Parallelogram Omnibus Edition

by Brande, Robin

  I slip back into the liquid. Where it’s pointless to open my eyes, because there’s nothing to see. And pointless to breathe, because I don’t need to. This is an in-between place, a holding place, and what I remember is what it felt like to come out of it, back onto my street at home. I just have to wait for that moment again, don’t push it, just wait and let it tell me—

  “Heya,” Halli says inside my head.

  “Heya,” I say inside of hers.

  58

  She is sitting on the curb. The same curb where Christine and Olga and I stood hours ago.

  “I was afraid to leave,” Halli tells me. “I was afraid you couldn’t find me again. But you’re here!”

  Anyone watching right now will see a young woman hugging herself and laughing and bouncing up and down. And I don’t care. Halli doesn’t care, either. Caring is for people with boring, ordinary lives.

  “Is Red all right?” Halli asks. “Please tell me he survived.”

  “He’s fine,” I say. “He’s with me. He’s with me all the time.”

  Halli closes her eyes and sighs. “Thank you.” She reaches over and picks up my laptop from where it’s sitting beside her on the curb. “I only ran inside for a second to get this. You have wi-fi out here. I know all about that now.”

  She hits Enter—no sweeping or poking, just plain old Enter—and the laptop finds a familiar contact.

  And a familiar face comes up on the screen.

  “She’s here!” Halli tells him.

  Professor Whitfield leans closer to his screen. As if that will help him see me any better.

  “Audie?” he says, keeping his voice down. “Is it really you? Are you really alive?”

  “I’m alive, Professor.”

  He shuts his eyes tightly and rests his forehead against his hand. He stays like that for a good long time before opening his eyes again.

  “Audie, I’m so sorry,” he says. “This is all my fault. I thought . . . I thought—”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “I saved Halli—that’s what I wanted to do. She’s alive and I’m alive. It worked. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everything’s fine. We just need to figure out how to reverse it.”

  “Take her inside,” Professor Whitfield tells Halli. “We need to talk in private.”

  Halli scoops up the laptop and carries it—and me—back into my house. I’m not quite comfortable in my own body yet. Even though Halli is in here with me, it’s not like we’re banging up against each other in the same small space. We’re here in my mind at the same time—and neither of us takes up any room at all.

  But it’s weird going from one body to another with just that underwater feeling in between. It’s going to take me a minute to adjust. But I wish it wouldn’t take any time at all.

  Because this is me again—me. Me walking into my house. Me seeing that old, ratty furniture, the yellow kitchen table, the stupid pictures on the wall.

  “Where’s my mom?”

  “At work,” Halli says.

  “Is it really Saturday here?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Halli says. “Why? What is it where you are? Where are you?”

  “What’s she saying?” Professor Whitfield asks. “What are you two talking about?”

  And that’s when I realize that one of us—Halli, I think—has been moving my lips and speaking her part of it out loud.

  I see if I can do that myself. Instead of thinking my thoughts to Halli, I try making them come out through my mouth.

  “Professor?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Audie. Can you hear me?”

  “Is that really Audie, Halli?”

  “Yes,” she answers him. It all sounds the same. He must feel like he’s losing his mind.

  We go into my bedroom. At least it used to look like my bedroom. Now I barely recognize it.

  I’ll admit I’m a slob. I have better things to do than organize or clean. So I’ve gotten used to a certain level of grunge.

  But in her time alone here, Halli has completely transformed the place. There’s nothing on the floor. There’s nothing on my desk except a pad of paper and a coffee mug holding pens and pencils. All my books are neatly arranged on the shelves.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, lifting my hand to open my closet door.

  I stand there in total shock. “Where . . . is everything?”

  It’s just like Halli’s closet at her house: bare except for a few shirts, a few pairs of pants, and maybe one or two skirts. And just three pairs of shoes, neatly tucked toward the back.

  “I saved everything,” Halli says. “But I started going through it one day, trying to see what I could wear, and I just couldn’t stop.”

  “No, it looks . . . great. I just can’t . . . believe it.”

  I don’t know if she can feel what’s happening, but I’m fighting hard so she won’t.

  “Audie . . .”

  “No, it’s okay,” I say, clearing my throat. “I was gone. This was your life. Of course you should do it how you want.”

  “Is everything all right?” Professor Whitfield asks. From the way the laptop is aimed, I don’t think he can see what we’re talking about.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. I got distracted for a moment. It looks so great in here, Halli—really. It’s like a new room.”

  “We can put it back,” she whispers. Or maybe she doesn’t whisper it—maybe she’s just telling me that inside my head. I don’t know anymore whether I’m hearing things with my ears or with my mind.

  “It’s okay.” I brush my finger under my eye. It’s a stupid thing to care about.

  “How much time do we have?” the professor asks me.

  The truth is, that hadn’t occurred to me.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “This is so different from before. I really have no idea.”

  “We shouldn’t waste time,” he says. “So please make yourself comfortable. And then tell us everything that’s happened.”

