The next day at school, Alice made her way to the lake on her own during lunch break. Winona was preoccupied with a last bit of homework she’d forgotten to finish the other night. She had told Alice so while they tended to lunch earlier, “It’s only just a little, but I’ll still have to make the most out of lunch break to finish it before the class it’s due for.”

In response to that, Alice had told her, “Alright… I’ll just, well, be down at the lake as per usual to kill some time until it’s time for classes.” To which Winona simply nodded to show she got that.

Alice briefly glanced back at the school building where Winona most likely was by now, sitting in her classroom and rapidly tending to unfinished business. She sighed to herself and turned her glance back to the lakeside path she was walking along. Strangely enough, Alice felt that for once it was probably for the best if she didn’t hang out with Winona at the moment – her state of mind hadn’t quite made its way out of the mess she had put it in yesterday evening after dinner. So Alice thought she wouldn’t be doing it any favors by spending time with one of the reminders as to why her mind had been in such a mess in the first place.

“That almost makes it sound like I’m blaming Winona for all the stuff I’m going through…” Alice thought and shook her head, all while the more she walked along the lakeside, the further she got away from the school building and the less students there were around her. “As if she’s at fault for any of this… if anything, I’m the real cause of my own problems… problems I’m just too weak to face…”

Feeling a mildly stinging sensation within her like the weight in her mind had physically materialized to pull at her heart, Alice uttered a deeper sigh than before. She then turned her gaze at the beautiful-as-always lakeview stretched out beside her. That was where her gaze continued to be fixated as she half-consciously made her way into a part of the lakeside completely absent of other people. Alice hoped the natural view and surroundings she had only to herself right now would be able to put her mind at ease until lunch break ended. It also helped that normally neither students nor teachers really ever ventured this far along the lakeside, because most of them couldn’t be bothered to do so what with school already being time-consuming enough as it was.

A sudden cold and wet sensation on her feet, followed by a small splash, brought Alice back to earth. She looked down and realized that in her absent-mindedness she had walked way too close to the water and stepped into it before she could stop herself.

“Oh, great.” Alice grumbled. The only thing on the schoolgrounds keeping any of the students from wading into the lake even on the hottest summer days was a strict school rule prohibiting the act, unless they wanted detention. Thus, the lake didn’t really have anything such as rails built all around it either, which only helped the place maintain its natural beauty. Unfortunately, it had also been this lack of rails that had caused this wet accident just now.

Knowing what any of the teachers would most likely make of her if she was seen walking around the school with either wet or bare feet inside her shoes, Alice quickly tried to make her way back onto dry land. In this hurried process, however, Alice’s foot hit something like a rock and, to her horror, she felt her whole body trip over and fall straight into the water.

There was a splash, and Alice knew at that moment there would be no escaping detention for her after this.

That was when Alice realized something extremely weird. She could’ve sworn she’d tripped and fallen into the water, yet not an inch of her body – not even her clothes or her already submerged feet – felt the least bit drenched.

She quickly lifted her head and, to her utter astonishment, saw she was lying not in the water, but on the shore of the lake that she’d been walking along a second ago before she had tripped.

Alice stumbled up to her feet and turned around to look at the spot on the water where she thought she had fallen into. Could it be she just imagined hearing a splash when she’d actually fallen onto the shore? But then how did that explain her feet suddenly being as dry as the rest of her body like they had never been in the water at all?

“Oh, hey Alice – I had a hunch you’d be here at the lake, so I had to be here too.”

As if she wasn’t perplexed enough already, Alice was driven further into confusion when she saw Winona walking along the lakeside path towards her, waving and smiling. But didn’t Winona say she had to use the rest of lunch break for finishing her homework? When would she have the time to walk not just to the lake, but all the way over to this exact part of the lakeside? Without even knowing Alice would be here, no less?

