“Oh, Landon.” She breathed the words more than she spoke them. Landon sifted both hands through his hair. The beeping of machines was starting to get to him, and he wished pulling the plugs wouldn’t mean jeopardizing Rose’s well-being. “It wasn’t your fault. And there was nothing you could have done or said that could have made me stay. Those two things can be true at the same time.”
God, this woman. This beautiful, complicated, maddening woman. “I don’t understand.”
“I left because I couldn’t live without her.”
“I didn’t want to, either.”
Her eyes glazed over. “You should have taken the pill.”
“I was waiting for you!” He was yelling, and he knew there were a thousand reasons he shouldn’t be. “But you’re here. We can do this together.”
She looked at him with pity. “We won’t beus. That’s the entire point.”
He shook his head hard enough to rattle his brain. “There are parts of us we can’t shake. I know it. I saw it!”
Her jaw set. “The drawings.”
“Yeah,” said Landon. “The drawings. How can you lie there and tell me your other was nothing like you? She knew our daughter.”
“She didn’t know why she was doing it. To her, it was just a compulsion.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Irememberit.”
“Yeah, well I misremember a lot of things, and you’re usually the first to point them out.”
“Come here,” Rose said calmly, holding out her hand. Landon took it without thinking, and the effect was immediate—his breaths slowed and fingers uncurled. “You know,” she said, rubbing her thumb over his like she’d done a thousand times before, “Rose was fine all those months, before you got on that plane. She was happy. Blissfully happy in the most uncomplicated way.” She paused, placing her other hand on her temple. “When I reach back into that time—” She gasped. “God, it hurts.”
“Hey,” he said quickly, gripping her hand tighter. “Just lean back, okay? Lie down.”
“No,” she snapped, but didn’t let go of his hand, looking at him squarely. “I need to finish this. She didn’t draw faces. Not like that. Not without a model. No faces at all, until a few days ago. The day you and Rose met, that night. That’s when she started.”
There was no color in his face left to drain.
“And I don’t know what it means. Plenty of people take the pill and go right back home to their families, living as their other. Maybe every one of them experiences something like this. Or maybe we’re special.” She let out a small, startled laugh. “But if we’re not special and they do remember these bits and pieces, does it almost kill them? Because this very nearly killed me.”
Landon looked at her and saw something he hadn’t before. Not just the woman he knew, but the young girl in the framed photos on her parents’ walls: small, innocent, in need of protection. “You’re saying this is my fault?” Despite the efforts the nurses had made, there was still dried blood under her nose, dark and flaking.It was a pattern he had willfully ignored. But now the thought had air. And once it had air, it caught fire.
The bookshop, reading an old favorite like it was the first time.
The receipt, scribbled in her handwriting.
The morning after.
“I’m saying that you have to let me go, Landon.”
The sob snuck up on him. It was sharp and high-pitched and didn’t sound like him at all.
“When I get out of here, Poppy is going to get me another pill. I’m going to write myself another letter. But this time, I’m not going to erase you. I’m going to tell her about a love so big it couldn’t be snuffed out by a drug. I’m going to write down all the good—and there was so much good, Landon—and enough of the bad for her to understand why I don’t want to be me anymore.” She looked at him, her eyes misty but unwavering. “You can’t follow me there. I’m telling you now, clearly, so you don’t go off writing lines for me where there aren’t any. This”—she lifted her hand with effort, gesturing between them—“was more than most people get in a lifetime.”
Landon didn’t want a lifetime. He wanted forever. Their time was running like sand through an hourglass, but he still had so many questions, so much more he wanted to say. One question rose above the others. “You took the pill on our wedding anniversary,” he said. “August twentieth. Why? To punish me?”
“Oh, Landon.” Rose’s eyes filled. “That was the most perfect day of my life. I thought maybe if I tore the fabric of the universe right then, you might always be able to slip through and find me there.”
This woman. He was certain he could search the world andnever find her equal. A tear in the universe would have to do. “I love you.” His voice cracked. “I just got you back. Rose, I can’t lose you again.”
The machines whirred:beep, beep, beep.The room spun.
