Chapter Eleven
The rest of the day was unremarkable, even Drew’s and my chat messages run-of-the-mill. I’d sent him an article about the possibility that Paul Rudd was a time traveler, positing that maybe he was just one of the earliest AltR adopters—I loved throwing Drew a semi-sciencey conspiracy theory, knowing he’d dissect it with the same attention he applied to everything from his actual sci-fi-adjacent job to breaking down the plots of complex movies. A few hours later, he sent me an article about Lou Diamond Phillips driving a group of stranded motorists to the airport when their Uber broke down on the side of the freeway in L.A.; my outsized love for LDP was one of the things he seemed to find most amusing about me.
I checked the T app, which confirmed a Green Line shutdown. Annoying, but typical. I paused on my way out of the office, sinking into one of the geometric furniture pieces in the lobby to send a quick text to Ollie.
TO: Ollie Hughes
All done here but train isn’t running. What time are you done with lessons?
Thinking maybe I could meet you out somewhere for a quick bite before the show?
“Hey, Laurel. You’re still here?” I glanced up to find Mark grinning at me as he busily loaded up his crossbody bag at the main desk. “You’re not going to the D it seemed to be expected. And forced myself to ignore her calling me Laur all night. No one calls me Laur . Not since Mom.
“I’m in. I’ve always wanted to go to Costa Rica. I’ve heard there are some incredible hot springs in the middle of like…the most beautiful jungles on earth.” Ollie had brought it up once in a round of Fantasy Vacation, after which we dived down a few wormholes of swimming grottoes “none of the tourists know about” and where to find the best chifrijo.
Kari frowned, mouth dropping open. Drew’s hand moved onto my thigh, squeezing lightly, and I glanced over. His expression was half wary, half worry. I frowned, blinking rapidly. What I mouthed, but he just shook his head once, sharply.
“Laur…you were the one who recommended the resort to us in the first place.” She turned to Matt, then Drew, pulling an exaggerated “The fuck?” face.
“Oh, right…I know,” I stammered. “I just meant like…the real Costa Rica. I feel like I barely scratched the surface, you know? Too much spa time, not enough exploring. I figured maybe you were feeling the same way?”
Kari’s tongue moved slowly over her teeth, the motion jutting her already strong chin unflatteringly. I tried to find familiarity in the expression—from the sound of it, these were Drew’s and my best couple friends—but I might as well have been looking at a stranger. Which, honestly, she was.
Finally, Kari shrugged.
“Makes sense. I had all these grand plans to zipline through the cloud forest, but the resort was way too nice and I’ve been flat out for like… months now. You know how crazy a creative career can be, Laur.” She rolled her eyes dramatically and I nodded. From context clues I was eighty-five percent sure she was an interior designer.
“Totally.”
“Oooh, I know, the next trip can be a celebration when you publish your first bestseller! Bonus: You’ll be so famous they’ll comp all our drinks.” Kari grinned conspiratorially.
“Hah. Doubtful.” I leaned back as the server placed plates around the table, explaining each of the pristine confections resting atop artful smears of pureed something or other and topped with reductions of twenty-eight ingredients and greens so micro they must have been applied with tweezers.
“I don’t know. I think your new idea actually has legs.” Drew waggled his eyebrows at me as he reached for the duck terrine, slicing off a large chunk and smearing it with whole grain mustard.
“A new book idea? Is it a romance?” Kari leaned on the table, propping her chin on the backs of her hands. “I’m still dying for the rancher one. Ask Matt, having sex in a hayloft is like…my secret fantasy.”
“Not that secret, clearly,” he quipped.
“It’s hardly an idea yet,” I said, cheeks heating as I dropped my gaze to the array of shareable plates. “I don’t even have a real plot, or characters…”
“Yeah, but that’s just details. The idea is the main thing. And this one has a chance to actually be interesting, ” Drew said, smushing the terrine onto a piece of charred baguette and ripping off a hunk with his teeth.
My entire body tightened, like my skin had shrunk in some cosmic dryer. Had he meant that as a gut punch? I’d assumed that the fact that I was writing at all meant that Drew supported me, not just financially, but in all the other, frankly more important ways. And sure, I hadn’t managed to make much headway on any of the romance ideas yet, but to dismiss them wholesale, to dismiss the entire genre …
“Sorry…is there something automatically uninteresting about romances?” I kept my voice carefully even. Drew winced, my undercurrent of hurt managing to shock him despite my public-facing protective measures.
