Andy sighed. ‘But she’s usually there at 5p.m., isn’t she?’
‘That’s the time we usually meet, yes.’
‘So go tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day until she comes. You owe it to her and to yourself to find out the truth.’
I thought about it. Imagined seeing Emma again, seeing the look on her face as she told me I’d died, or had a terminal illness, or whatever else she had discovered. I thought about what life would be like if I knew how long I had left to live, about the pressure I’d feel to make every day, every week, every month, count. How would it feel to know exactly when you were goingto die? How would Dawn and I have felt if we’d have known the future when we’d first met? Would we have done anything differently?
‘I just can’t,’ I said.
Andy said nothing for a moment and we just sat there in the darkening room in silence.
‘What if I’ve got a brain tumour?’ I said, suddenly.
‘What? Why would you think that?’
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but now it made perfect sense.
‘Think about it,’ I said. ‘It would explain everything that’s been happening over the last few months – the time travel, which you said yourself was impossible, the hallucinations. If this was caused by a brain tumour, it makes sense that Emma discovered I’d died of a brain tumour in a few years’ time.’
‘Except if that was the case, that would mean Emma doesn’t exist, and so she couldn’t have found anything out – and you’re certain she does.’ Andy leaned down and gathered the dirty plates and cups together, then stood. ‘Listen, I’m going to clean this place up a bit. Why don’t you go and have a shower, and then I’m taking you out for some food.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ I said.
‘You can and you will. I’m not leaving you to sit and stew in your own mess any longer. Now go.’
I did as I was told, and as I stood under the jet of hot water, I tried to clear my mind. I had to stop imagining the worst and move on. I had to try to forget the amazing connection Emma and I had, forget the spark and crackle between us even when we weren’t touching, and get on with my life as though we’d never met.
After losing Dawn, I had to protect my heart in the only way I knew how.
By being alone.
PART II
17
EMMA
It had been more than a month since I’d last seen Nick, and it had been a month of hell. He hadn’t come back to the bandstand that day and eventually I’d had to give up and go home. Back at the house I tried to feel his presence, the way I sometimes had before; listening for the echoes of him in the walls, trying to breathe in the molecules of him in the home where we’d both lived. But there was nothing.
Even though Rachel had told me not to, had told me that I needed to let Nick go and move on, I went back to the bandstand every evening at five o’clock just in case he came back to find me. Every day I’d step up onto the platform, my heart in my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears.
And every day my heart would drop as I’d see that the place was empty.
‘I don’t think he’s coming back,’ Rachel said gently, two weeks later.
‘But he might. And what if he comes to find me and I’m not there?’
‘But what if he doesn’t? Are you going to wait around forever?’
I knew she was right. Of course. It didn’t mean I had to like it.
It took every ounce of self-control I had to stop myself from going to the bandstand every night after that. But I did manage to stay away, and the more distance I put between me and what had happened there, the more that everything between us began to feel like a dream.
‘Why don’t you try going on another date?’ Rachel suggested tentatively.
‘Absolutely not,’ I said. I’d cancelled my Tinder membership and had absolutely no intention of dating anyone for the foreseeable future. I needed time for my heart to mend.
But then an idea came to me in the middle of the night and, despite my best intentions, it proved impossible to ignore. I sat up in bed and let the idea roll around my mind, studying it from all angles, trying to work out whether there was any fault with it.
