“One sec,” he says. “I’m making a roadie.”
Caitlin pulls me aside. “What’s going on with you?” she asks, lowering her voice. “You’re acting bizarre.”
“Nothing!” I say brightly. A little too brightly. Caitlin eyes me suspiciously.
“I don’t believe you. Is this about my essays? Did you read them and hate them?”
“If I hated them, I’d tell you,” I reply. “I haven’t read them yet. But I will,” I promise. “Tomorrow.”
“So why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird,” I insist, careful to avoid Caitlin’s gaze. “I’m just tired.”
“’Kay, let’s go,” Tyler declares, his mouth full of chocolate pieces. There’s a burnt marshmallow stuck to each pinkie. “Bring the graham crackers.”
“Okay, bye!” I announce, to no one in particular. Then beeline to my car.
As soon as we pull away from the party, I slump down in my seat, visibly relaxing.
“Why are you being weird?” Tyler asks. At least, I think that’s what he said. With the two marshmallows he has jammed in his mouth, it’s hard to be sure.
“You can’t tell Caitlin what I told you.”
“I can’t?”
“I’m serious, Tyler. She’d freak if she found out. Promise me you won’t tell her.”
“I won’t tell her,” he says. “But if you were so worried how she’d react, why’d you tell me in the first place?”
“Because I wanted you to do something about it,” I say. “Subtly. And I knew you wouldn’t make a move unless you knew you had a shot.”
Tyler doesn’t answer right away. “Nah,” he says after a minute, his words slurring just a little. “I would’ve done something either way.” He glances over at me, then out the passenger-side window. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: It’s definitely easier knowing she feels the same way. But I wouldn’t have let the year go by without telling her how I felt.”
I glance over at him, his profile illuminated in the moonlight. He looks older, somehow. Sure of himself. “So you didn’t even need me,” I joke.
That’s when I hear the sirens. Approaching from the other direction. At least, that’s what I think until we come around the next corner and see the red lights. Traffic is stopped in both directions.
“That’s Ilana’s car,” I hear Tyler say. He’s staring at the mangled white Mercedes on the shoulder. There’s an empty red pickup truck in the ditch across the street. Firemen and paramedics surround what’s left of the Mercedes.
“Where’s Ilana?” I hear myself whisper.
Tyler just points as a paramedic lifts a limp body through the broken windshield of Ilana’s car.
7
HERE
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009
(my audition for the Yale Freshman Show)
I scream as they wheel the stretcher past me, but no sound comes out. I run after them, but they close the doors in my face. I look back at the car and see Ilana lying on the pavement, her tiny frame bent like a rag doll. “Wait!” I yell as the ambulance pulls away. I try to run after it, but my feet are frozen in place.
“Abby.” The voice is urgent. “Abby, wake up.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. You’re dreaming, I tell myself.
“You’re dreaming,” another voice says.
“No,” I hear myself mumble. And then I’m awake.
I blink my eyes open, and my bedroom comes into view. Marissa is kneeling beside me, her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes are wide with concern.
“You were screaming,” she says.
I just nod. My throat is sandpaper.
“What were you dreaming about?” she asks me.
I just shake my head, unable to push the image of Ilana’s broken body from my mind. “My phone,” I whisper hoarsely. “Could you get me my phone?” I point at my desk, where I left it plugged in.
“Sure.” Marissa gives me another concerned look, then gets to her feet. She disconnects my phone from its charger and hands it to me. “I’ll be in the common room.” She closes the door softly behind her as she leaves.
For the first time, I want less information, not more of it. I don’t want to know that Ilana was in a horrible car accident the night Tyler broke up with her. Or that my parallel is the reason he did it. But I already know those things. The memories are seared into my mind, bright and unflinching. What I don’t know is whether my parallel’s attempt to play Cupid cost Ilana her life.
With trembling fingers, I make the call. It goes straight to voicemail.
It’s Monday. Caitlin is in class until twelve forty-five. It’s only ten fifteen now.
