Chapter 3

When I woke up, I was lying on cold rocks with a pounding headache.

“Daniel...” I slurred, my voice heavy and slow, as if I were drunk.

No response.

I sat up slowly, my whole body aching, and looked around.

I was alone.

“Daniel!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

Only the wind answered.

A deafening silence wrapped around me like a thick fog.

“Maybe he went looking for help,” I mumbled, though doubt prickled at the edge of my thoughts.

I stood up, unsteady on my feet, my stomach fluttering with nervous butterflies.

Numbly, I pulled a phone from my pocket.

I had to look twice. This wasn’t my phone.

I pressed my thumb to the screen. To my relief, it unlocked. The wallpaper was a photo of me, except I didn’t remember taking it. My hair was shorter, styled differently.

I reached up and touched my hair. Sure enough, it was shorter. I looked down at my clothes. Jeans, sneakers, and a sports T-shirt. Not what I was wearing before I passed out—or in the nightmare I’d just endured.

Daniel. I have to call Daniel.

I opened the contacts and searched for his name.

Nothing. Daniel Cohen wasn’t there. A few familiar names from Middletown appeared, but not his.

A cold knot twisted in my stomach.

I looked down at my left hand.

My wedding ring was gone.

The butterflies in my gut turned into a frenzy of panic.

I searched for Yaron Beilinson. His name wasn’t there either.

I quickly Googled Maximilian Carter and exhaled in relief when I read an old article about his death. A few more searches confirmed that Middletown was back to being the idyllic little town I remembered.

I stumbled out of the cave. A car was parked nearby, but not mine. I drove a red Ford. This was a gray Volvo.

I reached into my pocket and found a key fob. When I pressed the alarm button, the Volvo beeped and unlocked.

Unreal.

“No, not this again,” I whispered. “Please.”

I climbed into the car and drove back to Middletown.

I parked in front of my house—or at least what I thought was my house. The front was painted a different color, and the flower bushes in the garden were unfamiliar. Daniel’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

Still shaken from the surreal nightmare I had lived through, I went inside.

Everything was different. For starters, there were no pictures of Daniel and me. Nothing looked familiar. This wasn’t my reality.

I sat down in front of the laptop and pressed the power button. Thankfully, it wasn’t password protected.

The desktop wallpaper showed me and a group of students at what looked like Panoramic Point, except the sign read Bird’s Eye Point.

“It’s just a dream. Nothing but a dream,” I muttered, pinching my arm hard.

I began exploring the laptop’s files and photos. Apparently, I was still a gym teacher. I had won several awards with Middletown High’s volleyball team.

Mr. Livingston was still principal. Bert Thomas was still the sheriff. Simon Thompson was still Middletown’s mayor.

But some things were different.

The Middletown Gazette was called the Middletown News, and Mathilda Delaney was listed as editor-in-chief. There was no mention of Janice Cooper.

The Jammed was Red’s Diner, a fast-food place. Tony Marino, according to Google, was a well-known chef at a high-end restaurant in Ohio.

I couldn’t find a single photo of Daniel and me.

I searched for Yaron Beilinson. He had a polished-looking website. He was a professional counselor, married to a woman named Evangeline Hart. They had three children. He looked ... disappointingly normal. No hippie vibes at all.

“Wow,” I muttered. “How is this even possible?”

Then, strange memories began to creep in, memories I didn’t recognize as my own. This Georgina—this version of me—was lonely and bitter. She had pursued Steve relentlessly, only to be rejected time and again. And unlike me, she had never met Daniel. There had been no rescue from loneliness, no second chance. She had thrown herself into her career to fill the void.

A deep sadness filled me.

I opened a browser and searched for Daniel Cohen.

Twenty-eight results in the Seattle area.

None of them lived at the address Daniel used to call home when he was single.

Here we go again, I thought, remembering how I tracked him down after we met at the club. Even though I had given him my number, he never called. So, I called every Daniel Cohen in Seattle until I found him.