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“Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”
She’s looking at him like… Jonas has never seen Alex so anxious. At least, he— he doesn’t think he has. But from what she’s saying, she certainly seems to think he did. That he saw her worse. That he saw every side of her. But…
“I… I’m sorry.” He isn’t sure what else to say. And Jonas means it, too. He really is sorry. Even more sorry when her face falls - breaks, even. Hope shattered. “I mean, I trust that you—” That she believes what she’s saying.
But if she believes it…
None of this makes sense. Nothing on the island had made sense, either, to be fair. But ever since the ferry, she’s been staring. It fades, sometimes, when they’re all together. He’ll be chilling with Ren, and Alex will show up, and then it’s all casual heys and Mario Kart tournaments. But Ren leaves the room, she watches him like she’s about to say something.
She makes jokes like he should know what she’s talking about.
It’s awkward as hell.
But at the same time… it’s not like he dislikes her. If anything, he kinda likes her a lot. Like ‘hey, Ren, what’s her deal’ a lot. Which shouldn’t make sense, when she’s coming to him like this. She believes what she’s saying. That’s obvious.
There’s— It’s cognitive dissonance, right? The psychobabble hasn’t all stuck, but that one felt intuitive the very first time he heard it. His brain can’t fit the two together; that his memories feel so concrete to him, and hers to her. There’s not a drop of doubt in her, just desperation. Pleading hope that he might remember… something.
“…I…” He nearly croaks it. Something is tightening around his throat, seeing her like this.
“Jonas…” Her hands wring in her lap, grabbing at the freshly fraying hem of the old red jacket she still wears despite the heat. “I- I can’t imagine what this sounds like to you, but—” Alex swallows, looking down at her hands. He can see the muscles in her jaw tense, her mouth twitching as she swallows hard.
“If you can— If you can try to see it from-” A hand flies to her face, clutching at her forehead, and he can practically hear her thoughts warring against one another, the no, you’re saying it wrong that is clear in her wince and how she shakes her head minutely.
It feels like the right thing, putting his arm around her. Offering her a little support. Taking some of the weight of whatever’s troubling her.
“You were the only one, Jonas.” It’s more self-assured, like she needed that anchor around her, like it confirmed something, and her expression is more insistent than anything else. “With me the whole night.” For a second, her eyes are like embers when she looks at him. “Everything that Mike—” They flicker, something edging into them. “-that Michael said happened, it wasn’t—” Her words cut off, and he can sense the tremble she’s barely holding back. Bright eyes dim with pain.
“Alex?” He’s trying to be reassuring. He really is, but it’s so hard when he feels so lost with her. Like she’s miles ahead, or behind, or just— parallel. Here and somewhere else at the same time.
“Michael was dead, Jonas.” It’s hollow and pained, like she’s speaking through a grief-carved throat. “It was just you.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Alex has said it before. On the ferry. She’d looked at her brother - bewildered, disoriented - and murmured that it couldn’t be happening. She’d argued, at first, but— well, the proof was there, flesh and blood, and Mike chucked his kid sister under the chin, put an arm around her, assured her that he wasn’t dead yet and didn’t intend to be for some time. After that, she’d gone quiet on the subject. Apart from balking and adamantly refusing any swimming-related activities (she’d said he’d drowned, right? when she first mentioned it?) Alex hasn’t tried to convince them again. Hard to argue that your own brother should be dead.
But now she’s bringing it up again. To Jonas. Because she trusts him. And wants him to trust her.
It’s so difficult.
“You remember the— the loops, right?” There’s some wariness in her tone, her posture - like she’s too scared to lean in, and too needy to let go.
“…Kind of,” he admits. He’d definitely heard about them that night from Mike and Alex. Did he experience any? There are times that feel… disconnected. Beginnings and— Jonas hesitates, but… hell, she’s laying it all out there for him, he can only do the same. “Beginnings and ends, but no in between.”
Alex nods slowly, eyes narrowed, and he can watch the gears working in her head. “So… so that in between. It’s… it’s a long one. And the beginning is…” She takes a breath. “The beginning, I guess, is Michael’s choice to leave for college. Because that’s what he chose. He didn’t stay in state, like… like he did… here.” Even Alex looks frustrated with her words. “It doesn’t make sense like that, but—” she shakes her head.
“It’s not always like this,” a hand waves weakly, gesturing abstractly to the world at large. “In— in the beginning of… In some loops. He left. Or was going to. And we went swimming, and-” She gulps. Finally, she does lean in to Jonas, fingers poking into the holes of her jacket nervously. “And… I couldn’t…” She chokes, shaking her head again, and her lips go tight, a soft hiccup swallowed. Hands clench into fists as she makes herself go on. “I was there, and I didn’t— I couldn’t save him. So he… he died. And things at home never got better, and our parents split, and…” A long breath sighs out of her, the hardest part having already escaped its captivity. “And then my mom met your dad on vacation in Orlando, and they fell in love I guess, and-”
That throws him for a loop. Jonas feels dizzy, like he’s just been swung up in one of those amusement park pirate ships, and for a second he just feels the moment of weightlessness turning his stomach.
“-the night of the island— We met that night. I was the one bringing you along, not Ren. I brought you as— as my-”
“Stepbrother. Yeah.”
She shoots upright, and there’s a frantic fervid look in her eyes, and-
God, it breaks his heart. And she must see that, because that surge of hope falters. Flickers. Dies. Because he doesn’t remember. He still doesn’t remember, just can put together the meaning of her words, even if he doesn’t feel their gravity.
“…I’m sorry, Alex.” His whispered voice is broken too, like some kind of solidarity, some wretched empathy imposed on him. Jonas wants it to make sense. It feels like it should, but it just can’t . And maybe she can see it in him, too; the need to try for her, to at least attempt to understand. “I’m so sorry.”
Alex’s lips pull tight, and her eyes are so heartrendingly sad - a fractured, subdued smile painfully unfurling across her face - as she curls into him again. “I know.” And her words are almost lost in the fabric of his shirt; “You always are.”