What If It’s You?

Chapter Seventeen

I crept out of the apartment just as the sun was starting to paint the sky in washy streaks of pink and orange. It wasn’t a guarantee, but very early mornings tended to be dead zones at the Pixel office. Most people didn’t show up until somewhere around ten, especially on a Monday, and the coders, devs, and engineers might not make an appearance until noon or later, the culture of the all-night coding binge baked into the company’s hours.

It was possible one of the Lightning team happened to be a lark, not an owl, but if that was the case, I’d just tell them that Drew had asked me to pop in and flesh out my user profile whenever I was able. It wasn’t even a lie.

Luckily, by the time I swiped open the now familiar frosted doors of the Lightning offices, the room was still empty, early morning sunlight from ceiling-level windows shattering over the metal surfaces of the quantum computer.

I ran through the entire sequence again, tugged the cap onto my head, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t manage to get further than I had before. If I tried to delete the profile, the little AI voice spat out an error message. If I tried to finish the calibration sequence, I wound up stuck in the same loop I had the first time, Would you like to continue with user setup for AltR? sounding more and more like a taunt every time I encountered it. Desperate, I asked to experience the program as a guest, which led straight to:

Excellent. I’m eager to show you how immersive AltR can be!

…and then it sent me to the cornfield sequence. It was vaguely interesting to notice what changed if I acted differently. I’d thought it was a more or less fixed experience when I’d gone through it before, just based on Drew’s telling me where to go, but clearly the user input determined the ultimate result—but learning that didn’t solve my actual problem. Finally, frustrated and slightly jittery from caffeine on an empty stomach, I tugged off the headset and made my way to the nearest café station to scrounge up breakfast. If there was a technical solution to whatever the hell was going on with me, it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to find it on my own.

Once I’d refueled, I took my laptop to the “cone of silence” conference room—our smallest, which meant it was rarely occupied—and opened an email to Dana.

SUBJECT: Snow Bombs, a million-dollar baking idea

Dana—

First off, I applaud any food innovation that hinges on pop rocks. Clearly you’ve always swung for the fences, and when (not if) you and your sister finally get around to fulfilling your real purpose in life, please allow me to be investor 1 on the project.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve now met with both versions of you. Your counterpart in World D suggested I find a technical/program-based solution which, if it’s possible, I’m not going to be able to manage on my own. Would love to discuss all this further if you’re available.

Best,

Laurel Everett

With the email sent, there was nothing left to do but, well… work . I couldn’t remember the last time it had felt less vital, all the myriad tasks that made up my job suddenly revealed as so much pencil pushing, the ultimate goal fractions of a percent more profit meant to further fatten an already behemoth beast. I muddled through the morning, hawkeyeing my inbox. The only interesting thing that came in was another nudge from Maren about the job, I knew this was a longshot but even if you’re not applying (SOB) can we schedule a call and catch up? I miss youuuuu

I frowned. When had I become the kind of person who had to schedule a call to catch up with an old friend? In both lives, probably? After all, World O Laurel definitely seemed more spontaneous, not that I had the quality in great quantities. Clearly.

By lunchtime I was firmly in a funk, my carousel of worries revolving endlessly, Will you ever find out how to stay in one life? What’s going on with Ollie and you? Are you not the person you thought you were? How is it you’ve lived this long and can’t even answer that? singsonging on repeat. If I was going to be forced to sit on such an objectively shitty carnival ride, there should at least be funnel cake.

It took me a solid twenty minutes of half-assed small talk over lunch to realize that Drew was clearly just as funkified as I was. The prospect of someone else’s problems perversely felt like a relief.

“So what’s really going on?” I said once we’d both snagged coffee and dessert.

“What do you mean?” he said, eyes darting away, shoulders hunching.

“Did something happen with Nisha? Or your family? Sorry it took me so long to notice, I’m a little in my own head today, but clearly something is off with you.” I pointed at his plate. “I mean, how else can you explain a bowl of dry Froot Loops for dessert when there was flourless chocolate cake from Flour on offer.”

“Wait…what?” He shot a half-panicked look at the buffet.

“There wasn’t. But you believed me, which means you weren’t even looking.” I sat back and folded my arms, smirking triumphantly. “So? Gonna tell me what’s up?”

Drew smiled weakly.

“Sorry if I’ve been a downer,” he started. God, sometimes I forgot how Midwestern he was, at least in this world.

