Chapter 12
Bridger stayed mostly quiet as Vega led them through the unfamiliar streets of Rome.
She hadn’t gone many places without Chase at her side, but Vega had paid attention and always tried to take a new way home from therapy. She’d done enough research over the last few weeks, attempting to learn her surroundings and the layout of the city without actually being able to explore.
Rome was statistically a safe city, but anyone could find trouble if they went looking for it, and it seemed there were a few neighborhoods on the outskirts where Vega might be able to score a cheap room and a passport in the same night.
How am I gonna pull this off?
The silence between them gave her plenty of time to plan what came next. Could the portal really be the curse holding her here? Warmth spread through her chest, like her body was trying to give her a sign. Vega secretly worried it was false hope clouding her better judgement.
Bridger eyeballed everything as they descended the stairs to the metro. Vega spared a few glances at him, wondering if this is what she looked like without her memories when she got back to Tolevarre.
A little lost… but slightly amazed at all the unfamiliar and exciting things.
Vega felt like she was merely a passenger in her own body, watching it go about its day.
She floated onto the train when it approached the platform, chose two seats in the corner, and finally slammed back into herself when the train lurched forward.
She reached out to steady herself, not paying attention to where her hand landed.
Vega’s vision cleared to see her fingers digging into Bridger’s thigh. Her eyes trailed up his body, catching his dark gaze.
“Ow,” he said calmly.
She snatched her hand to her lap. “Sorry.”
Bridger bit his lip to stifle a laugh.
Vega sank as far away from him as she could. Why am I acting so weird? So what, you fucked him and were in a relationship for seventeen years and then he betrayed you? Get over it. You hate him now. Touching him wasn’t a big deal, and the feeling she thought she got when their skin met wasn’t real.
That’s what she told herself as she glanced over to find him still staring. “What?” she asked, glowering. She hated the rush of self consciousness washing over her.
“You said earlier Chase is the least problematic of all the men from these lives…” Bridger trailed off, waiting for her to respond.
Vega nodded once, unsure where he was going with this.
“You’ve been through a lot more than anyone knows in these lives, haven’t you?” Bridger’s question freed a piece of Vega, one she hadn’t known was locked away.
Most people wanted to pretend these lives weren’t real, that Vega hadn’t lived them.
It was easy to ignore the impact they had when they got written off as a product of the curse…
but it wasn’t. To them it might be, but to Vega?
All of this, every single person she’d been, every life she’d lived, added up, making her the version of herself she was today.
“So much more,” Vega admitted. “It’s impossible to be the girl I was before all this started.”
The train squealed, rattling through the dark tunnels, but Bridger didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything but her.
Vega felt the heat in his stare.
“Tell me something real,” Bridger said softly.
Vega eyed him, his expression surprised, like the question hadn’t been one he planned to ask. Bridger had caught them both off guard.
If they were going to be allies, if they were going to figure out how to work together again, she had to learn to open up—to give him what he needed to feel… needed.
That was all he’d ever wanted. To feel needed.
His dad had treated him like a nuisance. His mom never truly loved him. And when Vega lost herself in all this for a long time, she wasn’t there to love him like she should—like she had.
Marlena made him feel like he was needed. Tolevarre needed him.
Vega’s anger towards him simmered, the waters between them calm for now.
Going against what she’d told him in the cafe, she looked up at the train’s ceiling, searching for the right story to tell.
“Chase’s attack today was child’s play compared to what other men have done to me.
” Vega tried to look at anything but Bridger, but the lure of his full attention on her won.
“These memories, these lives, make me who I am today. During my tenth life, I was homeless almost the entire time after getting kicked out by the man I’d been dating.
I couch-hopped for as long as I could, but eventually everyone got sick of me overstaying my welcome. ”
Vega nibbled at the inside of her lip, pausing to hold herself together.
“I got really good at telling people what they wanted to hear and learned most people just needed a good sob story.” She fiddled with her thumbs.
Vega was unable to make eye contact with Bridger, let alone anyone, while talking about this next part.
“I lied. A lot… and I got really, really good at it. Lying and crawling into beds with strangers, whether they were good or bad, was better than sleeping on the streets where even worse things happen to you.”
Bridger didn’t interrupt, and Vega didn’t stop talking.
“I wanted to die a bunch in that life. I think it might have been my worst. Not caring whether you live or die”—those words took Vega back to Lake Vehemens, when she drove a knife through Bridger’s heart—“typically means you make all the wrong decisions. Because the worst that’s gonna happen is you die, right?
” She finally looked up at him again. “I did so many drugs.” She laughed a humorless sound.
Laughing in the face of her demons felt like the only way she’d ever heal from them.
“I guess what I’m getting at is these lives translated into who I was when I finally got back to Tolevarre.
I’m sure you didn’t keep track of them but I did.
I have. All twenty-one of them.” Clearing her throat, she continued on.
“It was the life after you joined Marlena. I didn’t get my memories back in that one, but they told me you’d left me.
Although I didn’t know who you were, the idea that even in a life and world where I belonged, the person I loved still gave up on me, meant I could never stand a chance. In any life.”
Bridger hadn’t moved an inch since Vega started talking. Only the movement of his rising chest and blinking eyes told her he was alive and listening.
Vega hoped this truth ate at him a little.
“I could have stopped the guard who snuck into my bed and did things to me I’ll never talk about before killing me…
” Vega shoved the recent memory of seeing him again away, promising herself she wouldn’t let the feel of his hands on her be what she remembered.
