I try to stop myself thinking of his bed. Of him in his bed. Of him in his bed with me. He catches my eye. Is he thinking the same?
I turn my attention back to my screen. The programme will look for a pattern in a sequence and extrapolate to suggest how the sequence could continue. ‘Shit,’ I hiss as I look at the possible permutations in front of me.
‘How many?’
I scroll down and down and down. Hundreds of possible sequences.
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah.’ I close the screen and rest my forehead on the cold silver of the laptop casing. It’s pointless. I’m no closer to learning anything. No closer to being able to figure out whatis happening. Or why. Or how. Or even when. I could wake up here tomorrow. Or I could wake up somewhere new, in another Bethany in another timeline in another bizarre echo of my real life. I’m tired and I feel like this is some awfulGroundhog Dayemulator that keeps fucking up because every time I skip I have to go back to the beginning and find Tyler and explain everything and then try to work out what has changed and if it means anything. Or if this whole thing is just completely random and meaningless and I’m just going to keep skipping over and over again until I lose my mind.
‘Hey, hey.’ His voice is soft as he touches my shoulder. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
‘Is it?’ I look up at him and he recoils at the sight of the venom in my eyes. ‘Because right now it seems like we are no fucking closer to an answer. And what happens if we can’t stop me from skipping? Oh my Go—’
I stop myself.Oh my God!
‘What?’ Panic overtakes Tyler’s concern. ‘What is it?’
‘What happens if there’s no me? In the world I skip to …’
He looks confused. ‘What do you mean, no you?’
‘I mean …’ I pause for a moment, trying to corral the thoughts somersaulting through my brain into some semblance of order. I’m painfully aware what I’m about to say may come across as utterly unhinged. ‘What if … in the timeline I skip to … well, what if something happened to that Bethany?’
‘You mean … like she die—’
‘Yes.’ I cut him off. I don’t want him to say the word, it feels far too much like tempting fate. Even if I believe in science and order and rules and absolutely not in superstition and certainly not in fate.
‘Um.’ He runs his hand through his hair. ‘Uh.’
And then a cold hand reaches in and squeezes my chest,my heart skipping beneath its icy fingers. Because I’m sitting on a ticking time bomb. The arrythmia.
What if …
As if to prove my point, I wake up a few moments later with a rather large bruise forming on my forehead where it banged onto the surface of the laptop still in my lap as I fainted.
‘Bethany?’ Tyler’s face is bleached of all colour. ‘What happened?’
‘It’s nothing,’ I reply, taking slow breaths and trying to bring myself under control.
‘You just passed out.’
‘It’s just … I have a heart defect. Aminorheart defect,’ I add for emphasis. ‘I’ve had it since birth, so I’m going to assume that all of us Bethanys have it. But it’s not really a problem, unless I get hugely overstressed. I had an … episode. In one of the other worlds.’
The reality of what I’ve just said starts to settle into the silence around us. And just like that the sword of Damocles swings over my head. We need to fix this situation. Fix it and find a way for me to get home before my fear becomes a reality and I skip into a universe where there is no Bethany.
Lily’s warm nose presses against my leg, her way of checking I’m okay; she must be able to sense the shift in dynamic in the air. I reach down and stroke her silky ears, grateful for her calming presence.
‘Maybe you’d be a zombie,’ Tyler says, his voice a whisper.
I snap my head to look at him, ready to reproach him for being an insensitive shit. But that cheeky grin is tugging at the corner of his mouth and I can’t help but start to laugh myself.
It’s like a dam has broken and soon we are both in a fit of giggles, Lily and Doris – that’s the bearded cutie Tyleris dog-sitting – yapping and running around us. It’s exactly what we needed to break the atmosphere. After all, there’s no point worrying about the things we can’t change. That way lies madness and indecision and curling up in a tiny ball to wait for death to take you. Entirely unconducive to figuring out this problem.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After a few minutes we stop laughing and a comfortable silence settles between us.
