Don't You Wish (31 page)

“No.” I kind of hate him right now, and have to fight the urge to fling the glass shard I’m holding. “And I really did think you’d be interested in the mirror, because you stole the one Charlie made.”

“Proving, of course, that there’s nothing that special about this mirror thing. We can get our R&D people to make one. But we have to be fast and beat this Nutter character to the patents. How the hell did you meet him anyway?”

“Facebook.” I blow out a breath and shift my attention to the mirror shard. “Surely there was another way to handle this.”

“Long, involved, legal, and expensive. We try to avoid those ways, if possible. You’ll learn.” He’s got his phone out and is talking to someone before I can answer. “Wait until I tell you what my brilliant daughter did. She sure swims on the right side of her gene pool.”

But right at this moment, I am drowning in that particular pool.

At midnight, as I stand on the balcony of a hotel and gaze out at the Monongahela River right where it meets the Allegheny to form Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle, a plan slowly starts to emerge.

I have to see Lizzie and explain this to her. I can’t let her go the rest of her life thinking I’m this purely awful, even if she doesn’t know me. I just can’t.

I don’t have a phone number for her so I grab a jacket and my purse, then snag a waiting cab in front of the hotel.

Jim’s in his own suite, and I doubt he’ll miss me.

If the cabdriver thinks it’s weird that I want to go to the South Hills at this hour, he doesn’t say, leaving me in a peaceful silence as the car travels across town and through the Liberty Tubes.

Everything feels foreign to me, I realize with a thud of sadness.

I’m more accustomed to the MacArthur Causeway than
the tunnel that cuts through a mountain and takes me from the city to the suburbs where I grew up.

But
I
didn’t grow up here. Maybe in another life, another world, another dimension, Annie Nutter grew up here, but in this one, Ayla Monroe doesn’t even have a place.

Trying to change that was wrong, I realize, and in the process, I might have hurt Lizzie. And Mel Nutter. And that’s what really hurts me.

There’s still a few lights on at Lizzie’s house, and that gives me a burst of hope. I pay the cabbie and wait until he leaves, then stand outside the house, remembering what it was like to live here.

It was secure. It was happy. It was subpar, below average, and shabby. But it’s where I belong. Not in the back of Jim Monroe’s limo being handed the keys to a kingdom I don’t want—as a reward for being a slimeball.

That’s not what I’m made of, not in any universe.

I don’t have the nerve to walk up to the door and ring the bell. Instead I circle the house, slowing down when I come to my room. The lights are on, and I can see some posters and bright yellow walls.

Lizzie’s favorite color.

The window isn’t quite closed all the way, and through the screen, I can hear some voices and laughter. A loud, sharp laugh that is definitely not Lizzie but sounds so familiar.

I hear it again, then Lizzie’s much softer giggle and some talking, so I strain to make out the words.

“Oh, my God. Carla Nicholas, you are such a dork!”

The laugh again. Who’s Carla Nicholas?

Could it be
Courtney
Nicholas?
Nickel-ass!
I remember that she’s in Lizzie’s Facebook profile picture—not really looking like the most popular girl in school. Maybe she doesn’t have the same cool name, either.

Of course. Realization dawns, and I reel with it because this is another one of the universe’s little jokes on me. Courtney/Carla is my replacement in this life. She’s Lizzie’s bestie, spending the night and sharing inside jokes and probably watching old
SpongeBob
reruns and sucking on watermelon Jolly Ranchers, because life doesn’t get any better than that.

Why didn’t I realize that when I had it? Why did I want to be popular and pretty and rich and cool?

I step up to the window, empowered by my thoughts. Near the window is one of those giant trash bins that they made everyone in the South Hills switch to, big enough that if I climb onto the kick bar, I might be able to see inside.

I get up and peek in.

There’s my old room, in different colors, but the bed and dresser are in the same place. Courtney (or Carla, but she’ll always be Courtney to me) and Lizzie are curled on the bed, a laptop open, a TV on without sound. Yep. It’s the episode where Squidward moves to another town. But they’re not watching. They’re talking, heads close, pajamas on, a half-empty candy bag on the bed.

Longing to be part of it, I pull myself up higher, accidentally rolling the trash can. It smashes into the side of the house, and I gasp, dropping off the bar and ducking into the bushes. Dang!

