Chapter 48 #2
not be fixed, even. In this universe, maybe I decide to stay, but in another, I decide to go. And in another it’s possible
we all stay or maybe you do, Mallory, or Ilena does and one consciousness remains or the other one does or even they merge,
and on and on. We have to accept that it’s not as simple as one version or the other. This isn’t binary. It’s not two worlds.
It’s likely millions or even billions . . . every variation of this plays out, and every version of us lives every possible
outcome. There’s no ‘replacing’ because everything happens. We all exist somewhere.”
Mallory’s head is spinning. Everything Aubrey is saying feels one hundred percent right and wrong at the same time. She manages,
“It’s still a big risk, Aubrey.”
“It is.” Aubrey hesitates. “And I never take risks. You always have, Mallory. Maybe it’s time for me to know what that’s like.”
No, no, it’s not, Mallory wants to scream. Because Jonah also said that to increase the probability of universes crossing and a coherence
link engaging, the circumstances needed to be nearly identical. That means all three of them. Aubrey staying here risks all of them staying here. Jail and no Jonah and a dead Grayson and all because of what? Aubrey being too timid to pursue sex with Kai in their world?
So selfish, so incredibly, terribly, unceasingly selfish.
Mallory hunches over Harley, the betrayal burning like acid in her throat. Harley wriggles in her lap. She works her fingers
into his belly. Aubrey wants to stay. No matter what it means for Mallory. And the pain and fear contained within her every
cell her entire life breaks free.
“You’re running away,” Mallory blurts out. “Whatever multiverse jargon you want to use to justify it, the bottom line is that instead of coming home to your life with your problems, you’re staying here where it’s easier.”
It’s so still, you can almost hear the grains of sand in the sandbox shifting.
Finally, Aubrey says, “Easier?” in a tone so wounded that Harley gives a whimper, and Mallory almost wishes Aubrey had shouted
instead. “Easier, maybe, if I have none of my own memories, yet that assumes this life is perfect, and I think we all know
that no one’s life is perfect. But if it works the way I feel in my gut and I’m still me, tell me, what about living in an
entirely new world alone is easier? Because it’s terrifying. Or how about this? What’s easy about staying in a world where my flea of a fiancé is
alive? The one who conned me into sleeping with him when he’s engaged to someone else?”
She grows more animated. “Not only will I have to risk living in the same city and seeing his stupid smug face, but seeing
his stupid smug face that hovered above me as I had the best sex of my life? Seeing that face that is stupid and smug but that will always remind me of the role I played in his death in our world? Add in seeing his fiancée,
who may even come to me with questions I’ll have to answer in a way that changes her life? And then there’s this: Facing the
employee I slept with, who I’m pretty sure hates me but who I’m also pretty sure I’m falling in love with? Which means confronting
the notion of an actual relationship, which is nauseating and scary and something I’d actually love to run away from? Let’s
see, what else? Oh, being a possible accomplice to murder and if not murder at the very least a cover-up and let’s not forget
lying to the police? I think that’s all the opposite of easier?”
Mallory trails her shell-shocked eyes to Ilena, who says, “Aubrey, let’s take a breath and—”
“I’m not done,” Aubrey says, sitting up straighter.
“I haven’t gotten to the biggest one. Or ones.
The two of you. Because leaving you feels impossible.
There is nothing easy about the idea of not being with you—the you I know and love.
But it’s because I know and love you that I’m worried about these other versions of you.
We screwed things up here. No matter how we each want to try to justify it, we’ve changed their lives—and the lives of Felix and James and Mallory’s dad and probably everyone at our company.
What if these versions of you don’t remember what’s happened?
What becomes of them without someone to explain it all? ”
Ilena places her hands on her belly. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Wait, what? Is this Ilena giving in? Without even talking to Mallory in private?
Aubrey extends her hands toward the two of them, but her arms aren’t long enough to reach. “We play the odds this way. We
give all of us the best chance.”
Unintentional as it likely is, Mallory feels judged, like hiring a lawyer was the thing that was selfish.
