...and at that moment I looked at Liz with new eyes. I realized that she was convinced that everything she was telling me was the truth. Perhaps I HAD been Jennifer. Perhaps my whole life as Jon had been a creation of the stone. Perhaps Liz and I (when I was Jennifer) had indeed found the stone on a nature hike and the whole thing about my grandfather was just a way of incorporating the stone into my 'Jon' life.
Whatever was the case, I knew I wanted to be Jennifer. I needed to get my real life back. But...
I turned to Karyn. "Karyn...I want to be Jennifer again."
"I know." said Karyn softly. "I want you to be Jennifer, too."
"But..." I said. "I don't want to lose you, Karyn."
"You won't." said Karyn. "I'll still be your friend when you're Jennifer again."
"But Liz said there was no Karyn...she said that you, my parents, this house, my Jon memories...all of it were fake. She said you weren't real." I felt like crying.
"Jon..." Karyn began. She stopped, looking confused. I realized neither Liz nor I had told her the full story yet. I turned to Liz, and she told her the same story she had told me. We had found the stone on a nature hike, and made a few wishes with it...then I carelessly made a vague wish that things were different, and that transformed me into Jon and created my whole life. If it hadn't been for Liz's wish that she be able to keep track of me, she never would have found me.
After Liz and I were finished, Karyn began to speak. "So...you don't even know if I was a real person before Jennifer made that wish?"
"No," said Liz. "And I didn't think it would make a difference."
"Wait a minute," I asked Liz. "How do you remember the way things were before reality altered?"
"Before you made that wish, I wished that my memories wouldn't be affected by any wishes anyone would make with the stone. You see, we had used the stone to get into a few places we shouldn't have, and then we used them to make people forget they saw us there. I didn't want the same thing to happen to me. You should have wished the same thing for yourself."
"Maybe," I said. "But I don't even remember it. I wish I did."
I braced myself, waiting for something to happen, and then I remembered that Liz was holding the stone now.
So if anyone was going to make any wish right now, Liz was going to do it. I looked at Liz. It looked like she was going to make a wish. I turned to Karyn. I still didn't know what was going on, but I wanted to be Jennifer again. And yet I didn't want to lose Karyn as a friend.
At that moment, Liz...
