‘And then what?’ she asks.
‘And then I rang Cesca.’ An involuntary smile crosses my lips at the memory. ‘We went out, Cesca and I, and got royally shit-faced on bright pink cocktails and she finally told me all the things about Nick she hated. It was a long list.’ I look up at Amina. ‘I asked Cesca why she’d never told me before just how much she hated him and she laughed. “Oh, hon. You wouldn’t have listened but you would have hated me for saying it. My job as your sister was to pick up the pieces when you finally saw the truth for yourself.” We’d rolled back to her flat in the small hours, clutching doner kebabs and cans of Rio.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ Amina says.
‘Yeah.’ I pause and take a fortifying gulp of wine. ‘But that isn’t what happened here, is it?’
‘No.’ She looks at me, pity in her eyes. ‘Here, Nick took you to Beaverbrook to have celebratory drinks with his mother.’
I shudder at the thought. ‘And Cesca?’
‘She was walking to the station. There was a car, the driver was over the limit, he wasn’t paying attention.’
‘Is she …’ But I can’t put it into words.
Amina nods.
Cesca, my beautiful vibrant sister, died in this universe on 30 September 2018. The day after my disastrous proposal.
In my world we were getting drunk and I was counting my blessings at my escape from Nick.
But here, in this world? Here I accepted the proposal. Agreed to marry the slimy weaselly bastard, hitched my life to his star and allowed myself to break in the process.
Here, I spent the day after the proposal with my mother-in-law. Not shopping with Cesca for a dress that was inappropriately short and tight and designed to make me feel like there was even a modicum of a chance someone else in the world would find me sexy.
If I’d turned him down in this world my sister would be alive.
I may as well have been driving that car.
It’s my fault.
I may as well have killed her myself.
I can’t stay here.
I can’t stay in a world without Cesca.
But I can’t risk leaving either.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Amina doesn’t talk, she just sits with me as I try to process this new piece of information.
‘Why didn’t I know?’ I ask eventually.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, why didn’t I realize she wasn’t here. When I woke up. I should have sensed she wasn’t here.’
Amina reaches out and touches my hand. ‘You’ve had a shock, but you need to be logical.’
I snap my head up, ready to defend myself, but then I see the look on her face and the sympathy playing across her features.
‘You are in a world a billion miles from your own,’ she continues, her voice soft. ‘You’ve had kind of a lot to deal with. And while, given the evidence of you sitting here in front of me, we cannot deny the existence of a fully formed consciousness, perhaps even a soul …’
‘I—’
‘That doesn’t mean you canfeelyour sister.’ She interrupts me to finish. ‘That is the kind of phenomena you would watch on a four-part documentary that could have been half an hour long and still ends inconclusively.’ She offers me a small smile so I’ll know she isn’t being unkind. ‘You’re a scientist, Bethany. So let’s stop with the self-recrimination that you should have known.’
