I nodded. “Definitely.”
“What’s your favorite book?”
I thought for a moment. “
The Land of Laughs
, I think.”
“That’s a good one.”
“Do you remember the scene where Thomas is
traveling through mountain
towns while working on his father’s biography?”
Rad nodded.
“I think that’s always been my dream.”
“To write your dad’s biography?” There was a hint of a smile on his face.
I laughed. “Not exactly. But I would love to write something, maybe a book. I
want to travel to a small town someday—one with fir trees and snowcapped
mountains. Then I would spend an entire winter writing to my heart’s content.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said.
We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Actually,” he looked embarrassed, “I’ve been working on a book.”
“You’re writing a novel?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s early days.”
“What’s it about?”
He frowned. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s a little hazy at the moment. I’m still
waiting for the idea to come together.”
“I know what that’s like.”
“So I guess you’re working on something too?”
“Not really,” I said, looking away. “Only stuff for the school magazine.”
“Well, that still counts,” he said. “What have you been writing?”
“Mainly short stories. A few articles here and there.”
“Short stories are so underrated.”
“I know.”
“Have you read ‘All Summer in a Day’?”
“By Ray Bradbury?”
He nodded.
“I love that story,” I said.
“My teacher read it to our class in the third grade, and it’s always stuck with
me. I remember feeling bad for the girl.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I thought of Margot, the sad, pale girl in the story who was shut up in a closet
and robbed of her time in the sun. A cold shiver ran through my body.
“‘Mars Is Heaven!’ is great too,” Rad said after a few moments.
“I love that one as well.”
By now the stars were coming out one by one like pinpricks through a veil. I
let the cool, crisp air into my lungs and tried not to think about small, confined
spaces.
“There was a book I read when I was a kid,” said Rad. “I can’t recall the title
or the author. But it was about parallel worlds. Sometimes I feel like I’m in an
alternate universe. Like I switched places
with another version of me, and I’m
stuck here, in this world. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“It does,” I said. “I feel like that sometimes too.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
“I suppose it’s like being a character in a book. The author has this idea of
where
the story line is going, and she sets up her characters accordingly. But it
changes as she goes, right? All of a sudden, it’s the second draft, and you’re stuck
with a different name and a whole other backstory. Then she writes you into an
alternate ending. You know, sometimes I get this
tiny glimpse of what things
were, before the new reality takes over.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I know what you mean by a glimpse. It’s more of a feeling.”
I frowned. “Well, I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s something intangible.
Which is why it’s so difficult to explain. There is a sense of something else—a
different reality altogether—but then you’re snatched up by the present one, and
you’re stuck here. I suppose the most obvious comparison is that moment when
you wake up from a dream, and there are those first few seconds of adjustment.
Only, I think I have felt that while I was wide awake.”
“You’ve just described it perfectly,” said Rad. “But the idea is crazy, right? I’m
sitting here on this park bench talking to you, and it feels solid and real. But
maybe in the original version of this story, we were never here.”
“Which means the park bench never existed in the first place.”
“Scary thought, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I like your theory—about us being characters in a book.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“I do,” I said.
“Then who do you think created us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like one of those mirrored rooms where you see a
thousand versions of yourself.
Someone created us, someone else created
them
,
and it goes that way in an infinite loop.”
“Well, if that’s the case, my creator must be a masochist.”
I could tell he was only half joking.
M
Y
MOTHER
WAS
up when I got home later that night. She was standing in the
hallway, her face a storm cloud of anger. “It’s two in the morning, Audrey,” she
said. “Where the hell have you been?” I opened my mouth to speak, but she held
up her hand to stop me. “You know what? I don’t want to hear it. I know it’s
going to be lies anyway.” She glared at me, wrapping her sleeping gown tighter
around herself.
Her voice dropped, but it still retained every bit of its venom.
“Everyone at the reception saw you leave with that boy,” she hissed. “Do you
have any idea how that looks?”
“We were just talking, Mum,” I said, looking down at my feet.
“Talking?” she said, raising her voice again. “Until two in the morning?
What’s wrong with you, Audrey?” She crossed her arms and sighed loudly. “Ana
—
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
