Dear Past, You Suck!

Who I Am, Who I Am Not

Wherever we went the boys of the school stared. It is a all male boarding school, they probably have not seen a girl for several months. I would have enjoyed the tour if it were not for the students roaming about and Edgar constantly making poorly veiled insults. I do not know if that boy hates everyone or just me in particular. The school was beautiful and Augustus was eager to show me it. But the entire time I was there I felt like I was wasting time. This time I could be spending researching how to get home. Sir Logger is helpful but he doesn't know what it is exactly I am looking for. That feeling of dizziness and that feeling of everything slipping. Like this world was wet soap that I just couldn't hold onto. I do not think I could ever truly put it into words. That brief moment of...panic? Just before everything went black. It wasn't only panic though. It was similar to the feeling I had at the lake an hour away from home I had a few years ago. I was walking in the shallow water trying to go as far out as I could before I couldn't touch the ground anymore. But while I wasn't paying attention, I fell off a steep drop off. I unexpectedly plunged downwards. The water slipping over my head, my heart racing, my feet flailing trying to find anything to stable myself. I don't remember how I got out but the feeling has always stuck with me. That is almost what I felt like that night. Almost, but not quite.

If I can't describe even to myself what it felt like, then how could some author from this time write it down in a book? How do I know that someone has even experienced this before? Maybe I am the one and only time traveler. Maybe... Maybe I have never actually traveled through time. Perhaps this is only a coping mechanism to deal with whatever happened to me. Perhaps my old life was a fantasy. Maybe Molly was just what I needed at that time. Maybe Monica was never real. I mean what are the chances that I would travel back in time to the exact place and point in time where a woman who looked just like me would go missing.I have seen paintings of Elizabeth. I do not look similar. We look exactly the same. What are the chances of that. Somehow I think it is very slim. I have always told myself "Well you have to be from the future. What about your phone?" But if I imagined an entire other universe wouldn't it also make sense that I would have the ability to hallucinate my phone. Maybe it is just a bar of soap that I have convinced myself is a phone. Maybe Sir Logger and I haven't found any information because there is nothing to find. I never lived in a city. I never had a sister. I never had a dog. Or a father that left the family. My name never was Alice.

My name is Elizabeth Hemerton. I am the daughter of the Duke and Duchess Hemerton. I am married to Lord Abraham Warlest. I live in Portsmouth England. I was born in 1739. This is my life. I am not Alice Martin. I was not born in 1999. I am not from Winnipeg Canada. My mother is not a nurse. I do not have a younger sister. This is my life an I have to accept it.

Tomorrow my mother has requested (more like forced) that I attend the theater tomorrow. She said that I need to be "more cultured." So what I take from that is that I need to act more hoity-toity. She has packed a special theatre dress for the event. I wish Abe was here so I would not have to suffer alone. I wonder where he is now. I have not heard any news of how the war is progressing. Whenever I ask the response is always "You need not worry your pretty head about that." Very frustrating. I hope he is alright. Knowing him he has either already become a general or has infuriated his superiors. Probably both. I miss him.

"What are you smiling about?"

My thoughts snap back to the world around me. "Sorry, what?"

"You were smiling. I wanted to know why." Augustus asked.

"She probably saw a butterfly and it intrigued her small mind," Edgar said.

"Actually I was thinking about my husband, Lord Abraham Warlest. Remind me what your title is again, Eddie?" I said. I know I shouldn't be stooping to the level of a 12 year old, but this was a pompous 12 year old.