Rabbits(129)

“One day,” she said, “about four years ago, you went out to try to save the world. I’ve spent the intervening years trying to pin down which dimensional stream you’d slipped into, and when, against astronomical odds, I somehow managed to find that stream—and against further astronomical odds track you down—it turns out you don’t remember anything about the amazing life we built together.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I haven’t seen you since we were kids.”

“But I’ve seen you,” Emily said. “Up until four years ago, I saw you every single morning when I woke up and every night when I went to bed.”

“That’s impossible,” I said—but I could tell by the way she spoke and the way she looked at me that everything she was saying was true.

“But this can’t be real. I mean, I’d remember the two of us getting married.”

“You would fucking think so, wouldn’t you?” Emily laughed a little as she wiped the tears from her face.

I nodded, still trying to come to terms with what Emily had just revealed.

“I lose you to dimensional drift, and your girlfriend disappears from the world via a Starbucks bathroom. We’re quite a pair.”

The violent shaking and vibrating started up again. Emily and I held on to each other and waited for it to stop.

“You used that term that the last time I saw you. Dimensional drift. Is that why I can’t remember?”

Emily nodded.

“What is it exactly?”

“Every time someone skips dimensional streams, there’s a high probability that they’ll experience some amount of drift. It’s like deep-sea divers getting the bends when they surface.”

“Decompression sickness?”

“Yeah, but for your brain. When you skip dimensions you’re displacing all of the other instances of you, shifting everything over.”

“Doesn’t that mess everything up? All these different versions of somebody suddenly living in different dimensions?”

“It’s actually mostly fine. Like I told you earlier, all of the instances share a kind of connection, and nothing is really permanently lost…it’s like we’re all drawn from the same source.”

“But if we’re able to move between dimensions, isn’t it possible that I’m not your K? That your K might still be out there somewhere?”

“You are my K, and you definitely came here, to this dimension, four years ago. There was a displacement. If you don’t remember us together, then…”

Emily blinked away a tear and wiped her cheek. I could see how hard this was for her.

“It’s my fault,” she said. “You left because I asked you to.”

“What?”

“I discovered that Crow was manipulating the Radiants to try to bring back his wife and daughter, and that it was messing up not only the game but the entire multiverse. I tracked you down and convinced you that we needed to do something. We spent years together coming up with a plan, and then you changed your mind.”

“What happened?”

“We fell in love. You told me you didn’t want to leave me. You didn’t want to risk forgetting.”

“And then?”

“Four years ago, we discovered Crow’s manipulations were causing more damage than we thought, and if we didn’t act soon, the entire multiverse was in danger of collapsing. I talked you into slipping dimensional streams to try to stop him.”

“That sounds completely insane.”

“Does it?”

“Slipping into dimensional streams and forgetting a whole other life where you and I are married doesn’t sound like the most likely explanation. My experiencing a severe break with reality feels far more likely.”

“You and I used our connection to the Radiants to facilitate the slip.”

“Our Gatewick sauce.”

“Yes.”

“You said you weren’t sure how much Gatewick sauce I have.”

“I’m still not sure, but I think it might be a lot.”

I wanted to tell Emily what she was saying was crazy, but I’d been experiencing missing time and discrepancies in the fabric of reality. I wasn’t sure what to think anymore.

“Okay,” Emily said as she turned back to face me. “I’m going to ask you a weird question.” She took a breath and steadied herself. “Do you remember the black well?”

“I—”

The dream came flooding back immediately. It was like being struck. I hadn’t thought about it for decades.

In the dream, Emily, Annie, and I were walking in one of the farmer’s fields out near their family’s vacation home. We’d been laughing and running through the high grass for hours when Emily and I went back to the barn to get a drink from my backpack.

We’d reached the barn and were watching Annie running and jumping across the middle part of the field, chasing the neighbor’s dog, when she just disappeared.

We’d been watching her run one second, and the next she vanished into thin air.

“Yes, I remember, but the black well was a dream,” I said. “It was my dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream, K,” Emily said. “It was real. It happened. We found those Playboys in the old house, you tripped and hurt your knee, we talked about a grasshopper army taking over the world and about Annie having nightmares after seeing part of The Exorcist. That was all real. I was there. Annie was there. It happened.”