Drew blew out a huge breath, cheeks puffing.

“It’s just…remember how I said AltR has been bugging lately?”

“Yeah…” I took a sip of coffee, choosing my words carefully. It probably wasn’t the time to let him know how deeply invested I was in whatever was going wrong with his program. “Something about the processing power, right?”

“Right.” He nodded, his expression miserable. “And even though we logged out every active user—or, well, all the ones we can control, at least—it just keeps getting worse. If we can’t figure out what’s wrong within the next couple days, we’re going to have to scrap the entire program and start from scratch.”

“What? Why?” Drew’s head jerked up at my panicked tone, then he frowned. I blinked, recalibrating. “Sorry, I just…know how much time and effort you’ve put into this. And what I saw was incredible!”

“That’s nice of you to say. But an experimental division program that still doesn’t have any user-facing applications and that’s starting to pull processing power from Pixel’s primary servers isn’t really a winning bet, it turns out.” Drew gave me an exhausted half-smile.

“Ooof. When did that start?”

“Last night.” He closed his eyes for a second, rubbing his temples slowly. “For now it’s not impacting the network in any meaningful way, but it shouldn’t even be happening, so…yeah. Can’t really blame them for wanting to keep their entire business afloat.” He sniffed out a single bitter laugh, then sighed, meeting my eyes. “Honestly, though, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. When we built it out the first time we were just guessing. I’m sure we’d be able to improve on a lot of stuff if we started now. But…” He flashed a pained look at the rim of his mug.

“It would be a metric fuckton of work?” I supplied.

“Exactly.” He laughed bitterly. “I know I should be happy that they’re not just shutting us down entirely, but functionally…we’ll be at square one. And I don’t even know what I’m looking for, so the chances that I find the bug…” He shook his head, morose.

“You said the processing power is basically maxed out,” I said slowly, rotating my mug back and forth between my hands.

“Yup. Our current best guess is that the AI isn’t performing as expected for some reason. Which is…problematic.”

“Is it possible…there’s a sequence running in the background that you’re not seeing?” I glanced up to find Drew frowning at me, mouth slightly open.

“I guess? It happened once, really early on. But that was a really specific case.”

“Specific how?”

“We had everyone input an inflection point that happened here, like at the Pixel offices, so we could limit the variables and fact-check how well the AI was building out a physical environment. Luke and JaeHo picked the same moment, just randomly. Who they sat next to the first day at lunch. They’re super tight ever since they did pick each other, and they work on the same team, obviously, so I guess they kinda…mind-melded on it?” Drew shrugged. “The program couldn’t figure out when the sequence was supposed to end, since it was trying to rework the same moment for both of them. I could dive into all the technical stuff going on, but suffice it to say that we don’t have the processing power to handle multiple users trying to visit the same moment. At least not until the AI is way more robust.”

“Because the computer is doubling the people it’s solving for?”

“It’s not really doubling, it’s more…extremely exponential? Luke alone could have infinite other conclusions by changing that single moment, but so could JaeHo. And infinity times infinity, is…”

“Right. Got it.” My stomach churned. Lately, the idea of infinity felt very personally threatening. “And…could that be happening now?”

“It’s not, it was the first thing we checked. And even if it were, logging everyone off would functionally force stop the problem anyway. The program isn’t running any of us right now. At least not that we can see.”

I nodded, exhaling heavily. I felt marginally better, at least.

“But if the computer were still trying to run a duplicate sequence…I guess the only way to stop it would be for the users to terminate the request,” Drew mused, gaze going distant in his familiar genius seeing something mere mortals can’t way.

“What do you mean?”

“Like…Luke would tell the AI that he had made a fixed choice about sitting with JaeHo. Then it would stop thinking it had to spin out every possible alternative option for him. Because that specific moment is no longer an inflection point, right? It’s just…set.”

“Got it.”

“But yeah, like I said, that’s not what’s happening. No one’s logged on.” Drew shrugged and blew out his cheeks again. “On that note, I should really get back to it. If you’re staying late this week, let me know, yeah? I’m gonna be here…pretty much indefinitely.” He flashed a smile that looked more like a grimace.

