June, this year
There’s nothing at all in the basement this time, and the place is silent.
It’s surprising how often this house is left empty and unloved — an ill-used second-home lake house, or some foreign owner’s vacant investment. Such a shame.
I drag myself up the steps into the kitchen, exhaustion seeping into my bones. The main floor has been recently renovated, and has a strong fresh-paint smell, with bright white walls, and cellophane wrap still on the appliances. I let myself out of the kitchen door onto the warmth of the deck, checking my pockets once more for clues to my existence.
No keys, or wallet — just an iPhone in a plain black case.
I go straight to Instagram, where I’m in photos with a bunch of people I’ve never seen before, captioned with names I don’t recognize. Nothing with Bonnie or Ben.
On LinkedIn, Bonnie is working at City Hall again, as she almost always seems to be in worlds where we’re not friends.
But, weirdly, Ben has no LinkedIn profile at all. And he’s never had other social profiles like Instagram, not in any of my worlds — being such a private person — so I can’t look him up there.
I scroll through Bonnie’s Instagram feed instead. Lots of photos of her with a dark-haired guy I don’t know, so she seems to be in a steady relationship. But none with Ben — at all. That’s weird. Maybe he moved away, in this life, and they don’t see each other much anymore?
Scrolling further back, the images of the new guy disappear, and her posts are fairly infrequent. The further in the past they go, now eighteen months back, the more Bonnie’s posts become moody lake and landscape shots, with captions about “healing” and “recovery.” About the loss of her parents, maybe? But that was many years previously, even then.
Then I find it.
A photo of Ben, that gorgeous black-and-white one taken by the arts magazine a couple of years previously, and a caption that makes my heart stop.
“Dearest friends. For those of you who don’t already know, I’m heartbroken to have to tell you that, tragically, I lost my brother Ben in a lighting-rig accident on March 5. As you know, our parents died a few years ago, and Ben was all the family I had left. He was the brightest of lights in an often dark world. Ben was brilliant, funny, talented, loving, and the best imaginable brother. To say that I’m devastated would be an understatement. But I feel grateful to have the love and support of so many of you, my wonderful friends, and plenty of help in taking on funeral arrangements. I hope you will join me in saying goodbye to Ben at a memorial event at The Lookingglass Theatre next week, March 18, at two p.m. Please don’t send flowers but feel free to donate in Ben’s name to one of the charities linked in my bio. Hugs to you all, Bonnie.”
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Ben.
Ben is dead.
I slump against the wooden bar of the deck railing, staring out over Lake Michigan, but all I see is him. Different phases of Ben, different versions of him, across all my lives, all flashing before me in a rapid silent movie. Playing guitar in the basement. Laughing with me on this deck over a thousand dinners. Teaching me to cook with abandon in Bonnie’s kitchen. Strolling with me on Chicago’s lakefront, too polite, no longer knowing me. Dancing with me to a cover band, knowing me so well. Being a brilliant theater director and playwright.
And in this world, he’s gone.
I can barely breathe. Every fiber of my being feels like it’s on fire.
Grief and horror overwhelm me in a wave that ripples up my body, from my toes to the top of my head.
I drag in a long, deep breath from the depths of my soul, pull back my shoulders, and emit a deafening primal scream across the lake.
It reverberates through the neighborhood around me, over the water, and throughout all the universes in which I have lived and have yet to live.
After, everything is still and quiet.
My body shudders, and my knees buckle beneath me. I crouch down on the decking, my head against the glass barrier, and let the sobs come. Once they start, there’s no stopping my tears. They wrack my entire body, and I slump down onto the deck, arms wrapped around my knees. Every part of me is shaking.
And I let it happen. I let the grief consume me.
Grief at the thought of any world where Ben is gone. At the darkness of a universe where his light doesn’t shine.
Grief from past lives, lost opportunities, missed chances. Sadness — and, yes, anger — at my parents for not showing me how to allow healthy love into my life. Frustration that no matter how many times I go through that fucking door, I can’t seem to get it right — or let myself be satisfied with what I’ve got.
I weep, and weep, until it seems I have no more tears left.
Finally, eventually, my shuddering stops and I wipe my face on my sleeve. I heave myself to my feet on shaky legs, and try to calm myself with slow breaths once more.
At least one thing can comfort me. Something I can hold onto. A tiny light in the darkness.
The fact that it’s only in this world that Ben is gone. This awful, nightmare world that’s worse than any other I’ve found.
Because in every other life I’ve been in, he’s been alive. So, presumably, if I reset yet again, he’ll be alive again and this horror will be over.