Naturally, Alice couldn’t think of how to react to such a befuddling thing happening so suddenly. All she could think of being able to do was address one baffling thing at a time just so she could comprehend the situation as naturally as possible. She started by asking Winona, “What are you doing out here? I thought you said you had unfinished homework to tend to.”

“I did.” Winona replied. “Now I don’t anymore, obviously meaning I’ve finished it.”

That still didn’t answer many of the logical holes in explaining how Winona had made it here, which Alice also addressed by asking, “But how did you know where exactly at the lake I’d be just by a simple hunch?”

Winona shrugged. “You said you’d be at the lake while I was busy with homework, but when I got there later I couldn’t find you at the part of the lakeside everyone typically spends time at. So I figured you were probably walking along the lake to some other area, and…” she paused to gesture at both Alice and the lake, “…here we are.”

Alice scratched her head as she glanced at the lake as well. It was then she noticed how far away the specific part of the lakeshore usually occupied by people seemed to be from here. “Still, this is kind of too much of a long distance to walk just to see me…”

At this, Winona wore a signature friendly smile that Alice had seen on her way too many times before to ignore and said, “Hey, it’s not like I ran a marathon to get here – that kind of walk is nothing if it means I get to see you.”

This time Alice had to act as naturally as possible in order to hide a hot blush blossoming from her cheeks at these words. “Do y-you really- uh- mean that?” She stuttered. “You r-really wanted t-to see me after f-finishing your homework?”

To Alice’s astonishment for the third time in the span of the past minute or so, she saw Winona blushing just as much as herself. The girl then fidgeted a little on the spot in the same way Alice saw her do when talking about Tyler pre-rejection. She even did a coy sideways glance as she said, “Yeah, about that… I have something really important to tell you that I feel like a phone call or text wouldn’t have done justice, so I had to see you in person for it…”

As a means to rid herself of the awkwardness seemingly taking over both of them, Alice inhaled a deep breath and said, “Oh well, it’s like I keep saying, it’s only right for friends to look out for each other when in need… of course I’ll hear out whatever you have on your mind, like I always have.”

The coy smile on Winona’s face immediately turned into one of gratitude, and she said, “Thanks Alice, you’re the best…” then she took a deep breath herself and slowly began inching closer to Alice while saying timidly, “You remember yesterday, when you told me Tyler has no idea what he’s missing out on when he turned my confession down?”

Alice nodded, and Winona continued, “That got me thinking… maybe Tyler wasn’t the only one who had no idea what they were missing out on… it wasn’t after Tyler turned me down that I realized I was also missing out on something – someone – special… someone who’s always been with me this whole time, and I’ve been too blinded by my feelings towards Tyler to see it…”

“What?” Alice gasped in surprise. “Don’t tell me you developed a crush on someone else already!” Even for someone who seemed to have gotten over the distress of rejection pretty quickly, the idea of Winona having found a different person to swoon over in no less than a day sounded nothing short of outlandish to Alice.

Winona shook her head, coupled with more sideways glances at Alice, “Not so much developing a crush on someone else… as finally accepting these feelings I had for some time but ignored from being too distracted by Tyler…”

Having had enough of the vague implications, Alice was about to ask who that someone was, when Winona beat her to it with another deep sigh, “Okay, enough beating around the bush… I’m talking about you, Alice. I just couldn’t bring myself to hide it any longer, not after that damn rejection… I like- I mean, I like you…”

Whatever Alice had been expecting, it wasn’t this. No method of communication on earth could be enough to describe the typhoon of bewilderment that hit her mind like a wrecking ball the moment she heard Winona’s lips utter those words.

No… there was no way she had heard that right. After being so heads-over-heels for Tyler this whole time, how was it remotely possible for Winona to suddenly have such an abrupt change of heart, regardless of whether those feelings had indeed been just hidden away like she’d said? Had all of Alice’s fears regarding how Winona would see her if she knew the truth been a lie she had concocted for herself out of weakness? Was Winona possibly bi rather than straight? What was going on?

