Dissonance (34 page)

You don't think about anyone else,
Eliot had said.
You don't think about the consequences.
He was right. It had been the Walking that mattered most, not the worlds I found. But now I'd found Simon. Irresistible, inexplicable, problematic Simon.

Walkers valued the Key World above all else, but secrecy ran a close second. We'd had it bred into us, generation after generation passing down the gene for Walking and the warning to keep it hidden. Could I really betray that trust for a
boy
? I ran through a million stories as we headed to the equipment room. Surely one of them would be more believable than telling him the truth. Safer, too. If the Consort discovered I'd told, they would come after us both.

Most lies aren't meant to ruin; they're meant to protect what we hold most dear, whether it's a person or an idea or a way of life. But even the noblest lie eats away at the truth, until you're left with the facade and what you were protecting crumbles to dust.

I could lie, and save Simon, and myself, and the Walkers' secret.

And in doing so, I would lose him.

When we reached the equipment room, just inside the field
house doors, he gestured to the dead bolt. “Did you want to take this one, or should I?”

“Be my guest.” My hands were shaking too hard to turn a door handle, let alone pick a lock.

The equipment room was actually a big closet—high ceilinged and windowless, smelling of rubber and dust. There were carts of basketballs and volleyballs, towers of plastic cones, and hockey sticks corralled in a trash can, ends sticking up like the bristles of a brush. A single fluorescent light fixture buzzed overhead, too dim to reach the corners.

He closed the door and leaned against it, the implication clear: We weren't leaving until he got answers.

“Nice place,” I said, boosting myself onto a waist-high stack of gymnastic mats. “You bring a lot of girls here?”

Once again he looked at me with too much perception. “Wouldn't be much of an escape if I did.”

“Makes sense.”

“More than I can say for you,” he said.

“Tell me what you saw.”

His expression hardened. “So you can make up a story to match?”

“Simon, please. I'll tell you the truth. I'll answer your questions. But it'll be easier if I know what you saw.”

“I am not interested in making this
easy
for you.” He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “You were lying about the library book. I thought it was because you were nervous about coming in here, so I started to follow you, to tell you we could go somewhere
more public. When you turned around, I hid behind the vending machines and waited to see what you were up to. You're pretty handy with a lock pick,” he added. “Are you some sort of teen superspy?”

“Really not,” I assured him. “What next?”

“You know how in the desert, the heat makes the air shimmer? You reached into the case, and the whole thing kind of . . . rippled, and you walked toward it. But instead of running into the wall, you disappeared, a little at a time. Like you were a mirage.”

He must have thought he was losing his mind. He was astonishingly calm for a person who had to be questioning his sanity, though. “What did you do?”

“I poked around, but everything looked normal. The only reason I didn't think I'd dreamed it was because the trophy case was open.”

“What kinds of trophies were inside?”

“The ones I was telling you about. When we won State.”

“You're sure? Did you actually see them? Or are you remembering?”

“I'm positive. I straightened the net on top.” The inversion hadn't caused any permanent damage. At least one part of my day had gone right. He continued. “When the air started to move again, I hid. Thirty seconds later, you were back.”

“You didn't tell anyone else?”

“Who would believe it?”

He had a point. The question was, would Simon believe me? I was surprised by how much I wanted him to. I should have felt
only fear, but somehow it was tempered by a sense of relief that I could finally come clean.

“Everything I tell you has to stay secret,” I said. “You cannot even begin to imagine the trouble we'll be in if they find out I told you.”

I could imagine it perfectly. Permanent expulsion. Thrown in an oubliette. I'd never see him again. But the risk of losing him, of going back to a time when he looked past me as if I were an impression, was equally awful.

“They?” he asked.

I swallowed. “My family. My . . . people, I guess you could call them. Do you promise?”

“Not to tell anyone that I'm hallucinating during second lunch? Done.”

I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and dove in. “When you play basketball, do you ever wonder if the game could have gone a different way? Like, what if the lineup changed? Or if you'd called a time-out instead of playing through? Taken a shot instead of passed the ball? Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you'd made different choices?”

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“Not me. I don't have to, because I can see it.”

My words started out halting and low, wilting in the face of his skepticism. But my need for him to believe me was greater than my fear, and I used that need to lend my voice strength.

“Every time you make a decision, from what you had for breakfast to who you fall in love with, the universe splits in two.
One half is the part you remember. It's real. That's the decision you made. The other half is the what-if.”

“Like parallel worlds,” he said with a frown.

“Yes. Except, this is the only one that counts. We call it the Key World.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“The other worlds are called Echoes. They're filled with copies of people, and those people make more choices, and their choices make more worlds, and it goes on and on. For infinity. Sometimes the Echoes cause problems, and the Walkers—my people—have to protect the Key World.”

“You're crazy.”

I was a lot of things, most of them bad. But crazy wasn't one of them. I hopped down from the mats and stalked toward him. “Then what did you see?”

“You cut class to visit parallel worlds. You're actually telling me that.”

“I'm telling you there are entire worlds out there, ones you can't imagine. Worlds where we're still British subjects. Worlds where penicillin was never invented. Worlds where women never got the vote, or the Beatles never broke up. It's not even big choices, sometimes. In sixth grade I took a field trip to a world where Texas seceded because someone forgot to send a telegram.”

He shook his head. “This is a joke. You're taping me, and you're going to upload the video.”

“Do you see any cameras?”

His face softened, turned sympathetic. He took my hands in his. “You're upset.”

“Of course I'm upset. I'm not supposed to tell people like you. Hell, there's now a world out there where I
didn't
tell you.” There were worlds where Simon hadn't caught me. But those Echoes wouldn't last, because I couldn't sustain them—and there was something painfully ironic about that fact. Now that I'd told him the truth, it felt inevitable, like we'd been guided to this moment by the same universe that had twined us together in the first place.