Then that’s what I’ll have to do. I have no choice but to keep... flipping through lives, until I find one where Ben is alive — a life that’s bearable. I need to be a lot less picky about what’s good enough to stay for.
One thing seems clear, though, and that is that I’m probably never getting back to my original life. Not that it was perfect, anyways. But it was a good life, with Bonnie, and Ben, and my great job. And there is no perfect life. I know that. Life can never be perfect, and if I try to chase some kind of utopia, I’ll be flipping through universes for eternity.
But the key to finding a good life is surely figuring out what I truly want.
Because I already found the life I thought I wanted, that life with Stephen, and I couldn’t even stick that out. Clearly, it wasn’t what I really wanted.
Not for real. Not forever.
So, what do I want?
Whodo I want?
An image, the same image that keeps appearing in my mind’s eye, over and over again, returns to me. Now, that picture is the only thing I can see as my gaze skims the blue of the water before me.
Ben, again. It’s always Ben.
Ben, many years ago, young, beardless, shirtless, playing a Muse riff on guitar in the basement below where I’m standing right now.
And it’s suddenly so easy.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
Of course.
Of course Ben’s the one I want.
I love Ben.
I can’t live in a world where he doesn’t exist. In fact, I can’t live in a world where he isn’t in my life, close to me.
If I’m really honest, digging deep into my soul... I’ve loved Ben ever since I’ve known him. I just never consciously let myself look at him like that, or admitted to myself that’s how I saw him. Because I loved Bonnie just as fiercely, in a different way, and it would be tough to be in love with her brother when she’s like a sister to me. I could never bear to make her feel like a third wheel, or as though I wouldn’t want her there. Because of course I also want her there.
And besides, I’ve never really known how Ben saw me, so it was always easier to pretend it wasn’t a thing.
But, yeah, I’ve always adored Ben. Kind of worshiped him, even. He’s constantly popping into my thoughts, and I dream about him more than anyone else. Not necessarily romantically — often he’s just... there. Present. Fundamental. In my life, as a positive force, no matter what.
Plus, I’ve always hated his girlfriends, always been so jealous of them.
What’s more, I think maybe, just maybe, he was jealous of my boyfriends, too.
There was that one night, a while back now, when I thought he maybe liked me as more than a friend. When we went out, just the two of us, to that gig downtown. Maybe something would have, could have, should have happened that night. But then Stephen had texted with a work emergency, and I let that get the best of me. I left Ben there at the bar, and I still remember the disappointment he tried to hide.
I really screwed up that night. I should have turned my phone off, and let Stephen deal with it. I should have stayed there with Ben.
But in truth, I didn’t leave the bar just because Stephen texted. I hadn’t admitted it to myself at the time, but I think I left because I got scared.
Because deep down, I knew if I let Ben kiss me, that’d be it. There would never be any going back from that.
If Ben were to kiss me, even once, I would be his forever.
No wonder I was scared that night. No wonder I messed up, and ran to Stephen. Stephen was a much safer option, because he was never going to be mine, and therefore could never really hurt me.
The only person who has ever had the power to truly break my heart, if he left me or rejected me, is Ben. That’s why I never let myself think of him like that.
But, oh God, all that has changed now.
Now, he’s all I want. Him, and of course my friendship with Bonnie. They’re all I’ll ever need. The rest of life — my career, my home, my relationship with my mother — I can figure those out as I go along.
I just need Ben, and Bonnie.
And they’re not in this world with me.
I have to keep looking.
I can reset again, and maybe now I can get it right. Maybe now I know what I truly want, who I truly want, I’ll have a chance at happiness.
I could search through more new universes, this time seeking a life that has just two things. My friendship with Bonnie, close and intact, and Ben, unmarried and available. In a world like that, I could at least tell him how I feel, and let the chips fall where they may. And if he said no, at least I’d have Bonnie.
There’s the beginning of a plan, then. A way forward. In a universe where it seems I have nothing that I care about, it’s something.
I wipe away the remnants of my tears.
Right back downstairs to the basement door, then?
That damn door.
Every time I’ve thought about that door, and wondered why that particular door seems to be my own personal portal to the multiverse, that memory of Ben has leaped into my mind.
It was the first time I ever saw him, when I first went through that door. That was the moment I met the man I now realize I love with every part of my soul.
It’s so clear now that it’s no coincidence it was the same door through which I went and first met Ben, that now takes me into infinite possible lives.
That moment was the big, defining incident of my life.
Maybe Ben has been the key to solving the riddle of the basement door all along.
Guess I’m about to find out.