In this immense state of quandary, Alice couldn’t stop her legs from inadvertently stumbling in a certain direction, as such emotions typically did to people. In Alice’s case, she had begun to stumble backwards, completely forgetting what was right behind her.

“Alice!” Before Winona could even reach out a hand to catch her, Alice went tumbling backwards into the lakewater again.

Another splash.

Alice found herself falling back until her rear end made contact with the lakeshore, on dry land. Her body and clothes were just as dry as the ground she was sitting on. Most of all, she was alone. There was absolutely no sign that Winona – let alone anyone else – had ever been here with her.

Now Alice was really questioning her reality. Considering her current circumstances, what she just experienced couldn’t have been anything more than either a dream or a hallucination. But even those explanations raised more questions than they answered. Where and how could she have fallen asleep here when the last thing she recalled before those confusing series of events was tripping into the water? And there was nothing out of the ordinary she had done to see or hear things that weren’t really there either. Most of all, the aforementioned confusing events had all seemed way too real to be only a figment of her imagination.

Suddenly at that moment, Alice felt she didn’t want to be out here only on her own. Half-disoriented and half-scared, she hurried up to her feet and dashed along the lakeside path, all the way back to the school.

When she did get there though, for some reason Alice didn’t run to the nurse’s office to see if she was sick or anything. The place she did go for, past all the other students who glanced at her like she was being chased, was Winona’s classroom.

Sure enough, as Alice stood panting heavily in the classroom’s back doorway, she immediately made out the sight of her best friend sitting at her desk. Her head was still bent over her textbook as she intently continued tending to whatever homework she’d left unfinished. Almost – no, exactly – like she'd never left her seat for even a second.

Of course, what with her standing right outside the classroom and looking as though she’d just gotten off a treadmill, Alice didn’t go unnoticed by a few students minding their own business nearby. They saw her and called to Winona, “Winona, your friend’s here to see you!”

Instantly, Winona turned around in her seat, also saw Alice, and stood up to make her way towards her, asking, “Alice? What is it? And why do you look so worn out?”

For a very brief moment that seemed more like several minutes to her, Alice thought to herself about what to say. Was there any way she could tell the truth without making Winona or everyone else within earshot think she’d gone crazy? Was it remotely possible to prove Winona otherwise if she did spill the beans? And even if either of those options were possible – and that was a big bloody IF – how would Winona react to the truth? How many people did Alice know of who’d be able to properly comprehend even a quarter of the notion of some alternate version of themselves secretly existing within a lake? Assuming, of course, that was indeed what Alice had stumbled across?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Perhaps, just this once, honesty wasn’t exactly the best policy.

Pretending to catch her breath during the few seconds she thought what the most reasonable thing to say right now would be, Alice eventually replied, “It’s nothing, sorry to interrupt you while you’re busy…”

“You’re looking like you were actively searching for me after running like a mile.” Winona insisted. “That doesn’t seem like nothing, that’s definitely something.”

Alice fell silent again spare for the exhausted panting. There was no avoiding giving an answer to that, considering her state. So after another few seconds of pretending to catch her breath until it was back to normal, Alice said, “I kinda… dozed off while sitting down at the lakeside and… had this hella weird dream that felt way too real. I don’t remember much of it right now, all I do remember was that you were in it, so… yeah…”

“I see.” Winona nodded understandably and gave Alice a pat on the shoulder, saying, “Whatever it was that you dreamt of, or however real it felt, don’t think much of it, if at all – that’s all it was, just a dream.”

On the other hand, due to how silly it must’ve come across to them, the sound of Alice dreaming about Winona had apparently somewhat mildly amused the latter’s classmates, because they also responded to the conversation by jokingly going, “Oooooh~” in the same way kids teased their peers acting like a couple. At this, Winona laughed the reactions off with a, “Oh shut up!” before everyone cracked up over it.

