The Love That Split the World (16 page)

“A long time ago, there was a drought,” I tell Beau. We’re lying
in the closet on our sides, his arm draped over my waist, hand resting on the back of my thigh. “And all the water dried up, every creek and stream, every river and lake, and the ocean surrounding America.

“The people became hungry and thirsty, so they wandered the world, looking for anything they could eat or drink. But when they found dead fish and animals where the water had been, they became angry. They blamed the animals for the drought, and they began to hack at their dead bodies, pulling them into pieces and flinging them around in their rage.

“This went on for some time, until a strong wind passed over them, and the people froze and looked up. They saw a man, carried by the wind, coming down to them. When he touched the earth, he spoke. ‘You’ve acted as fools,’ he told them. ‘You’ve abused me and each other and all that I created for you to enjoy and care for.’

“Then the man held out a leaf, and four drops of water fell from it to the earth. The water spread out from there, covering all the land in a flood. The man then chose several people to follow him up a mountain, and as the water continued to rise, the man spoke to the mountain and made it rise too, carrying the people to safety.

“They stayed on the mountain for four days before the floods retreated, leaving all the earth green again where it had gone dry. The man led the people back down from the mountain and they saw that the people who had stayed below the water had not drowned, but had been reborn as fish and alligators and other animals, so great in number that the empty earth was filled again.

“In this way the man remade the world, righting every wrong.”

“The end?” Beau says, running his hand down my side.

“Or the beginning,” I say, “depending on how you look at it. That’s what Grandmother used to say, anyway.”

He turns onto his back and I lay my head on his shoulder, resting my hand on his chest and feeling every breath pass through his lungs. “I’ll help you any way I can,” he says. “Finding her before you go, I mean.”

Right now the thought of leaving makes me want to dig my hands into Beau and freeze time around us. I turn to burrow into his T-shirt and breathe him in.

“I would’ve drowned in that flood,” he says, and I sit up abruptly.

“What are you talking about?”

“In my version, Kincaid’s not doing good,” he says. “He was always happier in your version. Probably ’cause he’s had you.”

“Matt and I are over,” I say. “Regardless of this . . . you.”

A faint smile crosses his face, but it quickly fades back into a serious, thoughtful look as his fingers skim down my arm. “He wouldn’t do this to me.”

“You don’t know what he’d do,” I say. “You don’t know the same Matt I know.” After what happened at his party, I’m not sure I do either.

“And you don’t know the one I’m friends with,” he says.

“Exactly. They’re two different people,” I say. “You don’t need to feel bad about this.”

He gives a humorless laugh and shakes his head. “It wouldn’t matter,” he says. “If we were in the same world, the
one where Kincaid was in love with you, I’d still be here. If you wanted me, I’d be here.”

“Why?” I ask.

He hides a grin and runs his thumb over my lips. “I’m not sure the world and me are as complicated as you think, Natalie. I didn’t mean to choose you or anything. I just know if I only get to build one porch in my life, I’d like it to be yours, and if there’s one person I never have to hurt or disappoint, I’d want that to be you too.”

I grab the sides of his face and kiss him again, slowly, deeply, his hands coming around me and lifting me over and on top of him. I fold over him to whisper, “I would still want you here too. In every version of the world, I would.”

Beau tightens his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. “Tell me one more and then I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to leave,” I say. “You could just disappear if someone came in.”

“And then I’d wind up in someone else’s closet,” he points out. “The first time I threw rocks at your window, an old man came outside, screaming about calling the cops.”

“Then you could stay in my version and just climb out the window.”

He looks down at me, smoothing the hair away from my face. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

Forever
, I think. This moment, forever. I’m self-aware enough, if only barely, to know that I’ve always had a hard time focusing on the present. I mean, for months leading up to Megan leaving all I could think about was the time we spent together and how it was going to feel to be without her. Once,
Dad caught me crying about it when he brought a stack of laundry into my room. At first he apologized and turned to go, but then I assume the haloed Little Mom on his shoulder told him to stay and comfort me. When I told him why I was upset, that I already missed Megan even though she hadn’t gone, he fought a smile, cleared his throat, and said, “You’ve gotta enjoy the moment, sugar cube. You’ll miss your whole life looking forward and backward if you’re not careful.”