Staring vacantly at my screen, I scroll through my photo log. All the pictures are there. I should feel relieved. But seeing them only makes me feel worse. What if Ilana is dead? What if I’m here smiling for photos while she’s—
Please, God, don’t let her be dead.
I contemplate calling Michael, but I don’t have the energy to pretend that my dream was just a dream when I know that it wasn’t. Even if I don’t tell him about it, he’ll try to cheer me up as soon as he hears how upset I am, and I don’t deserve to feel better. Not until I know what happened to Ilana. I move from my bed to my desk, intending to Google the accident, but my fingers just hover above the keyboard. I can’t. I can’t see photographs of the wreckage. I can’t read some reporter’s sensationalist spin on the facts. The images in my mind are harrowing enough.
My vision blurs as I picture Tyler throwing up in the grass as Ilana’s ambulance pulls away. The look on that police officer’s face as he tells us what happened. Ilana was coming around the curve when a pickup truck crossed over the center line going nearly twice the speed limit and hit her head-on. The driver was handcuffed in the back of a police car when we got there, passed out against the window glass, his only injury a broken hand.
Another memory springs to the surface. One that feels like mine, even though I know it isn’t. Standing in the Grand Lobby of the High Museum, lying to Tyler’s face.
Why did she do it? Why would my parallel make something like that up? So what if she had good intentions. Didn’t she realize what was at stake? “Don’t play Cupid,” is right there below “Don’t lie” in the BFF code. Cardinal don’ts, especially if your best friend is Caitlin Alexandra Moss. Things are black or white with her. Right or wrong. True or false. And for someone who thinks religion is a crutch for the lonely and stupid, she has a ridiculously strict moral code.
Fresh air. I need fresh air.
I quickly change into running clothes, then grab my phone and keys. Marissa is waiting for me in the common room with a mug of something frothy. She doesn’t drink coffee or milk or anything else they sell at Durfee’s, so she’s set up a little barista bar by our bay window where she brews, steams, and froths her decaffeinated nondairy creations with the espresso machine her parents gave her for graduation. She makes a very tasty vanilla rooibos soy latte. Her hemp milk green tea cappuccino, on the other hand, tastes like the inside of a lawn mower.
“Chamomile with soy and stevia,” she says, handing me the mug. “I thought you could use something calming.”
“Thanks.” I try to smile.
“Are you okay?” she asks gently. “That dream seemed pretty gnarly. Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “I think I’m gonna go for a run,” I say, setting the mug down.
“But I thought . . . I skipped econ so we could run lines. Your audition’s today, right?”
Crap. I’m supposed to be at the drama school at two o’clock. I nod distractedly, too preoccupied with the awfulness of the accident to feel relieved that I still have the audition—part of me was sure it’d be erased with the next reality shift, which is why I’ve put off quitting the YDN. But it appears my decision to try out for the Freshman Show belongs on the growing list of recent events that haven’t yet been overwritten. Caitlin says the list makes sense; that because I kept my memories, there are certain things
I’ve done since the collision that my parallel can’t undo as easily. “There’s a causal disconnect,” Caitlin said when I asked her to explain it. “Your parallel can’t undo the fact that you kept your memories, so she can’t undo the things that have happened because you did.” I’m still not clear on the nuances of this rule, but I’m not arguing.
“Actually, I think I’m good,” I tell Marissa. “I’ve been over it so many times, I think going through it again will jinx me.”
“Whatever you need,” she says. But a hint of annoyance flashes across her never-annoyed face.
I take another step toward the door, then stop. Of all the roommates I could’ve ended up with, I got the girl who is kind and funny and generous and willing to skip class to run lines with me. Meanwhile, she got stuck with the forgetful, spacey girl who makes lame excuses for her increasingly odd behavior.
“I’m really sorry to bail like this,” I say, turning back around. “I think I’m just rattled from that dream.”
The annoyance disappears. “I get it, Ab. Do what you need to do. Just remember—it was only a dream.” She smiles reassuringly, her brown eyes wide and warm.
Oh, Marissa. How I wish you were right.
