Aqua

Her eyes locked on the woman's earrings before registering her face. Two perfect, glittering aquamarine teardrops hung in the air under her earlobes, as if suspended by nothing.

Perfectly matching her own.

It was impossible.

"Rhia? Are you alright?" Theo lowered the glass of champagne from his lips and stared at her oddly.

She blinked, realizing their hands were still clasped, and her fingers had curled around his like a creeping vine. She dropped his hand abruptly, which only seemed to upset him more.

Theo flagged a caterer with a single raised finger and a raised eyebrow, and a young woman offered Rhia a platter of tall glasses, all filled with bubbly drink. She waved the woman away, trying to see around her, to spot the woman with the earrings again.

"Take a drink and calm down," Theo told her lowly, pushing a glass into her hand. He'd swiped it from the caterer as she'd walked away.

"I am calm," she replied, but her voice was tight.

The woman across the way was tall, angular, and rigid. Her eyes glinted and her full lips were set into a determined line. Her natural black curls were tied back with a scarf that matched her dress: a deep, mysterious blue.

And her earrings. Her earrings were undoubtedly identical to Rhia's own.

"Hey," Theo stepped into her line of vision, his glasses sliding down his nose as he bent down to her level.

Rhia looked past his shoulder at the woman, her attention divided. She reached up and touched one of the earrings on her own ear, confirming that her own aquamarines were still there.

Her fingers touched the cool gemstone, and instantly everything sharpened.

She could hear every bubble in every champagne glass pop, throughout the entire room. If she'd taken a moment, she might've even been able to tell you which glass each one came from.

Rhia could also see two wrinkled white men in suits, both standing in front of her, arguing with each other, though time seemed to move too slow for her to make out any words. Theo was somewhere else, but where?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw another woman with aquamarine earrings, but recognized her instantly. She had a hand to her ear, and was peering over the shoulder of a tall man, who was pushing up his glasses, who was most certainly Theo. She, the other woman, was most certainly, most impossibly, herself.

Spreading a hand in front of her face, she found it adorned with rings. Not her own. And the skin was much darker than her own, and the dress on her body was a deep, mysterious blue.

Then the world spun, and she thought she might retch, and she felt fingers dig into her shoulder. "Rhia. Dear lord, you're not drunk are you?"

She blinked into Theo's concerned face. Her eyes flashed past him, and for the briefest second, her gaze collided with the mysterious woman.

The other woman parted her lips, but Rhia felt too sick to figure out what she might be saying, she was all the way across the party, anyway, why would she think she would be able to hear her? But it didn't matter, because her body felt slippery, and the drink that Theo had put into her hand wasn't there.

She was just aware enough to hear the glass shatter.