Chapter Thirty-Two
We meet in a pub just a stone’s throw from Covent Garden.
I wanted to make sure it wasn’t somewhere I’ve been before; I’m already struggling to keep the different Bethanys separate in my mind, finding myself imagining bargain-shopping Bethany decanting all her purchases of herbal teas into tiny plastic tubs decorated with manga art, or forgetting which Bethany was the one who dragged Tyler to New York and which one accused his sister of being a dominating bitch to my sister with very little real evidence to make such an assertion.
Tyler goes to the bar and returns with a pint of Kronenbourg for himself and a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc for me. The glass is almost full, the wine so pale it’s almost clear, condensation beginning to drip onto the scarred table, which looks like it’s been here for a hundred years.
I wait for him to ask me his usual clever questions about my predicament but instead he asks me a series of increasingly dull questions about the weather and my trip here and some of the mutual acquaintances we have in the physics world.
Of course! This Tyler doesn’t know I’m not the Bethany Raven from this world.
He has no idea how many times I’ve sat like this with another version of him.
This Tyler never got the email because I decided to stop sending them.
This Tyler thinks we’re just on a date.
It’s weird.
He’s weird.
This whole situation just isn’t right.
And so, instead of making small talk, I tell him everything. I don’t think this is the kind of date he was expecting. But then again, we don’t always get what we want, do we?
‘And so you’re just living the lives of the other yous; you’ve given up trying?’ The first thing he has said to me in about fifteen minutes as I rattled through my life – lives? – story.
‘Sorry? What?’ I ask, leaning in towards him.
‘You’ve given up trying to find a way to stop this, from finding a way to get home?’
I sit back in my seat, all the words lost from my mouth. ‘I—’ I start but then he stops me.
‘I’m getting us another drink. I think we’re going to need it.’ He walks away, shaking his head slightly, almost imperceptibly but just enough he knows I won’t miss it.
He’s judging me. I feel the anger flash hot and bright in my chest. How dare he judge me. He has no fucking idea what this is like. I stoke the flame until he comes back with a bottle of Sauvignon and an extra glass for himself.
‘I can’t—’ I start as he slides back onto his seat but he interrupts me. It seems to be a habit of his and I don’t appreciate it very much.
‘I know you were trying to shield me from this.’ His voice is even, level, devoid of almost all emotion.
It’s a voice of authority, like a stern but somewhat fair headmaster.
I hate the traitorous part of me that feels a bit turned on by this.
‘But it’s not your choice. You don’t get to decide if I want to help.
And I think you’re missing something here.
’ There’s that raise of the eyebrow, the one that tells me he thinks he has an answer I don’t have.
I want to slap it off his stupid pretty face.
‘Oh really? And what exactly am I missing.’ I’m trying not to let him get to me, but I just can’t help it.
‘This isn’t only about you.’
‘Yes. I get that. That’s why I’m trying to stay away. Making sure I don’t mess up everyone else’s lives.’ I say the words slowly, enunciated each syllable so he really gets my point.
He tops up my wine and then pours himself a glass, before leaning back in his seat. ‘Except you’re here.’
‘Yeah, well …’ To be honest I don’t really have a comeback.
‘And what about all the other Bethanys? If you don’t stop this, more and more Bethanys are affected. Yes?’
I pause for a moment. Because he’s right. Not that I’m going to tell him that. But if I don’t try to stop this and find a way home, then I keep skipping, jumping in and out of these Bethanys’ lives, more and more of us – them – being dragged into this nightmare.
‘Help me,’ I whisper and raise my eyes to meet his.
‘Of course,’ he replies, and his face softens and there he is. My Tyler.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that we match on Tinder just as this is all happening?’ he asks later that night. We’ve left the pub and decided to take a walk through the park in an effort to clear our heads.
‘I swiped right.’
He looks at me. ‘Yes, thank you, Bethany, I do understand the mechanics of the site.’ He’s deadpan and the extra wine I drank makes me giggle slightly. ‘I mean isn’t it odd that today was the day Tinder served you to me and vice versa. Why today?’
‘You think the universe is trying to bring us together?’ I can’t help myself; my words are tinged with scorn.
His fingers brush against mine in the dark.
‘I think it’s fate,’ he says softly.
We walk on in silence. I can’t stop thinking about that sentence. I can feel myself being pulled towards him in every single life. But fate?
Fate is such a cop-out excuse to explain some phenomena we don’t understand.
Like calling something magic when it’s just basic science.
Rachel, my stepmum, always used to say stuff was magic.