“I’ll hit you up if I am. And Drew…hang in there, okay? I know you’ll figure it out.” I reached across the table to squeeze his hand once, lightly. His body tensed ever so slightly, and I realized, belatedly, that it wasn’t a gesture I’d make here, in this world. Somehow, in just a few days, I’d gotten used to the casual touching that couples took for granted…but with a person who I’d never really been a couple with, at least not as far as World O Drew knew. Swallowing hard, I left my hand there. It’s not that weird to show support for a friend. And it’ll be way weirder to acknowledge just how weird this is for us .

“Thanks, Laurel. Fingers crossed.” With another grimace-smile, he stood and hurried away, leaving me with my cold coffee and an even colder feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The computer must be running me in the background. But Drew couldn’t see it, there was no reason why it should be, I couldn’t even get past the setup sequence to tell it to abort the sequence, and if I didn’t find an answer in the next few days, the program was going to be wiped. When that happened…where would I wind up?

I didn’t recognize the phone number flashing on my screen as I made my way to the bus stop several hours later, but I picked up out of habit. A lot of the external clients I worked with were either in different time zones or simply didn’t respect the idea that I might eventually want my workday to end.

“Laurel? Excuse the late call, I was in the lab all day so this is the first chance I’ve had to respond to your email. Frankly, I felt a conversation would be more effective.”

It was Dana, finally . And her tone was somehow even more no-nonsense on the phone than it was in person.

“I just appreciate you getting in touch at all,” I admitted. “I’m officially out of ideas. Again.”

“I take it my doppelg?nger suggested you attempt to alter the program itself?”

“She did. But in that world I wasn’t even a user in the first place. And in this one, the program is convinced I never finished setting up my profile.”

“That makes no sense,” she snipped.

“I agree,” I said, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “But that’s the situation. And I talked to Drew today, as far as he can see, every user has been logged out.”

“Drew?”

“The head of the project. My…partner in the other world.”

“Right. Interesting.” I could almost hear her eyebrows reaching for each other across the bridge of her nose. “And he had no other valuable information?”

“I mean…he said something about the program not being able to process the same request from two different users.”

“Really? Could that be happening here?”

“Maybe,” I said, the flush on my cheeks even more apparent against the chilly winter air. “The question I asked was…was whether I should have said yes when Drew asked me out just after we started at Pixel. It’s possible he decided to run the same sequence.”

“Possible? You can do better.”

“It’s not like I asked him.”

“Let me guess, you didn’t want to be embarrassed .”

The eye roll was even more audible than her concentration frown. Dana had shockingly aural emotional states. I quickly explained what had happened between Luke and JaeHo—clearly Dana operated on a more-is-more principle of information.

“…but it doesn’t even matter,” I finished, spine stiffening in an attempt to prop up my argument. “Drew said that logging out all the users should have fixed that anyway. And yes, I did ask.”

“Not totally hopeless, then.” I could imagine her tiny smirk. “So for some reason that even the project head can neither understand nor fully visualize, the program seems to still be running…well, you .”

“That’s the long and short of it. And the only other solution Drew could think of was the user in question terminating the sequence, which I can’t since the program won’t even let me finish calibration. In the other world it doesn’t recognize me as a user at all, I managed to almost log in for like…a second, but that was as far as I got.” I sniffed, frustrated anew. “If Drew can’t figure out how to fix it in the next couple days, they’re scrapping the program and starting from scratch.”

“Well that’s not good.” My shoulders slumped at the pronouncement. Not like I hadn’t suspected the same, but somehow, hearing it from Dana made the threat feel infinitely more real.

“So what do I do? Just…hope I’m in the right life at the end of all this?”

“Or you could try to ensure that.” I could hear a faint rhythm, as though she were tapping the phone to concentrate. “This is extremely inelegant as a solution, but you said it seemed like the switches happen when you’re in the same physical space, yes?”

“That’s right. Or at least…mostly, yeah.”

“Mostly? Or yes?”

“Yes,” I said. Waking up that first morning in Drew’s bed had to be an exception. The program kicking off. Every time since then, it was yes.

“Then what if you just…moved?”

“Like…left town?”

“Sure, or further if you were able. It wouldn’t actually solve the root problem, of course, but it could protect you.”

“That’s easy,” I said, voice rising with my excitement. “I can just…take the rest of the week for mental health or something. Maybe fly home to visit my dad. It won’t be hard to figure out how to stay away for five or six days.”

“Well…I’m not sure that would really be enough,” Dana said, voice going a little distant. She was clearly turning over the problem further. “Right now it seems like there’s no way to ‘log you out’ as a user, so to speak, since you aren’t recognized as a user, correct?”