Fighting back tears, I jog up Hillhouse Avenue toward Sterling Lab, where Caitlin’s chem class meets. Lined with nineteenth-century mansions and shaded by towering oak, Hillhouse is one of the most beautiful streets on campus. This morning I barely notice it, though. All I see is Ilana.
Please let her be okay.
When I get to Sachem Street, I turn down Prospect and do the loop again, faster this time. By the time I get back to Sachem, I’m heaving and sweating and still thinking about the accident. So I do it a third time, and then a fourth. After the fifth, my lungs are burning and my heart feels like it might burst through my rib cage and my brain is still locked on Ilana.
Sweaty and spent, I park it on a bench to wait. I try to focus on my breath, counting each inhalation, but the exercise is pointless. My mind is on an unrelenting loop, replaying those awful moments over and over again in garish detail.
My phone rings, jarring me back to the moment. I haven’t moved in over an hour.
“Hey!” Caitlin’s voice is bright. Cheery. It fills me with hope. “Isn’t your audition—”
“Ilana.”
The line goes quiet.
“What—what happened to her?” The words are like sand in my throat, but I force them out. I have to know. “After the accident. Is she . . .”
Caitlin doesn’t say anything.
“She’s dead,” I whisper. “Oh my God, she killed her.”
“Wait, what? Who killed her?”
“My parallel,” I choke out. “It was her fault. And now Ilana is dead.”
“Abby, Ilana’s not dead. She was in a coma for a couple of weeks, but she didn’t die.”
My body floods with relief. Then my brain registers what Caitlin just said.
“But she was in a coma? Did it . . . does she—”
“There was some damage to her brain,” Caitlin says carefully. “We should talk about this in person. Where are you?”
“Corner of Hillhouse and Sachem,” I manage, tears streaming down my cheeks. Damage to her brain.
“I’ll be right there,” Caitlin says.
I’m still holding the phone to my ear when Caitlin arrives, out of breath from running.
“Damage to her brain,” I repeat.
“It could’ve been much worse,” she says, sitting down next to me. “Speech or movement problems, long-term memory loss, personality changes. But she doesn’t have any of that.”
“Then what does she have?”
“Her short-term memory is impaired,” Caitlin says. “She can remember stuff that happened before the accident, but she has trouble remembering things that have happened after it.”
I’m quiet as I process this.
“It’s not debilitating,” Caitlin continues, trying to sound upbeat. “I mean, it made taking tests pretty impossible, so finishing school was a challenge. And she had to give up acting.” I blink back fresh tears, unable to imagine Ilana doing anything else. As unpleasant as she was in real life, she was captivating onstage. “But last I heard, she was doing really well,” Caitlin adds. “Living with an aunt in Florida. Tyler keeps up with her, I think.”
The “I think” gets my attention. Caitlin should know if Tyler still talks to Ilana.
“I don’t understand why you thought your parallel killed her,” Caitlin is saying. “Why would you—”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Who, Tyler?” Caitlin looks at me strangely. “I dunno, right before we left for school?” I can literally feel the color drain from my face, trickling down my neck.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.”
“Abby, what?”
“You’re supposed to be together,” I say. “You’re supposed to—”
“Whoa. What? Like, a couple?” Caitlin blinks in surprise. “Since when?”
“August.” I stare at the backs of my hands. “Max Levine’s party. Ty got up on a chair and told everyone he’d been in love with you since ninth grade.”
“Seriously? He used the word ‘love’?” Caitlin is staring at me, slack-jawed.
“So did you,” I say softly, sorrow like a dead weight inside me. “Not then. But two weeks ago, when he came to visit.”
“He came to visit me here? We were that serious?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Wow.”
I just nod, too sad to tell her what she said when he left. That she could see herself with him for the rest of her life. Or what he told me the night he arrived. That he was a better version of himself when she was around.
“Wow,” Caitlin says again.
“She’s the reason you’re not together,” I say glumly. “It’s my parallel’s fault. She thought she was helping, but she messed everything up.”
“How?” Caitlin doesn’t sound upset. Just curious.
