Portal to Passion: Science Fiction Romance

by Amber Stuart

  “Lydia is just like she’s always been. She hasn’t changed at all. I mean, she looks different, but she’s not different. I’m not the same. She knows I’m not, too. I told her I’m just homesick and she thinks I’m depressed and I’ll eventually get over it, but…”

  She trailed off now, still picking at some invisible flaw at the edge of her shirt. That sandpapery feeling in my mouth was back. I couldn’t swallow.

  “It’s more than just memories?” I asked.

  I think my voice cracked. Jesus, I hoped I had just imagined that.

  “I told you not to come here, Dietrich. Why did you?” She wasn’t mad or accusatory. She wore that same defeated and weary expression from the intersection when I had finally caught up to her and knew trying to escape me would be pointless.

  “You know why, Lottie. I love you.”

  “You love her.”

  “Is there much of a difference?”

  Goddamn it, Dietrich. I hated myself sometimes.

  I thought she would certainly kick me out now, but she just cocked her head to one side and offered me that sexy half-smile, half-smirk that usually meant I was either about to hear something I didn’t like or I was about to get laid. I didn’t think it was the latter.

  “No,” she finally said, “apparently not. Maybe. I don’t know. I just know I don’t really know who I am anymore and it scares me, and Lydia only came here because of me in the first place. No matter what I do, I always seem to be hurting someone now. This isn’t how I thought any of this would work out. And I want to be me. I don’t want to be someone else. No offense.”

  I smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, you aren’t exactly like her. Some of the words you choose, it’s not the way Lottie would have spoken. And she cursed a lot more.”

  Lottie laughed, a genuine laugh that made me smile again. I would tell her anything to keep hearing that laugh. “I cuss a lot more in my head. Lydia doesn’t like it so I try to watch my language out loud.”

  “Well, that settles that then. Jamie was definitely not bothered by cursing. That woman could make me blush.”

  “What else is different?” she asked, turning thoughtful, looking away from me now at some spot on the wall, like a memory – one of her memories – was playing out there and she was able to see it all again through these different eyes.

  “I haven’t spent that much time around you. I don’t know. What was your name? Before?”

  That smirk returned. I couldn’t help it. It had been over two years and I couldn’t stop myself from wishing it would turn into one of Lottie’s you’re-about-to-get-laid hybrid smiles. I wondered what Eric would have to say about that. I wondered what a psychiatrist would have to say about that.

  “We don’t exactly speak, English, Dietrich.”

  “That’s ok. I didn’t either until I was, like, eleven.”

  Her smile widened. “I’m not even sure how to translate it.”

  “I’ve learned Arabic, Mandarin and Russian. How hard can one name be?” I didn’t even know if her language was spoken. “Look, just make something up if you want. So I can differentiate between you. For my own sanity.”

  Lottie sighed but nodded. “Ok. I guess… it would be something kinda like… Kyrieana.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her. “Really? That’s beautiful.”

  “What did you expect? An ugly name?” She was teasing but she had a point. I guess I had been expecting something more Klingonish. “But I’m not really her anymore either,” Lottie added.

  “Then what was Kyrieana like?”

  Lottie opened her mouth to answer me, but we had both heard the sound of footsteps outside.

  “Shit,” she muttered. She stood up quickly, too quickly, and had to grab on to the arm of the chair from the sudden head rush. Lydia’s key was already in the door by the time she turned to me, worry written all over her face. I stood up, more slowly than she had, and was going to offer to leave before Lydia could ask many questions, but I wanted to stay. I desperately wanted to meet her, actually.

  Jamie walked in – or Lydia – God, this was all such a mind-fuck and Lottie quickly introduced me. Sort of.

  “Hey, how was the rest of your shift?” She rushed on and didn’t even let her roommate answer. “This is my friend; he was just visiting, and I lost track of time. Sorry. I don’t have any pasta made yet. You must be starving.”

