Me and Me

by Alice Kuipers

  Nifty laughs. “You are most definitely doing that.”

  He puts an arm around her, and we stroll out into the freezing night.

  As the three of us walk toward my house, I say, “So, Nifty, what’s going on with you and Cole? I haven’t heard anything since your supper.”

  “Did she give you advice?” Lucy asks. “Never, ever listen to her advice.”

  Nifty says, “His parents loved me.”

  “Really?’

  “Well, they didn’t hate me. Cole and I are, perhaps, working on it.” He pumps his pelvis.

  “Good,” I say. “I think.”

  “Oh, it’s gooooood,” says Nifty.

  “I get it, thanks. Is he coming to the show?” I ask.

  Nifty shrugs and looks at Lucy. In the streetlight, I make out his expression. It’s half eye-roll, half smile. “She’s obsessed. The show, the show, the show.”

  “Aren’t you?” I ask.

  We arrive at my house and go up the back steps. The lights are out. I panic—there’s no way Dad is well enough to be out anywhere. I text him five times.

  Dad:

  Just went for a walk.

  Relax. I’m okay.

  I follow the others to the den. Nifty picks a movie. About half an hour into it, Dad sticks his head around the door. “You kids okay?”

  “Where were you?”

  He doesn’t answer. “Lucy, is that magnificent beast in the mud room something to do with you?”

  She beams. “That, Vince, is my coat.”

  “Fantastic,” he says. “I was out, my lovely Lark.”

  “Dad, have you been drinking? You said you went for a walk.”

  He winks. “Maybe a glass or two. Now, enough questions. This old man needs to go to bed.”

  “What about your heart?”

  “Really, it was only a glass and a half. Don’t worry, baby. I’m just”—he grins again—“in a good mood. Night.” And with that, he’s gone back upstairs.

  I look at my friends. “What was that about?”

  “I might not be the only one having a gooood time,” Nifty says.

  I throw a pillow at him. “Ew. He’s only just got out of hospital. He’s not having sex, Nifty. Gross.”

  We turn our attention back to the movie, and I realize I haven’t thought about anything except the present moment for hours.

  Day 38: dawn

  I roll over in bed and check my cell.

  M. Fields:

  I’ll be there on the 31st.

  Listened to your band online.

  Been meaning to.

  You guys are good.

  I mean that.

  Lark:

  Thanks!

  M. Fields:

  See you v soon.

  It’s horribly early, but there’s no way I can go back to sleep after reading that. I haul myself out of bed, push aside a pile of clothes and slip on a black shirt-dress that I belt with a checked scarf. I read over the song lyrics I’ve been working on.

  A moment in pieces

  Take a shard of me

  Look deeply inside for remnants

  of how we used to be

  Part the water, slide in a ripple

  Find yourself in time

  Find me.

  A tiny sliver enters

  Turns my heart to ice

  Shows me the way our life could be

  Could be

  Part the water, slide in a ripple

  Find yourself in time

  Find me.

  I’m Gretel in a picture book

  And you’re leaving me

  If I turn the pages, I sense

  We could live a different story

  Part the water, slide in a ripple

  Find yourself in time

  Find me.

  A thousand hours in a moment

  A million lifetimes that could have been

  If I’d stayed dressed on the shore

  Made you see the way back to me

  The screwed up life of you and me.

  The reflective shattered pieces

  Show me the way our life could be

  Part the water, slide in a ripple

  Find yourself in time

  Find me

  Find me

  Find me.

  I reread the line about Gretel. I check online and realize that I’m talking about the wrong fairytale. It’s the story of the Snow Queen that has a character with a shard of glass entering her heart, turning it to ice. I sing it out loud anyway, to see if it matters, but I decide the whole verse is messy. I rework it.