Or impossible. Or unfathomable. Like why a balloon sticks to the wall after you rub it on your hair, even though I’ve understood static charge since I was three.
Or the bottle of water trick when really it’s just surface tension.
Cesca and I used to take it in turns to tell her increasingly bizarre real science facts, to see who could blow her mind the most. I won when I told Rachel that time moved more slowly at the top of a skyscraper than at the bottom.
I mean it’s just gravity but still Rachel just couldn’t process it as a fact.
‘Magic,’ she whispered. ‘Magic. Or just some kind of clever hoax.’
Tyler walks me home and we stop outside the door to my block of flats. ‘I know you don’t believe in fate,’ he says as he turns to face me. He’s standing close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, a hint of his aftershave scenting the air.
‘I—’ I start but he cuts me off.
‘I get it. I really do. But if it isn’t fate then it has to be science. There has to be some force pulling us together. You know as well as I do that the universe is chaos, pure random chaos. There is no way we could keep coming together if it didn’t mean anything.’
‘But—’
Again he interrupts.
‘So either posit a new hypothesis or accept that fate is real.’ He smiles, and there’s a knowing look in his eye. He knows he’s got me, that I can’t help but engage with his stupid theory if he phrases it that way.
‘Failure to present a secondary option doesn’t make the first true by default,’ I tell him primly. But I take a small step closer to him.
‘Maybe not. But I need your hypothesis, Dr Raven.’
He’s never called me Dr before. I’m super proud of my academic achievements – come on, getting a PhD is pretty fucking hard – but I don’t tend to bandy around the title like some of my peers.
I tell people it’s because it feels a bit gauche, but the truth is I’m terrified someone will shout across a crowded room, or on a flight, or a train, to see if someone’s a doctor and I’ll put my hand up as if I could actually save someone having a heart attack.
‘I’m waiting,’ he says tapping his foot loudly.
‘What if …’ I start, trying to buy myself some time. I have nothing. No other explanation. No other question to even ask.
‘Yes?’ I can see that he is itching for me to prove him right. Competitive teasing. The cornerstone of every nerd’s dating rulebook.
‘Yeah, I’ve got nothing,’ I admit.
‘I knew it,’ he exclaims and punches the air in a deliciously dorky way. ‘So it’s fate.’
I take a deep breath. I hate losing, even though this is all in jest. ‘But if it’s fate, then why? Why you and me?’
He takes a step forward, closing the space between us, his arm reaching out to brace his weight on the wall behind me.
‘Why you and me?’ he repeats, his voice dropping an octave and turning my insides to jelly.
He touches my waist with his free hand and my breath catches in the back of my throat.
I break the moment by stepping away and inviting him up for coffee.
Just coffee. You know the deal with anything physical.
Even though it’s almost impossible to keep to the rules when he makes me ache for him like this.
I take a few minutes to cool down as I make our drinks.
‘So,’ I say, all business as I hand him a steamy cup of latte. I bring him up to date with all my thoughts, the different theories we – as in all the other versions of him and me – have come up with.
‘Okay,’ he says when I finally pause. ‘I do have one question.’ His brow furrows slightly.
‘Shoot.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Where am I? What?’
‘Well …’ he pauses for a moment ‘… if you are here in this universe, who is the Bethany in yours?’
‘Oh.’ I hadn’t thought about that before. He’s right. If I’m here, driving this dating-app Bethany – which is what we’re calling this one – then who’s driving my body? What if— The thought lodges in my chest and I try desperately to push it back down, to put it back in a box marked ‘do not open’.
‘Hey. Hey.’ Tyler scooches closer to me. ‘Are you okay?’ He reaches out to touch my shoulder. ‘Hey. What’s wrong? You’ve gone deathly pale.’
‘What …’ My voice sounds alien in my ears. ‘What if the answer is no one?’ It’s barely a whisper but the question feels like it echoes around the room.
He doesn’t answer, but his arm slips around me and he pulls me into him. We stay like that for what feels like an eternity.
‘What if it’s gone?’ I break the silence. ‘My world. What if it’s gone?’
‘It isn’t.’ He’s adamant.
‘You can’t know that.’
‘I can.’
I pull away from him so I can look him in the face. ‘You don’t.’
He smiles gently, causing his eyes to crinkle at the edges. ‘Do you really want to know why I think the universe is pushing us together?’
I nod.
‘Because it wants me to help you. Because together we can figure this thing out. Because together we can find you a way home. Back to your world. Back to your Cesca.’
He sounds so sure that for a moment I believe him.