“That’s right…but why would that even matter?”

“Clearly you’re tangled up in this program somehow, in ways we don’t fully understand. Your consciousness, for lack of a more precise term, is being controlled by it.”

“Right…” Her tone shot anxiety out in every direction, a fungal growth spreading through my subterranean parts.

“My hypothesis is that putting some distance between you and… you would allow the program to reduce the processing power it’s using to run your request. You said having the user terminate the sequence would resolve this problem. This would be…not as concrete as that, but close. If one version of you decides to move to Alaska to live off the land, the program won’t confuse your state anymore. That you would be on a completely different timeline. You wouldn’t intersect with yourself physically, so the program wouldn’t have to use all its processing power determining which you is meant to be in which world. You’d be returned to…background noise, so to speak.”

“So you’re saying I have to move to Alaska to make this stop.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Laurel. And I’ll remind you I’m doing you a favor with this. Believe it or not, I have plenty of things that impact my life that I could be devoting my time and energy to right now.” The scold slapped at me so sharply I almost wanted to rub my wrist.

“Right, I know. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure this is very…enervating, to say the least.”

“So your solution is leave town. Permanently.”

“It’s not my solution. It’s an option. Possibly the best option.”

“But…what if I just like, holed up in my apartment for the rest of the week and let them shut down the program? Wouldn’t that work?” I was clinging to straws, but how was I going to uproot my entire life ? I didn’t even like “live off the land” reality shows.

“Well…that might work out…” Dana said, voice almost pained.

“Or?”

“Or…you might be too entangled in the program to survive its termination.”

“Wait…what?”

“I’m not saying it’s a certainty, Laurel, but right now…you’re the cat in the box. Somehow this program is holding you in both states. Or sliding you between them? Honestly, it’s so much more complex than even Schrodinger theorized. The point is, whatever state, or states, you’re toggling between, if they shut it down, that’s not going to be the case anymore. You’ll be in one state…or the other.”

“So…one world or the other?”

“That’s one possibility. The other is, well…you know what else is revealed about the cat, right?”

“Oh.” My eyes went huge as I processed what she wasn’t willing to say. The cat either lives or dies, you only find out when you open the box . “But…how? Wouldn’t I have to still exist somewhere ?”

“Presumably some version of you would…but clearly some version of you is living each of these lives in your…absence, I suppose? Which I have no real explanation for, except to say that your body and your consciousness have clearly come untethered in some fundamental way.” She paused for a moment. “There’s every possibility that the version of you speaking to me now, and who should exist in this world, will ‘win,’ but there’s an equal possibility that it won’t, either in the sense that you find yourself stuck permanently in the other world, or find yourself permanently…unstuck from worlds altogether, shall we say? Maybe those are odds you’re okay with taking. I can’t decide that for you. But if they’re not…I’m simply saying this might help you avoid that discovery.”

“Got it,” I said, voice sounding weirdly echoey in my own head. “And this is the only solution you can think of?”

“It’s the only one that immediately jumps to mind,” she said slowly, clearly choosing her words carefully. “I’m not sure why, but it seems like these two timelines are… sticky, for lack of a better word. Instead of running in parallel after the choice you made, like we’d expect, they keep bumping up against each other again and again. If there’s really no way to get the program to make a ‘clean break’ between the timelines, then pulling the two worlds apart along another dimension—or dimensions, as it were, the three of them that your body… bodies exist in.” She exhaled rapidly, as though annoyed. “Sorry, the terminology is terribly muddled. Suffice it to say that physical distance might be enough to stabilize things, at least.”

“Dana…it sounds like you’re just guessing.”

“I’ve been guessing the entire time,” she said, voice uncharacteristically gentle. “The entire Many-Worlds Interpretation is theoretical, and it’s not even the dominant theory. What I’m suggesting…it’s not underpinned by hard science anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. I’m just making my best guess based on the knowledge I do have.”

“Does that mean it’s possible you’re wrong? About me being the cat?” Hope fizzed through me.

“Anything’s possible,” she said in the same slow, gentle tones. “But given what you’ve experienced so far, I think we have to operate on the assumption that, should things continue with no change, terminating the program would be…dangerous for you. All the versions of you.”

I could feel all the tiny bubbles of carbonation popping all at once.

“Are you…alright?” Dana said.

“Yeah. I’m…fine.” My lips were numb, but that felt like a pretty normal response to learning I might just cease to be sometime in the next couple days.