  59

  There are some parts I leave out. They’re not relevant to the science, and I’m not sure Dr. Whitfield would even be interested in knowing about Jake and me, for instance, or about anything going on with Daniel.

  I’m not even sure Halli should know yet. I’m thinking it might be better to wait until we’re closer to her taking over her life again. Then I’ll fill her in so she knows what she’s walking into.

  For all the weird science I know Professor Whitfield has been involved in over the years, the man can still be shocked. He spends a lot of our conversation stroking his beard, nodding, shaking his head, stroking his beard. He asks a lot of questions, and I actually have some answers for him, but not always.

  “What happened on this side?” I finally get to ask. “What did you see?”

  “You came back, just like before,” the professor says. “Nothing strange. But then when you spoke it was clear it wasn’t you.”

  “Probably because I grabbed him by the shirt and said, ‘Where’s Audie? What happened?’” Halli says.

  “Yes, that had something to do with it,” the professor says.

  “So a week has passed here?” I ask. “Only a week?”

  “Yes,” Professor Whitfield says. “You were in my lab last Saturday night.”

  “How did I jump three days ahead?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s one of the issues,” he says.

  I make Halli tell me more of the details: like how she got home, whether she got here before my mother came back from her trip, how my mother reacted when she first met her.

  “There are definitely times when I know she thinks I’m acting odd,” Halli says. “Like when I’ve forgotten things I should know—”

  “Like how to drive the car,” Professor Whitfield says.

  “That was a challenge,” Halli agrees. “Not very smooth at first, but I’ve been practicing.”

  “But . . . what about school?” I ask. “And my job?”

  Halli gives me a fake cough. “Sick all
week. Your mother says it’s not like me.”

  “No, I never miss school,” I say. “Everyone must be confused.”

  “Your mom thinks you’ve been pushing yourself too hard with the Columbia application. She wants you to take a rest.”

  Amazing. I remember when trying to get into Columbia University was the most important thing in my life. I was obsessed with it. Now I can’t even remember what that felt like.

  “So . . . you two talk?” I ask Halli. “You and my mom?”

  “As much as I can,” she says.

  I press a little spot on my chest. There’s an ache there I haven’t had time to notice in the past week. But now it’s like Halli has watered it, and it’s suddenly sprung back to life.

  Halli notices it, too. “Sorry,” she whispers inside my head.

  “It’s not your fault,” I answer back.

  I take a deep breath. “So where do we go from here?” I ask Professor Whitfield. “How do we undo it? How do Halli and I get our lives back?”

  60

  Professor Whitfield strokes his beard. He pauses to take a sip of the coffee he’s been replenishing for the last hour and a half.

  “Obviously I don’t know for sure,” he says. “This has never happened before, as far as I’m aware. There’s nothing in the literature . . .”

  He’s stalling, and I know it. Of course he doesn’t know for sure, and of course there’s nothing written about it in any of the science literature—that’s not what I’m asking.

  “Professor?” Something in his expression is starting to worry me.

  He coughs into his fist. It’s almost as fake as the cough Halli gave me just a minute ago.

  “He’s not answering,” I tell Halli.

  “I can see that,” she says.

  “Here’s my concern,” he says. “In every previous instance, the two of you were able to communicate. Toward the end we never had any trouble with the two of you finding each other—in fact, Audie, you’d gotten much better at it in just that last hour or so before you disappeared. Remember?”

  I do. Up until then I always had to wait for Halli to be ready for me. The two of us would have to concentrate at the same time, then we could link up.

  But one of the experiments Professor Whitfield had me do on that last day was project my vision or my thoughts or whatever outward, and find Halli on my own. Like my own tracking system, locating her wherever she was, and sending myself there.

  “Okay,” I say. “So?”

  “So my concern is that you lost that ability. Halli has been trying to contact you this entire time, and she couldn’t even say whether you were alive. You just . . . disappeared.”

  I can see he’s building up to something, but he won’t get to it. My heart is speeding up, waiting for it to hit.

  “Why do you think that is?” I ask. “Why did we lose each other?”

  “Because I think the situation with Halli . . . played out,” he says.

  “Played out?” Halli repeats. “What do you mean?”

  I watch his face. And somehow I know. I know exactly what he’s trying to tell us.

  “He means the situation with the avalanche,” I say. My tongue feels slow. Either I’m holding it back, or Halli is. Neither of us wants me to say what I’m going to say.

  Professor Whitfield nods. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

  And now I can feel Halli understanding it, too. Something just clicked in her brain.

  “You mean . . . I died?” Halli says.

  Professor Whitfield nods.

  “Body A, or Body B—whichever,” I say, impatient with myself, “is gone. Forever.”

  “Yes,” the professor says.

  The three of us sit here in silence. But both Halli’s and my minds are spinning.

  “That’s why we lost contact,” I say. “Because the thread was broken.”

  “I believe so,” he answers. “Yes.”

  “Whatever connection Halli and I had disappeared once she died.”

  “But I’m not dead,” Halli says. “You’re alive and I’m alive.”

  “A version of you is alive,” Professor Whitfield corrects her.