The smell of garbage roils my stomach a little, and I cringe, crouching into the shadows and trying to be small and silent.

“Did you hear that?” The window squeaks as someone pushes it up. “Is someone out there?”

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, please don’t let me get caught
.

“Maybe it’s Shane Matthews!”

An explosion of giggles makes my head spin. Lizzie’s crushed out on Shane Matthews in this universe, too?

“Hey, Shane! You’re cute!” More laughter.

Oh, what I could tell them about Shane Matthews … or Ryder Bransford … or any of those guys.
Don’t waste your time, girls
.

They’re still at the window, so I stay completely frozen, holding my breath, closing my eyes, praying for this nightmare to be over.

“Probably an animal,” I hear Courtney say. “A squirrel or raccoon. C’mon. Let’s finish watching the video.”

“I don’t know.” There’s another grunt of wood against wood as the window goes up higher. “I’m still spooked by that creepster girl who used me on Facebook to get to my dad.”

Oh, God.

“Maybe she’s a stalker,” Lizzie adds.

“Just forget her, Liz. She’s nobody.”

I hear Lizzie sigh. “She’s not a nobody, but …”

“But what?”

“I don’t know, Carla. I just had this funny feeling about her. Like I wanted to trust her. Like I
knew
her.”

You do! I almost pop up, but fight the urge with everything I have.

“Well, you Facebooked with her, so that’s normal.”

“It was more than that. It was …” Her voice fades out as she closes the window.

A stalker. A nobody.

What should I do? Tell Lizzie the truth? Or just stay hidden and sneak away? I wait a full five, ten seconds trying to decide, just as the clouds break enough for a three-quarter moon to beam down on me like a spotlight.

I stand, holding the trash bin for support, but my handbag gets caught on the handle on the side and gets knocked off my shoulder. The motion almost makes me push the bin over. With a soft cry, I grab the top-heavy container to keep it from tumbling, and my bag slides off completely. It spills everywhere with a clatter that sounds deafening in the quiet of the night.

I bite my lip and cringe, just waiting for someone to come running up to me, accusing me of even more heinous crimes against the Kauffman-soon-to-be-Nutter family.

But no one does. There’s just silence, and my shaky breath. I bend to retrieve my stuff, blinking at a flash of light.

The mirror. The broken mirror Jimbo gave me is on the grass, faceup, capturing the moonlight and reflecting it right back into my face. I blink at the sharp beam, blinded for a fraction of a second.

In that split second of time, everything changes. It’s like the world shifts under me. My ears buzz and my arms and legs feel heavy and tingly.

“Oh, my God!”

I hear the words, but I’m not sure if I’ve said them or someone else has. I force my head up, looking away from
the light, but I can’t see anything but sparkles and flashes, like I just had my picture taken by fifteen different cameras at once.

“She
is
a stalker!”

It’s Lizzie and Courtney, and one of them is shining a flashlight into my face and onto the mirror. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t. Everything is just paralyzed, white sparks of light everywhere.

Then I realize what’s happening. I’m leaving this universe! The moment I figure it out, I can see again, just for a second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of Lizzie charging toward me. I don’t know if she’s going to push me or hit me or run past me. I don’t know anything, but I’m floating and sparking, and everything is hot and cold and terrifying.

The flashes are blinding, and Lizzie comes in and out of my vision like someone is turning a light switch on and off sixty jillion times, so I can see her, then nothing. In one flash of light I see her drop to her knees.

She’s reaching for the mirror. She’s going to look at it. She’s going to get transported with me. She’s going to lose everything and end up somewhere …

“No!” I lunge toward her and pull her to the ground. “Don’t touch it!”

And then everything goes complete black and I have no idea where I’ll wake up or who I’ll be when I do.

“What in the name of Sam Adams are you doing?”

I open my eyes, vaguely aware that grass is tickling my nose. I smell earth and a scent of burned grass. The voice is muffled, coming from above, and something is pressing down on me.

No, not something. Someone.

“Should I call the police or get your mom, Liz?”

“No, wait,” the voice says. Lizzie is what’s pressing down on me, I realize. “If I get up, are you going to kill me, Ayla?” she asks.

