make you remember you cared for me, a twilight fanfic

Paul is six years old the first time it happens. He doesn't mean to do it — he wouldn't have a clue where to start, or even a reason why — but one minute he is falling asleep in his single bed in Tacoma, tucked in tight under a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bedspread, and the next —

Well, he thinks he is in Aunt Ruth's spare bedroom, except the walls are blue, not yellow, and all his baseball cards are on the desk, and there's no way he'd cart them all the way to Oregon for vacation. It's not real Aunt Ruth's house, except when he rolls out of the bunk bed, clad in Chicago Bulls pajamas (the Wizards are best, everybody knows that) he can hear her humming in the kitchen, can see her setting a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal on the dining room table.

It's her, but it isn't. Not really.

The next day, he wakes up in the familiar clutches of Michelangelo and Donatello and nobody seems to have realised he was gone.

By the time he is eight, he's mostly sure that he is slipping sideways, like a turntable needle jumping a groove. He is never younger, never older, though everything else seems negotiable. Some things remain the same; Other Paul always shows up to take his place — except for one time when he is ten years old, and he wakes to his dad shaking his shoulder, demanding to know where he has been — and falling asleep always makes them switch back.

Sometimes he wakes up at his mom's house in the suburbs; sometimes his dad is there, too, and one time he wakes up with a little sister. He's woken up to blankets of snow, to noisy houses filled with people he cannot recognise, to a version of himself that speaks a language he's only ever heard in movies.

Each life is different — some better, some worse, and some that are just plain weird.

Even if he can't always spot the differences between the lives, Paul can take comfort in counting down the hours, knowing that he'll never wake up in the wrong reality twice.

He hasn't yet, anyway.

There's a first time for everything.

Paul doesn't need to open his eyes to know that he's slipped. Some things are the same: he's in his bed, for starters, and his alarm clock is blaring the same ear-piercing warble as always. He can hear his dad making coffee in the kitchen, grumbling to himself in words too quiet for Paul to hear, and his cell phone even chimes the right tone.

So far, so good.

He scrubs his hand over his eyes, slaps the alarm clock into submission. There's a couple of texts waiting for him — a popular Paul, he thinks dryly — and, even though he has the general policy of not replying to messages, not making changes for Other Paul to reverse, he still has the urge to snoop.

JARED

need a ride ?

o wait u have a gf for that

A girlfriend, he thinks, considering. There's not a whole lot of options (unless he is in a reality with double the female population) but none of them quite make sense. Not that Jared texting him makes sense, either, but at least they're on a first name basis in his usual timeline.

Paul continues to the next message.

RACHEL

dnt 4get u have gym 2day

He stares at the tiny LCD display, fingers hovering over the keys. There's only one Rachel he can think of — the smoking hot older sister of one of the guys in his grade — but that doesn't make sense, because someone like her would never go for a guy like him.

Except that it turns out that he is, somehow, dating Rachel Black, even though he's a freshman and she's a senior with a whole posse of older girls who'd normally sneer at the very sight of him. In this reality, he and Rachel eat lunch together on one of the benches outside the cafeteria, hang out at the beach after school, and she even kisses him after she drives him home.

Okay, it's a kiss on the cheek, but it makes his heart race and his mouth dry and he can do nothing but squeak out a pathetic goodbye.

He falls asleep with the knowledge that Other Paul has it made, and it sticks with him even after he wakes up in his own life, armed with the sense memory of Rachel's lips on his skin.

After the first slip, he can't help but notice Rachel.

He's not really interested in dating, and his curiosity about girls is outweighed only by a suffocating sense of self-consciousness, but that doesn't stop his eyes from being drawn to her like she's the sun, or one of those other cheesy metaphors his English teacher keeps raving on about.

Once he starts noticing her, he can't stop; soon, he knows that she prefers the warmer weather, will linger outside after the first bell if the sun is out, and sometimes even dares to sneak a cigarette from inside her coat. She has the same thing for lunch every day, except for the last week of the month, when she has nothing more than a can of coke. Jacob eats less, too, and Rebecca, and he can only assume it's money troubles or something.

So maybe that is why he does it — why he lets Other Paul guide his hand in the lunch line, placing a second raisin bran muffin on his tray, as if he and Rachel have exchanged more than a simple excuse me in this reality.

He channels the memory of her lips on his cheek as he walks by her table, depositing the muffin on her tray and power-walking away before she can say anything.

Paul ends up eating lunch at an entirely new table — because there is no way in hell he is walking past Jacob Black, not when he is suspiciously eyeing Paul like he's been personally wronged — opting instead to sit with a few guys from his homeroom.

One of them leans across — Jared, he corrects himself, he needs to be better with names — to fistbump Paul, grinning broadly. "She's staring at you, man. Smooth moves."

"Good," Paul says, stuffing his mouth with muffin to avoid further conversation.

Because it is good — the tiny quirk of her mouth, the glimmer of surprise in her dark eyes, the fact that she even noticed him in this plane of reality.

Maybe Other Paul is on to something.

He slips again a couple of months later, a short while after his fifteenth birthday. This time, it's a little harder to pinpoint exactly what is different. His bedroom looks the same, his wallet is tucked into his jeans pocket, and the only texts on his phone are from Jared.

First period is still Geography, and the cafeteria still sells hot wings with ranch. There aren't raisin bran muffins in this reality, though, which is weird, because raisin bran muffins are vastly superior to anything else on the menu.

There are oat muffins, though. He pays for two, taking his usual route past the window table, and —

He has to abruptly shift his course, pretending he doesn't see the strange looks from the girls at the table. Rachel isn't there, but the rest of the usual crowd is, including her twin sister, Rebecca. There isn't an empty chair, though, which is even stranger, because Rebecca normally sits across from Rachel, claiming the same seat every day.

"What's up your ass?" Jared says when Paul sits, frowning across the table. "Your face looks all weird again."

"Where's Rachel?" he asks, taking a bite of his muffin.

It tastes terrible.

"Who?" Jared says, eyebrows pinched together.

"Rachel," he says slowly. "Rachel Black. Jacob's sister."

"It's Rebecca, idiot," Jared scoffs, leaning back in his chair. He purses his lips, then, drops his voice a couple of decibels. "You're not drinking again, are you?"

Paul inhales his mouthful of muffin, shakes his head no.

"Good. Here for you, P," Jared says easily, snagging the spare muffin. "You know we've got that spare bed. You can have it if you do my Algebra homework."

Huh.