Erica O'Rourke - Dissonance

“The project,” he said. “Powell put us on the project. And that night . . .”

“You dreamed about me. In the rain.”

“Outside Grundy’s. You gave me a star,” he said.

“You barely talked to me when Powell paired us up. You didn’t have an epiphany in the middle of music class. You noticed me because your Echo had kissed me the night before.”

He folded his arms. “You didn’t stop him.”

“Why would I? Nothing was ever going to happen between us. You’re the star of the basketball team, and I’m the freaky orchestra girl. So, yeah, when the guy I’ve had a crush on for years wants to kiss me, I go for it, even if he’s an Echo.”

“You went back,” he accused.

“You went out with Bree.”

“This is different. Don’t you dare tell me otherwise. You’ve been lying to me the whole time we’ve been together.”

“You didn’t know about the Walkers. How could I explain?”

“That’s bullshit, Del. You could have told me in the equipment room. That would have been the perfect time.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” I shot back. “You know, trying to save your mom’s life?”

“She’s not a bargaining chip,” he said fiercely. “You don’t get a pass on being honest with me because you said you’d help her. They’re totally separate.”

“The hell they are! You found out about the Walkers and asked me to help her on the same afternoon. When I said no, you took off. When I said yes, we were back on. If you want honesty, let’s start by admitting that the reason you’re with me is because I can help her.”

My breathing was ragged, my voice tight, and Simon drew back as if I’d slapped him.

“I was a dick,” he said. “When you told me about the Walkers, I didn’t think about whether it was dangerous, or how it would cost you. All I could think about was saving her. You risked your life for my mom, and that’s huge. I don’t even have words for how huge that is.”

I dug my fingernails into my palms, waiting for him to continue.

“But I’m with you—I was with you—because I was crazy about you. Walking had nothing to do with it. At least I thought it didn’t. Walking made a lie out of us, and that’s your fault.”

I bowed my head. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

“How’s that working out? Because from what I can tell, the me in that world isn’t exactly your biggest fan right now.” He grimaced. “Something else we’ve got in common.”

“Simon . . .” My head jerked up, but his gaze was fixed on the wheel.

“You were kissing me . You think my feelings were caused by him, but what triggered his feelings? Maybe I would have noticed you completely on my own. And now we’ll never know, because you don’t have any faith in me, and I sure as hell don’t have any in you.”

I grabbed his arm. “Hold on. What triggered him? He noticed me, and he shouldn’t have.”

“The low-self-esteem act is getting old,” he said, reaching across me to open the door, waiting for me to climb out. “You should go.”

I braced a hand against the doorframe. “Not self-esteem, you jackass. Physics. Walkers cast impressions in other worlds, but Echoes don’t remember them. He shouldn’t have noticed me, because we weren’t interacting. Here or there.”

“Maybe you stalked me in another world,” he said. “That seems to be your specialty.”

“I wasn’t stalking you. The only other time I’d run into you was at the park.” The truth came together like parts in a score, combining to voice what I’d missed. “You saw me at the park.”

“What park?”

“The world I cleaved,” I said, thinking of the duck pond, and balloons, and small changes that changed everything. “It was unstable, and you touched me.”

“It won’t happen again. I can’t stop you from coming after me in other worlds, but in this one? We are done .”

He drove off, leaving me alone in the parking lot.

Grieve later, I told myself. My thoughts felt tentative and light, like when I was picking a particularly sensitive lock, how pushing too hard would cause a tumbler to trip and I’d have to start over at the beginning. The park. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the memory of Simon’s hand curving around my thigh, how he’d steadied me and thrown me off balance with a single move.

The wrongness of his frequency, how strong the dissonance was every time we’d touched, in every Echo.

He’d noticed me in Park World because something was wrong with its frequency.

He’d noticed—and remembered—me in Doughnut World because there was something wrong with him .

He’d noticed me here, and the inversions started.

I’d had it backward. Park World Simon’s frequency hadn’t been wrong because the world was unstable. The world was unstable because there was something wrong with Simon. Because there was some sort of connection—bigger than SRT, bigger than a single frequency—between his Echoes. The more I interacted with them, the greater the transference. The stronger the frequencies. The more unstable his worlds became.

My parents had been looking for something in the Echo worlds that would cause so much instability, but the problem wasn’t an Echo.

The problem was Simon.

I WALKED HOME on autopilot, my newfound realization—Simon was the anomaly, and I’d amplified the effects—turning the world around me ashen.

Every time I’d crossed realities and found him, whether it was Doughnut World or a lesson with Addie, I’d strengthened the connection between his Original and his Echoes. That’s why his SRT was so strong; it’s why the sky had torn when they’d met—their combined signal had been too much for one world to handle. It’s why the inversions I’d found were connected to him. It’s why he’d been caught in the Baroque events—because he’d created them.

He was the disease, not the symptom.

I was the carrier.

And I had to find a cure.

I didn’t notice Addie’s car until I nearly ran into it.

“Get in,” she snapped through the open window. I reached for the handle, stopped when I saw Eliot sitting in the passenger seat, expression somber.

I sighed as I slid into the backseat. “What did I do now?”

“You don’t know?” Addie asked, dour and disbelieving.

“It’s a really long list. Narrow it down for me.”

Eliot made a noise of warning, and I remembered that Addie’s search for proof could implicate him, too. If I wanted to help him out of this, the way he’d been helping me all along, I needed to draw her fire.

“For starters,” Addie said, “let’s talk about the Original you’re sleeping with.”

“I’m not sleeping with him! Why does everyone assume—I do have some self-control, you know.”

“You’ve demonstrated a breathtaking lack thus far,” she said. “Fine. You’re making out with him instead of going to class. He’s a problem, Del, and you have to end it.”

“Already done,” I said. “But there’s a bigger problem with Simon.”

“He’s the anomaly Mom and Dad have been looking for,” Addie said.

“How . . .”

Next to Addie, Eliot coughed.

I shoved his shoulder. “You told her?”

“She knew something was up.”

“The flu?” Addie said scornfully. “Hungover, I would have believed. Not the flu.”

Eliot twisted to face me. “I recorded a sample of Simon’s frequency while we were at your house. It sounds fine on the surface. Even my map didn’t pick up on it. But if you listen—really drill down and look at the individual oscillations, not the overall pattern—there’s a flaw. A minor correction in every cycle, like it wants to veer off-key but gets pulled back into line.”