  “Oh, that’s ok.” Lydia gave Lottie a hug with her free arm and set her purse on the sofa with the other, then reached out to shake my hand. Her smile was warm, genuinely affectionate and spread to her eyes – the kind of smile that let you know you were talking to someone who was inherently good.

  A flash of confusion crossed across her features but she blinked and simply offered, “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” I shook her hand, and realized for the first time what Lottie had been trying to tell me. Lydia was nothing like Jamie. She looked just like her, the same tall, beautiful blonde who had worked runways in Houston fashion shows, but she had none of Jamie’s overconfidence, none of her self-righteous superiority. I doubted Lydia realized she had been a model in her former life and could still be one. I sincerely doubted she would want to. I had the impression she was more at home in an aisle of the bookstore than the runway of even a J C Penney’s.

  “Have we met before?” she asked, that befuddled semi-recognition still lurking behind her eyes. She looked tired, but was still smiling, still trying to be hospitable and friendly, not because she had to, but because it was just how she was. No wonder Lottie often felt like she was on the verge of hurting or offending her.

  As desperately as I loved Lottie, there was a reason we had always felt pulled to one another; she was a hell of a lot more thoughtful than I was, but she had the same sense of sarcasm that permeated almost everything we touched in life. It was one of the reasons she and Jamie had become friends in the first place; Lottie and Jamie had bonded over a shared sense of humor, even if Jamie’s often veered toward the mean-spirited side.

  Lottie shook her head as soon as Lydia asked me, but it was too late. Full recognition suddenly hit her, and her smile disappeared, that friendliness in her expression shifting to utter horror.

  “Oh, God, Lottie, what have you done?” She backed away from me as if I had suddenly become dangerous. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to defend Lottie.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” I said, but it kind of was. She started it, anyway.

  Lydia’s eyes were still wide and terrified and she looked from me to Lottie, waiting for her to explain that this was… what? Even with the remnants of the Lottie-as-E.T. denial quickly crumbling around me, I didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. And I didn’t even know how Lydia had recognized me, let alone why she was scared of me.

  “Ok, but… please, don’t freak out. Just… here.” Lottie reached over to the table and handed Lydia the entire bottle of unopened wine. Lydia just stared at it dumbly.

  “Um. Do you want me to open that for you?” I asked.

  I didn’t want to miss any of this conversation but if Lottie thought Lydia needed to be drunk for it, who was I to argue? Lydia looked up at me, that same dumbstruck expression still on her face. Whatever Lottie had done, I was guessing it must be pretty bad.

  “The corkscrew’s on the table,” Lottie murmured to me.

  As I reached for the bottle of wine, Lydia flinched away from me, and I watched her expectantly, waiting for some accusation or insult, something to explain her sudden fear of me.

  But she just backed away from me again and moved closer to Lottie, repeating, this time in a whisper, “What have you done?”

  Great. If they were going to start whispering, I was going to miss half of this.

  “I didn’t mean to do anything, I swear. Look, you know how I told you I was going to Biloxi a few weeks ago? Well, I didn’t.” Lottie glanced over at me. I had the bottle open and was pouring win
e into their glasses. When I stopped, she motioned for me to keep going. Apparently, this conversation required a great deal of alcohol consumption. “I didn’t go to Biloxi. Obviously. I went to Houston.”

  “Lottie!”

  At least she wasn’t whispering anymore.

  “Lydia, I promise you, it wasn’t to meet him or anyone else! It was just the city,” Lottie sighed and slumped down into one of the seats at her table and took the wine glass closer to her. “Remember those dreams I told you about when we first…?” Her eyes swept up to me then dropped back down to her wine glass. She took a long sip.

  “Of course, I remember,” Lydia offered kindly, despite being clearly terrified of some Jabberwocky in the room. I still wasn’t sure how I had turned into that literary monster.

  “They weren’t dreams… exactly.”

  This was news to me as well. I took the other chair at the table. It didn’t look like Lydia was going to come anywhere near me anyway. “The thing is, from the beginning, ever since I woke up, I had these memories. They felt just as real as mine. But they weren’t mine. They were hers.”

