Chapter Twenty-Nine
We stay in New York for another day and another night.
We have a picnic in Central Park and visit the Intrepid Museum to see the space shuttle Enterprise and then have the most amazing pastrami on rye from a tiny little deli followed by deep-fried Oreos from Ray’s Candy Store.
Tyler maintains a respectful distance, ever the perfect gentleman.
But there’s also an undercurrent there, like we’re illicit lovers trying to maintain a veneer of propriety in public.
Flashes of a look in his eye where I know he’s wondering what could have been, moments where I have to physically sit on my hands to stop myself from touching him.
And then there’s the fact we’re living on borrowed time and soon I’ll be gone and this Bethany will come back and everything will be different again.
Before I go to bed, I rip out the short scribbled note I wrote her last night in case I skipped and instead write her a long letter, explaining in more detail why we’re in New York and why she should give Tyler a chance.
I promise he’s actually one of the good guys, I write.
I apologize for hijacking her body and reassure her that nothing untoward happened and it’s the most surreal thing I’ve ever written.
I hope she reads it and realizes I mean every word.
And then I put on a pair of supersoft pyjamas Tyler treated me to from Macy’s and slide into the cool cocoon of the premium hotel bedding.
I wake up to the sound of rain drumming against a dormer window.
I listen for a few minutes, eyes shut, trying to control the panic bubbling in my stomach like a pool of acid. I’m not in New York any more. Eventually I take a deep breath and crack open one eye.
Yep. Not New York. But also … not my flat.
Where am I? Am I in a man’s bed? Am I in Tyler’s?
I open the other eye and breathe a deep sigh of relief.
Not my flat. But also … demonstrably my flat.
My taste flows through the space, it’s just a different apartment.
I guess this Bethany moved from our gorgeous little place in Clapham.
On the opposite wall is a slightly stylized print of the New York skyline.
I take a deep breath in for four counts, holding it at the top for a count of seven and then exhaling for eight, willing my heart to stop pounding in my chest. Eventually my body responds and I feel normality returning.
Well … I say normality, but I’m in a new body in a new universe and I have no idea how to get home.
So, yeah. New normal. It’s so frankly ridiculous I laugh out loud into the silence of my empty flat. Perhaps I’m just losing my mind.
Losing my naughty, traitorous mind that can’t stop thinking about the first night in New York …
before I saw the tattoo. I can still feel his mouth on mine, the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips.
The curve of his smile as he pulled away to look at me, eyes soft but with just the hint of mischief. It was real.
It just wasn’t right.
I mope around the flat for the day, picking up the relics of this Bethany’s life, turning them over in my hands, putting them back.
I find some wine in the fridge and decide it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to open it.
It might not have been the worst idea, but it still wasn’t my best. It goes straight to my head and so I’m forced to have a lie-down on the black leather sofa, which doesn’t really work in the living room.
I wake up in the middle of the afternoon with an epiphany. Well, I say epiphany but it’s more of a dawning realization if I’m honest, more that certain things begin to come into focus which perhaps should already have been in focus. If that makes any sense at all.
I was almost there, in New York, when I realized I was only borrowing that Bethany’s body and therefore, no matter how much I wanted to – and believe me that I really, really wanted to – I couldn’t get physical with Tyler.
But it wasn’t just Bethany’s body I was borrowing.
It was her whole life. And, by extension, I’m also just a visitor in the rest of their lives – each world’s version of Cesca and Tyler and Alesha and Nessie and Helen.
All of these people whose lives I’m touching and changing just by being here. And then what?
What happens when the real Bethany comes back and finds all these people who don’t understand what happened?
How confused and puzzled will she be about what she missed?
Not to mention that I have no idea where this Bethany goes while I’m here.
Or if she goes anywhere at all. Maybe she just goes nowhere, like she’s asleep somewhere inside her own mind while I control her like a marionette.
I need to keep my distance. Avoid getting involved. Stop pulling them all into my orbit. It’s too selfish to meddle in all their lives like I’ve been doing.
From now on, I’m on my own and I need to figure this out by myself.
Green Park is busy with people living their best lives – or that’s how it seems; it’s amazing how much happier everyone else looks from your own misery bubble – as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.
I find myself a space on a bench, observing the lives spinning on in front of me, a thousand strangers just going about their evenings, completely ignorant to all the big questions they should be asking about the very nature of their own existence.
I used to feel like this all the time. Untethered.
Alone. Lost in a sea of questions too big for me to articulate, much less answer.
I used to feel that no one else would ever understand me.
