Jemma Forte - If You're Not The One

She may have made what she thought was the ‘right’ decision but that didn’t prevent Jennifer from feeling utterly desolate and distraught. She wailed as that boat sailed off into the distance and at one point even contemplated throwing herself off the jetty and swimming after it. Anything to have just one more feel of those arms around her. What had she done and would she regret this for the rest of her life?

‘Stay with us Jennifer, come on love, you can do this. Hang in there.’

Why was everyone yelling? She was so tired. All she wanted to do was sleep. She was so close to being able to just slip away yet simply wasn’t being allowed to. She felt very muddled and had the vague sense of being bullied.

‘Patient’s suffering agonal respirations and has a CO2 of eleven. Probably in anaphylactic shock so let’s commence CPR.’

‘Jen, please hang in there, I’m so so sorry. I love you.’

‘Sorry, Mr Wright. Can you stay out of the way? It’s very important.’

What was Max doing here, she wondered. For a second she was tempted to open her eyes to have a look but she wasn’t able to because suddenly a burning sensation swept through her so violently she would have done anything to make it stop. It was pain on a level she wouldn’t ever have thought possible. Every cell in her body was on fire, doused in hot, white agony. Then, as quickly as it showed itself it subsided, and once again she reverted to her numb state of nothingness.

Then, someone was applying pressure to her which hurt in a different way. She didn’t really want to be awake any more. She craved peace and sensed a way she could achieve it. There was definitely a direction she could go in that would remove all the pain, plus any further possibility of it.

She reflected for a second, feeling as though she were suspended in time and space, floating almost. In all honesty she wasn’t totally sure she wanted to go that way either. She wasn’t ready, which meant there was only one option left available to her. So once more she submitted to the grey fog of nothing. And as she sank back into it, more cries of panic sounded around her.

Meanwhile, as the paramedics went about their frenzied business of trying to save her life, the strangest things were happening in Jennifer’s bruised brain.

None of us can really comprehend what the human brain is capable of doing, in the same way that Jennifer had no clue as to the true capabilities of her laptop. All she tended to use her PC for was to write emails, do a bit of shopping or social networking, meaning its dual core processor was never fully taken advantage of. She was always stunned when Max, who was far more tech savvy than her, did some simple task on her computer, in a way that made her realise she was only ever utilising around ten percent of what it could probably do, if only she knew how to operate it properly.

It’s the same with the human brain, only on a far grander and more mysterious scale, its true power being so tricky to tap. Most of its work and activity happens at a deeply subconscious level and yet even beyond that, there are areas of it which we never unearth even when dreaming.

Psychics do better than most. Whether you believe in them or not, they at least have more awareness of the various possibilities which we could perhaps utilise if only we tried.

Right at that second, within Jennifer’s skull, a series of lightning-fast connections were being made, ones which she never usually would have been privy to if her head hadn’t made contact with the hard ground quite as brutally as it had, thus flinging her software into disarray. Something extraordinary was happening.

As her synapses furiously connected and fused, three tunnels of white light suddenly showed themselves to her. There was one to the left, one straight ahead and one to the right. Was this what death looked like? Instinct told her it was something different though and suddenly she knew, without needing to be told, that rather than leading her to the afterlife, instead these tunnels represented different lives she could so easily have led. Parallel universes, ones which were usually buried and hidden, deep in the core of the brain.

What she was being given here was a gift. The gift of being able to see what life would have been like had she chosen another route, or made a different decision, at three separate points during her life. And so it was that Jennifer allowed herself to fall into a deep and very informative coma. As her own private miracle started, she began to glide towards the first tunnel, the one to the left which was swirling with clouds of light at its entrance. This was the one marked Aidan

What Could Have Been—Aidan

Jennifer slipped out of bed and padded across the room to pull the curtain back. Sunlight immediately poured in and though it was still only early, she could feel the heat of the day penetrating the glass. She gazed out at the view, loving the way the sea glinted and twinkled through the gaps in the rooftops. Their little one bedroom apartment in the bay-side suburbs of Brisbane was very basic, very compact, but it was also only a twenty-minute walk from the beach.

She opened the window a fraction and breathed in deeply. Then she tipped her face back and let the already strong rays bathe her skin with their warmth.

It was strange getting up every day knowing it was going to be hot and that the sky would almost definitely be blue. She’d always considered herself a total sun worshipper but having been away for so long now, the sense of urgency to get out there and work on her tan had started to fade a bit. Sometimes, if she were being totally honest, she even found the constancy of the temperature a little relentless, a tad monotonous, to the point where recently she’d found herself secretly craving a bit of grey sky. This was ironic given that she was always the first to moan about the abysmal climate in England and yet what she missed about the British weather was that subtle change of seasons. Nothing beat a glorious, breezy, spring day, or that first sniff in the air which told you that autumn had arrived, when the light became more golden and the leaves were falling from the trees, crunchy and brown.

‘Hey sexy.’

‘Oh, you’re awake,’ she said, turning round to see Aidan grinning at her from the bed. He was brown, toned and fit from all the hours of running on the beach he was doing most days. She still felt a lurch of desire every time she clapped eyes on him.

‘Yeah funny that, given that you’ve pulled the curtains wide open. Now, seeing as you’ve woken me up, get your sexy bum over here,’ he said, eyeing her greedily.

She was only wearing a small vest top and a pair of knickers.

‘I know what you’re after,’ she grinned back at him, knowing full well he’d have a raging hard on. He woke up with one every morning. In that way he was a bit like the Queensland weather, predictable.

‘Just shut up and come here,’ he said, flinging back the sheets to reveal that her guess was indeed correct.

Not needing to be persuaded, Jennifer approached the bed and succumbed to half an hour of intense passion. Before Aidan, she hadn’t been aware of ever having such a voracious sexual appetite but he’d definitely woken something up inside of her that she supposed must have been lying dormant before.

After what was, as ever, mind-blowing, energetic sex, they both lay flat on their backs panting, sated, sweating.

‘You’re amazing,’ said Aidan, idly tweaking her left nipple.

‘So are you,’ she replied. ‘Seriously amazing.’

‘Love you,’ he said, hugging her tight. As he did so Jennifer marvelled at how safe he made her feel. The chemistry between them was something she doubted could ever be replicated with anyone else, to the point that sometimes they were almost savagely passionate with one another. She didn’t think there was anything she wouldn’t be prepared to do with him physically and, as a result, she had never felt so confident in her own body or so empowered in terms of the effect she knew she was capable of having upon him.