“Of course not. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Oh? How did you mean it?” I stabbed a bite of salad, the tines of my fork scraping audibly on the china plate. Drew’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Just that this idea seems…meatier, you know? Honestly, I think maybe that’s why you’ve been spinning your wheels. Maybe you need more of a challenge.”
“I guess I thought writing a book was a big enough challenge, at least to start.”
“Don’t get that way.” He rolled his eyes, voice tight. “I’m excited for you. And I want you to realize your full potential. How is that a bad thing?”
“Sure.” My entire intestinal tract was clenching with irritation.
“Well…I want to hear all about this brilliant new idea!” Kari’s smile had a hostage video quality.
“Definitely. I’m just gonna pop to the bathroom first. Maybe Drew can fill you in on the big picture exciting stuff.” I threw a syrupy look his way and slid out of the bench seat, striding across the restaurant, angry tears prickling my eyes. In the bathroom I splashed water on my face, staring at the assortment of antique fashion drawings and newspaper advertisements in the mirror without really taking them in. No wonder I wasn’t getting any writing done in this life: Clearly Drew saw it as a cute little hobby, viewed the books that had always been my happy place as beneath him.
Viewed me as beneath him?
I’m sure he didn’t think that was true, and to be fair, he regularly said how brilliant I was, how he wanted me to “reach my potential.” But god, how did he not see how patronizing that phrase was? Like he was my dad, not my partner, and my role wasn’t as his equal so much as it was to make him proud? The fact that I wasn’t making money anymore certainly didn’t help. I’m sure we’d had all kinds of talks about this being an investment in my future happiness, a career I wanted to pursue, one that was as valid and “real” as his work at Pixel—there’s no way I wouldn’t have wanted to analyze the choice to death before taking the plunge—but whatever we’d said to each other leading up to my quitting my job was academic. Here in the real world—or a real world, as the case may be—knowing our life was underwritten by him, not us, had clearly shifted the power dynamic. Suddenly all the caretaking gestures from the day before—sending soup, checking in practically the moment he left—felt less loving, more controlling.
I opened the bathroom door, lingering near the coatrack in the alcove behind the hostess stand, watching Drew laugh at something Matt had said. I still felt a surge of tenderness looking at Drew, the way his eyes lit up when he smiled, the kindness that seemed dyed into the fabric of him…but could I really spend the rest of my life with someone who thought my dream wasn’t enough ? Taking care of a partner was lovely, but the version of that that I was starting to suspect we’d built felt suffocating, as though it would choke off the oxygen first to my dream—and wasn’t it doing that already?—and eventually, inevitably, to me.
I should go back and sit down.
I didn’t want to, couldn’t imagine acting as if what Drew had said hadn’t hurt me for however long the dinner went on.
Stalling for time, I gazed out the plate glass windows, the wavering reflections of the yellow globe lights and laughing clusters of diners like a mirage, permanently trapped between worlds.
The light at the intersection turned, shifting the flow of traffic and pedestrians. A group of early-twenties girls leaned into one another as they started across the street, their bodies creating tiny pockets of intimacy as they made their way to some bar, or show, or anything that might make tonight memorable…or not. I was idly following their progress when I caught it out of the corner of my eye.
That languid, slow walk, hands trapped in his pockets, gaze trained just in front of his toes in a way that made his hair tumble over his forehead, curtaining those dark eyes, so that when they’d flick up to yours, the sense of being sucked into their soft, velvety depths was only that much more intense…
“Ollie,” I whispered, eyes widening as I stared. Seeming to hear me, his chin ticked up, and for just a second I could feel his gaze magnetized to my own, the cord between us pulled tight.
I stared at him long enough that his head tilted to the side in a question, then, realizing I didn’t have much time, I edged around the host stand and, instead of going back to the table, darted to the restaurant’s entrance, desperate to catch him before it was too late. I knew, on some level, that this wasn’t really Ollie—at least not my Ollie—but the need to talk to him was a hook in my gut. And what if meeting him here fixed things somehow? What if he’d shown up here, now, precisely because I’d realized that the life Drew and I had built here was wrong, that it would eventually snuff me out like a candle guttering in expensive, fragrant wax?
