Chapter Text
Elizabeth calls her “Lizzy” because this name suits her the most.
Lizzy is twelve. She still believes in good endings in all stories and wants to be a writer in the future. Her parents are alive and Elizabeth doesn’t have enough determination to tell her about their death in this world. Elizabeth wants their lives in another universe to be much longer.
Lizzy lives not only in the parallel world but in another timeline too. Their lives looks familiar but Elizabeth likes to notice many differences. She likes to think Lizzy’s life will go another way because of them.
For example, Lizzy from parallel world isn’t an allergic. That’s why she has a chinchilla called Hamlet. Lizzy hasn’t read the “Hamlet” yet but she likes sounding of this name. Hamlet is nice, white and fluffy but he looks lazy and little bit arrogant.
Elizabeth thinks it was her great luck - meeting this Lizzy, her little girl, because this Lizzy still believes in wonder.
Thanks to this they can talk every Sunday’s evening.
Thanks to this Elizabeth can be little bit happier in her middle-successful life.
“How was your week?”
They can’t hear each other but they can see. For several months they were only writing, but two weeks ago Lizzy said about her great idea. After that they started to learn sign language. It is pretty difficult but Elizabeth finds it useful. After all, it is just another useful skill in her life.
“As usual,” Elizabeth writes. “Nothing interesting happened. What about yours?”
Lizzy’s week was amazing and full of impressions. It was her own “as usual”. She does nothing special but she can find special meanings in every action.
It is summer in her world and there are many butterflies everywhere.
Elizabeth knows. They both live in Ealing eventually. Fifteen years ago air was cleaner and grass was greener, there were some overgrown vacant lots with many wild flowers. Lizzy likes walking when it is sunny outside and she really likes watching butterflies. Elizabeth liked it too in her childhood.
“What will I read next month?” Lizzy asks with tricky smile.
Elizabeth pretends to suffer but then smiles too. It is her challenge - finding interesting books for Lizzy. It is difficult because Lizzy has only libraries and bookstores. There are no suitable online libraries in her timeline.
And there are not so many books about self-development or motivation in her world. People like nice books which help them to develop only their imagination.
Despite the difficulties, it is the most interesting challenge in Elizabeth’s calm and useful life.
They met each other one year ago, at the one of bad days, when Elizabeth went to basement after many years of ignoring its existence. She expected to find there only thick layer of dust and hurting but happy childhood memories. But after she opened a crumbling door of old wardrobe and looked at the dirty mirror, she found something better.
Friend.
***
Elizabeth has no friends except Lizzy. She just has people she calls “friends”. Don’t think they are empty or surface because they are not. They just… live their full and useful lives with a lot of useful days and self-development problems. No, they don’t think only about it but they actually don’t have time for close friendship with many people.
Every Elisabeth’s “friend” has someone else. Someone closer. Childhood friend, lover, husband, wife or child. They look like soulmates and it seems like they don’t need someone in their life. Elizabeth feels a little bit lonely because she doesn’t have the closest person to her.
Except Lizzy but she is from another universe.
Elizabeth doesn’t know why they can see each other. And she doesn’t want to. It is their own secret and nobody must know it. Sometimes Elizabeth thinks they met each other because they needed to. Elizabeth needed to have friends and Lizzy needed to have a person who can answer all of her million questions.
Lizzy never asks questions like “Why is the sky blue?” (she actually knows). She asks very difficult questions like “Why do people feel lonely in the crowd of other people?” and sometimes Elizabeth needs days or even weeks to find answers. It is more difficult than finding new books for Lizzy.
Lizzy is very curious and she likes finding answers by herself. But on the other side, in her timeline there are no psychological podcasts or internet-guru who can tell you everything about people's emotions or behaviour.
Lizzy calls Elizabeth her psychological guru. But there is a little problem - Elizabeth knows nothing about people at all. She lives in her own useful shell.
But on their third or fourth meeting Lizzy started to ask many questions about people. Not only British but about people from the whole world. And now Elizabeth has to think about them too much.
She has been living in this world for 27 years but hasn’t seen many wonderful and amazing things.
Lizzy thinks the most amazing thing in this world is humanity. Yes, she likes nature, plants and animals, she likes watching butterflies, walking in quiet places and playing with pets, but people attract her the most.
“Why do you like them so much?” Elizabeth asks writing in her new notebook by cute orange felt-pen. She uses only orange felt-pens because Lizzy likes this color the most.
“Why do you like Barcelona so much?” Lizzy asks in response using violet felt-pen because violet is Elizabeth’s favorite.
“Because she is beautiful and cozy but full of mysteries,” Elizabeth answers. She talks about Barcelona as a living person because Barcelona isn't an ordinary city.
Barcelona is alive and Barcelona makes Elizabeth feel alive too.
“People are beautiful too,” Lizzy writes. She has a funny rounded children’s handwriting but she always writes serious things. “And they are full of mysteries”.
She is right. People are full of mysteries.
Elizabeth tries to remember what she thought about others in her childhood, but she can’t. And she doesn’t want to tell Lizzy many real and serious things. Something like “Sometimes people are full of angriness, rudeness or greediness too”.
Lizzy will find out about it by herself when time comes.