Page 31 of What If It's You?

“Of course not.” I frowned, confused by his obvious annoyance. We always joked about the way he languished in bed, his artist’s predilection for impossibly late nights and correspondingly nonexistent mornings. Though now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t at least been awake to see me off to work. Most days he was already showered and sitting down at his computer by that point.

Was I the asshole? The possibility felt uncomfortably likely, though I wasn’t sure what, precisely, I was being the asshole about.

“Sorry, I just…When’s your first lesson?”

“Not for a few hours. I just have stuff to do in the studio. Some mixes I need to rework.” He shrugged, the smile he flashedalmostcasual.

“Is this for a new band?” Rising Waters, the Americana-influenced trio Ollie had been playing fiddle with for the last few years, hadn’t officially broken up, but once their singer had a kid, their practices had gone from weekly to monthly to occasionally. They hadn’t played out in at least six months now.

“No, nothing like that. Honestly, it’s nothing. At least not yet. But if it becomes something, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

“Fine, if you want to be all mysterious about it.” I rolled my eyes, and Ollie laughed.

“Gotta keep things fresh somehow, right? Anyway, you probably need to get in to the office.”

“Oh, uhh…I already took the morning, maybe I’ll just work from home for a while.”

“Lucky me.” He pressed another kiss to my temple, then stepped away, tilting his head back the way we’d come. “Shall we?” I nodded, following him back home, our conversation easy, normal, but with a thread of…somethingbeneath it. Something I had a sneaking suspicion was my fault. By the time we made it to the top of our street, we’d both fallen silent, and we stayed that way all the way into the apartment. Ollie was halfway across the kitchen before it occurred to me.

“Before you go…What did we do yesterday?”

He stopped short, then turned to me, brow lowered in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Just…nothing seemed weird to you yesterday, right? About me?”

“What would have been weird?” Ollie’s head tilted to the side slowly. He was staring at me like I was slowly transforming into Mouserie Antoinette.

“Nothing. I was just…” I licked my lips, casting around for an explanation.I was just living an entirely different life, hoping you could fill me in on anything I missedprobably wouldn’t get the best reaction.

The fact that I’d actually beenabsentfrom this life, that somehow my body was walking through this world with my mind completely detached from it for an entire day, was mildly horrifying. But clearly it had happened, both in this world and in World D, and I needed to know what, if anything, I’ddonewhile I was…not me.

“Woozy. I felt really woozy this morning. At the train? I couldn’t come up with anything that might explain it, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t forgetting something. I’ve been spread pretty thin at work lately, it can be hard to keep track of stuff.”

“Just lately?” Ollie gave a short, mirthless laugh. I frowned—he’d never come out and said that my work, and how much it demanded from me, bothered him…but had I been deliberately missing the signs? I’d somehow managed to ignore the fact that he’d been keeping normal hours for god knows how long now. “I can’t think of anything particular, it was just a regular Thursday night. Maybe you’re coming down with something?”

“Maybe…”

“Or you could be pregnant. That makes people faint, right?” Ollie flashed me a mischievous grin.

“You’d better take that back before you curse us both.” I chuckled and rolled my eyes. When I looked at him again, Ollie’s smile had faded.

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”

I stared, throat suddenly too thick to form a response. I made fun of how dadly Ollie was on occasion, and yes, we’d talked about kids a couple times, but neverseriously.He couldn’t think we were anywhere near that…could he? Even the thought of the ring was enough to make me break out in hives, butkids? That was a kind of permanent that felt anaphylactic. If we were wrong about our ability to go the distance, saw forever in something finite, that would hurt, terribly. But the damage would be contained to us, two adults who made our own decisions. With a kid in the picture…the amount of pain you could cause was off the charts.

Ollie sighed, then shrugged, glancing over his shoulder through the kitchen, clearly anxious to go.

“Are you still feeling off? I could drive you to the doctor.”

“No, I’m okay. Probably I was just…overcaffeinated,” I said, grimacing exaggeratedly, hoping to pierce the cloud cover that had passed over Ollie’s usually sunny face. But if he noticed, he didn’t respond.

“Then I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I really should get to it, though.” With a last, wistful smile, his dark eyes unreadable, he turned and walked away.

I opened my laptop, but I could barely focus, my thoughts spiraling faster and faster, threatening to spin off into oblivion. Our morning excursion had distracted me from the ring sitting at the bottom of Ollie’s underwear drawer—which was still terrifying, but apparently it was just the tip of the iceberg. A memory of my mother at the airport breached my mind’s defenses, Dad standing stiffly behind me, hands on my shoulders as she said my name once, twice, voice thickening more with each repetition. And I just continued to resolutely stare at my toes, unable to look at the woman who couldn’t be my mother, not anymore, becauseshewould never leave me.

I swallowed hard, stomach churning.

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