  I look at my Tak. I want to take it down and try the song with it. I might be able to figure out the messed-up verse. My hands shake slightly. Instead I pull out Iona’s guitar and spend an hour with the melody I worked out with Nifty. We’ve been sending each other stuff, and the song is really coming together. The verse remains all wrong, but I decide not to worry about it. I play it again and find myself changing a note here and there.

  Eventually my body demands caffeine. Before I leave my room, I mark another day on the calendar I have for Alec. He has only six days before the machines are turned off. Six pathetic days, and if only I’d saved him, he might be here now instead.

  I check on Dad, but he’s already up, and when I get to the kitchen, he’s made coffee. I perch on the counter stool and take a cup gratefully. I stir in three sugars, and Dad clucks his tongue in disapproval.

  I show him the text from Martin, and he punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Your mom would be so proud.”

  “Thanks.”

  He pulls lightly on his bottom lip. “So, yeah, I’ve been thinking.”

  “What? This sounds serious. Thinking’s bad for the brain, remember?”

  He ruffles my hair, and I immediately smooth it.

  “I—uh—maybe met someone . . .”

  “Okay . . . Where?”

  “She’s a volunteer at the hospital.”

  I ease off the stool to hug him. “That’s great, Dad. Really great. What’s her name?”

  “Alyssa. She’s . . . she’s nice. But I’m doing it for you,” he says. “You don’t want to be looking after your old dad anymore.”

  “Ah, so you’re looking for a nurse? Not a date?”

  “Cheeky.” He grins. “Though I probably should make it clear to her that I’m not looking for a nurse. She’s actually a teacher. She spends Saturdays at the hospital . . .” He finishes his coffee and goes to wash out the cup in the sink.

  I sip my hot, sugary coffee.

  Suddenly his shoulders hunch, as if he’s in pain.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” I ask. “What did you eat for breakfast?”

  “See?” he says, brushing off my concern, turning to face me and smiling. “I definitely need a girlfriend, not a daughter who’s turning into my mother.” He waves and ducks out the door.

  I call after him, “You need to eat!”

  Reid:

  Wanna ride to school?

  Lark:

  Sure.

  Lucy:

  You awake?

  Lark:

  Been up forever.

  Lucy:

  Wanna get me eight tickets for the show?

  Lark:

  Eight? Sweet.

  Lucy:

  My cousins are coming to town.

  And parents want to come. Okay?

  Lark:

  Come over.

  Reid giving me a ride.

  Lucy:

  I bet he is.

  Lark:

  Ewww! Nasty.

  Lucy:

  I don’t know.

  He’s pretty cute.

  Lark:

  Catch the bus then.

  Lucy:

  On my way.

  Ten minutes later, both Lucy and Reid show up at my house. Lucy’s wearing her multicoloured sheep coat, and her hair is bright green.

  “Coffee?” I offer.

  Both shake their heads. Lucy says, “That stuff is tar. I�
��ve had a kale smoothie today.” She dances her head atop her shoulders. “My body is a temple, remember.”

  “Right. And your hair,” I say, “hasn’t got a single chemical in it.”

  “Whereas yours,” she says, pointing at my fading red, “is needing some chemicals now.” She fluffs a few bright green strands. “Iona came over and persuaded me it was a good idea.”

  “It looks, um, good.”

  Outside, Reid gets in the car, and I join him in the front. Lucy stands outside the car and answers her cell while finishing a clove cigarette.

  Before she gets in, Reid turns to me. “Larkette, have you had any other . . . you know?”

  “You’re doing that thing again. Where you don’t make any sense at all. What are you talking about?” But I feel myself unpeeling.

  He lets out a big sigh. “You know, what you told me happened to you at Fields’ Studios? I know you styled it out in front of Mr. Fields, but you were completely white-faced . . . I just wondered if it happened again.”

  “All fine here. No more seeing a hospital room and water seeping in—” My voice breaks. “But the messages—I keep thinking about them.”

  Lucy slumps in the back in a cloud of clove cigarette aroma and picks up the tail end of what I’ve said. “I’ve been thinking about déjà vu and what you said. Déjà vu isn’t quite right. Have you thought about parallel lives? They happen all the time!”

