Page 74 of Intersect

I don’t know what I can possibly say to make him remember me, make him believe a sweaty, half-naked girl is someone he’d ever want to move in with, but there must be something. I jump to my feet. He’ll know he’s mine the same way, as I watch him get out of his car, I know I’m his. He has to.

I step off the curb and have taken two steps into the lot when the passenger door of the Jeep opens and a woman climbs out, dressed to run, pulling her hair back into a perky ponytail as they chat on opposite sides of the car.

Meg.

The shock of it forces me backward, knocks the air from my chest.

You don’t arrive at the gym with a friend at 6:00 a.m. They’re together. They were together last night. They slept together, woke up next to each other. In this timeline, she is the last person he kissed and she’s the person he will sleep with next. It’s her he wants right now, not me. My stomach churns at the thought.

She walks around to his side as she puts her headphones in, placing her hands on his shoulders and going on to her toes to kiss him goodbye. He doesn’t linger on it the way he does with me, but it hardly matters. I’m watching the father of my children kiss someone else after spending the night with her. As he heads toward the gym—never looking my direction once—I sink to the curb and allow myself all the sadness and desperation I am feeling, face buried into my grass-stained palms.

I just want to be home. God, I wish I was home. It’s a mantra that plays on repeat in my head. The desire to press my head to Nick’s chest is so strong it’s almost real. I can feel the way his arms would wrap around me, smell the soap and chlorine on his skin. I imagine his relief when I land, the way we’d cling to each other and thank God it turned out okay.

Air rushes around me, and then there is absolute darkness.

I land on a hard floor, falling to hands and knees at the suddenness of it. For a moment I’m too scared to open my eyes, but when I hear Nick shouting my name and the thunderous clamor of his feet flying up the stairs, I finally look around me. Home. Relief surges through my blood like a drug. It’s nighttime here, but I’m home with him and nothing else matters.

He reaches the hallway, wild-eyed, and drops to the ground, pulling me to his lap and rocking me like I’m a child. “Thank fucking God,” he says. His voice is rough. “Thank God.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I tell him, weeping hard enough that I’m barely coherent. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened and I couldn’t get home…”

His arms tighten around me. “I know.” He buries his face in my hair. “You scared the shit out of me. Are you okay?”

I nod. I can feel the panic in him still, like a stain he can’t wash away. “I need to clean up,” I whisper after a minute. “I was barefoot all night. My feet are a mess.”

He gently lifts my foot and stiffens. “You’ve got some cuts.”

His voice is flat, purposefully emotionless. He picks me up like a child and starts to carry me toward the bathroom.

“I can walk,” I argue, but he ignores me. His profile is so rigid it looks cast in steel as he sets me on the counter and inspects my feet.

“We’ll get them cleaned off first,” he says, running the water in the tub. “Stay here.”

I watch him stalk off, suddenly unsettled. What the hell is happening here? He was relieved when I came back—beyond relieved—but now it feels like he doesn’t even want me around.

I limp to the tub and rinse my feet, watching as the water goes from muddy to clear, and then I push down the plug and step inside, sighing as the water begins to fill around me. He returns with a first aid kit and Gatorade, which I chug as if I’ve been wandering the desert.

“You’re dehydrated,” he says with a harsh exhale, not meeting my eye.

I’m not sure if I want to snap at him or burst into tears. I’ve just been through one of the worst nights of my life and he’s acting like I did something wrong.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I tell him. “It just happened.”

“I know,” he says, jaw clenched tight. “I saw all the shattered glass where you dropped your drink.” Maybe his disapproval isn’t aimed at me, but I feel it anyway. And I can’t entirely blame him—inadvertently, I risked my life and our children’s lives as well.

I stare at my bent knees, at the water rising beneath them. “What time is it, anyway?” I ask. “Were you waiting long?”

He runs a hand through his hair, not quite looking at me. “It’s about midnight. I came home when you didn’t answer the phone this morning and found your clothes on the floor.” He continues to look away. Those hours were just as hard on him as they were on me and he’s trying not to blame me for what I put him through, but he can’t help doing it anyway. I feel this distance between us like a physical thing, made of air yet impossible to reach through entirely.

I hold out my hand. “Come in with me.”

He swallows. “You need to rest and if I get into that tub you know it’ll lead somewhere.”

“Please,” I say quietly, staring at the water. After another moment’s hesitation I hear his clothes hitting the floor and then he climbs in behind me, sliding his long legs on either side of mine. I lean against his chest while he pours the body wash in his hands, lathering it up before he washes me off. Feet, legs, arms, back.

He buries his face in my hair. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I hate what you must have gone through. I hate that I’m mad about it when I know it wasn’t your fault. But we need to find a way to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Especially not when you’re pregnant. I feel like tonight took a decade off my life.”

My stomach sinks a little. The truth is, it was absolutely my fault. I should never have been trying to time travel in the first place. “It was stupid. I’d been practicing a little. Just going from the kitchen to the upstairs hall, thinking maybe I’d get good enough that we could help Darcy, but—”