“But I didn’t because I didn’t want to. I wanted to die.
Especially when I made it to a world where I was supposed to belong and felt nothing but violated and alone.
” A lone tear slipped from Vega’s waterline, but she quickly wiped it away with the bottom of her palm.
Do not break down now. Bridger’s words had followed her through every life, with or without him.
Vega’s voice didn’t waver, didn’t falter.
“This is real. I’m real. I lived through the darkest moments of my life. Alone.”
It wasn’t sadness in her tone.
It was anger.
Rage.
The train’s brakes started to squeak as they approached their stop.
The muscles in Bridger’s jaw ticked, giving away the emotion he tried to hide.
“Everyone expects me to be the same girl I was when all this started, but I can’t be. She died and so did all the others—but this new me, the one made from the lives of them… she’s the one with the upper hand.”
Bridger had lost most of his color when the train came to a complete stop.
“She’s the one who’s been tortured and stripped of everything that makes her who she is. She’s the one who’s stared death in the face so many times it no longer scares her.”
The doors opened, and people began to file out of the train.
“I won’t let all those things my past selves went through be for nothing.”
After pulling out as much as the ATM would allow, Vega moved to the next bullet point on her list of worries: figuring out where Bridger could crash while she worked out how to go about getting a fake passport.
Bridger couldn’t stay with her, and Vega couldn’t stay with him. She’d have to go back to Chase tonight, if for nothing more than to make sure he wasn’t going to become another issue for her to deal with.
Vega was starting to feel discouraged after being denied by two sketchy looking hotels.
When the third sent them away, she was ready to shed some real tears…
until the young woman running a hostel check-in desk fell for Vega’s rehearsed sob story about their travel documents being stolen and needing a place to stay until the U.S Embassy opened on Monday morning.
Vega handed over cash in exchange for the key to a private room with one bed and access to a communal bathroom down the hall.
Once inside, Bridger plopped down on the bed, groaning as he closed his eyes and positioned his hands behind his head.
Vega sat on the edge, releasing a breath she had probably been holding since the train. “If you want to get some sleep, go for it. I’m going to head to the common room and see what information I can find about the locals in the area.”
Hostels were usually full of people passing through with limited travel funds, but Vega also knew they were where some people went when they needed time to figure out what came next.
“I’d rather not sleep just yet,” Bridger responded, opening his eyes and rolling to his side.
The honesty behind his words stopped Vega from getting off the bed. She could see how exhausted he looked. How long had it been since he’d gotten a full night's sleep? “The dreams?” she asked quietly.
Bridger nodded, and as much as Vega wanted to pry, she didn’t. It wasn’t her business.
I don’t want to feel bad for him.
She forced herself to stand. If she had to remember everything he’d done, then so did he. “Okay, well, I don’t know if having you come with me to make friends is going to help. No offense, you kinda give undercover cop vibes.”
Vega then spent at least five minutes explaining what an undercover cop was. This had to be how her friends felt when she asked a million questions before getting her memories back… for fifty-five years.
At least they like me. I can’t stand him.
The common room was abuzz with life. A few people watched the nightly world news on an old TV while a larger group sat in a circle on the floor playing a card game.
Some were off in their own corners, reading or playing on phones.
A group of four got riled up by the pool table, laughing at someone’s unfortunate loss.
A young man reading in the corner by himself caught Vega’s eye. Or rather, the book did.
Alice in Wonderland. The only book she’d ever read for fun.
It was her favorite in almost every life. A girl who falls through a portal and a rabbit who always feels like he’s running out of time?
She could relate.
Most wouldn’t waste their time on the quiet guy in the corner, but Vega knew it was usually the people observing who knew how to find what they were looking for.
Before Vega knew it, she was outside by the hostel’s back door, a joint being passed around the small circle. Everyone talked of their travels and where they were headed next.
The girl with the pink hair was headed to Prague.
The man with the pierced lip hoped to end up in Germany.
The twins said they were going to South Asia.
The boy with the book said he wasn’t sure where he’d end up next.
Vega told them a half-truth about going home to California.
While everyone in the circle might be a misfit in their own right, none of them were the type of person Vega was looking for.
Vega passed the joint without taking a hit. As badly as she wanted to forget her problems, if only for a few hours, those hours weren’t ones she was willing to waste.
Eventually, everyone got cold and decided to head back inside. The boy with the book held the door and looked back at her. “You coming?”
She shook her head. “I think I’m gonna stay out here for a little longer, but it was really nice meeting you. Enjoy Rome.” He gave her a friendly wave and dipped inside.
Vega slid down the side of the building and wrapped her arms around her knees. Resting her head on the brick wall, Vega looked up at the night sky. It was too bright to see stars, but the crisp air made the deep-blue sky shine from all the lights.
Vega closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “How the hell am I going to do this?” she asked herself out loud.
I could really use Arlet’s brain right about now. She always knew how to get them home, but this time Vega hadn’t been reset to a life on the same continent as the portal.
Had the curse brought her to where the gods once roamed for a reason? Was Rome a clue she was overlooking?
Rome was where Romulus wanted the capital.
Romulus and Remus couldn’t agree where to put it, a disagreement Romulus plotted to kill his brother over.
Remus found out about the plan and couldn’t stop it from happening, so instead, he bound himself to the gods.
When he died, they died, their powers dispersing amongst their people to create Tolevarre.
Romulus never got to see Rome rise… or fall.
Vega hadn’t heard anyone approaching over the torrent of history she recited until someone spoke.
“This looks like some therapy session.”