‘Did you just let me win?’ he asks.
‘No. I …’ I don’t know if I should put the thought I’ve just had into words.
‘Spill,’ he demands, as if he can see the torment in my mind.
‘It’s just …’ I pause and take a breath. ‘Is it fair?’
‘Chess? No. You’re beating my ass.’
‘I mean … Trying to stay. To be there for the wedding. What about this world’s Bethany?’ I say it quietly.
‘Oh.’ He sits back. ‘Well.’ His face twists as he thinks. ‘I don’t know,’ he says eventually. ‘We have no idea how any of this works, or what is happening. When you skip, time could reset here and we do it all over again anyway.’
I stare at him. ‘Are you serious?’
He shrugs. ‘Or this world could cease to exist at all. Or this world’s Bethany could be having a glorious time in another world. Or she could still be here.’
I blanch at that one. The thought that this world’s Bethany is also in this body feels too weird to contemplate. If she is, then where is she? How does she feel? Is she trapped in the—
‘Stop,’ Tyler says, interrupting my train of thought.
‘Sorry,’ I say quietly.
‘We’re scientists. We have to deal with what we know. What we can see in front of us. Okay?’
I nod.
‘And what we know is that you’re here, in this world, right now. And you want to stay to watch your sister get married. And so that is what we’re going to do.’ He sounds so serious, so practical and level-headed, that I can’t help but nod again. He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel like this is where I need to be.
As the sun begins to paint the horizon in a blaze of orange and pink, we go for a walk, the air cool and crisp. I don’t feel tired, but I catch Tyler’s surreptitious yawn.
I elbow him in the ribs.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says and then rubs his side. ‘That hurt. You don’t know your own strength, Raven.’
The Tyler from my world used to call me by my surname and it always felt like a dig. But here, coming from this Tyler, it feels oddly personal, like a nickname between friends.
Then he laces his fingers with mine and begins to skip down the street, dragging me behind him.
‘What are you doing?’ I try to pull him backwards to stop the skipping, but he carries on despite my protestations.
‘Taking you for breakfast to celebrate. It worked!’
He’s right. It did work. I’m still here, in this world with this Tyler. And tomorrow my sister is getting married. I just have to stay awake for long enough to be there. I mean, how hard can it possibly be to stay awake?
We used to pull all-nighters all the time when we were students. And then there was that first year I lived in London and stayed on Cesca’s sofa. There were more than a few weekends when I worked through the night in a local club on the Friday and then stayed up for a house party at Cesca’s flat, drinking and dancing until the sun rose on Sunday morning. Easy-peasy. I can do this.
Except I’m not twenty-one any more. I only close my eyes for a second while Tyler orders our waffles.
I wake up with a start, heart hammering in my chest.
I’m in the flat.
The alarm is blaring on the bedside cabinet.
I’m wearing shorts and a vest, my hair twisted into one of those silk heatless curler thingies you see all over Instagram in my world.
I’ve skipped again.
