Page 99 of Twice
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.”
He waited until she looked up again.
“If you can’t accept the stories of my many lives,” he said, “just accept the message that runs through all of them.”
“What message?”
“That you are deeply loved, Gianna. That you have always been deeply loved. That every night, sleeping in another room, I was dreaming of lying beside you. That for all these years, you’ve had my heart to break.
“And all that time, this second time around, I never left your side.”
?
With that, Gianna broke down. She buried her face in her hands. She had stopped imagining any man’s affection after things ended so badly with Mike. She’d hidden herself in work and flipped off the switch on intimacy. She felt tears filling the space between her palms and her cheeks. Were they for Alfie, or for herself?
“I’m going to have to leave now,” Alfie whispered.
“Wait,” she gasped. “Are you really dying?”
“Well, in a few minutes, I’m going to kind of lose it. I’ll have a stroke. And I won’t be able to speak. I don’t know how much longer I’ll last after that. I get the sense it’s notlong. It’s OK. Like my grandmother said, there comes a point where you want to see what comes next more than you want to go back.”
Gianna tried to imagine a life without Alfie. To her surprise, it hurt like a mule kick. She had not, until that moment, realized how much of her existence truly was wrapped around this man she had never married, had never slept with, had never kissed, yet who claimed to have memories of all those things. And what hurt the most was that the way he described those memories was better than any love she had actually experienced in her life.
She hooked her arm in his, and then, as she had done so many times before, curled against his chest and laid her head on his shoulder. Alfie inhaled the smell of her, rested his chin atop her hair, and gazed skyward. He thought to himself that he could die in this moment, it wouldn’t be so bad.
?
“Gianna,” Alfie suddenly whispered.
“Mmm?”
“Does LaPorta have the notebook?”
“I think so.”
“That explains it.”
He pulled away slightly and nodded up ahead. Gianna saw a flashing police car approaching.
“He must have read the ending,” Alfie said. “When I told you to meet me here.”
Gianna grabbed his shoulders.
“Alfie. You have to go.”
“Where?”
“Go back in time!”
“What?”
“Jump. Whatever you do. Just get away from here!”
“I’ve done what I wanted to do, Gianna. You know everything now. There’s no point in going backward anymore.”
“There is a point! You’ll escape this. You’ll live. Don’t you want to live?”
He placed his hands gently on hers. “I’ve lived a long time already.”
