Page 30 of Echoes
“Okay?” she asked more than said. “Why does that matter?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t. I just thought I could go on a shipwithyou sometime.”
“Ami, it’s not a vacation. I’m working when I’m there.”
“I know. I didn’t mean every time. I–” She paused. “You need to get to work. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just stopped by like this.”
“But you saw Felicity in the grocery store?” Rosie asked before she could change her mind.
“Yeah. She told you?”
“Uh…” Rosie wasn’t sure how to answer that question.
No, Felicity hadn’t told her. She’d told theotherRosie in Rosie’s hallucination. Still, if Ami had just confirmed that the grocery store thing had actually happened and Felicity hadn’t said anything to Rosie about it, it couldn’t have beenjusta hallucination.
“I’ll let you get to work, but… Coffee, maybe? Please? My treat. One cup of coffee, and if you never want to see me again, I’ll drive the other direction on the street when I leave the house.”
“Yeah, sure,” she replied more to end the conversation than anything else because she needed time alone to think about what in the hell was going on.
She turned to look at the device, which was locked up safely and still sitting on the chair.
“Great. Maybe tonight?”
“I can’t. I have plans.”
Wait.Didshe have plans tonight? Was it real?
“Oh, okay. Tomorrow, then?”
“Sure. That’s fine. I’ll… pick you up… whenever you want.”
Ami smiled at her then, and, for whatever reason, Rosie couldn’t help but smile back.
Four Years Later
“Hey, did you go to the store?”
“No,” Rosie replied. “Was I supposed to?”
“Yes, I sent you a text with the list, babe.”
“You did?” Rosie pulled her phone out of her pocket, and sure enough, she had two missed texts from her wife of two years. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t see this.”
“Rosie, I asked you to pick up the things I needed to cook dinner.”
“I’ll stop by tomorrow. We can order in tonight.”
“Why is it so hard for you to check your phone when you’re at work?”
“I spent most of the day in the MRI suite. We don’t bring our phones in there. They brought in a mummy and needed help with–”
“I don’t care,” Ami replied. “God, even when you’re here, you’re not really here.”
Rosie sat down on the sofa but left plenty of space between her and her wife, who was clearly angry with her. It shouldn’t have surprised Rosie. Ami had been upset with her over one thing or another for about the past year or so. It was getting a little old, though, if she was being honest. Rosie hated feeling like she was disappointing her wife, but she hated disappointing herself even more.
After the strangest day of Rosie’s life four years ago, she’d gotten into the car with Felicity and had probed about Felicity’s evening plans. Felicity hadn’t had any. Rosie hadn’t, either, but she hadn’t asked Felicity out because the truth was that she hadn’t thought of the woman in that way until the machine she’d found in the ocean had given her some kind of hallucination or vision of a moment in time in which Felicity had confessed her feelings for her. In that same vision, Rosie had said yes to the date and had clearly shown some feelings for Felicity as well, but in the car on the way to the office, Felicity had acted like nothing had happened. Rosie, for her part, hadn’t thought it would be fair to try to get Felicity to tell her if she’d felt a certain way about her because there had still been a chance that Rosie had just imagined the whole thing, and Felicity hadn’t wanted her like that at all.
The next night, Rosie had gone to coffee with her ex-girlfriend more because she’d been so taken aback the day before and she’d already agreed to go; less because she’d actually wanted to have coffee with Ami. It had surprised Rosie, though, that she’d had a good time with her ex. Ami had grown and seemed to no longer need someone around constantly, which wasn’t who Rosie could ever be for her. Then, after coffee, they’d decided to go for a walk, and that had led to another walk, which had led to them calling a dinner a first-date do-over, and Rosie had enjoyed it. Several dates later, they’d kissed for the first time in years, and a few dates after that, Ami had stayed over. They’d dated for over a year before getting engaged. Ami had moved in then, putting her house on the market, and Rosie had made promises to her future wife before they took the leap. She’d given up a few expeditions, thinking that she could surely compromise with Ami on how much time she spent away from home, and offered to spend more time in the lab or in her office and to, potentially, take on some teaching responsibilities.