Chapter Twenty-Five
I wake up. Stuff has shifted so I must have skipped again.
I just don’t care. I’m tired. Tired of jumping and tired of learning a whole new me. Tired of discovering what a mess of all the important stuff this version of Bethany has made.
Perhaps I should blow it all up? Destroy everything in the knowledge I will wake up in a couple of days and be somewhere new. Somewhere it doesn’t matter.
I wander listlessly around the flat. Touching items that exist only here and not at home. I write down the theorem in a notebook covered in tiny butterflies. This Bethany has run out of coffee and despite my desire to hide from the world I know I need caffeine.
So I drag myself outside, and head to the café a few streets over that I sometimes use when I work from home.
It looks identical to the one in my world, small pots of herbs on each table and all the cakes under glass cloches.
The barista waves like a lunatic as I walk in and I raise my hand instinctively in something approximating a wave in return.
‘The usual breakfast?’ she asks with a smile, like it’s an invitation.
So it seems that this Bethany is a regular here. I have no idea what her ‘usual’ is, but whatever differences there are between our worlds, we’re the same fundamental person at a physiological level so we must like the same foods. I mean, taste must be genetic, right?
The poppy seed muffin placed in front of me suggests that may not be the case.
I do not like poppy seed muffins. If you’re going to have a muffin, have a proper one with chocolate chips or sticky toffee sauce in the middle.
Not fucking poppy seeds. But this Bethany doesn’t just like poppy seed muffins.
She eats them so often that the café knows her order. How is that even possible?
The barista also brings me a black Americano. That at least is something I can get on board with.
I take a small bite of the muffin. Just in case I offend the barista. Which is ridiculous, but I am nothing if not a people pleaser. It’s … well … it’s nice. What the hell? I take another small bite. Yep. It’s delicious.
The barista is watching me and laughs. ‘You know, that’s the exact same face you pulled the first time I convinced you to try one.
And then a couple of weeks ago …’ For a split second her brow furrows and her voice turns more serious.
‘It’s like you keep forgetting how much you like the poppy seed ones. ’
‘Sorry. Just tired,’ I reply and motion to the steaming mug of coffee. ‘Not enough caffeine yet to get the brain into gear.’
She relaxes. ‘I’ll get you another to take with you,’ she says waving a to-go cup towards me.
‘You’re a star,’ I reply and return to the muffin. It really is excellent.
I walk into him in the park. And when I say I walk into him, I mean I literally walk into him. I’m forced to swerve out of the way of a small child on a scooter and he’s on the other side of the path, staring at the screen of his phone as if it holds all the secrets to the universe.
‘Fuck!’ I shout, as my takeaway cup slips from my grasp and splashes – thankfully now lukewarm – coffee up his legs.
‘Language,’ the mother of the small scooter monkey says as she passes me, ignoring any part she has played in this debacle by virtue of having zero control over her kid.
‘Bethany?’ Tyler asks the top of my head, seeing as I’m crouching on the ground trying to dab at his trainers with the sleeve of my jumper.
I only just avoid cracking my head on his elbow as I straighten back up. ‘Sorry about that,’ I mumble. Why? Of all the people in the world, of all the people even in this square mile of London, why did it have to be Tyler I walked into?
‘That’s okay.’ He looks at me. Really looks. ‘Are you all right?’
I stare back at him. No, I want to say. No, I am very much not all right.
I mean, I’m wandering around the park at eleven in the morning, clutching a coffee because it’s not socially acceptable to drink at this time of the day, and trying to ignore the wolf clawing at my chest that perhaps this is all my entire life is now.
A few days here, a few days in the next place, and the next and the next.
Nothing matters any more. Nothing means anything. I have no future.
I turn and run from Tyler. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want to have to explain to him, yet again, that this keeps happening and he keeps appearing and we still can’t fix it and none of it matters anyway.
But the next morning, I’m still in this world and so I go through the motions, because … well, why not, I guess.
I send him an email. The one that lets him know I’m not a lunatic and gives him just enough information to know I’m telling the truth.
He’s on my doorstep half an hour later, smelling like coconut shampoo and holding a pack of custard creams. ‘You look a bit better than yesterday,’ he says matter-of-factly, his eyes raking over me.
It’s not a difficult feat. I’ve washed my hair and put on some clean jeans and a light grey T-shirt. I even brushed my teeth and spritzed myself with this perfume called Alien Goddess I found on the dresser. Note to self: buy this one when I get home; it’s seriously nice.
‘I apologize for yesterday.’ The words come out more stiffly than I’d hoped.
He tilts his head to one side. ‘I think you can get a teeny bit of slack. I mean, given everything that’s been happening.’
We have tea and custard creams and I take him through the theorem and all the thoughts the other Tylers and I have had. But my heart isn’t in it and he can tell.
‘We can do this,’ he says, but the conviction doesn’t quite make it to his eyes, which still shine with what I think is pity.
I collapse on the sofa next to him and lay my head on his shoulder. I’m done. Out of energy. Out of ideas. Out of everything. ‘Nothing works. Nothing matters.’
‘If none of it matters,’ he whispers into my neck, ‘then in the next world, come and find me. Tell me the world might be about to end and there is only one logical solution for how to deal with the problem.’
‘What’s that?’ I ask, my voice snuffly.
He pulls back from me a little, his eyes boring into mine. And then his face breaks into an almost impish grin. ‘Where is the one place you’ve always wanted to visit?’
‘New York,’ I say without thinking.
‘Well, then. Running away to New York it is.’
I laugh, but then it turns to tears and he holds me gently as evening turns to night and then I fall asleep in his arms.