“Laurel? Laurel, where are you going?” Drew’s voice was muffled by the din of the restaurant, but I could still hear the worry there, probably heightened by the fact that he had to know he’d stepped in it just now. But I couldn’t waste time explaining this, Ollie had made it across the street and was continuing down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the chill. With a single wave to Drew, I burst out the door, rushing past the front of the restaurant and around the corner, but I couldn’t spot him, didn’t know where he’d gone…
“Ollie?” I called, fear tightening my voice, pulling it too high.
Beyond the cluster of girls crowding the sidewalk to discuss something on one of their phones, I saw a figure stop short, turn.
“Ollie!” I called again, laughing with relief as I waved. He blinked at me, clearly confused, then started back, his stride slower now, more careful.
“Sorry, do we know each other?” he said as he approached. I couldn’t help but notice he’d stopped a solid ten feet away. And he looked…different. In obvious ways—his hair was longer, almost to his shoulders, and the tan leather coat he was wearing looked buttery soft, nothing like the beat-up thrift store finds I was used to seeing him in—but also in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. There was a tension in his body, tightness around his eyes and mouth that was so foreign to the easygoing, gentle man I knew. This Ollie looked like he was preparing to ward off some unseen blow.
“Of course we…or I mean…” I pinched my eyes shut, shaking my head rapidly, trying to find the words. I couldn’t seem to catch a breath, the need coursing through me so intense it was making me feel disconnected from my body. “It’s Laurel. Laurel Everett?”
“Laurel?” I could hear Drew’s voice somewhere behind me, but when I glanced back, he hadn’t appeared around the corner…yet. Feeling only the tiniest bit guilty, I moved into the broad entryway of the record store Ollie and I were standing in front of. This was too important. Finding Ollie in this life couldn’t just be coincidence. It would have to do…something, right?
Ollie squinted at me for a long second, then drew in a breath, recognition cracking open his shuttered face. His shoulders loosened, but only the slightest bit.
“Riiight. Laurel. We went out…was it three years ago? Four?”
“Five, actually.” I let loose a shuddering laugh. I finally had one clue, at least. I hadn’t skipped Ollie to wind up in World D—I’d traded him out. What thought process had I gone through to end a burgeoning romance with as much chemistry as we had in the early days? “I thought you didn’t recognize me.”
“I mean…it’s been a minute.” He smiled gently, the flick of his lips finally something I recognized, but it disappeared just as quickly as he glanced over his shoulder again, heel tapping rapidly on the sidewalk.
“Sorry, did you need to be somewhere?”
“No. Well…yes, but not this very second.” A half-smile I recognized as his scheming look started up, but it didn’t quite make it to the finish line, his thick eyebrows furrowing instead. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”
“I’m fine. Just…do we…know each other? Like, now…or…” I exhaled sharply, bending double to rest my hands on my knees. “Of course we don’t, you barely recognized me,” I muttered.
“Laurel?” Drew’s voice was closer now, but strangely muffled, as though I was hearing it through cotton wool.
“Whoa…” I could sense Ollie moving closer. “You really don’t look so good…”
“Sorry, I’ve been…getting these dizzy spells…”
“Should I call an ambulance, or…”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just…a little light-headed.” The grimy black-and-white tile pattern of the portico was flickering, the edges of my vision black—was that some trick of moving from the well-lit restaurant out into the night, or something more? I closed my eyes, trying to will away the vertigo by limiting my sensory input. My skin felt clammy all over, my fingertips were going numb…
“See, this is why I’m always pushing you to meditate with me, Lo.”
I opened my eyes slowly, the same six inches of honeycomb tile visible between my toes. I could feel the gentle pressure of a hand on my back. Cautiously, hardly daring to hope, I turned to look over my shoulder. Ollie was there, worry tightening his jaw, belying the teasing smile on his lips.
The smile I recognized. Same with the beat-up black motorcycle jacket he’d found at Brimfield one year for like, twenty dollars, and coerced Shelly into relining for him.
“Think you can stand up now? Because the ambulance offer stands, you know.” He extended his other hand to me and I took it, nodding. I glanced around. I was in the same general area, the same group of girls huddling nearby, but was one of them dressed differently? I would have remembered sequined pants, no? I checked my shoes—Docs. So I was dressed differently. Absently I reached up to run my fingers through my hair, dragging them all the way to the ends of the caramel-colored waves that ended around the level of my nipples. It brought my heart rate down slightly.
“Do you think it was something you ate?”
