We’re standing perfectly still on the grass of the quad, staring at one another, holding hands in the middle of the rain, but the drops are not descending. They’re paused in mid-air, frozen in time, glistening like diamonds suspended from invisible ropes all around us.
Elliot smiles at me from behind a couple of the raindrops, and I reach up to move them, sending them floating off into the distance with the smallest touch of my fingers. His face is fully visible again as he reaches up and brushes a few more drops aside so that he can see me clearly as well.
“What the hell, Elliot?” Nothing is moving. There is no noise, no wind, nothing is making a sound except the two of us. The entire world around us is frozen.
“It’s a glitch,” he explains like it’s the most obvious answer in the entire world. “A gorgeous, wonderful glitch in an otherwise perfect system. Everything is paused except for us. We can go anywhere. Do anything. Where should we start?” He’s full of curiosity as his fingers reach out to touch another glistening drop.
Where should we start? My mind reels with the possibilities. “Can we go back in time, or just stay here?”
“Anything you want.”
There are so many options. The day my dad met Miranda. Just one different choice and she wouldn’t have been in our lives at all. Or the day I ran home. Maybe throwing a drink at Cline would have changed everything and none of this would have ever transpired.
My heartbeat quickens. Take me back to the day my mother became pregnant with me. I’ll stop it from ever happening.
But looking into his eyes, I know my real answer. I know where I would go if I had the choice.
“Take me back to the day I first met you,” I whisper. “Let’s run away.” His hand extends and I take it, watching as he turns his back and begins to lead. My head and my heart are at war as the words form and present themselves in my subconscious.
I could love him. This could be what love is.
But this love could be my undoing.
I awake with a start, covered in sweat, Elliot’s arms wrapped around my middle. It’s night and the house is quiet. Somehow, I have slept the entire day away, and my mouth is sticky, while my head is throbbing uncontrollably. Bleary eyed, I untangle myself from his grasp and fumble my way into the bathroom. The light is so bright it causes my head to pound even harder, and I groan in protest. I feel terrible, like I have the flu. My head is spinning and my thoughts are scattered, but I try to focus on one simple thing: a shower.
As quietly as I can, I creep back into the room and grab some things to change into so that I can clean up, and then maybe I can get something to eat or drink. I’ve missed an entire day’s worth of medication, but the timing is off, so if I take anything now I’ll be up forever, and I don’t even know what kind of effect that will have because I’ve never missed a dose. Not even once.
I decide maybe Cara or Dr. Stark will have an answer, so I grab my phone to take with me in hopes that they’ll answer a late night call. As I shut the bathroom door, I check the home screen of my phone and notice all of the missed phone calls and texts I’ve been avoiding since leaving school.
Miranda’s texts stand out the most, so I begin to read.
There is a noise that pulls me from my sleep. It’s faint but out of place, so it brings me out of my dream gently and then with a jolt. The room is pitch black save for light filtering out from beneath the bathroom door. I reach over to check the time on my phone and it’s just after 2 a.m. Audrey must have gotten up after sleeping all day and gone to take a bath. Maybe that’s the noise I heard.
I get up and go to stand in front of the door to listen for the sound of her in the tub, but there’s nothing. No slosh of water, no drips, no movement of any kind. Tentatively, I knock and wait for an answer, but all I get in return is more silence. Thinking maybe I’m wrong and she’s not in there, I try the door only to find that it’s been locked.
“Audrey,” I call and knock again, worry beginning to crawl up my spine and prickling the hairs on my arms. There’s a chance that she woke up and accidentally locked the door when she left the room. Maybe she’s downstairs with the others. They could be watching a movie or drinking. Maybe they’re reminiscing about old times when she and Cline were inseparable.
These scenarios play out while I take the stairs two at a time and skid into the living room where Cline and September are asleep on the couch. Whatever movie they were watching finished a while ago, and the DVD is continually playing the menu music over and over, the sound of which is putting my nerves on edge. Audrey is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey,” I yell just a little too loudly and watch them both jolt awake. “I can’t find Audrey. The bathroom door in the guest bedroom is locked. The light is on, but it doesn’t sound like anyone is in there. Did she come down here with you?”