Steam floats up from the water pouring out of the faucet. I hold my hand in the stream, letting the hot water scald my skin. The back of my hand is bright red, and I can feel the pain, but it doesn’t bother me like it would have yesterday.
Because it’s not real. I know it. There’s no other explanation, because I am not crazy. I didn’t imagine the car accident, just like I didn’t imagine overhearing Kent and Mark’s conversation about The Matrix. And I absolutely did not imagine turning thirty-nine last year. It happened. It all did. The world just doesn’t remember.
Part of me feels relieved. The shroud of grief has been lifted off me. John never died, because John’s life here wasn’t really real. He’s still out there, somewhere, in the real world. I’m sure of it. Now, if I can just wake up, I can find him. We’ll wake the kids, too, and my mom, and then we’ll all be together.
“Jane!” my mom shrieks, slamming her hand down on the faucet handle to shut off the water. “What are you doing?” She grabs my hand and examines the raw, red flesh.
My skin throbs as my brain wages war against itself, my physical senses battling my newly awakened state of mind.
My mom’s gaze flicks up to my face but quickly returns to my burned hand. She turns the faucet on again, holding her fingers under for a few seconds before guiding my hand under the stream.
The water is cool but not cold, and I tell myself the relief I feel is all in my mind.
It’s all all in my mind.
“Janie, baby,” my mom says, her plaintive tone drawing my eyes up to meet hers. She reaches out with her other hand, brushing a lock of hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. She rests her hand on my arm and gently rubs it up and down. Worry deepens the lines time has worn into her skin. “Sweetie, what’s going on?”
I bow my head and take a deep breath. Maybe nothing about this world is real, but the pain in my mom’s eyes is. “Something’s wrong, Mom.”
The words hang in the air between us for what feels like an eternity but is really only a few heartbeats. My mom becomes very still, her gentle touch on my arm turning into a vice. She is a mother waiting to hear the worst. Fearing it. Expecting it.
“What did Dr. Bronson say?” she asks quietly.
My head snaps up, and I stare into her eyes. “It’s not that,” I say, shaking my head. “Nothing like that.” Like John. I inhale, filling my lungs fully, and hold in the air for a few seconds. “I don’t think it’s me that’s wrong. I think—” I chew on the inside of my cheek, searching my mom’s gaze for some sign that she secretly knows what I’ve only recently come to realize. But all I see is her worry. Her fear.
I turn away from her, pulling my hand from the cooling stream of water, and lean back against the edge of the counter, gripping it with both hands. I stare at the cabinets across the kitchen like I can see through them to Miles’ room. Like the cabinets aren’t even there.
“This is going to sound crazy,” I say, glancing sidelong at my mom, just for a moment. “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but—” A harsh laugh escapes from my throat, and I shake my head. “I’m starting to question reality.”
“What do you mean—question reality?” she asks. Her face is unreadable, her emotions hidden behind a mask, but her eyes are glassy.
My chest tightens in anticipation of my mom crying. Her tears have always been a surefire trigger for my own. I inhale shakily, working my jaw forward and back as I arrange the world in my mind.
“I don’t think reality is real,” I say, my voice small, childlike. “My dizzy spells are very specific,” I add in a rush. If she’ll just hear me out, I’m sure she’ll understand where I’m coming from. “Every time I have one, it’s triggered by a memory. Except the trigger memory is different from what the rest of the world remembers, if that makes any sense.”
I push away from the counter to pace, needing the motion to help me think. “It’s like this,” I say, turning around to pace in the other direction. “I remember something one way—the original way—but something changes what the world remembers, and that discordance between me and reality is what makes me dizzy.” The words are tumbling out now. “It’s like I become out of sync with everything. I don’t change, which means I remember an alternate version of events. What was right becomes wrong, and I don’t know how to make sense of anything anymore.”
“Janie, sweetie,” my mom says, reaching for me as my path draws me near her. She catches my forearm, halting my anxious motion and drawing my eyes back to her. Her chin trembles, and I quickly look away.
Adrenaline makes my heart race, leaving me feeling agitated, like I need to move. To run. To escape. But I don’t know how to escape from this illusion. There is no way out, and all I want to do is to wake up.
My focus shifts to the knife block on the counter behind my mom. Acting without thought, I reach past her and pull the boning knife free. I dance back a few steps, putting some distance between us.
She steps forward, both hands outstretched toward me. The blood drains from her face as she stares at the knife in my hand.
“I can prove it, Mom,” I say, my heart beating a quick staccato in my chest, urging me on. I read dozens of posts last night of people detailing their erased death experiences. They died, but then they woke up in their beds like normal. Like it never even happened.
My whole body buzzes with anticipation. My hand trembles as I press the tip of the knife’s blade against the inside of my forearm, and my mom’s eyes open wide. A sharp prick of pain tells me the knife has bitten into my skin.
“Mommy?”
My head snaps to the left, and I see Miles standing in the doorway to the kitchen. His Spiderman pajamas are rumpled from sleep, and he’s missing one sock. His face crumples in worry as his attention locks on the blood trailing down my wrist to my palm.
My fingers spasm open, and the knife falls from my grip, clattering on the tile floor.
“Mommy, you have an owie,” he says, his eyes rising to meet mine.
The breath solidifies in my lungs.
Miles’ little eyebrows hike upward. “Do you want me to get you a Band-Aid?”
A sob claws its way out of the prison of my chest and up my throat. I slap my scalded hand over my mouth and flee into the dining room, heading for the sliding glass door.
I have to get out of here.