I can see the outline of him through his jeans and he seems just as turned on as I am.
With some kind of magic manoeuvre, he flips us so he’s lying on the bed and I’m straddling him. His hands slide under my top lifting the material away from my skin, his touch warm and gentle.
But then something catches my attention. I can see my back reflected in the combination of mirrors around us. And there, just below my right shoulder blade, is a bright pink and red design. I freeze, it looks like a Möbius strip. Tattooed onto my back.
I don’t have a tattoo.
‘Hey,’ Tyler says gently, moving his hands away from me. ‘Hey. You okay?’
I climb off him. Edging closer to one of the mirrors, twisting and turning to get a better look at the ink.
‘Is that a Möbius strip?’ he asks. ‘Cool. Nerdy, but cool.’
‘It isn’t mine,’ I whisper, the words catching in the back of my throat as I realize what this means. ‘This isn’t my body.’
‘Oh.’
I pull my top down to cover myself. ‘I … I …’ But I don’t know how to say it. How to articulate my thoughts. Not here. Not for him. Not here in this bedroom with him and everything that was meant to come with that.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘It’s okay. I get it.’
I flash him a look that says I highly doubt he does, in fact,get it.
‘It isn’t your body. Your mind, yes, but not your body. And, therefore,’ he motions between the two of us, ‘this is weird and kind of creepy. Because the Bethany whose body you’re in can’t consent.’
Oh. Maybe he does get it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We stay in New York for another day and another night. We have a picnic in Central Park and visit the Intrepid Museum to see the space shuttleEnterpriseand then have the most amazing pastrami on rye from a tiny little deli followed by deep-fried Oreos from Ray’s Candy Store. Tyler maintains a respectful distance, ever the perfect gentleman. But there’s also an undercurrent there, like we’re illicit lovers trying to maintain a veneer of propriety in public. Flashes of a look in his eye where Iknowhe’s wondering what could have been, moments where I have to physically sit on my hands to stop myself from touching him. And then there’s the fact we’re living on borrowed time and soon I’ll be gone and this Bethany will come back and everything will be different again.
Before I go to bed, I rip out the short scribbled note I wrote her last night in case I skipped and instead write her a long letter, explaining in more detail why we’re in New York and why she should give Tyler a chance.I promise he’s actually one of the good guys, I write. I apologize for hijacking her body and reassure her that nothing untoward happened and it’s the most surreal thing I’ve ever written. I hope she reads it and realizes I mean every word.
And then I put on a pair of supersoft pyjamas Tyler treated me to from Macy’s and slide into the cool cocoon of the premium hotel bedding.
I wake up to the sound of rain drumming against a dormer window.
I listen for a few minutes, eyes shut, trying to control the panic bubbling in my stomach like a pool of acid. I’m not in New York any more. Eventually I take a deep breath and crack open one eye.
Yep. Not New York. But also … not my flat.
Where am I? Am I in a man’s bed? Am I in Tyler’s?
I open the other eye and breathe a deep sigh of relief. Not my flat. But also … demonstrably my flat. My taste flows through the space, it’s just a different apartment. I guess this Bethany moved from our gorgeous little place in Clapham. On the opposite wall is a slightly stylized print of the New York skyline.
I take a deep breath in for four counts, holding it at the top for a count of seven and then exhaling for eight, willing my heart to stop pounding in my chest. Eventually my body responds and I feel normality returning. Well … I say normality, but I’m in a new body in a new universe and I have no idea how to get home. So, yeah. New normal. It’s so frankly ridiculous I laugh out loud into the silence of my empty flat. Perhaps I’m just losing my mind.
Losing my naughty, traitorous mind that can’t stop thinking about the first night in New York … before I saw the tattoo. I can still feel his mouth on mine, the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips. The curve of his smile as he pulled away to look at me, eyes soft but with just the hint of mischief. It was real.
It just wasn’t right.
I mope around the flat for the day, picking up the relics of this Bethany’s life, turning them over in my hands, putting them back. I find some wine in the fridge and decide it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to open it. It might not have been theworstidea, but it still wasn’t my best. It goes straight to my head and so I’m forced to have a lie-down on the black leather sofa, which doesn’t really work in the living room.
I wake up in the middle of the afternoon with an epiphany. Well, I say epiphany but it’s more of a dawning realization if I’m honest, more that certain things begin to come into focus which perhaps should already have been in focus. If that makes any sense at all.
I was almost there, in New York, when I realized I was only borrowing that Bethany’s body and therefore, no matter how much I wanted to – and believe me that Ireally, reallywanted to – I couldn’t get physical with Tyler. But it wasn’t just Bethany’s body I was borrowing. It was her whole life. And, by extension, I’m also just a visitor in the rest of their lives – each world’s version of Cesca and Tyler and Alesha and Nessie and Helen. All of these people whose lives I’m touching and changing just by being here. And then what?
What happens when the real Bethany comes back and finds all these people who don’t understand what happened? How confused and puzzled will she be about what she missed? Not to mention that I have no idea where this Bethany goes while I’m here. Or if she goes anywhere at all. Maybe she just goes nowhere, like she’s asleep somewhere inside her own mind while I control her like a marionette.
