“By Ray Bradbury?”
He nodded.
“I love that story,” I said.
“My teacher read it to our class in the third grade, and it’s always stuck with me. I remember feeling bad for the girl.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I thought of Margot, the sad, pale girl in the story who was shut up in a closet and robbed of her time in the sun. A cold shiver ran through my body.
“‘Mars Is Heaven!’ is great too,” Rad said after a few moments.
“I love that one as well.”
By now the stars were coming out one by one like pinpricks through a veil. I let the cool, crisp air into my lungs and tried not to think about small, confined spaces.
“There was a book I read when I was a kid,” said Rad. “I can’t recall the title or the author. But it was about parallel worlds. Sometimes I feel like I’m in an alternate universe. Like I switched places with another version of me, and I’m stuck here, in this world. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“It does,” I said. “I feel like that sometimes too.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
“I suppose it’s like being a character in a book. The author has this idea of where the story line is going, and she sets up her characters accordingly. But it changes as she goes, right? All of a sudden, it’s the second draft, and you’re stuck with a different name and a whole other backstory. Then she writes you into an alternate ending. You know, sometimes I get this tiny glimpse of what things were, before the new reality takes over.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I know what you mean by a glimpse. It’s more of a feeling.” I frowned. “Well, I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s something intangible. Which is why it’s so difficult to explain. There is a sense of something else—a different reality altogether—but then you’re snatched up by the present one, and you’re stuck here. I suppose the most obvious comparison is that moment when you wake up from a dream, and there are those first few seconds of adjustment. Only, I think I have felt that while I was wide awake.”
“You’ve just described it perfectly,” said Rad. “But the idea is crazy, right? I’m sitting here on this park bench talking to you, and it feels solid and real. But maybe in the original version of this story, we were never here.”
“Which means the park bench never existed in the first place.”
“Scary thought, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I like your theory—about us being characters in a book.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“I do,” I said.
“Then who do you think created us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like one of those mirrored rooms where you see a thousand versions of yourself. Someone created us, someone else created them, and it goes that way in an infinite loop.”
“Well, if that’s the case, my creator must be a masochist.”
I could tell he was only half joking.
My mother was up when I got home later that night. She was standing in the hallway, her face a storm cloud of anger. “It’s two in the morning, Audrey,” she said. “Where the hell have you been?” I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up her hand to stop me. “You know what? I don’t want to hear it. I know it’s going to be lies anyway.” She glared at me, wrapping her sleeping gown tighter around herself. Her voice dropped, but it still retained every bit of its venom. “Everyone at the reception saw you leave with that boy,” she hissed. “Do you have any idea how that looks?”
“We were just talking, Mum,” I said, looking down at my feet.
“Talking?” she said, raising her voice again. “Until two in the morning? What’s wrong with you, Audrey?” She crossed her arms and sighed loudly. “Ana—your friend—is barely cold in her grave, and you’re trying to get your hands down her boyfriend’s pants.”
I looked up at her, furious. “How dare you!” I screamed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Yes, I do,” she said coldly. “I saw the way you were looking at him. How do you think Duck would feel about that?”
“Duck wouldn’t care, Mum.” The words didn’t come out as confidently as I had intended. Until now, I hadn’t even thought about Duck.
“He wouldn’t?” she said. “Are you out of your mind, Audrey? I hope you haven’t forgotten that if it wasn’t for Duck, you wouldn’t even be here right now.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I pushed past her roughly and was halfway up the stairs when I heard her call after me. “I don’t want you seeing him again. Do you hear me, Audrey? It’s finished.”
“Shut up!” I screamed. “You can’t tell me what to do!”
I slammed the door shut, anger rising inside me. I took a few deep breaths, willing myself not to cry. It had been such a strange night, and I wanted to collect myself and make sense of what I was feeling. Deep down I knew my mother was right, and I felt a bubble of self-hatred rise to the surface. It was clear to me now that I shouldn’t have left Ana’s house with Rad. But it happened so quickly that neither of us had time to think about the consequences. And now it was too late to turn back.
Three
Candela caught up with me just as I was walking through the school gate.
“Hey, Audrey,” she said, a little out of breath. “What happened last night?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, you left Ana’s house with Rad. Everyone was talking about it.”
“How crass.”
“People can be assholes,” she agreed. “So, what happened, anyway? You didn’t answer any of my texts last night.”
“Sorry,” I said, “I got home really late.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow.
The school bell sounded.
“Hey, let’s skip class today,” said Candela.
“I can’t. I’ve been falling behind.”
“Audrey.” She grabbed my arm. “You look like you need a break. And besides, one day won’t kill you—will it?”
A few hours later, we were sitting on the sandy shore of our favorite beach, watching the surfers glide across the waves. It was unusually warm for August, and we were enjoying the rare bits of sunshine that broke intermittently through the gray clouds. Candela passed me a joint, and I took it from her gratefully.
“Thanks,” I said. “I really needed this.”
“Me too,” she said. “What a god-awful week it’s been.”
I held the end of the joint to my lips, drawing the smoke into my lungs.
“Go easy, Audrey. You know that stuff can make you weird.” I nodded, handing it back to her. She took a couple of quick puffs and then stubbed the joint out on the sand. I watched as she placed the rest of it carefully into a pillbox.
“I know I shouldn’t have left with Rad last night.”