When You and I Collide

by Kate Norris

  “James couldn’t have been okay with what Hawthorn was doing to him,” Scott said. “So why did he let him?”

  Scott was looking at her so intensely that Winnie suddenly realized he didn’t mean the question rhetorically.

  She had the answer, but it wasn’t packaged up all pretty. There were no words she could share with Scott that would actually help him understand.

  James let Hawthorn do his work for the same reasons she allowed Father.

  It was that look on Father’s face when he offered up some new suffering for Winnie to endure—brandishing it like a dare—and she accepted without hesitation. Just a little flash of pride. It didn’t matter that he didn’t say “that’s my girl.” Because in those moments, Winnie knew he felt it.

  It was looking at her classmates, and knowing that she might never be shiny and smiley and normal like they were, but she had this deeper purpose, this secret, and that made her life fuller and more mysterious than they could ever imagine.

  It was feeling important, being important. And if you’re vital to someone, isn’t that love? How do you give all that up once you’ve tasted it? You don’t. Even if it comes with a side of abuse. Not if you’re so hungry for approval it feels like you’ll never be full.

  Her Scott, he would understand why James endured Hawthorn. She didn’t know if this Scott could. It had been naïve of her to think the two of them were identical. It’s amazing, the things we’ll believe when we’re desperate for them to be true.

  She looked away and shrugged.

  “Does it really matter why?”

  Scott looked like he was going to argue, but then he pressed his lips together in a tight line and nodded twice.

  “I want to make Hawthorn pay.”

  He barely sounded like himself.

  “I do too,” Winnie said. “But I don’t think we can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Winnie’s stomach was a tangle of nerves as soon as she and Scott got back to his apartment. She’d been alone there with him several times now, but it was different knowing that this time she was spending the night. The circumstances couldn’t be less romantic, but she still found herself wondering what Scott’s night would have been like if it had gone as planned, instead of taking its dark turn—if they hadn’t just come from the morgue, and if she were his Winnie instead of herself.

  Scott was holding himself together. He didn’t look like he was about to collapse sobbing. But that was just as painful to watch, in its own way. He took off his jacket and hung it up. He helped Winnie with her coat. There was a stiffness to his movements that spoke of extreme restraint. She wished he didn’t feel like he had to put on a brave face in front of her.

  Beta would know what to say. Winnie was useless.

  “We need to stage our experiment soon,” she said abruptly. “Me being here just makes a bad situation worse.”

  “Yeah,” Scott agreed with a nod.

  She didn’t blame him for agreeing, but it still hurt to hear.

  Winnie wondered what would happen to the time the two of them had shared, once it ended? Would it be meaningless then? Was it meaningless to him now?

  She sunk down on Scott’s tired old sofa. The worn floral upholstery was rough against her hands.

  Scott sat down next to her. Some things, you don’t have to touch to feel. Magnets. Heat. Winnie felt Scott across those inches of air between them. She wanted him to touch her. What was wrong with her, that she could want that right then?

  “I can’t believe James is gone,” he said, and shook his head angrily. “We have to get you home before Hawthorn realizes who you are.”

  Winnie grimaced. She hated to worry him more, but she had to tell him about her conversation with Hawthorn.

  “I messed up, Scott,” Winnie said. She couldn’t look at him. “I didn’t realize that Hawthorn and I don’t know each other by sight here. So, I approached him in the lobby—I thought it would look stranger not to. But I don’t think he believed the reason I came up with for recognizing him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That I went to a lecture with you one time, and you pointed him out.”

  Scott winced. “Yeah. I always go with James . . . and Hawthorn reserves us seats with the faculty.”

  “Oh.” She figured she had messed up, but it hadn’t occurred to her that such an innocuous-seeming lie would be so obviously untrue. “I should have just stayed quiet.”

  “You couldn’t have known. Maybe he’ll forget about it, with so much else going on . . .” Scott trailed off with a shrug.

  “Maybe,” said Winnie. But something told her that Hawthorn wouldn’t forget her lie—that he would worry that mystery like a dog with a bone until it was picked clean. “Or maybe he’ll connect it with the description he received from the library.”

  Scott nodded. “Maybe. Regardless, we need to get you back home. Winnie still thinks we should attempt our experiment tomorrow night, and I agree. She told me the location she found while we were the phone: your school gymnasium. What do you think?”

  Winnie considered for a moment. The gym had tons of open space, no windows to show any suspicious lights, and a large surrounding yard to buffer any sound from reaching the street.

  “I think it’ll work.”

  But would their experiment? Winnie knew all too well how dangerous these things could be. If she died, like Scott had, would that at least restore the balance to this world? Or would the rest of them be left to fix it alone? She considered telling Scott that if she did die, he should dispose of her body by transporting it out of their world however Project Nightingale sent matter during their experiments, but decided against it. She was sure his thoughts were dark enough without her adding to his concerns.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do if this experiment fails,” he said. The nerves in his voice were raw.