Ayla. I’m still Ayla?

“So, nothing’s changed?” I manage to ask into the grass. I don’t know whether to be crushed or totally relieved. I go with relief. “We’re still here?”

“If by ‘here’ you mean my backyard at midnight with you hiding in the trash, then, yes, we’re here.”

“And you’re still Lizzie Kauffman whose mom is getting married tomorrow, and I’m still Ayla Monroe with the money and the dad from hell?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then, no, I’m not going to kill you.”

Very slowly Lizzie gets up, releasing me. “You better have a really good explanation.”

I lift my head and look around, half-terrified to find out where I am. But it’s still the same yard. The same house. The same moonlight. The same Courtney Nicholas (so not hot in this universe) and the same … mirror.

The mirror!

Lizzie has picked it up, and Courtney shines the light onto it.

“Don’t!” I warn her, pushing the flashlight away. “You could … end up somewhere you don’t want to be.”

Lizzie holds the mirror shard. “Someone could get hurt with this, you know.”

“I know.” I swallow and swipe some hair from my face. “Lizzie, I have to talk to you.”

“Let me get your mom, Lizzie,” Courtney says icily. “This girl is totally unstable.”

“No.” Lizzie and I say it together, exactly like we used to answer questions in unison all the time.

“Please,” I say to her. “Give me a chance to explain. I can. It’s a long and complicated story.”

“Why would we care about your story?” Courtney asks.

I look up at her with a smile. “Because, in it, you’re the most popular girl at school.”

She lifts a brow that seriously needs a wax.

“And you,” I say to Lizzie, “are my best friend.”

Lizzie doesn’t reply, but searches my face like the answers could be there.

“And in this story,” I add slowly, “your new dad is my old dad.”

Her eyes widen.

“Give me a chance, Zie,” I whisper. At the use of my private nickname, her eyes flicker. Not really recognition but curiosity. And something else. Something that lets me know that telling Lizzie the truth is the only way to go.

“I want to tell you everything.”

“And Carla, too,” she says, as though she’s negotiating. “This is my friend Carla Nicholas.”

“Of course,” I agree, forcing myself to think of Courtney as Carla.

“Let’s go into my room,” Lizzie says.

“Actually, it’s my room.”

I love Lizzie for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she doesn’t argue and leads the way.

“Nickel-ass?” Carla clicks a Jolly Rancher indignantly around in her mouth. “You guys called me
Nickel-ass
?”

Lizzie smacks her with a pillow. “That whole story, that whole blasted story with the mirror and the money and the boy taped into a box, and all you care about is being
called Nickel-ass? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that years ago.”

Carla laughs sheepishly, showing braces she never needed when I knew her in my old life.

“You deserved it in that universe,” I tell her from my corner of the bed, my arms wrapped around one of Lizzie’s pillows. “But not in this one,” I add. “You seem much nicer than in the real world.”

Lizzie shakes her head, studying me. “This
is
the real world, Ayla.”

“Annie,” I say softly. “And, yeah, I guess it is. I mean, do you believe me?”

They look at each other, and Carla’s full of doubt, but Lizzie bites her lip and nods. “Only because I felt something outside. Something weird. It was all numb and warm and sparky for a second, but I thought that was just terror because I was jumping a virtual stranger behind the trash cans in my yard.”

“You were almost transported to another universe.”

“Where I’m popular,” Carla interjects. “So I’m not sure if I buy the story, but I like it.”

“Believe me, Carla, being popular is not all it’s cracked up to be.” I move the pillow and lean forward. “All I want to do is go back to my old life.”

“What happens if you leave this world?” Lizzie asks. “Does the old Ayla come back to Miami?”

“Honestly, nobody has any idea. Maybe I’ll be the same as I was or as I am or some whole new version of me. We have no way of knowing.”

“Yeah, no email between universes,” Carla says with a laugh.

“Speaking of email,” I say, and reach for my bag. “Let me get your phone numbers right now. No matter what happens, we have to text.” I press my iPhone, but nothing happens. “Oh, no. This can’t be good. Did we fry it with the mirror?”

Lizzie puts her hand over mine. “Don’t worry. We have Facebook. But what if you do go back? Should I try to stay in touch with Ayla? Will she still be you?”