If this was reality, I’d be considering staging an intervention.
I check my phone again: 11.48. It’s like time is purposely slowing down, just to mess with me.
‘Ben, come on,’ Harv says quietly.
‘What?’
He nods at the armrest. ‘Stop looking at your phone. She’s not going to text you now.’
‘No. Yeah. I know.’
I lay it back down and we watch the Walking Dead guy doing his heart-warming stalker act in silence for a bit. And then, still looking at the TV, Harv suddenly says: ‘You will be OK, man. Honestly. You and Daff, I mean.’
‘Yeah.’ I breathe out shakily. ‘I hope so, but I’m not so sure.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s your natural pessimism talking,’ he says. ‘You need to tap into your inner optimist.’
‘I don’t think I’ve got one.’
‘Well, fucking get one.’ Harv mutes Love Actually and turns to look at me. ‘Look, man, this situation is going to require some serious effort if you want to fix it. You screwed up big time.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Harv. You don’t need to remind me.’
‘Well clearly I do, because you’re not going to get Daphne back by wallowing in your own misery, are you? You have to believe in yourself a bit more, otherwise why the hell should she believe in you?’
I shrug. ‘Self-belief doesn’t exactly come naturally to me.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Self-pity, on the other hand, you’ve got coming out of your ears.’
The accuracy of this statement sends a shiver down my spine. I think of the funeral, of my dad’s cloying self-pity in the car. I can’t give in to that side of myself. I have to be better. Not just for Daff, but for me.
Harv shuffles back against the cushions and continues. ‘It’s not going to be easy to win her trust back. It might be the hardest thing you ever do in your life. But isn’t it worth the effort?’
‘Of course it is. She …’ My voice catches in my throat. ‘She’s everything to me.’
Harv nods firmly. ‘There you go then. Pep talk over.’ He unmutes the TV. ‘Now can we please get back to arguably the greatest cinematic achievement of the twenty-first century?’
Without thinking, I glance at my phone again: 11.52.
‘Stop bloody doing that!’ Harv snaps. ‘Seriously – don’t make me confiscate it.’
‘Sorry. Sorry.’
He sighs. ‘Tomorrow, Ben. You can sort all this out tomorrow.’
All I can do is pray that he’s right. In eight minutes’ time, maybe I’ll get another chance. Maybe I’ll wake up next to Daphne again, all ready to lay everything out there and try desperately to rebuild what I’ve nearly destroyed.
My heart soars at the thought as I count down the seconds in my head.
Chapter Forty
There’s a high-pitched ringing sound, like a phone going off. Or an alarm.
I scramble upright, trying to calm my gasping breath, as the tinny noise continues to drill deep into my eardrums.
I’m in bed. At least, I think I am. Although it’s a noticeably comfier one than Harv’s sofa bed. My eyes are wide open, but it’s pitch dark and I can’t see a thing. The alarm is still going off, its cries for attention getting louder and more aggressive with every second.
I fumble blindly around me, trying to locate where it’s coming from. My hand grasps something cold on the bedside table – an iPhone I don’t recognise – and I shut the alarm off before dropping the phone back down. According to the flash of screen I caught a glimpse of, it’s just after 9 a.m. And the date underneath said …
No, hang on. That can’t be right.
I go to pick up the phone again, but before I can, I feel movement beside me. The bed covers shifting as somebody turns over.
‘Mmm. Morning, you,’ a female voice mumbles. ‘Merry Christmas.’ An arm stretches out across my bare chest and a messy head of hair nuzzles underneath my chin.
I freeze. I know it’s not Daphne. It’s pitch dark, but somehow, I just know.
My heart is stampeding in my chest. I try to hack my sandpaper-dry throat clear, but I can’t get any words out.
‘Ben? Are you OK? You’re shivering.’
The voice is harder now. It has an edge to it. I recognise it this time, and the shock hits me like a punch in the gut.
‘What’s wrong?’
I still can’t quite get my mouth to emit any actual human words. I feel her sit up and reach across to the other side of the bed. A light comes on, and the sudden brightness forces my eyes shut.
‘Oh my God, you look awful! You’re white as a sheet!’
I try a few painful blinks, but as my surroundings swim gradually into focus, I find there is simply too much worrying information here to process. The first piece of worrying information is that I definitely do not recognise the bed or, indeed, bedroom I am currently in. The second, more worrying piece of information is that I definitely do recognise the half-naked woman sitting next to me.
All I can manage to say is: ‘Alice …’
She wrinkles her forehead, and clambers out of bed. ‘I’ll go and get you some Nurofen. You can’t be ill today, Ben. You seriously can’t. It’ll be so embarrassing.’
She wriggles into a dressing gown and clomps out of the room.
I lie in the unfamiliar bed, in the unfamiliar room, paralysed with panic. Alice was right: I really am shivering – trembling all over – and I can’t seem to stop. I thought that by now I’d be used to it – the abrupt madness of finding myself suddenly transported to a different time and place. But this is something else. This is somewhere completely new, somewhere I’ve never been before.
I’ve only woken up next to Alice once in my entire life, and that was in her Paris flat.
This is not her Paris flat.
Which means …
I look down at my wrist to check the watch is still there. It very much is, the hands stuck in the exact same place. I reach slowly for the unfamiliar iPhone on the bedside table. I can hardly bring myself to touch the screen.
I must have imagined it. Surely.
I tap the phone tentatively with my thumb, and as the screen lights up, my stomach drops out from under me like I’ve just plunged into the first loop of a roller coaster.
The date reads: 25 December 2023.
I click the phone off and then on again. The date still reads 25 December 2023.
My heart is now beating so fast I think I might actually pass out. ‘After Christmas past comes Christmas present,’ the watch-seller told me outside the pub. But I never stopped to think about what comes after that …
On the chest of drawers opposite me, there’s another phone charging – it must be Alice’s. I run over to check the screen. The date reads: 25 December 2023.
There’s no doubt about it: I am standing in a bedroom I don’t recognise at just after 9 a.m. on Christmas morning three whole years into the future.
I drop back down onto the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. The shock is so severe that I can’t really feel anything – my whole body is numb, and my thought process currently resembles a fish on dry land, unable to do much more than just flap pointlessly from side to side.