  How many times had Scott reassured her, both in her own world and here? She should have some kind of comfort for him—about their experiment, about James—but she had nothing.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I suppose we should try to get some sleep.”

  Winnie glanced down at her outfit: a pleated wool skirt, a button-up shirt, a cardigan, stockings, a slip.

  “Do you have some pajamas I could change into?”

  Scott bit his lip. “I’ve only got one pair, unfortunately,” he said. “I mean, you can have them, of course—”

  “I suppose I could sleep in my slip.”

  Winnie felt shy despite the absurdity of it. Scott had just identified his best friend’s body, and Winnie had made a terrible misstep with that friend’s killer. With all the grief and worry she and Scott carried between them, what did it matter if he saw her in her slip?

  Winnie went into the tiny bathroom to change. She took off her clothing, slip, stockings, and brassiere, then pulled her slip back on. It was Beta’s, so of course it was beautiful—blush peach satin, trimmed in ivory lace—not utilitarian like the ones in Winnie’s dresser at home. She glanced at herself in the medicine cabinet mirror and decided that no, she couldn’t walk out there like that, and put her cardigan back on so she would be at least somewhat covered.

  Scott had pulled down the Murphy bed, and he stood next to it wearing a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants and an undershirt.

  Seeing him in his nightclothes felt unnervingly intimate.

  “Here. You take the bed,” Scott said with a briskness that didn’t quite succeed at covering his nerves. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  Winnie gave the couch—a loveseat, really—a doubtful look; it wasn’t even long enough for her to stretch out on, much less Scott.

  “No, I’m smaller. I can sleep there, and you take the bed.”

  “Winnie, I’m not going to take the bed.” He smiled faintly. “What kind of host would I be? It’s a terrible sofa
.”

  She knew she wouldn’t win this argument—Scott was too much of a gentleman.

  Winnie climbed into his creaky bed, and Scott lay down on the couch and turned off the table lamp, plunging them into sudden darkness. Winnie shifted around, trying to get comfortable. She could hear the small movements of Scott trying to do the same on the sofa. She folded his thin pillow for a bit more support under her neck, and finally lay still.

  It was quiet except for the sound of Scott breathing.

  “You know,” he said softly from across the room, “I believed you—but I didn’t really believe you. Not like I should have. I didn’t think Hawthorn was this much of a danger, even after James told us about the experiments. Hawthorn cared about James! But that didn’t stop him. I don’t get it. How do you do something like that to someone you care about? I guess you would understand that sort of thing better than I can.”

  He meant because of what she’d told him about Father. Because of the things he put her through, even though he loved her.

  Winnie supposed she “understood” like Scott “believed”—she did, and she didn’t.

  But that was too much to try to explain, lying there in the dark.

  “I guess so,” she agreed.

  “But if that’s the kind of thing Hawthorn will let happen to someone he cares about—Winnie, I will never let him get his hands on you. I promise. Never.”

  Winnie was so touched by this promise that tears sprang to her eyes.

  This was a promise he was making to her—not to his girlfriend’s doppelgänger—and she clung to it.

  Winnie knew Scott’s promise wouldn’t keep her safe, but knowing he wanted to, and that he would try—knowing he believed her, at last, about the danger—it was like sitting down by a fire after being cold for so long that she’d forgotten what it meant to be warm.

  She marveled again at the sort of wonderful Scott was; even through his grief, his first thought was helping someone else.

  The pillow under her head smelled like him. His soap, his aftershave—it was almost like he was there in bed with her. And in her heart, she was holding him tight.

  “I’m going to miss him so much,” Scott said suddenly. “I keep thinking that, over and over—but I don’t really feel it. I don’t even know what it means. How can James be gone forever?” Scott repeated that word—“forever”—like he was sounding something out in a foreign language.

  Winnie knew that no matter how much time passed, it would never make sense that the people we loved could be gone forever. Scott could turn it over and turn it over in his mind and get no closer to understanding. Winnie never had.

  That was why people believed in things like being reunited with the dead in heaven—to give themselves some relief from that unfathomable forever.

  Winnie wished she shared that belief, but she didn’t.

  Mama was gone, forever.

  James was gone, forever.

  “I don’t know what any of it means,” Winnie said. “But I hate it. I hate it so much.”

  “Me too,” he whispered.

  In the silence between them, Winnie’s worries took over. What would things be like if she was able to return home? If Scott was okay, could he ever forgive her for causing the accident? And if she did succeed in getting back home, did that mean this Scott would be gone forever? That thought made her sad, but she knew the thing that mattered most now was making sure their experiment worked.

  Even if it weren’t for Hawthorn, she had to go home. She felt it more the more time passed, especially when she was still, and it was quiet: this feeling of dread. A silent reverberation, some kind of vibration she had set off when she came there, waves radiating through she didn’t know what—through the ether, through something—that were waiting to strike the right material so they could sound.

