, “I like the way you kiss.”
In fact, she likes it so much that she puts her full weight on Jason. He holds her by the waist to steady her.
“Slow down,” he says against her mouth. Suddenly, I’m embarrassed to be standing there next to Marcus, watching this with him. It’s obvious the other Zadie got so lost in the moment that she forgot herself. If she could, she’d wrap her legs around Jason’s waist and kiss him silly. On a first kiss.
Zadie Cartwright shouldn’t be that kind of girl.
It’s true, though, that I’ve always liked how Jason kisses. Controlled and sweet. His breath is always fresh. Never too much tongue or teeth or pressure. He knows exactly what I like, and in return, I’ve always wanted to give him more.
“Let’s just…take it slow.” There’s a look of hesitation on Jason’s face, but it’s gone a second later.
“What’s happening?” I ask Marcus, as a clear sheath starts to fall between us and them. It’s like someone stretched out a droplet of rain. Marcus and I look at each other, but even he is beginning to blur, to fade. His legs are gone, his voice echoey.
It’s happening again. We’re leaving the dream.
“Hold on,” he says, reaching out his arm, but I’m losing him to the pulling feeling, the tornado-like vacuum, the blur of colors and light and sound.
He’s gone.
They’re gone.
I’m gone.