  “Lottie, that’s impossible.” Lydia’s voice was gentle, reassuring, the way a mother might talk to a child who was scared of the boogeyman in his closet.

  At least, I imagined that’s the way a mother would talk to a frightened child. Mine had hardly ever talked to me, let alone to reassure me of anything. She had once assured me the milk in the fridge wasn’t sour. I supposed that was close enough. If it hadn’t actually been sour.

  “I know it’s supposed to be. But I just felt so alone. And then as time went on, I realized it wasn’t just her memories, but her feelings and behavior and… look around. None of this is even mine. I don’t know if she’s me or I’m her or we’re both; I just know I’m not me. I just wanted to see the city because it all seemed so real and everything else had already been exactly the way she remembered it…”

  “What else?” we both asked her at the same time. She looked from Lydia to me then back again.

  “Aren’t you going to drink that?” Lottie pointed at the other wine glass that Lydia still hadn’t touched.

  “Lottie. What else? You’ve done this before?”

  “This is a really good wine. You should try it, Lydia.”

  “Lottie, what else?”

  “Well, there are other places we’ve been to.”

  “Like where?”

  “Wait, she doesn’t know why you live here?” I asked.

  Lottie glared at me and I moved the wine bottle out of her reach.

  “Here? What does he mean?” Lydia asked.

  “I grew up here.”

  It was the first time I had heard her use a first person pronoun when talking about Lottie’s life. It took both Lydia and me by surprise. Maybe all of us.

  “You mean Lottie grew up here?” Lydia’s voice had risen at least two octaves. She was nearing hysterics.

  I pushed the wine glass slowly across the table. “I won’t bite. Seriously. Drink. These feel like real crystal. They’ll shatter you know.”

  Lottie suppressed a smile. Lydia just looked confused.

  Lottie shrugged, her attention still on Lydia. “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “No, you said, ‘I grew up here.’ You most certainly did not. You grew up with me. You remember that, don’t you?”

  I hadn’t thought it was possible, but Lydia’s voice had risen another octave. I drank her wine instead.

  “Of course. I just misspoke. It’s no big deal.” But Lottie looked like she was definitely uncomfortable with the idea of having misspoken at all, no matter how much she tried to reassure her friend now.

  “Why would you move us to a city where you knew she had grown up? You wanted to come here! This was your idea!”

  Lottie ran her fingers along the edge of her wine glass, growing more and more uneasy the longer this inquisition lasted. I wanted to help her, but how? I couldn’t even get Lydia to drink. In fact, I had done the exact opposite of that. I had finished her glass of wine.

  “For the same reason I went to Houston. Sometimes, I don’t know where her life ends and mine begins.”

  We both stared at Lottie silently after that, both with very different thoughts weighing on us. Lottie’s death was supposed to have meant a new life for them, maybe an exciting one, although I failed to see how working at a chain bookstore or driving a Yaris would qualify as exciting. But Lottie’s death had also been a sort of death for Lydia’s best friend, hadn’t it? She would never be Kyrieana again either. At least, I selfishly hoped not. If there were some loophole, some way to extinguish whatever part of Lottie had resurfaced, then I didn’t want them to find it. I wanted Lottie back.

  Lydia finally spoke, quiet, still so patient, loving. Unendingly kind. No, I could never mistake her for Jamie.

  “You went looking for him, then?”

  “No, I told you, that was an accident. It was a stupid, stupid mistake on my part. I wasn’t even going to go anywhere near where I might run into him, but I was driving around and not really paying attention to where I was going, and then I looked over, and there was this coffeehouse, and I used to love it, so I just stopped…”

  She had caught herself this time, that first-person pronoun slipping out again before she could stop it. She picked up her wine glass and finished it off.

  “But you didn’t think he might be there?”

  “Dietrich.” I offered. I was getting annoyed by the constant references to myself in the third person like I wasn’t there.

  “Oh, sorry. Dietrich, I mean. You didn’t think he would be there?”