“Maybe? Probably not, I didn’t feel nauseous, just dizzy.” I also felt like cackling with glee—it had worked, and maybe that was it, the thing I was supposed to learn, maybe life would pull into focus now, just one central image that I could sort out on my own time—but the lingering disorientation from the world skip tamped that down just enough for me to hold it together.
“Good, because I stole a bite of your falafel when you were in the bathroom a minute ago.” He grinned, only the tightness at the corners of his eyes showing his lingering worry.
Right . The Greek place Ollie and I always ate at before shows at the Middle East was on this side street. I hadn’t thought about it when Drew and I pulled up to M & P Quills, the far fancier restaurant around the corner. Constantine’s Deli barely rated as a hole in the wall, the entire operation squeezed into a storefront that was maybe twelve feet wide, the only seating a line of stools along the front window, but their gyros were incredible, and the falafel was always the perfect ratio of moist in the center to crispy on the outside.
Ollie’s arm slipped around my waist and he pulled me against him, the lean muscles of his chest pressing into me in a way that made me arch my back, craving more contact. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, letting his fingers trail along the edge of my jaw, sending a shiver down the entire length of my spine. I knew logically that physical affection from Ollie wasn’t rare, that his hugs weren’t just perfunctory, they were like a promise of something more, whether that was simple friendliness or a future trip to the bedroom. But I hadn’t really felt one of them in so long, the way the pressure of his hand at the small of my back flooded my body with heat, the scent of him just inches away from me intoxicating. I swallowed hard. I had a feeling if I told Ollie what I was thinking right that moment—that I wanted him to press me against the darkened storefront and slide his hands down the front of my jeans, that the need to feel him inside me was so intense it was a pulsing ache between my legs—he’d do it. Which sounded enticing on one level—I’d never taken risks like that before him, never let myself give in to my physical, animal instincts instead of listening to the scolding voice in my ear, What if someone caught you? On another level, though, it was an extremely bad idea. The girls were maybe eight feet away, and one of them had clearly noticed Ollie’s dark good looks. The threat of a witness? Potentially aphrodisiacal. The guarantee of one? Possible misdemeanor.
Luckily, Ollie didn’t seem aware of quite how potent his touch was in that moment.
“Real talk: Do you want to skip the show? I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard if you’re not feeling good.”
A big part of me wanted to say yes, wanted to hole up in our apartment together for the rest of the night and possibly forever after—if Ollie was never out of my sight, I couldn’t slide away from my life with him again…could I?
But I knew the show mattered to him—it was his friend Jason’s new band, one Ollie had been half-hoping he’d be asked to join, and whose fan base overlapped almost one to one with the people in the music scene he felt closest to. Ollie was quiet, bordering on shy—it took him a while to open up to people—so events where the draw was his close friends, not mine or the ones we’d cultivated together, were rare.
And judging by the fact that I’d run into him on this same block in both worlds, it was possible this show was fundamentally important to him, in the way that a red tote for fall seemed to be fundamentally important to me.
My first thought: Were purses really my most vital expression of self? Jesus.
My second: He was in the same place in both worlds . In World D he barely remembered me, wasn’t planning on stopping to chat, but somehow, in waylaying him, I’d managed to slip through the cracks in the multiverse.
My stomach dropped—was it possible that this wasn’t over yet? And if the proximity across worlds had been the real cause of the switch… why ?
“Lo? Still with me?” Ollie exhaled a half laugh, but his dark eyes were narrowed with obvious worry. “Are we skipping the show? It feels like maybe we’re skipping the show.” Ollie’s smile hadn’t faltered, but I could see the disappointment he was valiantly trying to hide. An overwhelming surge of love gripped my heart, boa constrictor tight and sporting an intricately patterned skin of guilt. He wanted to go so badly, I knew that, and he wasn’t even making me tell him no. Was he kinder than me? Had I never bothered to notice?
“No way, we’re going. Everyone will be there.” Ollie’s smile didn’t change, exactly, but brightened somehow. “Sorry for zoning out, I was just, like… entranced with that girl’s pants,” I added. Ollie followed the place where my unfocused gaze had happened to fix— shiny —and grinned.
“Are you entering your disco era?”
“You should be so lucky. Seventies Laurel would have been a fox.”
“All the eras of Laurel would be foxes, that’s a given,” he said raising an eyebrow. “But disco Laurel would clearly have the sickest dance moves.”
“And the best eye makeup.”