  “I made a new Halli,” I say, and as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Halli 2—is that right, Professor?”

  “I believe you are a new entity. Yes.”

  “Oh my . . .” I cover my mouth with my hand. I don’t want to say anything or think anything right now. I wish Halli didn’t have to hear it.

  “I believe you split off a new universe,” Professor Whitfield says. “We knew it was possible—that theory has been out there a long time—but I believe what we’re seeing here is living proof.”

  I get up from the bed. I have to move. I have to pace. I have to get out of my skin.

  “So I didn’t save Halli—not Halli 1,” I say. “Instead I pushed her body into some new parallel universe, and started over.”

  “But started over three days ahead,” Professor Whitfield says. “With a different history of what happened in those three days.”

  “Halli 1 died on the mountain,” I say. “Halli 2 was never there that day. Somehow I made a new universe where she went down on Sunday with Daniel and Sarah and Martin.”

  “That’s impossible,” Halli says.

  I laugh darkly. “None of this is impossible anymore.”

  Professor Whitfield fills in another piece. “I believe that’s why you have this new kind of connection—sharing the same body, instead of traveling physically to where Halli is.”

  “Because that’s how this new universe works,” I say. “And that’s why the old way wouldn’t.”

  “This is all speculation,” the professor warns me.

  “It’s more than I’ve had for the last week,” I answer. “It’s better than nothing.”

  Although it’s actually worse than nothing, because before I had hope. And now I’m realizing—

  “So we can never switch back,” I say. It’s just hit me like a blow to the back of my head. “That old Halli doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not just holding her body for her, waiting for her to come back.

  “No, I think you are her now,” Professor Whitfield agrees.

  “What do you mean, we can’t switch back?” Halli asks. I can hear the stress in her voice. “I’m not you, Audie. I don’t belong here.”

  “But you don’t belong anywhere else, either,” I say. “You’re dead. In your other universe, you don’t exist anymore.”

  “But I do exist,” she says. “You’re living in my body right now.”

  “No, that body was never you,” I say. “It’s only ever been me. This is a whole new universe—don’t you understand? When it split off, the only Halli who lived was the one with me stuck inside. That’s all that universe has ever known.”

  “So?” Halli says. “We can teach it something else. Put me back in there and put you back in this one.”

  “How?” I ask her. “That’s the whole point—I don’t think it can be done.”

  “That’s what we’re saying,” the professor agrees.

  “Listen, you two,” Halli says, sitting my body up straight and tall. “We can’t just give up. We’re going to try—of course we’re going to try. There has to be a way—you’re just not thinking of it.”

  I hear a sound from the other room. The front door opening and closing.

  “Audie?”

  I freeze. “Mom?”

  “I brought you some soup,” she calls, but I don’t wait to hear more. I’m on my feet in an instant, out my bedroom door, racing toward the living room, toward a long, necessary hug from the person I miss the most.

  I’m halfway down the hall when I feel my body ripping apart.

  61

  I scream in a way I never scream, but it’s not just the pain this time, it’s also the loss. I was so close. I could have seen her. I never even saw her.

  My skull feels like it’s aflame. My head hurts so badly I wis
h I could just twist it off my neck and throw it away and beg for someone to bring me a new one. Every nerve of my body feels like there are little explosions still going on, and if I could just dip my whole self in ice maybe it would help.

  “Jake!” I shout. “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?” he says back. Daniel is holding on to me, trying to help me through it, and now I can see there’s a little crowd gathered inside the door: Jake and Bryan and Sarah.

  And Bryan is in the process of filming me.

  “Get out!” I shout at him and the others. Then I press my hands against my head because shouting just made it worse.

  “Sarah, take them out of here,” Daniel orders her. “Leave us alone. Can’t you see she’s hurt?”

  And those are exactly the words Jake doesn’t need to hear.

  He rushes to me now, tries to pull me away from Daniel.

  “Halli! What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Nothing is wrong,” Daniel says, “except the three of you bursting in here. Get that camera away! Sarah, take them out!”

  Sarah looks frightened and unnerved. There’s too much shouting and chaos.

  Meanwhile I can barely see, the pain is so bad. I’m bent over, trying to breathe through it, with both Daniel and Jake fighting to take care of me.

  “She needs to go to a doctor!”

  “What she needs is for you all to leave!”

  And then suddenly it becomes a real fight. The two of them are pushing each other.

  I back away because I don’t want to be hurt anymore, and I’m bent over and paying attention to my shoes, and not them, but I hear the grunts and the blows, and the next thing I see is Daniel lying at my feet, the skin beneath his eye reddened, his bottom lip split and bleeding.

  Then Jake rushes to me again. “We have to get you to a hospital. Sarah, call an ambulance.”

  “No!” I shout. “I’m not sick. Just leave—all of you leave.”

  “Sarah,” Jake says, “GO.”

  She takes off at a run. I see Bryan in the corner, still filming us through his binoculars. I lurch my way over to him and do something that would make Olga proud. I slap my hand across his camera, smashing it to the ground.