Still, I had to work hard to talk my parents into giving me another permission slip to stay out for the night. I deliberately didn't specify which Christina I'd be staying with, so they'd assume it was the first one, since they didn't know yet that she was no longer my assigned wife. But she was still my fiancée in spirit. There was no way I could break things off with her, even if UKARI said so. Yet I couldn't abandon Christina No. 2 either, not after we'd agreed to find a way to be together without destroying my relationship and her friendship with Christina No. 1.
We dismissed the driver. Christina No. 2 took a deep breath, then took yet another tiny breath on top of that, let it all out at once, grabbed my hand, and opened the door to her apartment. Since it was already late, her dad didn't come out of the living room right away. When he finally spotted me, his eyebrows shot up.
"Don't ask anything. I broke everything," Christina mumbled, squeezing my hand so hard it actually hurt, though I just had to take it. "Don't say a word." A cascading sob broke from her throat, sounding as if she'd been crying for hours.
Her dad looked at me questioningly.
"Everything got out of hand," I started, then realized how dangerously close that sounded and hastily added, "UKARI just fried both our brains. We need to talk everything through. Is it okay?"
Her dad nodded and let out a resigned exhale. He probably understood. Or maybe he understood a lot more than we actually intended, considering we'd be spending the night under the same roof. In fact, I suddenly remembered him mentioning at dinner how much he despised the cheaters he was forced to see at his restaurant, and now here was his own daughter... No wonder he'd glared at us on the way in.
Once inside her room, though, Christina pulled out her flute and started playing a frantic, heart-wrenching melody, right up until the neighbors upstairs or downstairs started banging on the wall with a clear message: enough already, it's the middle of the night.
"Kiss me," she suddenly pleaded. "If they take you away from me, I need a reason to hate them."
"We already agreed..."
"Kiss me. Kiss me while I'm still your wife... Kiss me while we can still do it without hiding."
"But..."
"Kiss me like I'm the only one you have," Christina sobbed again, but this time tears spilled straight from her left eye without even changing her expression. "Kiss me."
She wasn't just shaking. She was outright trembling. I pulled her into a tight hug, holding her close right along with the flute. She calmed down a little, though she still hitched on a sob every now and then. She lifted her head and looked straight into my eyes. Her mouth was parted, her lips flushed.
Was she asking? To kiss her?
And I kissed her... and again... and again. Breathlessly. Because I loved her. Without a doubt, I loved her too. As long as the other Christina wasn't watching. I didn't want to see her cry. But I didn't want this one crying either.
Her clothes didn't feel nearly as nice to the touch as they had in the UKARI room, so to actually stroke her skin, I slipped my hands underneath her shirt and ran my palms over her bare body. She responded, arching into my touch and moving along with me. I maneuvered her back towards the bed, positioning her underneath me once more, but the flute got in the way. It blocked us from repeating the exact same scenario from UKARI. At the same time, it probably saved us from something we would have heavily regretted by morning, because I hadn't even brought a condom...
If you're going to cheat, I felt like you shouldn't leave physical evidence behind. Otherwise, it stops being cheating and turns into actual love. And what if they took her away tomorrow and altered the paperwork all over again?
How could we hate UKARI for the fact that we were finally together? Why did we have to feel like criminals even with official permission? Why did our happiness have to inflict pain on others? Why did our first time have to happen in a 69 position instead of like normal people? And why couldn't we calm down even after it was over? Why was she crying again? Why was falling asleep wrapped around each other in the same bed so impossibly hard? And why did morning arrive way too fast?
"I'm going to be your wife," Christina said instead of saying good morning. "I'm not filing a refusal form. Even if the other Christina ends up hating me, I'm not..." Christina trailed off for a long moment.
"What about the conductor?" I tried to lower the dramatic stakes. Morning naturally brought a sense of calm and my absolute life anchor, laziness, battered but still my own true laziness. I was simply too lazy to suffer all over again.
"I'll survive it," Christina caught her breath. "And the mistress too. You'd suffer without her anyway. Just make me your wife."
"Fine," I agreed.
"Then let's file the application. Today."
For a moment, I panicked. Every second of my silence meant a little more disappointment from Christina, so I didn't think for too long.
"I'm not against it, but we should probably explain everything to everyone first. My parents, your parents, Christina."
"And what if she refuses?"