  “No, they don’t,” Reid says.

  “Anyway, I’m probably talking more about ‘infinity points,’” Lucy says. “That’s the place where parallel lines meet.”

  Reid lets out a small grunt of frustration. “Parallel lines don’t meet.”

  Lucy tuts and keeps speaking. “Let’s say the infinity point is at the lake. You had to make one of two choices, right? So you split in two.”

  “Guys, guys, this is all crazy. I’m just stressed after what happened at the lake and trying to focus on our show.”

  Reid stops the car for a red light.

  “I think the lake is key—I think that’s where it all goes back to. The number two means duality,” Lucy says. “It represents your soul number. Your divinity.” She checks her cell and reads. “If you’re open to receiving the message, angels will guide you.”

  “Where do you get this from?” I’m struggling to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “All numbers are mystical,” Lucy replies. “You’re split into two lives. Two means something. It’s a divine thing.”

  Reid parks his car. “You’re saying that Lark is looking for angels.”

  “Stop it, guys.”

  “I’m worried.” Reid leans back in his seat. “Lucy, I don’t think this is helpful.”

  “If you want to go between the lives—I mean, to talk to your split self—I think you need to figure out the portal. That’s all.”

  “Portal to what?” My brain is hurting. Much as I hate to admit it, there is something about what she is saying that makes sense—much more sense than any of the other rationalizations I’ve had about the messages and the hallucinations. What if all of it is real?

  “To the other life.” She opens the car door but stays in her seat.

  “Okay, just for the sake of argument or whatever, let’s say you’re right—but I don’t want to be living some other life. I want to live this one. Even if I figured out the portal, why would I want to go to the other life? I could just ignore the messages.”

  “And the hallucinations? Didn’t you say the one at Fields’ Studios was stronger than the one before?” Reid glances in the rear-view mirror. He’s about to say something else, it seems, but Lucy interrupts.

  “What if they’re getting more powerful? Why would that be?” Lucy asks.

  I rub my forehead. “Maybe the other life is pulling me in. Maybe I don’t actually want to live this life. I mean, no offence, guys, but I’m not having a lot of fun right now.” I am only half joking.

  “Perhaps Alec is the portal? You could go see him. Like research,” Lucy says. She pauses, seeming to search for the right words. “Alec’s parents are . . . turning off his support machines, right? In how many days?”

  “Six.” I close my eyes for a moment. I can’t believe he’s going to die. I can picture his eyes when we were in the canoe, full of light and life, and now this. My stomach lurches.

  “In six days he dies. That’s a bad thing.”

  “Of course it’s a bad thing!” I yell, choking up again.

  “No, I mean, for your parallel lives. That’ll be the end of it—I don’t think one can end without it impacting the other one, if he’s the portal . . .”

  “Why not?”

  “This is insane, guys.” Reid stares ahead out of the front window.

  I’m busy checking my phone for visiting hours. “Well, that solves that,” I say. I read out the notice displayed on the hospital website. “‘VISITORS RESTRICTED—After a surge in respiratory illnesses, the health region is restricting visitors to the Pediatric and Pediatric Intensive Care Wards to PARENTS ONLY.’”

  “He’s in Pediatrics?” Lucy asks.

  “Until his birthday,” I reply. “He’s got his own room there. Remember, we saw his mom, when my dad was in the hospital.”

  She shrugs. “The universe will figure it all out. We should just go to school and get on with the day.”

  Reid frowns. “Larkette—I’m actually worried about you . . .”

  “This whole conversation is probably going to go down in our collective history as one of our wackiest,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’m glad you’re here with me now.” Lucy gets out of the car and hip-checks me. “I mean, in this life.”

  Reid comes up alongside me. “I am too,” he says. “But this parallel lives stuff isn’t the right answer. I mean, perhaps you need to talk to someone, or . . .”