“Right. Well…if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m…very interested in this conundrum.”

“Is it alright to call you at this number? If what you’re saying is right, we’re on a tighter timeline now…”

“Of course. And I’ve had this number since college, so you should be able to use it in both worlds. I’ll make sure to answer if you call. Though it’s probably preferable that I not hear from you. At least not until you’ve resolved this one way or another. For your sake, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, if they open the box and I’m dead I’ll make sure to text first.” I barked out a laugh, the panic skittering through me short-circuiting my emotional responses.

“Yes. Well.” It was possible I’d finally found something that could make Dana socially uncomfortable. “Good luck, Laurel. And please do let me know how it turns out if you’re able.”

She ended the call, but I didn’t think to drop the phone from my face for at least another block, brain spin-cycling too wildly for me to handle any but the most basic motor functions, walk, breathe, keep beating, heart, though feel free to slow your roll.

By the time I unlocked the door to the apartment, I had zero memory of the previous twenty minutes, but the beginnings of a plan.

I’d just finished my email to Maren and was attaching my résumé when Ollie walked in the door. Usually I barely beat him home, even on nights when lessons went late, but in the last week my aspirations at Pixel had felt significantly less vital. Though I might have to change that if I wanted this plan to work. On that note…I lifted a finger, tapped Send, then looked up at him, grinning widely.

“Should I be worried?” he said, smiling lazily as he dropped his backpack to the floor just inside the door and shrugged out of his coat. A tiny sliver of my brain clocked that he would completely forget about the bag until he picked it up again sometime tomorrow, but I didn’t say anything. It seemed a little strange now how much that had mattered to me a week ago.

“Worried why?”

Ollie’s expression turned faux serious.

“Where I come from, we call that a shit-eating grin . I don’t know how to break this to you, Laurel, but that’s not a healthy hobby. I know it seems fun and edgy now, but if you want cheap thrills, take up parkour, you know?”

“I take it you have firsthand experience in the dangers of shit eating?”

“It’s how we lost Uncle Fred, god rest his filthy soul.” Ollie made the sign of the cross, then moved over and plopped down next to me on the couch, arm moving around my shoulders out of habit. I nuzzled toward him for a moment, relishing his scent. He squeezed me closer.

“So?” he said into my hair. “Planning on telling me what has you so impressed with yourself?”

“Well, first let me ask you something. Is SF still your favorite city?”

“I mean…current incarnation? Not really. But it’s still in the top five. Even a million tech bros can’t drive away everything that made that town cool in the first place.” Ollie leaned back against the cushions, releasing me. I turned to look at him.

“And we’ve both been saying we need a new adventure lately, right?”

“Right…” A hint of a frown creased Ollie’s forehead. “Are you planning a trip? I thought we were talking about Croatia next, but I suppose I could be persuaded…”

“It’s better than that. I just applied for a job in the Redwood City offices. Obviously I have to go through the whole interview process, get an offer, blah blah blah. But Maren’s on the hiring team, and she practically begged me to apply, so I think I have a really good shot.” I raised my eyebrows in excitement, expecting to see it mirrored on Ollie’s face, but he just blinked at me, frown deepening.

“Sorry…you what ?”

“Applied for a job on the West Coast. You’ve always said you wanted to live there at some point, right?”

“I mean…yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?” I cocked my head to the side. Ollie slid away from me on the couch, body stiff, jaw tight in the way it got when he was trying hard not to react angrily.

“Let me just make sure I have this right,” Ollie said, closing his eyes and taking a long, slow breath. When he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t meet mine, his narrowed gaze focused on his hands, gripping tight to his knees. “You saw a job on the opposite side of the country, and you decided to just apply for it without even talking to me first?”

“I mean…yes, but it’s not like I was hiding it from you. The posting only went up a few days ago.”

“And if you get it—which you think you will—you expect us to uproot our entire lives.”

“It would be an adventure! A new city to explore, and we’d be way closer to Lily in LA. We could probably fly down to see her every few weeks if you wanted. Once I got my feet under me, at least.”

“Laurel…what the actual fuck ?” Ollie finally looked at me, but his usually gentle dark eyes had turned hard and sharp, almost unfamiliar. “In what world is that even remotely okay?”

“I…I thought you’d be excited,” I murmured. My stomach was rapidly plunging through the bottom of the couch. Ollie spat out a bitter laugh.