Aubrey draws her shoulder blades together. “No matter what happens, I’m ready to stop looking behind me, at every mistake
and every failure, and start looking forward. Making no decision at all is worse than sometimes being wrong. I’m hoping you
two can help the me at home learn the same.”
Mallory looks at Aubrey, her protégé, her partner, her friend. She looks at the healthy color in her cheeks, the straightness
of her back, the unbitten cuticles, the ease with which she’s come to carry herself here.
What’s wrong with me?
Mallory’s selfishness is failing her best friend here, the same way it failed her at home.
That night in the bar, she thought Ethan was cheating on Aubrey.
And she wasn’t going to tell her. She can pretend all she wants that she hadn’t made the decision and that his death meant she never had to make the decision.
But there was no decision to make. She was going to use the woman in the white coat as leverage over Ethan. No matter the consequences.
Crunch of glass, smell of wine, pooling of blood.
And some secrets aren’t just too terrible to tell, they’re too terrible to know.
“I’m going to miss you,” Mallory simply says.
Aubrey launches herself out of the Adirondack, tears sliding down her cheeks. She circles Mallory’s chair and wraps her arms
around her neck from behind. She kisses Mallory’s cheek and whispers, “I owe you everything, Mallory. I’ll make you proud,
I promise.”
“Aubrey, you already do. You always have.” If only the opposite could be true.
The screeching of tires, the shattering of glass, the pounding of her heart, the reaching for Ilena’s hand.
Mallory watches as Aubrey kneels in front of Ilena, rubbing her belly, clasping her hand, touching the ends of her shorter
hair. Aubrey lifts herself to peck Ilena’s cheek, and Mallory lowers her eyes, struggling to hold in the sob building from
the depths of a soul she wasn’t sure she had. When she looks up, Aubrey’s holding some sort of glass figurine in one hand
and setting the rock with “believe” written across it on her chair with the other.
“I’ll get to take care of you the same way you took care of me,” Aubrey says. “And finish what we started by taking AIM public
amid a murder investigation. Thanks for that, by the way.”
She smiles with such confidence that Mallory almost wants to stay to see the woman she’ll become here. Mallory always thought
Ilena was her person. And she is, but so is Aubrey.
But then Aubrey’s smile fades and hints of her old self slink in. “I do want this, but we are AIM, always. If you truly think this won’t work if I’m not sitting beside you, I choose you. Us.”
Mallory fights the seizing in her chest. This is the thread she can grab ahold of, the way to force Aubrey to come back. And
in some universe, that’s exactly what Mallory does. But not in this one.
Here, in this universe, Mallory gives her choice to Aubrey. She puts on her widest smile and makes a decision that goes against
her every instinct. “Nearly identical. That’s what Jonah said. Two-thirds feels ‘nearly’ to me. Go home, Aubrey. We’ll see you in ours.”
Against every instinct but one: to stand by her best friend.
Aubrey grabs each of their hands and squeezes one final time. She then scoops up Harley. With a final nod of goodbye, Aubrey
chooses her life and walks away.
Mallory reaches for Ilena’s hand at the same time as Ilena reaches for Mallory’s. They’re both shaking and their eyes meet.
The impossibility of this working at all collides with the impossibility of this working without Aubrey. What if it doesn’t,
and this is all they have? Mallory sees everything in an instant: chocolate ice cream all over the face of Ilena’s baby girl;
an engagement ring gleaming on Aubrey’s finger as her hand entwines with Kai’s; AIM breaking every Wall Street record; Mallory
visiting Grayson’s grave. The multiverse theory means they get to live every life, for better or worse. They get to do everything.
Here, at least whatever they do, she’s certain they’ll do it together.
Ilena says, “That was very brave. I’m proud of you. Truly, you really are an exceptional liar.”
“Shut up.” One hand still holding Ilena’s, she looks out at the river and all those people running, ponytails of brown and black and blond and red swaying, backpacks filled with work clothes weighing them down, all aiming for home.
Mallory picks up her phone and hits Send on her statement to Officer Middlebury.
“She’s going to be okay,” Ilena says with the confidence Mallory has known for more than half their lives. “And so will we.”