Going along with the atmosphere, Alice also laughed, however somewhere at the back of her mind, this brief interaction spawned an uncomfortable feeling she couldn’t deny; a feeling she couldn’t help but allow it to resurface when Winona offered to walk home with her after school.

During their walk across the school grounds to the gates, Winona spoke about how relieved she was that the homework she'd hastily finished at lunch break today had somehow not come across like something done right at the last minute to the teacher who had collected it. However, Alice was barely listening, having gotten lost in thought yet again.

Winona’s mention of her homework and lunch break had reminded Alice of the moment the two of them had shared with some of the former’s classmates – more specifically, the part where the other kids had teased her and Winona as an innocent joke, and the way Winona had laughed it off.

Maybe the weight on Alice’s mind had just made her unnecessarily sensitive towards things like this. But even so, what had simply been nothing short of a friendly exchange of laughs had also come across to her as another unfortunate reminder that her feelings towards Winona were never meant to be. When Winona had said, “Oh shut up!” she’d of course only meant it as harmless banter towards her classmates’ teasing, Alice knew that. But the part of Alice’s mind being dragged down by that damn weight had also interpreted the sentence in a different way. That being, Winona indirectly saying there was absolutely no chance of her and Alice becoming more than close friends, considering the nature of the way her classmates had joke-teased her in the first place.

That particular train of thought led to another one, this time regarding what had happened at the lake. Alice still had no idea how to make sense of the incident or what to do about it. All she did know was that for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, she felt herself wanting to go back to it and see if she could experience the same thing again. A morbid curiosity, if you will. Like the feeling of opening a book with such a bizarre premise and writing style that the reader couldn’t help but develop a desire to see where the story could possibly go, regardless of the quality.

“Alice? Hey!”

Both of Alice’s trains of thought immediately halted at the sound of Winona calling out to her. At the same time, Alice noticed they’d made it to the school gates already, with many other students passing through on their way home as well.

Looking at her friend with slight concern, Winona asked, “You were kinda glassy-eyed until just now, is there something wrong?”

Alice’s mind raced for a moment. She couldn’t dare tell Winona she hadn’t been paying attention to any of her words, or the reason for it. As much as she hated to keep lying like this to her friend, the situation wasn’t exactly one where she got to choose either, so another excuse had to be in order. And the lake incident constantly bobbing to the surface of her mind wasn’t helping at all too. For that same reason she couldn’t put her finger on, Alice just had to go back to it.

“Dunno, I just have this nagging feeling that I might’ve forgotten something…” Alice muttered. She stopped in her tracks to unsling her backpack from her shoulders, before unzipping it open just narrowly enough for her to pretend to see the inside of it while Winona couldn’t. She then muttered something about having indeed forgotten something back at the classroom, excused herself from Winona’s presence, and went to walk in the opposite direction with a, “I just hope the classroom door’s still unlocked when I get there…” leaving Winona to awkwardly wave after her before going off on her own.

Once out of most other people’s eyesight, Alice raced to the exact same part of the lakeshore from earlier that day. Aside from the water now looking a bluish-orange from its surface reflecting the late afternoon sky, things seemed to be the same as during lunch break.

Hoping the lake was indeed the same as before – again, driven by that feeling she couldn’t identify right now – Alice put her backpack down on the ground, took a deep breath to brace herself, and took a wishful leap of faith into the water.

Splash!

Alice landed in the exact same spot on the ground she’d leapt forwards from. Even her backpack appeared to be in an 100% identical location and shape it was in when she’d put it down. The only difference immediately apparent was that the lake was now behind Alice instead of in front of her.

Then that moment was over almost as quickly as Alice had first noticed it. When Alice extended a foot before her to look at more of her surroundings and find anything else different, she heard someone approaching her in the distance. That was when Alice was fully sure the same thing she’d experienced at lunch break was happening again.

