Always/Never

Chapter 29 / Reality, Identity, Punishment

"So." Dr. Pitre leaned against her office's desk, tossing herself into her rolling chair. "Let's talk."

I gulped and shifted on my feet. Her desk pressed against the side wall, beneath a towering mass of binders filled with papers. Books sat sideways, their spines turned inward. What titles were visible were embossed in gold, faded text against red-bound leather. Degrees lined the other side.

"So," I repeated. Stared at the two chairs across from her.

I tasted iron at the base of my mouth. Should I sit?

Dr. Pitre's jaw hardened, as if for a moment, she wanted to console me. But her eyes narrowed, and with a fold of her arms, she said, "I can only express that you were once my best student. Now I understand how, of course."

I said nothing.

I wasn't about to argue this. With her. Wasn't going to defend myself, for there was nothing I could say.

"Your scholarship," she continued, "is the biggest regret. It should be yours, too. All that time and effort could have gone to another student."

Like Accha. I squeezed my hands so tight that my heartbeat leapt to my throat. "I've thought about that over and over. And I probably will again... return to the past where I messed up."

"Had Michaela not contacted me, would you have kept it up?"

Slowly, I nodded. "And I'm sorry. I wasn't regretful about it then, but I am now. I know that's easy to disbelieve, but..."

Her monitors, screens dark, reflected our faces. My shadow. Here for the first time, but not the last. Here in the future version of me, the one that could atone, rather than the one that never would.

What an odd sense of being.

Michaela had only left a few moments prior. Her figment, her impulse, was still almost tangible to me, like the way I was aware of someone's phone ringing in passing, the ding of a text, or the current of a live wire. She was still here, in a way. An imprint, a ghost, part of a system that did not account for time. She'd come here like I had; without looking back until she decided she had to. Current and past alike, considering I'd lost her the job with Parkland.

In every timeline, Rory and Michaela could have continued passing each other. But we hadn't. I could have continued my scheduled cycle, never breaking it, and never crossing her path in Beaumont's kitchen.

"But..." Dr. Pitre followed my gaze to the screens.

"I don't know. I want to be honest, and I want to do right by everyone. But after all this time, it's kind of scary. And I'm not used to that. I'm used to being the best. But sometimes that best was a lie I made up."

She did her best to maintain a neutral expression. But that was fine if she didn't care. I wasn't doing this for anyone else but the version of me that needed it.

I tried again. "I understand whatever punishment you give me. No matter what, I'll do my best to make up for it."

That, too, got me silence.

"This isn't like you. Why cheat? I know you're smart. That much can't be faked."

My shoulders sagged. Maybe it was too soon for this, in a linear way. Maybe I was still lying to myself, taking the easy way out. I don't know. All I'm sure of is that my future may not exist anymore, but I still do. "It is like me. It's all like me. That is the point, isn't it?"

Dr. Pitre shook her head. "The point is that if you'd used your true thoughts, if you'd been honest with yourself, you still may have gotten here."

Here. Not 'at this university,' or even 'where you stand right now.' Here. Wherever, in the chute of time and the axis of the endless, dark universe, we'd ended up.