Freefall

Tenth Chapter

"I think he suspects something," Malcolm continued. "He doesn't know me, but he knows someone would be sent to try and convince you of all of this."

"Right. Why do I need to be convinced, again?"

"Without you, we can't wake Meg up in time. You have to wake her up."

"I do?" I asked in surprise. "How could I do that?"

Malcolm scratched at the back of his neck and shrugged. "It's not like this has happened before. I'm guessing you have to locate her conscience in your mind, and then sort of . . . poke it . . . ?"

"Poke a conscience?" I laughed to relieve the tension in the air. I was acting as if I actually believed him. Which I didn't.

"What about the dreams?" I asked.

I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth that he might not even know about the dreams. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned them to him. What if he really was just making all of this up, and he would only laugh at me since I had mentioned them?

"Of course, the dreams." He leveled his serious gaze at me. "You keep falling."

He already knew about the dreams.

I leaned forward without thinking. "You know about them?"

Malcolm nodded. "Yes. It's natural for you to have flashbacks about it."

"But they aren't just flashbacks; they're real."

I shifted uncomfortably. I sounded as if I believed him, but I didn't. The dreams could be explained in some other way. I tried to ignore the desperation that had laced my tone. I didn't need his answer, I told myself, but I was still sitting stock still, staring at him.

"The realities are torn for you. You're experiencing the other reality when you sleep, travelling back to the rip and the fall again. That's why you could reinjure yourself if the dream lasted long enough for you to hit the ground. If that happens, you might be found after falling off the top of this building. People would think that you jumped again, but it would just be reality rearranging itself to fit into a different reality, the one in your dream."

None of this made sense. It was all nonsense. I continued to tell myself that. Still, he had an answer for each of my questions, so I might as well keep asking them. For curiosity's sake.

"I did dream long enough to fall, I hit my wrist on the ground, and that's why it was bruised the other day," I told him, daring him to find an answer for that one.

"Yes, but reality didn't have to throw you off of a building in order to make sense of that bruise. All that had to happen was your wrist needed to hit something hard enough to reinjure it, like the floor or the nightstand."

I stared at him, and Malcolm stared back. His gaze was steady, and his mouth was set in a firm line. Even if I didn't believe him, he believed himself.

I swallowed and looked away. Was all of this true? Could any of it be true?

"But you don't have any proof for all of this?"

"If everything that I've said isn't proof enough, then I don't think anything will convince you. I've answered all of your questions, and all of my answers are lined up to point at what I already explained to you. There are two realities whether you like it or not. If you don't believe me, though, you'll experience it soon enough."

There was still a question I had not asked.

"What about the dreams before I fell?"

When I looked at him, I saw that his forehead was wrinkled in confusion. "What dreams?" he asked.

So he didn't have an answer for those. I smiled, and it probably looked haughty. "The dreams about falling that I had before my alleged dive off the Pierce building."

"You dreamed before the fall?"

Malcolm was staring at me hard, his eyes scrunched up as he asked. When I nodded, he took a step back as if he had been struck.

"I don't understand," he muttered, raking a hand through his already unruly hair.

This was not the reaction I had expected. I had thought this fact might make him admit to having made the whole thing up. Or maybe he would be able to explain it away like the rest of my arguments. I had not expected him to be so surprised, though.

I watched him, but he appeared to be in deep thought and didn't notice me. So he didn't know about the dreams before the fall, but he hadn't been surprised when I mentioned the other dreams. He knew about them. How else could that be explained except through what he had told me? Two realities. Could it really be true?

I looked at Malcolm uneasily, and he finally raised his gaze.

"It's as if your subconscious knew that the tear was going to happen. I've never heard of that before. But then again, we've never come in contact with this side of the rip before. We only ever mend the tears from the other reality. Maybe this is normal."

His rambling did little to alleviate my growing concern, and we watched each other cautiously.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," he said with a shrug, but I could see the wrinkles in his forehead, a sign that he worried about it himself.

"Right. No reason to worry. There's only two realities that have been tearing and soon will collide in chaos unless I wake up a sleeping girl who's in my mind and is actually myself. Nothing to worry about. Everything makes perfect sense."

"So you believe me?"

"No! Of course I don't," I said with an indignant huff. "Did you not hear the sarcasm?"

Malcolm scuffed one toe against the floor. "I was just hoping . . ."

I sighed and collapsed against the pillows. "Well, I'm done eating. I guess the time for questions is over."

He looked up in surprise. I hadn't been eating for twenty minutes. The excuse was lame, and we both knew it.

"Okay," he said slowly.

I watched him clean up the remnants of my dinner. I almost wanted to believe him. Heck, I almost did believe him. But everything he said went against every rational thought I had. How could two consciousnesses exist in one person? Or even in two different realities?

It was all too much, and I let Malcolm go without another word. What else could I do about it?

That night felt longer than normal. I tossed and turned, and I begged the sun to seep through my blinds. When I finally could sleep, it was the restless kind. I didn't dream. I hadn't had any normal dreams since the falling began, but something was distracting my conscious from fully falling asleep.

My mind just wouldn't quit.