  Close enough.

  Lottie shook her head. “No, he doesn’t really drink coffee.” She suddenly looked up at me, tilting her head and squinting at me as if suddenly realizing I had been the one who had fucked up. “What were you doing there?”

  “I was thirsty.” I picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. Maybe I could at least get one of them drunk long enough to forget she was pissed off at me.

  “Oh, God, Lottie, this is such a mess. What are we going to do?” Lydia sank into the couch, her long legs stretching under the coffee table, one arm thrown over her eyes.

  “I don’t understand. Why is this such a huge problem?” I eyed the wine bottle but decided against drinking anymore. I was pretty sure the hotel had a bar in it, and I definitely needed something stronger than a red wine anyway.

  “Because you know we’re here,” Lydia explained. She had that tone of voice again like she was explaining this to a child, patiently and sweetly, but part of me suspected she thought I should have figured that out on my own.

  “Dietrich would never tell anyone.” Lottie immediately jumped to my defense, and I sank a little lower in my seat.

  “Um.”

  “What.”

  It hadn’t been a question but a demand. It’s not like she had told me not to tell anyone though. Lydia had uncovered her eyes and was watching me now too. Resignation. Fear. The Jabberwocky.

  “Just Eric, Lottie, and come on, think about him if you can’t remember him. Try to. You know you can trust him.” I believed that. He was the only person I had ever trusted besides her, and he and Lottie had been good friends. I would have trusted her life with him.

  “I should have known you would tell him.”

  Good God, how much did she remember?

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “Well… he would like to meet you.” I thought about telling her he was down the street. I wasn’t sure she’d had enough wine for that.

  “Ugh, and I thought work was bad.” Lydia muttered. Her face was buried under both arms now.

  “Lydia, we aren’t going to… what are you even worried about? Isn’t there some movie with a government agency that tracks down aliens?”

  “Men in Black?” Lottie guessed.

  I shrugged. “If that’s what you’re worried abo
ut, I’m almost positive no such agency exists. Well, like 97% sure. But that’s pretty good, though, right?”

  “You still haven’t seen that movie have you? We wouldn’t be worried about Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones trying to keep track of us. They helped hide the existence of aliens in this world; it’s the public we worry about. We can die just as easily as anyone else, you know.”

  I thought about Lottie being hunted. By the government. By a scared and angry Tea Party mob. By some crazy vigilante anti-extraterrestrial gun-loving militia group from Montana. No one was going to hunt her. No one was going to hurt her. Nobody would ever lay a fucking hand on her. No one except me.

  I hoped the wine was affecting her by now. I reached across the table and took her hand, her left hand, still ringless, still decorated with those three freckles that formed that wide triangle with the perfect, smooth white skin inside.

  “Lottie,” I said softly, “you know I can keep you safe. I will. And Lydia. Nobody will hurt you. I promise.”

  Lottie looked down at our hands. I tensed, waiting for her to rip hers away from mine, to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, to remind me… again… that she wasn’t really my fiancée. But she slowly exhaled and stretched her fingers out, lacing them between mine, then held on tightly.

  “I know, Dietrich,” she breathed. “I know you will.”

  Chapter 5

  Lottie sat crosslegged on one of the beds in my hotel room, watching Eric curiously as he vacillated between disbelief and shock. I sat on the opposite bed watching Lottie. When I left her apartment the night before, Lydia had finally started drinking and Lottie was trying, somewhat futilely, to calm her down. She had promised me she would come by in the morning to see Eric – and me – but I was still surprised when she had actually knocked on my door, her thin frame and short stature always giving her this pixie illusion that was exaggerated this morning by the pale pink tank top and high ponytail.

  She had kicked her flip flops off by the side of the bed, and was telling me, in a way that was almost like Lottie would have, about how despairing Lydia had been once I’d left; how convinced Lydia was that her best friend, the person she loved most, had something terribly wrong with her; that the more she drank, the more she seemed to think it was like some sort of cancer that would just get worse and worse.