Dissonance (40 page)

He slammed his locker shut and stalked toward the side
door. “For how long? I can never find you, Del. You're a goddamn ghost. It's like you're not even real.”

“I am.” So was he, despite everything I'd been taught. I rubbed at my arms, trying to ward off the encroaching frequency. “But I can't come back again.”

“Won't.” He pinned me with a cold, contemptuous look.

“Can't,” I replied. “I don't belong here. Every time I see you, I'm hiding. I have to stop.”

“Hiding from what?” He thawed slightly. “Are you in trouble?”

“I'm trying to fix it.” Emotion wouldn't help me, but I couldn't stop the ache in my chest. “I wanted to say good-bye. You deserve a real good-bye.”

Because he
was
real, every bit as much as my Simon. He deserved better than the moments I'd stolen.

“Don't do this.” He shook his head, bewildered. “Whatever the problem is, whoever you're hiding from, let me help you. I can protect you.”

He touched my cheek gently, like I might shatter. Maybe I would.

“From myself?” I pressed my fingers to my eyelids. “You wouldn't believe how many people have tried.”

We always have a choice. It's one of the first things Walkers learn. There is always a choice.

It turns out my teachers were wrong. The more you care, the fewer choices you have. If you care enough, sometimes there's only one. A single, impossible way forward, and you have to take it. Because it's the only way to live with yourself.

I
CAME BACK
jittery and nauseous and exhausted. I didn't know if it was from Walking too soon or leaving Simon. Not my Simon, I reminded myself as I sat in the commons and downed a can of Coke, hoping to ward off another bout of frequency poisoning.

I'd cleaved one Simon, flirted with countless others, and wounded another moments ago. But the Simon who mattered most was the one who knew me best, and he was
here
. I would fix whatever problem was affecting both him and the Key World, we'd find a way to help his mom, and then we could be happy, here, together.

No more Walking to find other Simons. Never again.

Never didn't last nearly long enough.

•  •  •

The sound of running feet caught my attention. Poking my head around the corner, I spotted the school nurse dashing toward the gymnasium, medical bag in hand.

“—says he's fine,” said one of the other basketball players as they ran. “Coach didn't want to take any chances.”

I might have been failing trig, but I could do the math.

I followed them to the field house, clammy with fear.

Simon sat on the bench, barely visible behind the wall of teammates looming over him. The nurse shooed them away, brisk and cheerful as she pulled out her blood pressure cuff. “Let's see what we have.”

He waved her off, looking haggard. “Put me back in, Coach. It was nothing.”

“That was not nothing,” the coach growled. “Looked like a damn seizure.”

“I pulled an all-nighter,” Simon replied. “I'm good.”

“The hell you are. We've got a game against Kennedy tomorrow. I can't have you fainting like a thirteen-year-old-girl at a rock concert in the middle of a full-court press.”

I could see Simon's flush of embarrassment from across the room.

“Plenty of fluids and a good night's sleep should do the trick,” the nurse said. One of the other players brought out a duffel bag and set it near Simon's feet.

“Go home, Lane,” barked the coach. “Get some rest.”

“I don't need—” Simon started to protest, but he caught sight of me and straightened, the set of his shoulders combative. “Sure, Coach. I'll be back tomorrow.”

“Damn straight,” the coach said, and blew his whistle. “The rest of you—this isn't a tea party. Get moving!”

Simon's eyes never left mine as he crossed the room—it was like he was freezing me in place, and the closer he got, the colder I felt.

“Car,” he said, hefting the duffel bag. We reached the Jeep without another word. When he was behind the wheel, he turned to me. “I saw you Walking.”

I didn't bother denying it. “How much?”

He snorted. “Everything. This whole time, I thought they were dreams, and you were . . . what? Hooking up with me in other worlds? It wasn't enough that I fell for you here?
I
wasn't enough, so you had to go and mess around with my Echoes?”

“No! It wasn't like that!”

“And then you dumped me? Were you thinking you'd break up with both of us, make the worlds match?” He sounded insulted. “You were cheating on me
with me
.”

“I wasn't! I haven't been back there since before our date. Before things changed with us.”

“Things changed with us a long time ago.”

My own anger flared up. “Did you ever wonder why? You said it took you too long to notice me, but did you ever ask yourself what changed?”

“The project,” he said. “Powell put us on the project. And that night . . .”

“You dreamed about me. In the rain.”

“Outside Grundy's. You gave me a star,” he said.

“You barely talked to me when Powell paired us up. You didn't have an epiphany in the middle of music class. You noticed me because your Echo had kissed me the night before.”

He folded his arms. “You didn't stop him.”

“Why would I? Nothing was ever going to happen between
us. You're the star of the basketball team, and I'm the freaky orchestra girl. So, yeah, when the guy I've had a crush on for years wants to kiss me, I go for it, even if he's an Echo.”

“You went back,” he accused.

“You went out with Bree.”

“This is different. Don't you dare tell me otherwise. You've been lying to me the whole time we've been together.”

“You didn't know about the Walkers. How could I explain?”

“That's bullshit, Del. You could have told me in the equipment room. That would have been the perfect time.”

“I've been a little busy,” I shot back. “You know, trying to save your mom's life?”

“She's not a bargaining chip,” he said fiercely. “You don't get a pass on being honest with me because you said you'd help her. They're totally separate.”

“The hell they are! You found out about the Walkers and asked me to help her on the same afternoon. When I said no, you took off. When I said yes, we were back on. If you want honesty, let's start by admitting that the reason you're with me is because I can help her.”

My breathing was ragged, my voice tight, and Simon drew back as if I'd slapped him.