People say that kind of thing all the time, and I believe them. The problem is I can’t stop it. I can’t make my brain forget the past, or my heart disregard what might come in the future.

But right now, sitting on the floor with Beau, I don’t want to retreat to the past or fast-forward to the future. I don’t want to be alone so I can think or try to figure out how things between us will end before I ever let them start. Time stands oddly still, is maybe absent altogether, when I’m with Beau, like there really is only this moment and nothing else. I wonder if he has this calming effect on everyone or if it’s possible that out of all the people in the world, in two different universes, Beau and I are uniquely equipped to fit together.

I don’t believe in love at first sight but maybe this is as close as it gets: seeing someone, a person you have no business loving, on a football field one night and thinking,
I want you to be mine and I want to be yours
. Lying on a closet floor with someone and thinking,
I shouldn’t know you but I do
. Recognizing someone as a part of you before they’ve even become that person in your life, and knowing, without a doubt, that neither of you will ever be who are you in this exact moment ever again and believing,
against all odds, you will continue to belong to one another despite that.

I don’t love Beau yet, I don’t think. But being with him feels like a better version of being alone, and in that way, I think we are each other’s.

I look up at the ceiling and wait for another story to come to me, feeling the threads pass through my mind like the light of knowledge Grandmother Spider wove through the first humans.

“What do you think it all means?” Beau murmurs against my ear. “All those stories she told you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she just didn’t want them to be lost.”

But as I say it, I remember what she said the last time I saw her, how she gripped my hands and said,
It’s all in the stories
.
Everything. The truth. The whole
world,
Natalie
.
That girl jumped through the hole, not knowing what would happen, and the whole world got born.

“Before the flood, there were the Yamasee,” I tell him. “The world had gotten so dark and violent that no one could survive without fighting back. And the Yamasee’s hearts were broken, because they didn’t want to kill to live. They couldn’t justify it. So when the water started to rise, rather than wasting their time fighting, they walked deep into the flood, singing as they went. And that was how they were lost.”

17

I wake up in the closet and Beau’s gone, his sweatshirt still draped over me and the windowpane slid shut but unlocked, catching drops of rain and purring with distant thunder. For a while, I just stare up at the ceiling, wondering if last night was only a dream.

If Beau is a dream. If Grandmother was a dream.

I sit up and a tiny white flower falls out of my hair. I pick it up, twirling it between two fingers: one of the blossoms that will someday grow in my wall, years and years and years from now. Holding it, I feel Beau’s mouth against mine, a simultaneous flush of heat and a rush of confusing guilt.

It’s not just Rachel, though that’s definitely part of it. Beau has a whole other world he’s cheating on with me. Another Matt Kincaid who’s his best friend. Another Rachel Hanson, who’s his Not-Girlfriend-but-Something. Another Union, where I don’t exist.

That’s when I remember it’s Thursday.

I jump up and run into my room, nearly tripping over Gus, who moved to sleep against the closet door in the middle of the night. I catch myself and step over him, then throw on jean cut-offs and a tank top and lunge for my phone to check the time.

Eight-thirty. With the Jeep in the shop, Jack’s carpooling with teammates, but I’d still meant to call Alice as early as possible to beg her to come get me for our meeting. I scroll through my phone until I find her name, but the call won’t go through, and when I look up I see why: Gus is gone, the walls are covered in pale pink floral wallpaper, and a single bed sits in the far corner, its tan quilts neatly folded.
Oh God. No, no, no.

I’m in someone else’s room. I take a deep breath, poke my head into the hallway, and check that the coast is clear before running toward the stairs. I open and close my eyes, hard, like I
used to do when I realized I was having a nightmare and wanted to wake up. I spin around the corner and fly down the steps.

Thank Grandmother
. I’m back in my world. Coco’s standing in the foyer, front door open, and I draw up short when I see Matt on the porch. “Hi,” he says tentatively over her shoulder.