“Oh yeah, I’m thrilled . Nothing I love more than feeling like my entire life is a fucking afterthought .”

“You’re not an afterthought! I just—”

“Assumed I’d be fine with it? Welp, sorry to disappoint you Lo, I’m not .” Ollie levered off the couch, crossing the room with rapid strides. He paced the span of floor between the coffee table and the door to the kitchen, hands flexing and unflexing at his sides. “And to think I really believed you might ever quit that misery factory. Do you even have any idea how much I’ve given up for you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it’s been pretty clear from the beginning that it was your way or the highway. You know I wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for you.” He glared at me, defiance written in every tightened muscle, coursing along the jumping tendons of his neck.

“I thought you liked Boston.” My voice was barely a whisper. I’d never seen Ollie this angry. In fact…it was possible I’d never really seen him angry at all.

“I do like Boston. But I wasn’t supposed to be here forever. You know that. You’ve always known that.” He stopped his pacing and threaded his fingers through his floppy curls, body curling in on itself, the sudden explosion of anger guttering. But the embers were still there in his eyes, flickering and bright, ready to burst into flame anew given even the tiniest scrap of fuel to feed on.

It’s not that what Ollie was saying was a surprise, exactly—when we’d met he’d talk all the time about moving to Nashville within a year, two at the most—but I hadn’t heard about it in so long that I’d just…allowed myself to forget it had ever been on the table. Guilt seeped up like groundwater, mucky and foul-smelling, obscuring the tiny patch of solid ground I’d thought I’d finally found.

“Do you want me to withdraw my application?” It would be awkward—I’d literally just sent it—but Maren would understand. Well, no, she wouldn’t, but I could probably come up with a lie that she’d be willing to accept. The fact that moving to the West Coast might literally save my life…felt too big to even start explaining to Ollie at this moment.

“No. That’s not…” Ollie moved his tongue over his upper lip, shaking his head slowly. “Lo, if this is what you want, then I want it for you. I think you’re amazing, you know that. But…considering how things have been going lately, I’m not sure I can go with you.”

Cold gripped my entire body, freezing my breath in my throat.

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re too scared to marry me after five years together…I have to stop shaping my life around you, Lo.” Ollie hunched in a little more, hands moving to his temples to rub slowly, expression pained. He looked as though a literal weight was on his slumped shoulders, one that some unseen sadist just kept adding to, pound by pound, until sometime soon, he’d collapse under the burden.

No, wait. I was the one adding more and more and more weight.

“Ollie, I do want to marry you…”

“Really? So you just intentionally sabotaged our anniversary dinner ’cause you were having a bad day?” He finally met my gaze, but his eyes were glass shards, the chiseled lines of his face so tight with pain that I had to look away.

“You knew about that?” I finally managed.

“Of course I knew. I mean…why do you think I left the ring in my underwear drawer in the first place? I figured if you saw it, you’d have a chance to…I don’t know, warm up to the idea?” He threw his hands up in the air, mouth twisting into a sneer. “The funny thing is I thought I was so smart, ‘hiding’ the ring in the one place I knew you’d find it.” He exhaled a single bitter laugh.

“If you know me so well, then you know I’m not ready for that,” I said, my sodden guilt and hurt catching the tiniest spark of his anger.

“And when will you be? Ready? Because right now, it feels like you want me to keep my life on hold indefinitely, and honestly…I can’t do it anymore. I have to make choices for me .” He swallowed hard, all the anger used up, a candle that had drowned in its own wax. “So…yeah. If you really want that job, I get it, but I’m gonna be staying here.”

For a few long seconds we were frozen that way, his pronouncement filling the room like a noxious gas, driving out all the oxygen. When I felt like my lungs might burst if I stayed in that atmosphere for even a second longer, I blurted out the only words I could think of that might help.

“I love you, Ollie. More than anyone.” It was the deepest truth I could think of, the most important one.

“I love you too. I’ve loved you from the moment we met. But I can’t fit my entire life inside yours, Lo.” With a massive sigh, Ollie turned. “I’m going to bed. Let me know what you decide.”

I stared after him, mouth hanging open, breath coming short. How long had he felt this way? Like I was forcing him to give up what he cared about for me, like his life had to be smaller than mine?

The realization hit me like a body blow: In the other world, I’d let Drew turn me into my mother. In this one…was I doing the same thing to Ollie?