Sure enough, Alice saw Winona – or rather, the other Winona – walking up to her along the lakeside path, precisely how she’d done so the first time Alice had fallen into this mirrored world beneath the lake (there was no other term Alice could think of describing it as accurately as possible).

Trying not to let the awkward interaction from their first encounter get in the way of striking a proper conversation this time, Alice cleared her throat, picked up her backpack (despite not being sure if she could even call it hers while she was here), and waved at the other Winona with a, “Hi.”

The other Winona returned the gesture. Everything from the mannerisms to the facial expressions the Winona whom Alice knew would’ve shown was mirrored in her. Even as she spoke, “I saw you coming back here all the way from the school gates, so I had to be here too.” Alice felt like she was actually listening to her friend.

Before Alice could open her mouth again – whether to ask the other Winona if she’d actually seen her come all the way over here or even what this whole thing with the lake was about – the other Winona beat her to it. This time she spoke in a coy apologetic tone, “Sorry about what happened the last time we were here, I didn’t mean to startle you that badly…” and she fidgeted awkwardly on the spot, again in the same manner Alice had typically seen from Winona. “…but I just had to convey to you what was on my mind and constantly bugging me ever since Tyler’s rejection helped open my eyes to it. I just couldn’t keep it to myself anymore because of how giddy it’s been making me, yet at the same time I knew I could count on confiding it in the one person who has my utmost trust aside from family. Once again, if it was too much for you to take in, I apologize… and it’s also perfectly fine if you don’t feel the same way towards me, I’ll more than respect your decision. Just as long as we can keep being friends, I’ll be perfectly fine with that too…”

Every question that had been nagging at Alice’s mind went out the window the moment she heard the other Winona say this. At the same time, she thought she finally knew what that intangible reason as to why she kept wanting to revisit the lake had been about.

Alice approached the other Winona – now looking just as nervous as Winona had on the morning of the day she confessed to Tyler – and gently took her hand. She reassuringly said, “Say no more, that’s all I wanted to hear.” And followed it with a shy but nice smile at her.

Knowing what this meant, the other Winona’s face broke into a smile of both happiness and relief, before pulling Alice into a hug. Almost immediately afterwards though, she cautiously asked, “…I didn’t startle you again, did I?”

In spite of feeling just as much of the same emotions as the other Winona, Alice managed a small laugh and replied, “Not at all.”

Yes, Alice was aware the person she was exchanging hugs with wasn’t the same Winona she’d known for years, and that it was far from normal for anyone, let alone anything like some sort of mirrored world, to exist like this under the surface of a lake. But those weren’t what mattered to her at the moment. What did matter was that the trapped part of her mind – the one always chained to the weight of knowing her feelings towards Winona would never be reciprocated – was finally released and accepted, even if it wasn’t in the way she’d hoped. Like the most unexpected but nonetheless somewhat welcome miracle had taken a once broken dream of hers and put it back together for it to be achieved at long last.

For the first time in ages, she felt free as a bird from what had been dragging her down.

For that moment, that was all she needed.

After hugging each other for lord knew how long, the two girls half-reluctantly broke out of their arms’ grasps. The other Winona then checked the time on her watch and exclaimed, “Oh damn, is that the time already?! Sorry to suddenly interrupt our ‘nice moment’ together, but it looks like I really gotta get going now…”

“It’s fine.” Alice replied, “It’s not like we can’t meet again another time.” She paused for a second there, remembering the nature of the situation, and added, “We… CAN meet again, right?”

The other Winona also paused mid-step in her walk back along the lakeside path. She turned her head to glance at Alice over her shoulder, and responded with Winona’s signature friendly grin that Alice would recognize anywhere, “Of course. Don’t ever think I won’t be here for you with anything, just like the time I helped you come out to everyone else. Especially now that we’re… you know...”

She couldn’t finish that sentence out of shyness, but she didn’t need to – Alice perfectly understood.

