Jason’s eyes are as big as footballs. Then he groans. “Zadie,” he says, “please don’t tell me you think I cheated on you.”
I blink. “You did.”
“And where did you get that from, this ‘dream’ you had that lasted a month? Where you thoughtIwas in a coma and you were fine?” he asks, then takes my hands again.
“Y-yes,” I say, but it sounds more like a question.
“Babe, please. Listen to yourself.”
“Hand me your phone,” I demand.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I say. With a heavy sigh, Jason pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. I search for Alana Duncan, but she’s not in his phone. I find Jason’s thread with Mo. They barely have a thread.
I shut my eyes. “You’re saying I…”
“Made it up?” Jason says, taking his phone back. “I don’t want to make you doubt everything you think, but yeah. You kind of did. Youdefinitelydid.”
I stare at him, trying to see if he’s telling the truth, if there are any signs of deceit. And I see absolutely nothing.
I have apparently never been able to tell whether Jason has a secret or not.
“You think I…I dreamt it?”
“Yeah,” he says, a look of apology on his face. “And it kind of sucks that you’d go by some dream rather than completely trust me. That you’d let go of everything we were just because you imagined something.”
“I didn’timagine…”
But I did.
“I didn’t think…” I knead my thumbs into my temples. This is officially the first headache I’ve had since I woke up, and part of me is waiting for the world to shake then dissolve away, waiting for Marcus to show up.
Shit.
Shit shit shit, I think as my eyes fill up.
In what version of reality could that ever have been true? That doesn’t happen.
Worlds don’t just dissolve, give way to memories.
Why did I start to believe, start to accept, that they did?
Because I was unconscious.
Because I had something wrong with my head, a traumatic brain injury as Mo calls it. Mo, who is definitely still speaking to me and remembers nothing about some random fight on the porch of her house. Because that was also a dream.
I swipe at my tears. “But you did still break up with me,” I say, defensive. “That really happened.”
Jason nods, somber. “It did,” he says, then looks ashamed. “I did it because I was afraid. Zadie, I’m in love with you. More than I should be at eighteen. More thananyoneshould be at eighteen. And I was terrified.”
I’m speechless but finally manage to ask, “Why?”
“Because then we’re it. We’re forever. From now until the end,” he says, taking my hands again. Foreverisscary, I want to say. It’s so many more memories and versions of me and him. I can’t even comprehend forever, but he touches his lips to my hands. “And Istarted off so afraid of that, but nearly losing you…it showed me what a stupid fear it is to love someonetoomuch.
“The fact is,” he says, “we are a perfect match. We make sense. Everybody knows it.”
I’ve waited so, so long to hear him say these words.
