“I don’t think I can go,” I tell her, my voice cracking. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Just walk with me,” she says calmingly. “The bad vibes of this place are getting to you.”
I look around the audience chamber we’re still standing in. Everything seems so old and patched up now. I saw it in its glory, but even then, its beauty was carved with cruelty. A sparkling house of horrors.
I let Zoe take the phone from my hand, and once she tucks it away, we start to walk. We walk and walk until we’re outside the palace. Until we’re at the Hampton Court railway station. Until we’re on the streets of London. Until we’re back in our hotel room.
Zoe orders room service, and I go to the bathroom and lock the door. There’s a shower and a sink and a toilet. They seem so luxurious to me now. I strip out of my modern clothes and turn the shower to hot before stepping inside. I stay in for an outrageously long time. The water hits me like a baptism. Like a rebirth. I know that whatever I experienced is over now and there’s no going back. Not that I would ever want to, but I think it’s possible to still grieve for something you hated.
But there were lots of parts that I didn’t hate—people I didn’t hate. Bessie. Lady Rochford. Cecily. Bartholomew. William.
Simon.
I turn my face to the hot, still-running water and hold my breath under the almost burning spray.
They weren’t all just a dream. I know they couldn’t have been. They were real. As real as anything.
I imagine what it would be like if they were here with me now at the hotel. At any moment, Bessie would burst through the door, dying to tell me something or conducting an exam to see if I’m concussed. Lady Rochford would be sitting back on the bed, scowling at the two of us as she tried out the TV, but she’d be smiling on the inside. Bartholomew would be scrolling TikTok.
And Simon... Simon would wait for me on the balcony. When I go out to join him, he’d touch my cheeks and kiss me, not caring in the least who saw us. We wouldn’t have to hide anymore.
Each one of my friends is there with me in my mind’s eye, so vibrant and real and free. But then I return to reality, and I know they’re lost to me. Irrevocably, heartbreakingly lost.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I know this is a stupid question, but you have our passports, right?”
“Huh?” I look at Zoe, still feeling completely out of it, even now that I’m inside my own body. I barely slept more than a few minutes last night. When I was back in time, I always thought that I would have the sleep of my life if I was able to sleep on a real mattress again. But every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was them.
My former friends. My former life. All my mistakes. All my triumphs. The girl I saved. The man I lost.
I can’t stop thinking of them now.
“Lily? The passports?”
I look over at Zoe and try to manage a smile for her. I’m able to do it, but it’s half-hearted.
“Yeah, I have them.” I pat at the hidden passport carrier I’m back to wearing again, and it feels like nothing now that I’m accustomed to layers upon layers of garments and pins covering every inch of my body. I catch myself reaching up to adjust the French hood that I’m definitely not sporting anymore and opt to tuck my hair behind my ears instead.
Even after half a day, I still feel out of joint in my own skin. I can’t stop fidgeting as Zoe and I stand at the tube station, still deciding where to go.
“I heard Winston Churchill’s war rooms are interesting. Or we could go see Big Ben one last time. Which are you in the mood for?”
I know she’s talking to me, but it’s so hard to hear her when my mind is filled with Simon. Simon smiling. Simon playing with Theo. Simon holding me when the whole world was going to hell around us.
I rub at my eyes, still feeling half asleep as Zoe waits for my answer. “Yeah. Whichever one you pick will be great.”
The train rumbles into the station, sending a breeze whirling past us as it comes to a gradual stop. Zoe is still looking in one of her guidebooks as the doors open and we step aboard. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in one of the long windows, and before I can stop myself, I imagine Simon’s reflection beside me. I picture his small smile. I picture his hand resting over mine on the pole I’m holding onto. I force a blink, fighting the sting in my eyes, and when I look at the window again, it’s just my reflection alone. But I start to feel an undeniable pulling inside me.
I need to get off this train.
I look at Zoe and she’s still reading. She might kill me, but I know that this is right. I know I have to do this.
“I’ll meet you back at the hotel tonight,” I tell her.
Her eyes dart up from the book. “What?”
I jump off the train just before the doors close, and Zoe moves to the glass as I stand breathing hard on the platform. “I love you!” I call to her. “I’ll see you tonight!”
