Chapter 31 Olivia
I wake at dawn, before my alarm. My mind is already on full alert, my entire being tuned to the significance of today.
Today should have been my wedding day.
Today may be the day I die.
I sit upright, trying to control my breathing.
In for four.
Hold for a moment.
Out for eight.
Stay calm.
Just go through the motions. One step after the other.
No need to think.
No room for second-guessing.
I shower, wash my hair, and dress in my now favorite striped T-shirt, white shorts, and sneakers.
Not that it matters what I wear today, as I’ll have to strip off at the quarry lake.
I need to recreate the conditions of last time as exactly as possible, and that involves being naked.
I don’t bother blow-drying my hair today.
What’s the point? This is not something I need to look good for. I just need to survive.
Or not.
I make my bed with neat edges and pack all my possessions into shopping bags, so Mom won’t have to afterward.
This will be hard enough on her when they find me gone.
While I said my goodbyes last night, my family didn’t know it was a final goodbye.
I need to leave them a note. Something short but expressing two important things.
That I love them, and that I’m not coming back.
I never imagined myself as the kind of person to write what is essentially a suicide note. And yet, that’s what it might end up being.
I open my journal, turning to a clean page. What to write?
Dear Mom, Dad, and Charlotte—
A good start, Liv.
It has been wonderful spending time with you all over the past three months.
I know it has been hard for you all, having lost me such a long time ago.
I know it has been almost impossible to believe I’m even real.
I want to thank you, with all my heart, for embracing that impossibility and showing me your love and trust.
I can’t stay here, though. Although you have embraced me, this life has rejected me. I can never live here as a member of society. I can never really make friends, as my being here makes no sense. And the man I love is marrying somebody else.
Even writing that breaks my heart.
My only options are to be dependent on you, both financially and emotionally, forever, or be an outcast, living off the land or on the streets. And neither is viable for me. I value independence and comfort far too much for that!
So, while I know you won’t understand this and I hate hurting you, I’m choosing to try to get back to the world where I do belong.
I must try. I believe there’s a world where other versions of you are looking for me, feeling the same desperate hurt at losing their daughter, only a grown-up me, and where Jake Johnson is waiting to marry me, not someone else.
I’m sure you wouldn’t deny them their Olivia back.
If my attempt fails, and you find my body at the quarry lake, I’m so sorry for the pain that will cause. I can only hope these extra few months with me have given you some closure over the death of your own Livvie Grainger, sixteen years ago.
Please know that I love you both and Charlotte deeply. I hope you believe that. Charlotte, I was so happy to meet my amazing niece, Taylor, who captured my heart, and is a true credit to your abilities as a mom. Please give her this stuffed bunny from me as a companion for Muffin—
I stroke the yellow-colored rabbit I picked up in town a few mornings back.
—her name is Cookie — and tell Taylor I’m going to miss her, very much.
Thank you for accepting me, and I wish you all nothing but joy.
All my love, always,
Liv xoxo
I rip the page out of my journal and place it on the bed, with the journal beside it for them to read, if they choose, later. Picking up the soft rabbit, I remove the price tag with my teeth and lay it carefully beside the note.
I stuff $100 into my purse, leaving the rest of my earnings on the little table — it’s not as if I can take it with me into the next world — and check my watch.
I booked a taxi last night for 8:10 a.m. It’s picking me up at the Landfall Country Club so my parents won’t be woken by the sound of the car outside.
I don’t want to see them. I couldn’t face seeing them again.
I unlock the pool house doors with a slow click, careful not to make any sounds that will wake my parents, whose bedroom window looks over the pool terrace and the creek beyond. I leave the doors unlocked and creep past the pool, which is a still and inviting pale minty green in the morning light.
I pause at the side gate, casting my gaze back over my shoulder.
Beyond the shimmering pool, the well-watered lawns are vivid green and sparkling with a dew that will soon burn off.
Past the gardens, the long dock leads into the silver strip of creek, where a flock of seagulls swoop down onto the water.
The gentle putt-putt of a small boat breaks the morning quiet and sends ripples toward the reedy shore.
This has been a beautiful place to live for a summer.
If I manage to get back home, I vow to spend more time at Mom and Dad’s place.
More time with Dad on the boat. More time with Mom on the terrace.
More time with Charlotte. I’ll encourage my sister’s dream to become a mother, rather than hint that she’s too young, as I’ve always done before. I know now how spectacular she’ll be.
I unlock the gate and let myself out, silently slipping my keys into Mom and Dad’s mailbox at the foot of their drive. I walk the couple of minutes to the gate of the country club, and the taxi draws up.
This is really happening.
“Hi there,” I say a little shakily to the driver, getting in the back.
My insides have begun to churn, and I feel sick.
“Head to Travers Lane, which is kinda between Rocky Point and Long Creek. Not the Travers Lane in Pollocksville,” I add, as the driver tries to punch it into his GPS.
“It probably won’t be in the system. It’s just a tiny rural track.
Just head to Rocky Point, and I’ll direct you. ”
“Okay, ma’am,” the driver replies as he pulls off.
The fifty-minute drive is picturesque but agonizing. Every turn takes me closer to my fate, every bump in the road brings more nausea. I grip the sides of the passenger seat in front of me and focus on my breathing exercises again.
“You okay back there, ma’am?” The driver’s watching me in the rearview mirror. He looks concerned. Probably worried I’ll hurl in his car.