After exchanging byes for now with the other Winona and watching her walk out of sight, Alice jumped into the water once more to emerge onto the lakeshore of her own world. Surprisingly, as she noticed her actual backpack lying on the ground near her feet right where she’d left it, Alice no longer felt the backpack she’d slung onto her shoulders in the lake’s mirrored world.

She felt around her backside and both her shoulders, then thought to herself with a shrug, “Guess it makes sense, that technically wasn’t my backpack…”

She then picked up her real backpack to sling it back onto her shoulders and proceeded to walk all the way across the school grounds again. By that time Winona had already headed home. Alice did so as well, but with a very subtle skip in her steps, all while her mind kept recounting the events that went down in the lake’s mirrored world like a video stuck on auto-replay.

During that moment, Alice genuinely looked forward to the days she had ahead of her for once.

***

“You’re looking rather bright this morning, Alice.” Winona pointed out on her way to school with her friend the following day. “I mean, not that you don’t usually look bright, it’s just that you kinda look brighter than you typically do.”

Alice glanced at Winona out of the corner of her eye for a second. “Do I?” She asked, then shrugged with an added, “I guess I just have a good feeling about today for some reason even I don’t know.”

Again, this was a lie Alice didn’t feel all that good about telling Winona, but had no other choice – in truth, she was thinking about revisiting the lake during lunch break and after school much like yesterday. Even with the actual Winona walking and talking right beside her, after the interactions between her and the other Winona, from the heartfelt talks to the encouraging promise to meet again – coupled with the newfound unshackled and relieved state of mind she’d gotten from the love confession – Alice couldn’t stop thinking about the mirrored world version of her now-girlfriend. If she could even call the other Winona as such.

“I see.” Winona mumbled, also shrugging. “I hope that feeling lasts, it’s good to see you like this.”

As it turned out, the feeling did indeed last. Finishing her lunch quicker than usual once noon arrived, this time Alice was the one who told Winona she had unfinished business to tend to during the rest of lunch break – another excuse that Winona bought with no doubt.

“See you later then.” Winona waved at Alice from the table she was still sitting and eating at. Alice waved back, then once Winona was out of her sight, she made her way to the familiar unoccupied spot of the lakeshore and jumped right in.

“Well, what did I tell you? Here I am for you, just like I promised yesterday.” The other Winona happily greeted Alice back moments after she’d emerged from the lake into the mirrored world. “As I always will.” She added shortly after with a shy blush.

Alice beamed and replied, “Same here… Winona.”

She’d almost hesitated on addressing the other Winona as if she was the actual one. However the more Alice met and spoke with her, the more comfortable she felt in doing so – comfortable in the same way she felt around the actual Winona.

Chuckling, Winona walked over to an old wooden bench situated near them and sat down on it, to which Alice asked, “Wait, you wanna hang out with me here instead of over where everyone else is at?” She glanced across the water at the particular lakeshore, crowded as always with many other students resting or playing.

Winona glanced down at her feet and fidgeted again from where she sat, this time with a hint of slight unease as well, “Oh well, um, about that, Alice… I’m not too sure right now…”

“Not too sure about what?” Alice asked, sitting down next to Winona, who replied, “I don’t know if I’m quite ready yet to… how do I say it… make it publicly apparent that the two of us are now, um…”

Again, Winona didn’t need to finish her sentence for Alice to see where she was going. What also helped was the fact that Alice more than knew what Winona was feeling through similar personal experience. Blushing just as much as Winona, Alice very gently held her ‘girlfriend’ by the hand and spoke in her best comfortingly reassuring voice, “Winona, you remember what you told me long before you helped me come out of the closet to our friends and my parents?”

Winona’s eyes momentarily widened and locked gazes with Alice’s upon feeling her hand being held in such a manner. She then immediately composed herself and replied, “That you can be ready to come out at any pace you feel comfortable with, just as long as you don’t wait until it’s too late?”