Chapter Sixty-Five
I wake up as the sun hits my face through the gap between the slats of the blind and I curse myself for not closing it properly the night before. I pull the duvet over my head, the cotton slightly scratchy against my skin.
Hang on …
I crack one eye open and push the covers down so I can peek over the top.
I slip out of bed – I’m wearing the Schrodinger’s cat pyjamas – and head to the living room.
There are my shelves of beautiful books, all lined up looking gorgeous.
A few additions have been made to the collection, but it’s otherwise just as I left it.
I turn in the space and notice something sticking out from under the sofa: a pair of Havaianas.
They’re a subtle beige, the same colour as a milky cup of tea.
I hug them to my chest like a long-lost friend.
This is it.
This is home.
I made it.
‘I’m only five minutes late,’ Cesca says as she picks up my call.
‘You’re coming here?’ I ask, almost breathless. This is Cesca. My Cesca.
‘Pancake Saturday.’ Her tone is serious. Has this become a thing in my absence? What else has she changed, the Bethany who tried to steal my life?
‘Of course,’ I reply, unable to mask my excitement. I’m about to see my sister. ‘See you in a sec.’
‘Love you millions.’
‘Love you billions.’
She beeps the horn as she pulls up in front of the flat. I’m already standing outside, desperate to see her. I pull her into an awkward sideways hug the second I’m inside the car.
‘Woah,’ she says. ‘What’s got into you this morning? You okay?’
‘Just pleased to see you,’ I reply and squeeze her tighter.
‘Ohh … kayy … Well, let go of me and then we’ll get caffeine and sugar and you can tell me what the hell is going on.’
I release her, but I can’t stop sneaking glances at her profile as she drives.
My Cesca. I’m trying to act cool, like this is just another day, but inside I’m reeling.
I’m finally home and everything seems bigger and brighter than I remember it, but at the same time also like none of this is actually real.
Cesca pulls into the car park outside the Pancake House and switches off the engine. Her shoulders stiffen in the way that signifies she’s about to say something serious. ‘Bethany, you know I love you?’
Uh-oh. This sounds very serious. ‘Yes,’ I reply, my voice small.
‘And I know these last two months have been a difficult time for you.’
I hold my breath and wait for her to continue. What did the other Bethany do while she was cosplaying my life?
‘You’ve been acting out of character a bit and maybe you did some things …’ She pulls a face.
What things? I want to ask. But also, I’m not sure I want to know. I stay quiet, the look on her face says she hasn’t finished speaking, but she’s just trying to find the right words.
‘But today,’ she continues, ‘you seem … I can’t put my finger on it. But … is everything okay? Or has something happened and you’re about to go batshit again?’ The last sentence comes out in a rush of words and emotion.
I clear my throat. ‘Let’s go inside and get some breakfast. There’s something I need to tell you.’
She looks worried, that deep worry where you think the world is about to end.
‘I think it will explain some things,’ I say, trying to sound reassuring.
We’ve barely sat down when the waitress brings over two frothy cappuccinos with powdered chocolate in the shape of a house.
‘The usual?’ she asks Cesca with a grin.
‘Please,’ she replies.
I wait for her to leave us and then lean forward in my seat. ‘She’s got it bad for you,’ I tell Cesca, motioning my head towards the waitress.
‘She has not.’
‘She has.’
‘Really?’ Cesca spins round in her seat to look at her. The waitress waves in an adorably dorky way. ‘She’s cute.’
‘You should ask her out.’
‘Maybe …’ Cesca says, and I catch the flicker of a smile. But then her demeanour changes and she sits up straight, clasps her hands in front of her on the table and stares at me. ‘So tell me,’ she demands.
I reach into my bag and pull out the She-Ra notebook with ‘Für die Ehre von Grayskull’ written across the front.
‘I thought you’d lost that,’ Cesca says, motioning towards it.
I’d found it tucked in one of the kitchen drawers, under a pile of takeaway menus and other such detritus.
I guess the other Bethany didn’t use it; she wouldn’t have understood the context of the joke.
I open it up to the page where I wrote the theorem for the first time just under two months ago and then turn it to show Cesca.
‘What is this?’ she asks, pulling it closer towards her and squinting at the page.
‘You remember the work I was doing?’
‘Yeah …’ she replies. ‘But then you said it was dumb and stopped working on it. Said you had something better.’
Oh really? So that Bethany came here and dissed my work? Fuck that. ‘I solved it. The theorem.’
‘When?’ She looks up from the page and narrows her eyes at me.
‘Seven weeks ago.’
‘But you said it wouldn’t work?’ She sounds thoroughly perplexed. Which is understandable to be fair.
‘It works. The theorem works. Actually, it’s more than a theorem, it’s a fact.’
Her frown deepens. ‘You’re not making any sense.’
We’re interrupted by the arrival of our pancakes, gorgeous fluffy things dripping in syrup.
Mine has a side of crispy American-style bacon; my sister’s is topped with fresh strawberries.
Cesca offers the waitress an almost tentative smile.
She really needs to work on her flirting game, especially if this world’s Helen is her potential soulmate. But we’ll worry about that later.
‘You really prefer them with fruit?’ I ask, pointing at her plate.
She blushes and then nods.
‘I’m sorry I always overrode your order and got you bacon.’
