Gone.
Out of my life.
Out ofhislife.
Lost forever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
GOOD AUGUST
I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU
It’s the same room. The exact same room, only it’s dark. But the moon’s shining here, a big full moon. The sky’s cut with its glow, reflecting off the polished wood. Everything’s cool and quiet, and I’m all alone.
When I turn towards the place I came in, there’s nothing. No shimmer of atmosphere, no sign that August, and everyone else, are within touching distance. If only they were in this universe.
One-way ticket.
I did the right thing.
I know I did.
My life, my happiness, is not worth all those billions of lives, all those universes they could save.
I did the right thing.
I couldn’t have said goodbye to him anyway. That final kiss would have been the end of that world. We would have broken apart whatever fragile strands of reality remained. Because I would have done it. I would have kissed him and never stopped until the place tore us apart.
I’m weak for him.
I’m a wreck for him.
And I’m never going to see him again.
I don’t know where to start in this world, what to even do. Do I try to find the Shashi of this place, explain any of this to her? What if she’s not here, not at Cambridge, not a cosmologist?
I’m not going to try to find this world’s August. Not even if I could. Because he’s not my August, and I think if I see him, I’m going to break.
And maybe break him in the process.
So I slump down on a desk and stare at nothing, waiting for the sun to come up, hoping vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I can curl up under one of these desks and sleep here. Imagining that by the time I wake, maybe he’ll have fixed it. That maybe he’ll come looking for me.
But I know he won’t. He can’t. He has to get back to his world. He has to set things right, put everything back in balance. Stay where he belongs.
How long until my being here disrupts this world?
With that thought, some millionth of what August must have been experiencing for years falls on my shoulders. Only this with the accompanying knowledge that I’m no physicist. I’m just a guy who’s somewhere he shouldn’t be. I have no hope of correcting any of this.
And it’s not long until the same thought occurs to me as it did to the other Augusts.
This world needs to be rid of my presence.
I can’t wait here, hoping my interdimensional lover finds his way across spacetime to save me. I have to save this world.ThisAugust. So why waste time? Why do any more damage than I had to do to buy them time to save the rest?
I don’t know how I’ll do it. But this lovely room at Cambridge University isn’t the place.
My legs are heavy, stiff when I stand on them again. It’s like my body knows what’s coming and is trying to fight me.
