Page 108 of The Life We Almost Had

‘Adam could have given it to you before the yacht accident and you’d forgotten.’

‘He didn’t.’

‘You could have seen it in his case after the accident.’

‘I haven’t had reason to go in his case.’ Why can’t he see it?‘It’sreal. Somewhere. Somehow, whether it’s a world Adam has manifested through his consciousness I don’t know, but thereisanother world with Adam in it. A place where I have visited. A place where he gave me this.’ I tap the charm on Oliver’s palm.

‘Anna, I understand that’s what you want—’

‘It’s real.’

‘It isn’t… it didn’t work.’

‘Itisreal,’ I say again. ‘All of it. It’s like we both exist in some alternative reality away from here. We’re living a life. A good life. The life we almost had.’

‘Scientifically—’

‘Fuck science! What about the bracelet? How do you explain that?’

‘On some level—’

‘On some level you think everything can be explained with science?’ I am calmer now.

‘I do.’

‘You don’t, or you wouldn’t be researching consciousness in the first place! You told me we don’t know everything. That Dr Acevedo was narrow-minded. Closed. If you didn’t believe there were other levels, things outside of what we know, things that push the boundaries, defy the realms of our imagination, you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t bescaredright now. Scared that Clem is living another life somewhere else entirely. A life that may or may not include you and the fact that… the fact that you can’t connect to her is…’ I am crying now. ‘You wouldn’t just give her up, would you?’

‘The bracelet doesn’t definitively prove—’

‘Look, it sounds crazy, but you sounded crazy when you came to me with your proposal. I gave you a chance.’

Oliver meets my eyes. His are full of doubt but I know he’ll say yes.

He might not believe I can really connect to Adam, but love – he has faith in love and that will be enough.

It has to be.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Adam

It is all moving too quickly. I can’t process what is going on.

‘But last time… You could have died, Anna. You weren’t in a good state when you came back,’ the man had said. Oliver, Anna calls him. But some of the other voices who frequent my room have referred to him as Dr Chapman. He had sat with me once, telling me about some trial, but I couldn’t make sense of it at the time. I’m trying to make sense of it now. What’s happened to Anna? Why does she want to put herself at risk again?

For me.

My heart begins to gallop. Even if I couldn’t feel it gathering pace inside my chest, it registers on my monitor. I can sense Oliver crossing to my bed. Feel his fingers press against my pulse. I want to shake my hand free. I want him to tell Anna no. He can’t risk anything happening to her. She’s too precious.

The trial. I need to figure it out. My head hurts. I try to remember past conversations, pain drumming deep inside my skull. It was something about consciousness.

My consciousness.

Anna and Oliver’s voices crash around me like a choppy sea and I have experienced a rough angry sea recently, haven’t I?

A yacht?

I desperately try to work out what is going on, to piece it all together. But it’s when I remember something Oliver had said about a state-of-the-art fMRI scanner he’d invented, software, VR goggles, so Anna could experience what I have been thinking, that my blood runs cold.

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