Infinite(86)

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“But you still don’t remember any of it.”

“No.”

Eve stood up from the chair. “Don’t worry too much about that. I told you, it will take time. For now, it’s better if you go home and rest.”

I crossed the room and shook her hand. “I guess I should thank you.”

“You should only thank me if you experienced some kind of epiphany. The whole point of my Many Worlds therapy is to help you understand the world you’re in by seeing the alternatives. Did you learn anything about yourself?”

“I think so.”

“What?”

“There was a part of me I had to kill. So that’s what I did.”

She frowned. “Literally?”

“Yes.”

“Well. That’s extreme. I’ve never heard that before. Do you feel like a different person as a result of it?”

“Actually, I do. I just wish I’d figured it out a long time ago. I’ve lost the things that matter most to me, and now it’s too late to change my life.”

She gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s not too late. As long as you’re breathing, there’s still time. I’ll see you again soon, Dylan. Things will start feeling better, you’ll see.”

“I hope so.”

I headed for the door, but as I reached to open it, I stopped. I glanced around at the office again, which was completely unfamiliar. Even so, I told myself that everything here was solid. Normal. Real. So was Eve Brier.

And yet.

“Dylan? Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. Something still feels off to me. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“It’s the aftereffects of the therapy. That will pass. Trust me, Dylan, you’re back now.”

I had no reason to disbelieve anything she’d told me, but I’m sure my face broadcast my doubts.

“You still don’t think this is your own world, do you?” Eve asked.

“I’m not sure. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I want this to be the real world.”

“Why is that?”

I hesitated, trying to understand it myself. I could still feel those last moments in River Park as I lay dying. “Something happened to me right before I came back.”

“When you had to kill your other self?”

“Yes.”

“Try not to think of the violence as real, because it wasn’t. You were right here in my office the whole time.”

“Yes, I know, that’s what you said. But it’s more complicated than that. I saw Karly in that world. She was there, too.”

Eve frowned. “Ah. That must have been very emotional.”

“It was.”

“Sometimes an experience like that is part of letting go,” she told me. “It’s how you deal with grief.”

“Maybe so, but I can’t stop thinking about what she said to me.”

“What did she say?”

I could hear Karly’s voice, as clearly as if she were standing over me again. Looking down at me and whispering her last words. It didn’t feel like goodbye. It didn’t feel like what she would say if we were about to be parted forever.

It felt like a message.

Something to carry with me wherever I was going.

“She told me to come find her. She said she was still here.”





CHAPTER 34

I left Eve’s office and passed the Lucent sculpture in the lobby of Hancock Center. Its thousands of lights, reflected in the black pool of water, taunted me like an echo of what I’d been through. Each flickering light was another world, another life, among an endless number constantly multiplying in my mind. I’d visited some of those places, and now I was back in my own world.

Except, according to Eve, I’d never actually left. All this time, I’d been lying on her sofa on the twenty-ninth floor.

As I got back to Michigan Avenue, nothing felt out of place around me. The city looked and smelled the same. The water tower was where it was supposed to be. The shops, people, and traffic hadn’t changed. When I checked my wallet, I found a parking ticket for a garage on Chestnut. It was dated early that morning, just as Eve had told me. The key fob in my pocket led me to a used Ford in the garage, and the documents in the glove compartment told me I’d purchased the car three weeks ago. That would have been shortly after the accident.

Everything fit. So why could I remember nothing between then and now?

Why did I feel like I didn’t belong here?

I drove from the garage into the city. Eve had told me to go home and rest, but I wasn’t ready to do that yet. I was still struggling to decide if I could trust what my senses were telling me. I kept looking for a flaw, a clue, a telltale sign that this world was an illusion like the others. At every stoplight, I checked faces in the cars and crosswalks, hunting for another Dylan Moran. If I saw one of my doubles, then I would know that my brain was lying. But the only Dylan in this world seemed to be me.

My first stop was near Horner Park where Roscoe had died. I needed to see the scars on the ash tree at the corner. They were still there, marking the collision that had killed my friend. Nothing was different. When I was done there, I walked two blocks and found the home listed for sale by Chance Properties. Scotty Ryan’s truck was outside. He was doing renovations; he was still alive. I had no memory of whether I’d gotten into a fight with him over his affair with Karly, but it was obvious that no version of myself had come to the house and stabbed him to death.