‘That’s okay,’ she says but there’s a catch in her voice.
‘It isn’t though, is it? Have I always been so weird and controlling?’
She stays silent as she spears a strawberry with her fork.
‘I’m sorry. I think I always felt like I had to micromanage your life. Like I was being Mum as well as your sister. But it was wrong of me and I’m sorry and I’ll try to be more chill going forward. Okay?’
She puts her fork down and covers my hand with her own. ‘I know you mean well.’
‘Yeah, but it must suck for you. Just promise me that you’ll always talk to me, that you’ll tell me if I overstep so it doesn’t become a problem and force us apart.’
‘What’s brought this on, Bethany?’ she asks gently.
I wait for her to pick her fork back up and take a mouthful of pancake. ‘If I tell you something do you promise to keep an open mind?’
She nods.
‘Okay. So, I was working on a theory of multiverse communication, right?’
She nods again and I send up a silent thank you into the ether that my sister has enough of a grounding in physics that she can understand this stuff without freaking out. Or without freaking out too much, at least.
‘And then I solved the theorem. And I thought my career was made. Like, this,’ I tap the notebook that we moved out the way to make room for breakfast. ‘This was going to change the world.’
‘So why did you stop working on it?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Err … you did.’
I take an enormous forkful of pancakes and stuff the sweet goodness into my mouth, using the time it takes me to chew to think about the perfect way to tell Cesca about the journey I’ve been on.
But there is no perfect way, or even a passably good way if I’m honest. So in the end I just blurt it out.
‘I woke up the next day in a different universe and then the next in another, and so on, each world more and more different from this one. The divergences more and more pronounced.’
Cesca puts down her fork and wipes her mouth on her napkin. ‘Oh Bethany,’ she whispers, in the way you would talk to an elderly relative. ‘You can’t have. We’ve been having pancakes here every Saturday for weeks.’
‘And have I been acting oddly during that time?’
‘Well, yes,’ she’s forced to concede.
‘Because that wasn’t me. It was another Bethany, from another universe. She took my place and sent me spiralling back to her shitty world.’
I can see Cesca is trying to process the bombshell I’ve just dropped on her. ‘But …’ she starts. ‘We watched Legally Blonde together. Twice.’ She looks at me as if it’s the ultimate betrayal. ‘And you convinced me to get a tattoo.’ Her bottom lip trembles.
‘Where?’
She pulls up the sleeve of her top so I can see the skin just below her inner elbow. It’s the string of planets in our solar system, in vivid colour and relative size. It looks amazing.
I meet her eyes. ‘You love it, right? Tell me you love it?’
‘Of course I love it. But it wasn’t you who went with me?’ The pitch of her voice rises towards the end of the sentence.
‘It wasn’t me,’ I tell her. ‘But …’ I raise a finger in front of me. ‘I would have told you to get it because it is fucking awesome.’
‘Oh my God,’ she exclaims and stops me in my tracks.
‘What?’
‘You got one too.’
‘I did not.’
‘On your back.’ She pulls out her phone and motions for me to turn in my seat. She pulls up my top and snaps a picture, before turning her phone screen towards me.
And there, just below my right shoulder blade, is a bright pink and red design.
‘A Mobius strip,’ I whisper under my breath.
Tattooed onto my back. The exact same tattoo I had in the world Tyler and I went to New York.
But that makes no sense; that Bethany and the one who came here weren’t the same.
Unless … a memory shakes lose from years ago.
I was a fresher at uni and there was a girl in her final year who I had a bit of a crush on.
It was platonic, but I thought she was the coolest woman on the planet, like I wanted to be her when I grew up.
She told me one evening in the lab that the only tattoo she’d get would be a Mobius strip.
Evidently a few of us Bethanys remembered her and copied the idea. ‘I had the same one. In another world.’
Cesca tilts her head to one side and looks at me. I mean, really looks at me.
‘Do you believe me?’ I ask, starting to feel self-conscious under her stare.
‘So, you’ve been living a whole load of different lives?’
‘Yep.’
She sits back in her seat and takes a few deep breaths. I can see the gears of her brain grinding and I wish I could peek inside and see exactly what she’s thinking. Eventually she nods a few times and then exhales loudly. ‘Wow.’ There’s no emotion in her tone.
‘Wow, what?’ I ask with trepidation.
‘Just … wow.’ This time there’s a hint of awe in her voice. She smiles. ‘Well, I guess we’d better get some wine and chocolate. I think we have a long day ahead of us while you tell me everything.’
I breathe a sigh of relief. She believes me. Or at least she’s willing to imagine a world in which what I’m telling her is the truth.
‘Deal,’ I tell her and motion to the waitress to bring the bill over.
‘But I’m not telling you anything until you ask out the waitress.’
‘I thought you weren’t going to dabble in my life any more?’ she says.
‘Ha. I said I wasn’t going to overstep. There’s a difference.’
My sister narrows her eyes at me. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Bethany Raven.’ Then she reaches out a hand and grabs mine, squeezing my fingers tightly. ‘I’m so glad to have you home.’
I squeeze back, all the words I want to say stacking on top of each other until I don’t know which to say first. That I missed her. That I will never take her for granted again. That I’ll treasure every moment we have. But in the end there’s only one thing I need to say. ‘I love you, Cesca.’