Coco turns back to me and mouths
sorry.
“I was just about to come see if you were up yet,” she says aloud, glancing back and forth between us. “I’m going to go eat breakfast,” she stammers, then slips down the hall toward the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, guilt twisting my insides. This Matt doesn’t know Beau, I remind myself, but part of my mind is still reasoning that I’ve just stayed up all night making out with my ex-boyfriend’s best friend, and thinking that Matt is better off in the version of Union where he didn’t
waste all his energy on me.

He runs a hand up the back of his neck and over his sandy hair. “I’m not sleeping,” he says, and it shows in his red-rimmed eyes and rumpled clothes, the tang of beer on his breath. “I can’t think straight. I needed to see you.”

“I’m late.” I look over to where the Jeep’s usually parked and groan at the realization of what I’m about to do. “Fine, you need to see me? I need a ride to NKU. You can take me.”

“Okay,” he says eagerly. “Sure.”

“This doesn’t mean we’re friends again.”

“That’s fine.”

“I probably won’t even speak to you.”

“That’ll give me a chance to talk, for once,” he says, smiling meekly. It’s the kind of joke that would’ve made me laugh a few weeks ago. Right now it just makes me feel sad and empty. I want Matt to be happy. I want him to be happy somewhere else, because I want to be happy too, and right now, seeing him doesn’t bring back memories of our years of friendship. It only brings back memories of one night.

Matt leads the way to his car and opens the passenger door for me. “You look beautiful, Nat.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him.

We drive in silence, and I can feel his anguish filling up the air like a cloud of hornets, which only irritates me more. “I was really drunk, you know,” he says finally.

“If that’s how you act when you’re drunk, you shouldn’t drink,” I say.

“You’re right,” he says. “I’m not going to anymore.”

“Oh, really? Because you sort of smell like you spilled a keg
on yourself five minutes ago.”

“Last night was rough,” he admits sharply. “But that was the last time. I’m done with that.”

“You haven’t even started college yet.”

“So?” he says. “I mean it.”

I don’t argue, but I don’t believe him either. A part of me wonders if he’s still drunk right now, whether I should really be in the car with him while his eyes look like that and his clothes smell like that.

I think about the Other Matt Kincaid as we drive, the one who’s best friends with Beau, a slow-talking, whiskey-drinking Super Senior. I can’t imagine it, but then again it outwardly makes more sense than the idea of
me
with Beau.

Beau and Rachel.
That
makes sense, but the thought drives me crazy.

“What are you going to NKU for anyway?” Matt asks as we’re getting off the exit.

“Counseling,” I tell him.

His eyebrows flick up. “Is everything okay?”

“Not really, no.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he says.

“No.” The silence swells between us, unspoken words burbling up under my chest until I feel like I’m going to burst if I don’t say them. “You really hurt me, Matt.”

“I was a jerk.”

“You were supposed to be better than that.”

“Believe me,” he says. “I thought so too.”

As soon as he pulls into the parking lot, I jump out of the car even though we’re still on the opposite side of
campus from Alice’s office and it’s pouring rain. I can’t sit next to him any longer. Everything Beau said itches under my skin. Beau is under my skin, and Matt doesn’t even know he exists. As I march toward the building, Matt drives alongside me, rolling the window down. “How will you get home?” he asks, clearly worried, and I look up, wiping raindrops free from my lashes.

“I’ll figure it out,” I tell him. “Please leave, Matt.”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he’s trying to supply his tongue with words. “You know, this isn’t all my fault,” he says, anger ebbing into his voice.

“What isn’t? You forcing yourself on me and then hooking up with a girl who used to be one of my best friends?”

“God, Natalie,” he snaps. “I made a mistake. You don’t need to keep rubbing my nose in it like I’m a dog who pissed on the carpet.”

“I’m sorry if I can’t forget about something like that in the course of a few days, Matt,” I shout back. “You
scared
me—don’t you get that? I didn’t feel safe. I thought you were going to . . .” I trail off, unable to even say it aloud.

Matt scoffs, cheeks turning livid. “Just say it, Natalie,” he almost screams. “That’s what you really think of me. You think I would
rape
you.”

“I didn’t say that,” I say, shaking badly now.

“You might as well have.”

“I was
scared
,” I answer. “I told you to stop, and you didn’t listen. You’d never acted like that before. What was I supposed to think?”