  His voice is thick with an emotion I can’t place, but when I look at him, he’s frowning again and checking his cell, acting like he’s finished whatever it was he was going to say. I’m not sure I want to hear it anyway. There’s nothing to do but head in to school, as if a boy I went on a date with isn’t about to die.

  Day 41: too early

  There is a painting on the wall. Where am I? Thick paint. A sunset. Or a sunrise. No, it’s not a wall. It’s a window: the window in my bedroom, the room in the house where I’ve always lived. The sun sets and rises, sets and rises.

  I try to draw breath. I’m lying in my bed, but I feel like I’m dropping, like in one of those terrifying dreams of falling. The sunrise and sunset move more and more quickly.

  Someone else is in the room with me.

  It’s me. Moving quickly, like a flitting shadow. Moving backwards around the room, out the room I go, in again, to the window, then away, to the desk. I watch, pinned to the bed, as my shadow-self flickers through the motions of her life in reverse. Growing younger, years racing by.

  There I am taking the Tak, my guitar, from the wall—but because I’m watching everything in reverse, this was the day I put the Tak up there.

  I see my mom. She’s standing in the doorway to my room. There she is. I remember now—and I cannot believe I had forgotten. She watched me put my guitar up there, even though she could barely stand. She came to me.

  I was so angry that day, I couldn’t speak to her.

  Suddenly the scene stops reversing. Everything becomes real in time, with me lying on the bed watching.

  “Lark,” she says.

  The fourteen-year-old version of me doesn’t look at her, doesn’t reply.

  I struggle to sit up. I want to yell at my fourteen-year-old self to talk to Mom. To stop being so angry about missing the stupid concert. To hold on to the Tak and play a song with it. With Mom. I want to shout at myself, You only have twenty-one days left with her!

  Mom’s face, which was already exhausted from the effort of coming to my room, is pinched. She seems about to say something to younger me. But she doesn’t speak eith
er. We are in the same room, but we’re a million light years away from each other. I remember how much I hated her that day. How unfair is that, to hate someone for being sick?

  The current version of me struggles again in the bed. I so badly need to sit up and tell them both—

  And that’s when it happens. Mom looks over at me. At the me who is here, watching the past.

  She looks at me.

  I smile at her.

  And she smiles back.

  I see then that I can’t undo my anger with her when I was fourteen, but I also see that she doesn’t mind. She forgives me. She’d already forgiven me.

  I want to speak to her. I try to move my mouth, to ask all the questions I have—about the song she wrote for me but also about everything else. Everything.

  She keeps smiling at me. A small, beautiful smile.

  I stop trying to speak.

  Stop.

  I wake up gasping for breath.

  I get ready for school, dressing in my pastel jeans with the hole and a black T-shirt with a low back. I sling on a lacy sweater and spend a little time putting on mascara and giving myself smoky eyes.

  Nifty:

  Cole’s bringing a bunch of friends to the show!

  Lark:

  Sweet.

  Nifty:

  Just wanted to say thanks—

  things are going great.

  Lark:

  Am happy for you.

  See you later. X

  Nifty:

  You okay? Been thinking about poor Alec.

  They turn off the life support

  in four days, right?

  Lark:

  I just want to go and see him.

  To say goodbye.

  School goes by in a blur—as if I’m still deep into the dream all day. After school, I take my longboard and go down to the river for a while. I song-write until my head hurts. It’s raining lightly, night is falling, and the cool damp air curls under my clothes. I tug my fading hair into a short ponytail—it barely reaches, loose strands catching on my earrings. As I look up, the sky fills with raindrops—raindrops the size of soccer balls. They burst as they hit the sidewalk and water spills from them, filling the street, rising up my legs.

  It’s happening again. A flicker at the edges, and I turn, aware of something pressing, something electric. There, almost like a hologram, yet infinitely more real, more human, is a figure. Oh God, I swear I see myself standing in front of me.