“She told Tyler you liked him. The night of my mom’s—her mom’s—gala at the High. It’s the reason he broke up with Ilana.” The words come tumbling out. “If he hadn’t, Ilana wouldn’t have left that party when she did, angry and upset, and the accident—” My voice breaks.
“Abby, Ilana was hit head-on by a drunk guy going seventy in a thirty-five. The accident was nobody’s fault but his.” I look away, knowing it’s not that simple. “Listen to me,” Caitlin says, grabbing my hand. “Your parallel didn’t cause that accident.”
“But why did she have to lie to him?” Anger swells inside me. “Screw her motives. You told her you didn’t like Tyler. But she just had to trust that stupid hunch—”
Caitlin’s eyes light up. “What hunch?”
“She was convinced that you and Tyler were supposed to be together,” I tell her. “Convinced. It sounds crazy, but it’s almost as if—”
“She knew.” Caitlin and I just look at each other.
“But that’s impossible, right?” Do I even believe in impossible anymore?
Caitlin stands up and starts pacing, her stiletto boots click-clacking on the sidewalk. “Why couldn’t it go both ways? Why couldn’t she be getting your memories the same way you’re getting hers? Not all of them, obviously—but fragments.” The excitement in her voice is mounting. She paces faster. “It makes sense that she wouldn’t recognize that information as memory—how could she, since it relates to something that hasn’t happened in her world yet? So her brain is storing it as something else. Premonition. Intuition.”
“But that premonition was wrong,” I point out. “You and Tyler don’t end up together. Not in her world.”
“The premonition wasn’t wrong,” Caitlin replies. “You said it yourself: Ty and I would’ve ended up together if your parallel hadn’t tried to orchestrate it.”
I picture the photograph taped to the back of Caitlin’s phone, taken two days before she left for school. She and Tyler are on a roller coaster at Six Fla
gs, grinning like idiots. Idiots in love. That picture is gone now, the moment along with it. Who knew fate was so fragile?
“Maybe it’s not too late,” I offer. “Maybe you and Tyler could give it a try now. He could come visit and you could—”
Caitlin just laughs. “Yeah, I think that ship sailed about a year ago.”
“But you guys are meant to be,” I say. The words sound silly, even to me. I expect Caitlin to laugh again, but she just looks at me thoughtfully.
“I said I loved him?” she asks. I nod. She’s quiet for a few seconds. “I’ve thought about it before,” she admits, her cheeks flushing just a bit. “What it would be like.” Her face reddens, and she looks away.
“Call him!” I say, holding out my phone.
She waves the phone away. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “What’s done is done. Besides, it’s not like it would’ve lasted anyway.” She pulls out her own phone to check the time. “I should probably go,” she says. “I don’t want to miss my train.”
“Train to where?”
“New London,” she replies. “I’m meeting with Dr. Mann to convince him he needs a research assistant.” She points at the clock on her phone. “Isn’t your audition at two? It’s one fifty-four.”
“Ah!” I leap up from the bench, nearly twisting my ankle on the uneven sidewalk.
“Break a leg!” Caitlin shouts as I sprint down Science Hill.
“Name, please?” A short guy holding a clipboard is checking people in at the door.
“Abby Barnes,” I tell him, heaving from my run.
He marks my name off. “Just take a seat inside. They’ll call your name when they’re ready for you.”
A quick scan of the theater gallery leaves my palms sweaty and my throat uncomfortably dry. There must be a hundred people here, and at least two-thirds of them are girls, all of whom look like actors. Long scarves, vintage hats, funky boots. I, meanwhile, am wearing running shorts and a sweatshirt with bleach stains on the sleeve. So much for my perfect audition outfit. Since Metamorphoses is a series of eleven vignettes from Greek mythology, my plan was to channel Aphrodite in understated Greek-chic. But the gauzy white dress I scored at Goodwill yesterday is still hanging on the back of my bedroom door, and I am in butt-huggers. A girl in gladiator sandals and a peasant blouse smirks as I pass. Butterflies swarm my stomach.
Parallel Page 17