  She dreaded what noise they might make.

  Winnie slept restlessly, but she did sleep. Each time she stirred, she was calmed by the rhythmic sound of Scott’s deep, even breaths.

  She wondered what he dreamt about—if he was dreaming.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Winnie woke up, Scott was already dressed and heading out the door.

  “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

  She didn’t know why this felt like such a betrayal—she guessed she just didn’t want to be alone.

  “I’m going to the lab for a little while,” he answered.

  “But Hawthorn will be there!”

  “Probably. But it would be strange for me to try to avoid him. The last thing I want is for Hawthorn to think I’m suspicious. Besides, I need to stay busy. And I can use the phone there. I know the police probably talked to them already, but I should call James’s parents.”

  Scott looked so lost, and Winnie felt guilty for resenting him for leaving her alone. This was bigger than her.

  He shook his head and continued. “I don’t know what I’ll say to them, but it feels like the right thing to do. And I want to stop by James’s apartment—he keeps a key under the mat—and see if there’s anything . . .” He trailed off.

  “Like some sign of what happened to him?”

  Scott shrugged. “Or just things he’d rather his parents not find.”

  Winnie hesitated a moment, but she wanted Scott to know he didn’t need to skirt around James’s sexuality for her sake—she already knew. “Like a letter from a boyfriend?” she asked gently.

  He gave her a surprised glance, then nodded. “I mean, it wasn’t a secret—James was terrible at keeping secrets.” Scott frowned. “Although I guess in the end, he was better than I thought. But his parents . . . it was a point of contention between them. And James—he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t want them to be even more upset during all this, even if it’s something they shouldn’t be upset about.”

  This gave Winnie an even stronger idea of the sort of person James was. It made sense that he and Scott would be friends.

  “I wish I could have gotten to know him,” she said.

  Scott’s mouth quirked into a sad half smile. “Yeah. Me too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Winnie figured that while Scott was away, she could keep herself busy by reviewing their experiment design. She gave the plans a careful read and double-checked their calculations. Everything seemed sound, but that couldn’t set her mind at ease. Was Scott in the Nightingale lab with Hawthorn at that very moment? What if Hawthorn discovered what they were up to—when would Winnie even find out that everything had gone wrong? She hated being the helpless one, stuck home waiting. This was what her double must have felt like the night before. It was awful.

  Winnie glanced at the small clock on Scott’s side table. It was—eight thirty! How was that possible? Scott had been gone for a few hours at least, and the sun had been up when he left. She noticed the second hand was moving far too slowly, much to her relief. The clock batteries must be dying. Winnie walked over to the window and threw back the curtains to try to see if she could guess the true time from the sun.

  She frowned. The sun was still too close to the horizon to be visible past the other buildings on the street. Could she really have gotten the time that wrong?

  No. There was no way Scott hadn’t been gone for hours. Her stomach told her it was nearly lunch. Bodies are clocks too, albeit imperfect ones.

  What initially had just seemed odd began to feel frightening.

  What was going on? Had time slowed down?

  Winnie picked up the little table clock. She shook it—as if that could do anything! It continued to tick . . . tock . . . at a painfully leisurely pace. Winnie’s own heart was beating frantically. She felt like she was losing her mind. Her breath came quicker and quicker—

  Tick . . .

  . . . tock . . .

  She raised the
clock above her head to smash it, but before she could throw it to the floor, Winnie noticed the sun.

  She could see it in the sky now, above the buildings across the street, rising unnaturally fast.

  To her horror, Winnie realized the hands of the clock had sped up too. The second hand now spun around the face, and the minute and hour hands sped up in turn. Hours were flying by in a few breaths.

  Church bells began to ring down the street. Winnie counted the peals. Twelve. Noon. The hands of the clock rested at the top of the face, then began to tick at a normal pace.

  Winnie set the clock back down as though it were an armed bomb. Her hands were trembling.

  Gravity, tides, and now time itself.

  Something was very wrong in their world, and Winnie was pretty sure she knew what it was.

  Her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Scott came through the door a little after eight o’clock that evening, right when Winnie was starting to fear he never would, and wondering what on earth she’d do then.

  “What is going on?” she asked quickly.

  Scott looked at her funny. “What do you mean?”

  She explained what had happened that morning—that time had slowed down, then abruptly sped up.

  “You didn’t notice anything? Really?”

  Scott bit his lip and furrowed his brow.

  “I guess I felt like something was off, but I thought I was just out of it, because of last night . . . I figured I had just sort of lost time. A lot of time. I got to the lab, settled in at one of the workbenches, and it felt like I blinked and all of a sudden it was noon.”

  “Do you think anyone else noticed?”

  “A couple people made jokes about how they barely got anything done this morning, but I don’t know if . . .” Scott trailed off, then shrugged. “Are you sure it didn’t just feel slow at first because you were here all day waiting?”