"She won't," I insisted, mostly because I'd promised myself not to back down. Yes, her consent seemed impossible, but UKARI's glitches had seemed impossible to me too.
"Fine." Christina got out of bed, stepped right over me, opened her bag on the table, and pulled out her phone.
"Wait," I suddenly realized what she was about to do. "Do you even have a plan?"
"Nope. I'm just going to tell her the absolute truth."
"Let me do it instead."
Christina handed me the phone, with the call to the other Christina already going through.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Hey," I greeted her. "What are you up to?"
"Getting ready for school."
"Look, here's the thing..." I realized I couldn't do it. I physically couldn't force the words out of my mouth to tell her I was marrying someone else. In total silence, I handed the phone back to Christina No. 2.
"Hello?" came Christina No. 1's anxious voice, confused by my sudden cut-off.
"Hey," Christina No. 2 greeted her, and right away, without waiting for a reaction or a question about why she was with me at this hour, she dropped the bomb:
"I slept with Alex. It's your own fault for turning him down yesterday. He came over to my place and it happened. I'm sorry."
Christina No. 1 didn't hang up, but she didn't cry either. The silence stretched on for a solid three minutes.
"Should I hand the phone to Alex?" Christina No. 2 finally asked.
"Hello?" I muttered back into the receiver.
"Do you love me?" Christina No. 1 asked instead of screaming at me.
"Yes," I answered flatly.
"Then why?"
I didn't know what to say.
"Because UKARI decided so?" Christina No. 1 threw me a literal life raft, and I could have grabbed it. I really could have, if I didn't actually love her.
"Because I somehow managed to fall in love with both of you. I'm sorry."
"So you're saying I'm not enough for you?" No. 1 spoke as if she hadn't heard a word.
"Christy, I just said I was going to marry you. Were you even listening?"
"Maybe you were just too lazy to file a refusal."
"Right, and that's why I'm calling you right now? Look, I may be lazy, but I'm not a dummy. The point is, I still want to marry you, if you still love me."
"And what about Christina?"
"Her too. I don't mind taking responsibility for both of you. And yeah, I want the impossible. But at least I want it instead of lying to you guys. I just don't want to choose. And not even because I'm lazy, but because I'd have to choose whose heart I'm going to break. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be torturing myself like this."
"Well, maybe you're just unfaithful," No. 1 went right back to ignoring my point. "I used to live with a future politician, so I figured affairs would just come with the territory. But those things are supposed to be kept secret, not dumped on your wife... at least out of basic respect. Right now, I just feel like absolute trash."
"I feel the exact same way," Christina No. 2 leaned in towards the speaker. "Only you know what? I'm not a side chick, I'm a fan, and fans write fanfiction. Nobody's going to wait around for the main characters to finally hook up by season ten. Everyone wants them to smash right after the first kiss. I didn't steal Alex from you, I just did to him what you wouldn't let me see you do. I wanted you two to be happy because it echoed in my own core, but things had been way too quiet and sad for way too long. It's your own fault. You should have invited him over yesterday."
"Stop it, Christina," I pushed her away.
"It's my phone," No. 2 reminded me. "She wasn't the one who saw you broken, she wasn't the one falling apart in front of you. While she was sitting inside her cozy cocoon of misery and acting all..."
"Chris!" I barked at her, and surprisingly, it worked.
"She's right," Christina No. 1 confirmed her own worst fears. "I'm just a failure who ruins everything. Last time..."
"Stop!" I demanded. "We are not discussing who's to blame. We're talking about how to live with this." Was I seriously overstepping by assuming Christina No. 1 would even agree to be part of this? But if my harsh tone worked on No. 2, maybe it would work on No. 1 too. "Get your things and get over here."
"Mom!" Christina No. 1 called out. "I'm skipping school to go see my husband today."
"Tell him you'll have plenty of time to get sick of each other later. He needs to study too," her mother answered back.
"If I don't go, I won't have a husband anymore."
"Why on earth not?" her mother demanded, annoyed.
"Because..." Christina No. 1 hesitated. "Because he's going to cheat on me with my friend."
"File a complaint against him, and they'll assign you a normal one. I never liked your Alex anyway."
"You're not listening to me! I don't want to lose him. If you're against him, then forbid me from going."
"You're a grown-up girl..."
"Then I'm going. Bye." Christina grabbed her casual day bag instead of her school backpack, strode towards the door with her phone in hand, and hung up the call.