I let out a stream of air, and give him an unconvincing half-smile. “I’m fine. Take a right up here, please.”
“This little track, ma’am?” he confirms. “I think it’s a dead end.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Thanks.”
Looking unconvinced, he drives all the way to where the track meets the almost-invisible trail entrance into the forest, and pulls to a stop. My heart is thudding.
“You on a hike today or sumthin’?” he asks, his gaze sweeping over me suspiciously. “Sure is a pricey way to get here.”
“Something like that.” I hand over the cash, including a generous tip — the last of my money. “Thanks. Have a good day.”
I climb out and pull my purse onto my shoulder, leaving the perplexed driver to turn the car around, and drive away.
I push through the twigs that obscure the trail head, evidence that hardly anyone even knows about this overgrown trail, let alone the hidden quarry beyond the fence.
A moment of acute panic floods me.
I recall Adam saying the quarry was private property, when we first met, what seems like a lifetime ago.
What if he’d also informed the owners of my accident, and they’ve since fixed the fence?
What if I can’t get through? I didn’t even think to bring wire-cutters.
I grimace, wishing I’d thought of this sooner.
Dad has a pair in the garage. I could have brought them.
I force myself on to find the wizened tree that marks the point where Jake and I usually push through the undergrowth to the fence. In our world, we’ve marked the tree with an “X” on its bark, but I’m confident I’ll know it regardless.
The undergrowth is thicker in this version of the wood, not having had me and Jake pushing through it for years, I guess.
It’s a struggle to get past the low shrubs and spiky branches to the fence.
The image of Kirk the hiker carrying my naked, unconscious body through the bushes jumps into my mind.
It must have been difficult getting me out through this terrain.
Eventually, I come face-to-face with the wire mesh fence. To my relief, the section we usually enter through is still unsecured.
So, Adam didn’t rat me out to the owners. Kind, sweet Adam. I hope he finds a wonderful woman to make him happy.
I scramble through the fence, careful not to catch my clothing on the jagged wire, and within moments, the landscape opens up to the quarry.
Our quarry. I am a bundle of nerves, and I really might throw up now.
I stop for a second, suck in a big breath, then exhale before I step out onto the gravelly ridge.
It’s now well past 9 a.m., and the sun is already warm. The water in the lake below me is the brightest turquoise I’ve ever seen it. It’s dazzling.
And it’s another perfect summer day in North Carolina.
A perfect day for a wedding.
Or to celebrate a proposal.
To jump off a cliff.
My heart begins to race again. What am I doing?
I climb the rocky ridge to its highest point.
The point where Jake always takes his running jump into the pool.
The point where I fell, both as an adult and as a child.
I remove all my clothes, deliberately folding them neatly, and laying them on the rock beside me, next to my purse.
I don’t need any of this now. Finally, I sit, cross-legged, on the cliff edge, and stare down into the water.
All I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears.
The flat rocks directly below me are both an invitation and a threat of what might be.
Life.
Death.
I close my eyes, feeling the sun on my face. One last meditation? I need to be calm when I do this, not on the verge of vomiting.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Maybe it’s twenty minutes, maybe close to an hour. It feels like an age. When my mind comes back into the world, and my pulse has slowed, I know it’s time.
But how do I do this?
I can’t take a running jump, I’d just land in the water and nothing would happen. And the rocks below are the key, I’m sure of it.
Dive onto them, head first?
That seems . . . painful. And potentially unpleasantly messy.
I clamber to my feet. I’m overthinking this. It has to be a fall, exactly like when I was twelve and almost died. And did die, in this world. And like the incident that brought me here.
I turn my back to the lake, and shuffle backward to the edge of the rock, where it meets the slippy rubble. It would be easy enough to fall accidentally. But this has to be intentional.
I’m telling the universe, all universes, that I want to go home.
I stretch my arms up to the glorious sun, then hold them out to each side. All it will take is a tiny lean back.
And trust.
I must trust in the universe to send me home.
I must trust I will see Jake and my family again.
I must trust I will survive.
I lean back, and in a moment I realize I am not afraid. The world is telling me: Let yourself go. I’ve got you.
I lean back further, further still, and gravity takes its course.
Time slows as I fall.
It slows enough for me to remember: Oh yeah. This is what it felt like last time.
It slows enough for me to smile up at the dazzling sun, warming my outstretched, naked body from above.
It slows enough for me to send my thanks to this universe for showing me what another life might be like, and how extraordinarily lucky I’ve been to have mine.
It slows enough to wish this world’s Jake Johnson a lifetime of happiness with his partner.
I close my eyes, and it’s my family’s faces I see, including sweet little Taylor.
I keep falling. I open my eyes and I’m in darkness, punctuated only by white speckles.
Bubbles? I go deep, deeper, deeper still.
I’m cold but not uncomfortable, suspended in the infinite dark.
The black water, if it is water, morphs into nothingness.
A massive void of space. The bubbles now tiny stars.
One star is brighter than the others, diamond bright, pulling me toward it.
The nothingness becomes a sudden whoosh of movement. I’m in the blackness of the void, but traveling at great speed.
Upward.
Outward.
Through.
I break the surface in a massive gasp of breath.
I’m wet, naked, on a warm rock, under dazzling light. The sun beats onto my skin.
I roll onto my back, suck in another lungful of air, and scream the only word my scrambled mind can process.
A call across universes for my lost love.