I’m still puzzling over this weird realization, when I see her.
Sophie, or whoever she is.
Her dark head is bowed as she pores over something on her phone, a frown tightening her fine features. In a dress and long purple coat, in high-heeled pumps and—bangs? —yeah, it’s her, and yet...
Slowly I start walking toward her. I haven’t looked for her. Between the nightmares and the confusion over her reactions, I told myself to give it up. Give her up.
But she’s here and I need to solve this fucking riddle. Every night I wake up as much hard and aching from dreams with her, as shaking with dread from my usual bad rides.
It’s driving me nuts.
“You, girl.” I cock my head to the side when she looks up, steel my resolve not to fall for her innocent act. “Remember me?”
I swear to God, if she says no…
“The Calculus guy.” She tilts her head like me. “Right?”
“For fuck’s sake.” I run a hand through my hair, a nervous tic. “Look, what’s your name?”
“Sophie. Yours?”
Sophie. Of course. I scrub a hand over my face. “This is a bad joke, right? Please tell me that’s what it is.”
Because this is all off. Even the way she talks, the way she looks at me… annoys me. This doesn’t feel like the girl I want, but the name is right.
“I can’t help you there, sorry.”
Fuck this. This isn’t the sweet girl I talked to before. Can’t be. “You said you’re not Sophie.”
She frowns at me. “What? When did I say that?”
Okay. What the hell. “Do you by any chance have a twin sister?”
“Yeah, I do.”
The world dims a little. Tilts. My knees do a funny thing, bending.
“Hey, you okay?” She takes a step toward me, eyes going big and round. “You went kind of pale.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
No. I’m not okay. This can’t be happening.
“Sure?”
“What’s her name?”
She looks like she’s about to blow me off, but eventually she says, “Cos. Cosima.”
Cosima.
That’s the girl. The girl I want, I lust after, the girl I fucked, the girl I kissed.
My girl.
Not this one.
How didn’t I see it? How differently she dresses, and talks, and acts. How she never knew me. All this time, I thought she was a psycho girl, when it was the world that was crooked, not her.