“Sometimes,” he says, shaking his head at the steering
wheel, “I can’t even believe what a raging bitch you can be.”

My mouth falls open, the retorts I’d prepared slipping from my mind, leaving me empty and trembling. “Don’t ever talk to me again,” I say. “Don’t call me. Don’t come to my house. We’re done, Matt.”

“No problem,” he spits. He rolls up his window and speeds off.

I close my eyes, letting the rain soak me through, and my stomach floats upward within me, the sensation that lets me know the world’s changing around me. When I open my eyes again, the buildings are gone, replaced by rolling hills and thick thriving woods that shimmer and shake in the rain, but I set off toward where Alice’s building should be anyway.

With the buildings gone, it’s like Matt doesn’t exist. Like no one exists and so nothing bad can happen. The whole world feels safer and more tender, but I can’t stop crying and shaking.

I just need to keep going. Don’t think about Matt. Don’t think about the countdown or even about Beau. I’m getting closer to understanding everything. The whole world, and my place in letting it be born. If I just keep going, everything and everyone will be okay.

With a jerk in my center, Alice’s building pops back into view. I go inside, climb the stairs, and wind down the hallway to her office. “Cancel the rest of your appointments today,” I say when she and Dr. Wolfgang, the hypnotherapist, look up from her untamed desk.

“No can do,” she says, turning the page in her notebook. “It’s your responsibility to get here on time, and if you can’t manage that—”

“I know who the Others are.”

Alice pales. “Dr. Wolfgang, I think we’re going to have to reschedule.”

“Alternate realities occupying the same physical space,” Alice says, drumming her fingers on her mouth. “I’ve never seen concrete evidence before, but it makes sense.” She scribbles in her notebook, stops writing for a moment, and starts drawing tight circles with her pen as she
hmmm
s.

“Hmm?”
I say.

“So, say your Closing comes in three months,” Alice says. “Maybe you only have three more months before you’re shut out of these alternate realities, which are sort of like lunar eclipses. Multiple worlds overlapping, but it’s temporary.”

“Okay.” I already feel panic coursing through my veins at the thought of being shut out of Beau’s world.

“In that case,” Alice continues, “it’s possible Grandmother wants you to do something in the
other
world. Maybe that’s what the time limit’s for.”

“Maybe,” I agree. “There’s only one way to know for sure, though. I have to find her.”

“And your friend—Beau—has he ever encountered her?”

I shake my head. “No, but he says he’ll help me find her.”

“You think he can?” she asks, one dark eyebrow arching.

“I don’t know. But he has a lot better control over this. He’s been going between the two worlds since he was little.”

“Bring him here next time,” Alice says. “We’ll see what parallels we can draw between the two of you.”

“I’ll try,” I say noncommittally. I can’t imagine Beau agreeing
to be cross-examined by Alice, especially not after spending his whole life thinking he was losing his mind.

“In the meantime,” Alice says, “I still think we’re heading in the right direction. I feel it. The key to getting Grandmother back is in your mind. Dr. Wolfgang just has to find a way to get at it. Your brain’s like Alcatraz in its heyday.”

“I thought it was a Walmart.”

“A maximum-security Walmart,” she says. “One where otherworldly visions and teenage football players are welcome, and hypnotherapists panning for trauma are most definitely not. We’ll bulldoze your brain if we have to—we’re getting in there.”

“Speaking of getting somewhere,” I say, “I need a ride home.”

She glances at her watch, then throws up her hands. “Who am I kidding? I’ll make time.” She squeezes between her desk and her bookshelf and grabs her keys off a tray balanced precariously on a stack of papers. Suddenly she freezes and grabs my arm. “Brother Black and Brother Red,” she gasps.

“What?”

“Brother Black and Brother Red—the story you recorded for me last week. Holy dear freaking Grandmother.”

“Alice—
use your words
.”

“Two different versions of the same person,” she breathes. “The answer was in the story.”

Goose bumps prickle up along my skin beneath my still-damp clothes.

It’s all in the stories
.
Everything. The truth. The whole
world,
Natalie
.
That girl jumped through the hole, not knowing what would happen, and the whole
world
got born.