“Maybe, but the eighties Lo I’m imagining is seriously rocking that weird blue eyeshadow. Oh, and those aerobics outfits with the belts?” Ollie’s usually sleepy eyes popped. “Plus, crimped hair just feels kinda…”
“Kinky?” I smirked and Ollie groaned, shaking his head.
“Literally? Yes. Metaphorically? Also maybe yes. And physically? I’m gonna need you to stand a Catholic school distance away until we get to the show, otherwise it’s gonna be super awkward for all our friends.”
“I don’t know, I think Jason would be really happy to see how much you care.” I gave him my best na?f look.
“Tsk, tsk, Laurel. Always trying to get me to sleep my way to the middle.”
Rolling his eyes, Ollie rotated away from me, his arm still hooked around my waist in a looser “let’s walk” hold, the familiarity of the gesture only making me feel more tender.
But was that just the familiarity? I pinched my eyes tight, head pounding anew. Just minutes ago I’d been fully invested in Drew’s level of support for my writing career, some part of me clearly buying into the idea that we were together, that the way he treated me was worthy of analysis. The fact that Drew had shown a side I hadn’t expected—one I didn’t like—didn’t mean Ollie was automatically right for me . Part of me was annoyed that I was already doing it again—overanalyzing this, poking for holes. If I shot back to my other life, I’d regret it. But instead of fixing my certainty, the back-and-forth was making me less and less sure of what was right. I’d gotten into this whole mess because I needed certainty, and the messier it got, the more tightly I gripped on to the life raft of that need. I have to be sure. Otherwise…what was the point?
“This is random, but…remember how we were talking about book ideas this morning?”
“You mean the guaranteed bestseller Mousehouse Murders 2: The Return of Ratdalf ? Obviously. Why?”
“What if I just…did it? The writing thing I mean. Like full-on left Pixel to give it a serious chance?”
Ollie’s mouth dropped open, eyes registering something like wonder.
“Are you serious right now?”
“I’m not like…ready to hand in my notice. I’m just toying around with the idea. I don’t see how I could fit writing into my life without changing up my work situation pretty seriously, so…yeah, anyway. Thoughts?”
“Do you even have to ask me that? Do it yesterday .”
I laughed.
“You know I would also be leaving my salary, right?”
“That’s just details.” Ollie waved a hand through the air, brushing off the mundane problem of paying for our lives. “The important thing is that you’d be going after the thing you always wanted! I mean…money’s great, but it doesn’t even compare to that.”
“You might change your tune when I can’t sell my book. Or…you know, finish a book. It’s not like I’ve done this before.”
“Yeah, but you’re you, Lo. You’d figure it out. You’d bust your ass making sure you figured it out. Besides, I’ve read your short stories from college. You’re super talented, and since then you’ve read like…every romance ever published, how could you be anything but awesome at writing them?”
“And you don’t think that’s a little…downmarket? Writing romance, I mean?”
“Downmarket?” Ollie’s face crumpled in confusion. “It’s what you love, who cares what ‘market’ it fits into? Anyway, whatever kind of book you decide to write, it will be absolutely incredible. If it’s a romance, everyone will get the bonus of getting turned on. If you ask me, that’s way more impressive.” He gazed at me, eyes turning thoughtful. “Are you seriously considering this? Because in case it’s not obvious, I’m totally behind it.”
“I don’t know, it’s just a thought. I mean…I don’t even know how we’d pay rent if I quit.”
“That stuff always sorts itself out.” Hand through the air again. I bit the inside of my cheek, annoyance fighting with tenderness. Ollie always dismissed the details he found inconvenient—like mere financial solvency—as though they didn’t matter. Sometimes I wondered whether he genuinely didn’t understand that his glib artist’s belief that things like money sort themselves out was built on the rock-solid foundation of planning that I did for both of us.
But still…he thought I could do it. And seemed to think that the version of “doing it” that I’d always envisioned—writing books that felt important to me, not some unseen jury of literary value—was enough. More than enough.
“Regardless, this isn’t happening anytime soon. I just wanted to take the temperature.”
“A balmy ‘I can’t wait to help you research your sex scenes’ over here. Which reminds me…Catholic school distance. For Jason’s sake.”
He turned and pressed a soft kiss to the hair at my temple, then led me down the narrow street, our reflections appearing and disappearing in car windows and storefronts, curved and fragmented and angled into near unrecognizability but always linked. For that moment, the idea of slipping away from each other, of any world existing where the two of us weren’t together, felt like nothing more than a bad dream.