“Is there a world where you and Eliot didn't fight?”

There were worlds where Simon hadn't chosen me. There were worlds I hadn't gone after him. But Eliot and I lived in
this
world. No Echoes, no second chances, no way around the fact I'd broken his heart. I felt sick at the thought. “It's more complicated than that.”

“It's really stressing you out, isn't it? Have you tried talking to him?”

I yanked my hands away. “You think I'm making this up because of
Eliot
? You think I'm delusional because we fought? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You asked me for the truth, and I'm telling you. I'm a Walker. What you saw was me Walking to another world, fixing it, and coming back.”

His sympathy vanished. “Prove it. Take me with you.”

I recoiled. “That's impossible.”

“Nothing's impossible,” he mimicked. “Isn't that what you said before? Teach me how to Walk to one of these other worlds.”

I couldn't teach Simon how to Walk any more than I could
teach him to fly. “It's a genetic condition. You can't do it if you aren't born into it. And you weren't, trust me.”

“How do you know?”

“Remember how you keep saying I'm a music prodigy? It's a Walker thing.”

“I suck at music, so I'm not allowed to go with? That's crap.”

“That's life,” I said, Monty's words coming back to me. “I didn't say it was fair. Trust me, that's one of the first things we learn. Life isn't fair. The good guys don't always win. There are plenty of worlds where the human race is better off, but we don't get to pick and choose. Our job is to protect the Key World. Anything else is gravy.”

“Fine. Do it again, and I'll watch.”

I started to protest, but he cut me off. “Either you're crazy, or you're lying, or you're for real. But only one of those ends up with us leaving this room together, Del. Your choice.”

My shoulders dropped. “Am I going to come back and find the school psychologist?”

“I promised you I wouldn't say anything. I keep my word.”

“I'm crossing over and coming straight back. If you're not here . . .” I couldn't think of a dire enough threat. Anything I could imagine was child's play compared to what the Consort would do.

“I'll be here,” he said.

I closed my eyes and listened for a pivot. A freshly formed one hovered less than a foot away. It must have sprung up when he'd decided to hear me out.

“Ready?” I asked, opening my eyes to find him watching me. It was a physical sensation, sweeping over me from my forehead to my toes and back again, turning my entire body to pins and needles. I felt oddly exposed as I reached for the pivot, its edges sharp as a paper cut. Even after everything I'd revealed, it was terrifying to let him see this part of me.

The weight of Simon's gaze propelled me through the rift.

•  •  •

The equipment room stood deserted, the door swinging wide. I heard a slam and peered out at the empty field house. His Echo had left, true to his word. Even without the dissonance, this was not a world I wanted to stay in.

I ducked back through and crashed into the broad planes of Simon's chest. His arms wrapped around me, and I soaked up the sound of the Key World streaming from him like sunlight.

“I thought I could find it.” He looked down at me, pupils huge and astonished. “I figured I'd follow you through. But you . . . vanished. You left.”

There was something in his voice beyond surprise. Bewilderment, maybe, and hurt.

“I came back.”

“You came back.” He kissed me softly, and then less softly, and then he was backing me toward the mats I'd been sitting on, his hands woven through my hair, my hands sliding along his back. “It's real. It's amazing, Del. You're amazing.”

“Glad you finally noticed,” I said between kisses.

If this was what happened when you were honest with people, I'd have to try it more often.

Then again, I wasn't being entirely honest. I didn't tell him that he was sharing memories with his Echoes, that I'd kissed him in other worlds. Too much at one time, I thought, feeling liquid and golden from his touch. Better to tell him when I understood what had happened.

The muffled sound of the bell stopped me from saying anything else. “Class,” he said against my neck.

I touched my swollen lips, envisioning Eliot's reaction when he spotted us. This room was a refuge, a world of its own, and I didn't want to leave. “Let's skip.”

He stepped back, but left his palm curved around my side. “Coach benches us if we cut. Can I see you later? After practice?”

His mouth came down on mine, silencing the whisper of doubt inside me. Later, I'd tell him about his Echoes. We'd figure out how to free him from the anomaly. We'd start fresh. We'd be happy. Simon's kiss made it all seem possible, the choices before us as limitless as the multiverse itself.

“Sounds good,” I said, and let myself believe.

I
T WAS EASY
to think I'd done the right thing with Simon whispering those exact words in my ear. But as the day wore on, doubt crept back in. I'd told an Original about the Walkers. I'd let him see me Walk. I was still keeping secrets from Simon, and Eliot was still avoiding me.

It was probably for the best. I could only imagine what Eliot would say if he knew I'd told Simon about us. He'd probably turn me in to the Consort himself. Maybe he already had.

When I arrived home, Mom was waiting by the kitchen island with her coat on, a giant leather tote at her feet. Her shoulders sagged with relief.

“Del! Where have you been?”

“School. Like every other weekday. Am I in trouble?” Guilt surged, and I turned away, fumbling with my coat and scarf.

“I'm in a hurry. The Consort needs me to come in right away, Addie's at her apprenticeship, and I didn't want to leave your grandfather alone.”

“I can hang out with him.” In the family room, Monty was watching a documentary on the History Channel, arguing with
the narrator about the outcome of the Korean War. “How long will you be gone?”

“We should be back by dinner. Addie said she'd be late too, so you're off the hook for training tonight.”

At least Simon and I would have some measure of privacy.

“I've got to run, sweetie. Bye, Dad. Love you both.”

Monty joined me as I made a cup of tea. “How was your day?”