Luckily, Cesca knew exactly how to pull me from my malaise. But Cesca isn’t here.
I spot him from over a hundred metres away, as if I have some kind of sixth sense for him.
Tyler Adams is jogging, wearing a teal vest that shouldn’t suit him but somehow does perfectly.
I move from the bench, hiding behind a tree as he passes, desperate for him not to see me.
Why is it that even when I’m trying to avoid him, he just runs across my path?
I’m still hiding when he runs back towards me, evidently having turned around by the coffee hut. But this time he slows down as he approaches and I try to press myself further into the unyielding bark of the tree.
‘I can see you.’ His voice is gruff. Pissed off.
I turn to glance behind me, as if perhaps he isn’t talking to me.
‘Bethany?’ The way he uses my name as a question makes it clear he’s waiting for me to explain myself.
‘I … er …’ I stammer.
‘Are you following me?’
What? Why would I be following him? ‘No.’ The word comes out slightly strangled.
‘Really?’ He arches an eyebrow. This is old-school cocky-as-shit Tyler. This is Tyler-fucking-Adams back the way he was in my world before I cracked the surface and discovered something softer inside him.
‘If you must know I was trying to avoid talking to you.’ I meet his gaze, trying to maintain a resting bitch face as if his presence has zero impact on me at all.
‘Right. Well …’ It’s obvious he thinks I’m lying.
‘Goodbye, Tyler,’ I say primly and then walk off before the exchange can get any more awkward.
An hour later and I’m walking back to the new flat in Lambeth, taking a scenic route through the city.
I catch a flash of blonde hair and my heart flips in my chest. Cesca is sitting outside a pretty pub across the road, a glass of wine in front of her and a beaming smile stretching across her face.
I’m about to turn and walk the long way round to avoid passing too close when I realize who she’s drinking with.
His eyes rise to meet mine across the busy road.
His glare turns my cheeks red as I turn and run away from them.
From my sister and Tyler Adams sharing a companionable drink in this twilight zone.
Why can’t I avoid them?
He turns up on my doorstep at nine thirty that evening, his face as dark as thunder.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ he demands as I open the door. I make a mental note to check who is on the other side next time. I could’ve just ignored the doorbell, stayed inside the cool comfort of the flat this Bethany has decorated.
I don’t answer, just stand mute in front of him, wondering why everything seems to be going wrong and collapsing around me into absolute chaos.
‘Seriously?’ he asks.
‘How do you know Cesca?’ I find my voice, but the question seems like an odd one to lead with, even for me.
‘What?’
‘How do you know Cesca?’ I repeat.
‘We’ve been friends for years.’ He looks confused. ‘You introduced us.’
I have never introduced them.
‘IOP Awards. 2019,’ he adds.
‘Oh.’ In 2019 Cesca was dating Steffi but they had a row on the afternoon of the IOP dinner.
She rang me for advice and I gave her two options.
She could go for dinner with Steffi and try to work things out.
Or she could come to the IOP with me. She asked me which she should do and I told her that she wouldn’t regret missing dinner with a hundred scientists, but she might regret not trying to patch things up with Steffi.
In the end they’d talked it out and agreed to go their separate ways, but they were at least on speaking terms for the odd times they bumped into each other.
Evidently, in this world, this Bethany had given Cesca different advice and taken her to the IOP Awards.
And then – and I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking – had introduced Cesca to Tyler.
‘Look, Bethany. I don’t know what you’re playing at.
Or why you’ve decided to start sniffing around again.
Don’t you think you’ve done enough meddling already?
Put your sister through enough? Done enough damage to my career?
’ He’s looking at me as if I’m nothing more than a piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe.
What did this Bethany do to make him hate her so much?
The rational part of my brain knows it isn’t me he’s angry with.
That I have personally done nothing wrong.
But looking at the way he’s appraising me makes me feel …
well … fragile. Desperate. Alone. Alone to flounder through world after world, floating in a sea of flotsam, being dragged to shore and then tossed back out to sea over and over again as the very edges of who I am are sloughed off, lost to time and space as if I am nothing more consequential than a piece of broken bottle buffeted for a century.
I can feel the tears are wet on my face but I just don’t care any more. I don’t care what he thinks of me.
‘Hey.’ This time his voice is softer and he takes a step closer to me. ‘Hey. I didn’t mean … Bethany?’
But I can barely hear him as I feel my heart break in my chest. And I don’t mean that figuratively.
I mean literally, I can feel my heart rate turn erratic, a pain shooting through my left arm.
The edges of my vision are turning black, the darkness encroaching second by second. I think I’m going to be sick.