“I was a dick,” he said. “When you told me about the Walkers, I didn't think about whether it was dangerous, or how it would cost you. All I could think about was saving her. You risked your life for my mom, and that's huge. I don't even have words for how huge that is.”

I dug my fingernails into my palms, waiting for him to continue.

“But I'm with you—I
was
with you—because I was crazy about you. Walking had nothing to do with it. At least I thought it didn't. Walking made a lie out of us, and that's your fault.”

I bowed my head. “I didn't want to lose you.”

“How's that working out? Because from what I can tell, the me in that world isn't exactly your biggest fan right now.” He grimaced. “Something else we've got in common.”

“Simon . . .” My head jerked up, but his gaze was fixed on the wheel.

“You were kissing
me
. You think my feelings were caused by him, but what triggered his feelings? Maybe I would have noticed you completely on my own. And now we'll never know, because you don't have any faith in me, and I sure as hell don't have any in you.”

I grabbed his arm. “Hold on. What triggered him? He noticed me, and he shouldn't have.”

“The low-self-esteem act is getting old,” he said, reaching across me to open the door, waiting for me to climb out. “You should go.”

I braced a hand against the doorframe. “Not self-esteem, you jackass. Physics. Walkers cast impressions in other worlds, but Echoes don't remember them. He shouldn't have noticed me, because we weren't interacting. Here or there.”

“Maybe you stalked me in another world,” he said. “That seems to be your specialty.”

“I wasn't stalking you. The only other time I'd run into you was at the park.” The truth came together like parts in a score, combining to voice what I'd missed. “You saw me at the park.”

“What park?”

“The world I cleaved,” I said, thinking of the duck pond, and balloons, and small changes that changed everything. “It was unstable, and you touched me.”

“It won't happen again. I can't stop you from coming after me in other worlds, but in this one? We are
done
.”

He drove off, leaving me alone in the parking lot.

Grieve later,
I told myself. My thoughts felt tentative and light, like when I was picking a particularly sensitive lock, how pushing too hard would cause a tumbler to trip and I'd have to start over at the beginning.
The park.
I closed my eyes, losing myself in the memory of Simon's hand curving around my thigh, how he'd steadied me and thrown me off balance with a single move.

The wrongness of his frequency, how strong the dissonance was every time we'd touched, in every Echo.

He'd noticed me in Park World because something was wrong with its frequency.

He'd noticed—and remembered—me in Doughnut World because there was something wrong with
him
.

He'd noticed me here, and the inversions started.

I'd had it backward. Park World Simon's frequency hadn't been wrong because the world was unstable. The world was unstable because there was something wrong with Simon.
Because there was some sort of connection—bigger than SRT, bigger than a single frequency—between his Echoes. The more I interacted with them, the greater the transference. The stronger the frequencies. The more unstable his worlds became.

My parents had been looking for something in the Echo worlds that would cause so much instability, but the problem wasn't an Echo.

The problem was Simon.

I
WALKED HOME
on autopilot, my newfound realization—Simon was the anomaly, and I'd amplified the effects—turning the world around me ashen.

Every time I'd crossed realities and found him, whether it was Doughnut World or a lesson with Addie, I'd strengthened the connection between his Original and his Echoes. That's why his SRT was so strong; it's why the sky had torn when they'd met—their combined signal had been too much for one world to handle. It's why the inversions I'd found were connected to him. It's why he'd been caught in the Baroque events—because he'd created them.

He was the disease, not the symptom.

I was the carrier.

And I had to find a cure.

I didn't notice Addie's car until I nearly ran into it.

“Get in,” she snapped through the open window. I reached for the handle, stopped when I saw Eliot sitting in the passenger seat, expression somber.

I sighed as I slid into the backseat. “What did I do now?”

“You don't know?” Addie asked, dour and disbelieving.

“It's a really long list. Narrow it down for me.”

Eliot made a noise of warning, and I remembered that Addie's search for proof could implicate him, too. If I wanted to help him out of this, the way he'd been helping me all along, I needed to draw her fire.

“For starters,” Addie said, “let's talk about the Original you're sleeping with.”

“I'm not sleeping with him! Why does everyone assume—I do have
some
self-control, you know.”

“You've demonstrated a breathtaking lack thus far,” she said. “Fine. You're making out with him instead of going to class. He's a problem, Del, and you have to end it.”

“Already done,” I said. “But there's a bigger problem with Simon.”

“He's the anomaly Mom and Dad have been looking for,” Addie said.

“How . . .”

Next to Addie, Eliot coughed.

I shoved his shoulder. “You told her?”

“She knew something was up.”

“The flu?” Addie said scornfully. “Hungover, I would have believed. Not the flu.”

Eliot twisted to face me. “I recorded a sample of Simon's frequency while we were at your house. It sounds fine on the surface. Even my map didn't pick up on it. But if you listen—really drill down and look at the individual oscillations, not the overall pattern—there's a flaw. A minor correction in every cycle, like it wants to veer off-key but gets pulled back into line.”

“I have a D-minus in physics. What the hell does that mean?”

Addie spoke slowly, making each word distinct, like she was talking to a little kid. “He's a pivot. His choices make stronger worlds. They'd be stable, if his frequency was right. But it's not. So every time he creates a world, it's not just off-key. It's magnitudes off-key.”

Eliot took over. “It takes a while for the world to destabilize, because the flaw is so small. But when it finally goes bad, it goes bad fast.”

“Like Park World,” I said.

Eliot nodded. “I told you there was another reason.”

“And you told Addie first?” The betrayal stung. “Why?”

“You haven't exactly been a model of restraint and clear thinking lately,” Addie said. “Leave him alone, Del. He was worried about you.”

I glared at Eliot, who shrugged. Apparently the days when I could boss him around were gone.

“What would do that to someone's frequency? How do we fix it?” I asked.