The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

49





THE DOCK IS DRY AND HOT BENEATH MY LEGS. I am sitting on the dock.

“What happened?” I ask frantically. “Go back! I have to go back!”

Mina is staring at the sun, a sentinel presiding over her placid world. The water is slack, the clouds inert again. “They’re in trouble, Sam. Should I bring them here?”

I suck in a breath and hear my heart jackhammering in the sudden silence. The water at my feet is like impenetrable glass, my reflection a photograph frozen in time.

But we’re not frozen. I’m not frozen. I remember my epiphany on the dock about saving Mina, and a new understanding hits me like a kick to the chest. It’s not just Mina I’m supposed to save.

I died for this moment. I died for my three best friends, for the chance to give them a future together. I’ve glimpsed the secret behind the curtain. In trying to find a way to stay connected to Mina, I stumbled upon a path to connect us all forever. I stumbled upon the path between life and death.

I’m going to save you all, I promise.

I stand up face to face with Mina. She is uncertain, waiting. “An infinite ocean of possible worlds, Mina. We create our world, then mistake it for a script, indelible. We are so much more powerful than that. Miracles happen every day. What are they really? Instances where people believed in the impossible and saw it come true.” We are stronger than death if we believe it. All that exists is belief and love.

The space between Mina and me begins to shimmer. The clouds fade to a blanket of white, the water brims with diamonds blotting together. The world is filling with light. Mina’s face gleams like glitter let loose on a breeze. “Are you ready?” I ask her.

I put out my hands. Mina steps forward to take them and looks into my eyes with the same mischievous twinkle of a kindergartner I once knew.

I brace myself for what comes next. I have to believe. I have to believe that I can do it. That is the most important thing. My job. My responsibility. It wasn’t a mistake, all the preparation for Mina’s death. It wasn’t a mistake that I had to die to find Mina in her strange world.

Everything was training, leading up to this moment. This moment in which we are all on the brink and we all need saving. The moment when everything would depend on me.

There is a sound like aquarium glass groaning. It will fracture at any moment and all will be lost to the depths of the sea.

It’s time.

“What do you think we’re supposed to do, Sammy?” Mina asks.

“JUMP.”



Christmas Eve

Samantha



You’re gone. You’ve really gone and left us alone in this big black hole.

I’m supposed to keep writing you, like we promised, but my broken heart doesn’t know what to say.

By the time we got there today, you were pretty out of it. You asked me where all the “other worlds” are. Even though Kendra looked at me like I was a lunatic, I tried to explain where they could be hiding, in different dimensions millimeters away.

You asked me what world I would choose. If I would choose one with my mother.

I would choose you, Mina. You, Kendra, Isabel, and me. Every roll of the dice, I would choose a world with all of you.