June, this year #2
I touch my forehead — I’d forgotten about the bruise. It’s probably turning darker by now. I look up at Chris. “I got in an accident.” My voice is small and weak.
He pulls me towards him in a gentle hug. “Oh, honey. Are you okay?”
I nod into his shoulder, and feel my body breaking down into sobs.
Once they start to come, I can’t stop them.
I’m shuddering against Chris’ chest, silently, tearlessly.
My knees buckle a little and he gently lowers me to the couch, still holding me.
That’s when the tears start. A torrent of tears, and an embarrassing amount of mucus, floods out of me.
He hands me tissue after tissue, keeping me close, his arm around my shoulder.
I weep for my terror and panic at how utterly wrong this world is. I weep for my lost friends, and my lost home.
And I weep for how carelessly I treated Chris when we were together. I was never in love with him, but he was a sweet guy who deserved way better.
I blow my nose one last time, and look up at him.
How on earth did I end up living with him, in this upside-down world?
We were in the vocal group at Northwestern together for three years, and we’d dated nearly a year before I ended things with him.
Things between us had been kind of awkward, after that, but he’d graduated a year before me so I never saw him again.
Clearly that wasn’t the course of events in this version of reality.
Chris is still holding me, kind and patient. He strokes my hair, and pulls back to look at my face. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asks, gently.
I blow out a big breath, and shake my head. “I ran off the road. I was . . . distracted by my phone, I guess, and didn’t realize I was swerving to the right. The car’s fine, I only ran into a big hedge, but I bumped my head on the wheel.”
I scan the living room. On each side of the fireplace is a set of shelving with books, potted plants, and framed photos. Mostly photos of the two of us, it seems, on various vacations. And is that—?
Chris interrupts my thoughts. “My sweet girl. I’m just glad you’re okay, and that you didn’t total the car.” He smiles, pats me on the leg, and rises from the couch. “You hungry? I can make you a plate.”
I nod, realizing it’s past eight and I still haven’t eaten dinner. The world in which I should be sitting on Bonnie’s lake-view deck, drinking wine and giving her the last spring roll, seems a million light years away.
Bonnie. What happened to her? Is she waiting for me? But no, she can’t be — at least, not at the Lake Bluff house, with that family there. Am I still friends with her in this weird reality?
And how did I end up living here, with Chris, of all people?
Chris brings me a plate of chicken, broccoli, and potato salad, and sits with me as I eat it greedily at the small dining table.
“Where did this accident happen?”
I swallow. “Just near the intersection before I got onto 94.” That’s true, at least. That highway runs all the way from near Lake Bluff to New Buffalo. He doesn’t need to know I was closer to the former when it happened.
Chris nods, absorbing this, a frown line between his brows. “And there was a hedge that stopped you? At your usual intersection? I can’t picture a hedge there at all.”
Crap. My story obviously has holes in it. “Uh, no. I’d taken a detour, so it wasn’t my usual route. That’s why I was distracted, I guess — asking Siri for the best way home.”
Chris examines my face, seeming to accept this. “Well, that’s a nasty bruise — it’s getting good and purple. I hope you don’t have any whiplash. How about I run you a bath after you finish dinner — soothe any aches and pains?”
I smile at him through another mouthful of chicken. He always was so thoughtful.
“That’d be great.” Maybe I can get him to give me some more clues about our life together first. I touch my sore forehead.
“I gotta admit, I’m feeling . . . weird.
Kind of headachey, and confused. After the accident, I couldn’t remember how to get here, and had to get Siri to direct me home.
I’m . . . not remembering a lot of stuff. ”
“Shit, Millie,” Chris replies, his nose crinkled in concern. “Maybe you have a worse head injury than it seems. We should get you checked out.”
Hospital is the last thing I want right now. I’d end up getting admitted to a psych unit.
“I’m sure I’m fine,” I reply, hurriedly. “Just feeling a bit shaken and mixed up.” I pause as an idea strikes me. “I know what will make me feel better. Why don’t you tell me the story of how we decided to live together, from your perspective?” I take another bite of dinner, trying to act casual.
Chris pulls his mouth down at the corners, clearly skeptical.
“Oh-kay,” he replies slowly. “From my perspective . . . yeah, I guess that could be slightly different from your memories. Sure.” He looks above my head, perhaps at the photos on the shelves behind me.
“Well, I guess after our off-and-on relationship at Northwestern, and then with you being in Asia for so long after that—”
What? I’ve never been to Asia.
“—I wanted to give you the security you’d never really had at home, right? So when you got that job at Magnolia, and seemed to be settling back into Chicago, and we got back together, it just made sense that we’d live together. I mean, you didn’t really even know anyone else in the city anymore.”
I didn’t know anybody? What about Bonnie, and Ben?
My mind jumps back to the navy-cased cellphone. Their numbers weren’t in it. Seems like I’m really not friends with them in this version of reality.
“I guess you needed me, and I still loved you,” Chris continues.
“I was just so happy, living with you in our first place downtown. And then when we saved for this place, you were so excited to be living on the marina — and you were getting, I guess, the stability that you hadn’t had growing up.
It’s made me so happy to give that to you.
” He smiles at me as I scrape my plate. “Is that any different than how you remember it?” He rises, holding his hand out for my dish, eyes shining and full of love.
“Uh, no,” I lie. “That’s about it.”
Only my job at the agency, Magnolia, is the same — and that through sheer coincidence, probably. Everything else is different. Everything.