Parallel

9

HERE


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009

(Halloween)


“BOO!”

My eyes fly open at the sound. I’m lying on forest-green plaid in a bed that isn’t mine, staring at a chipped navy wall. The air smells like jalapeño peppers and processed cheese. Somewhere nearby, a girl squeals with laughter.

The fact that I’ve been preparing for this moment doesn’t make it any less terrifying. Panic floods my body, pounding through my veins. I’m somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere I’ve never been before. Yale is gone, Marissa is gone, Michael is gone. I put my hand on the wall, as if to steady myself. I can handle this.

“Morning, Sleepy.”

I let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding, the panic melting away as I realize. Reality hasn’t changed again. I’ve just never seen Michael’s bedroom in daylight before.

“Hi,” I say, rolling over. Michael’s face is now inches from mine. I’m careful not to exhale too deeply, not wanting to ruin the moment with morning breath.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” he tells me. “You’re so cute when you sleep.”

I am mortified. Have I been snoring? Drooling? Making weird sleep noises? This is precisely why I’ve never slept over at a guy’s house (well, this and the fact that I had an eleven o’clock curfew and parents with a pretty expansive no-sleeping-anywhere-near-boys policy). There are too many ways to embarrass yourself in your sleep.

“How long have you been awake?” I ask, subtly checking my pillow for drool.

“Oh, ages,” he teases as he touches his nose to mine. “Ten seconds, at least.” He clearly does not share my concern about morning breath. Michael looks me up and down and laughs.

“What?” I demand.

“You’re still wearing your shoes,” he says, pointing. I am, indeed, still wearing my shoes. And every other article of clothing I came with, including my jacket and scarf. I think my purse is in the bed somewhere, too. “Were you afraid I’d get the wrong idea?” he asks. I look down at his bare chest and am instantly flustered. Holy pecs.

“It wasn’t that,” I say quickly. “It’s just . . .” Every excuse I can think of is creepier than the real reason. “Okay, yeah. I didn’t want you to think that just because I was sleeping over, it meant that you and I would . . .” Heat creeps up my neck. I can’t even say the word without blushing.

“Well, in the future, if you’d like to remove your outerwear before sleeping, I won’t take it as a signal that you’re asking for sex.”

I squirm under his gaze, suddenly very uncomfortable with all the sex talk. If you can’t handle the sex talk, you’re probably not ready for sex.

My phone rings from inside my purse, buried under Michael’s shirt at the foot of the bed. I scramble for it, glad for the distraction.

“Ben and I found the most amazing costumes!” Marissa squeals before I can even say hello. “Power Rangers!” In the background, Ben belts out a very off-key version of the theme song. “She has green, pink, red, blue, and yellow,” Marissa says. “Which ones do you guys want?”

“She?”

“We’re at some lady’s house in Hamden,” Marissa replies. “Ben found her on Craigslist.” When he heard we didn’t have costumes yet, Ben appointed himself costume master for tonight’s activities, which consist of a pre-party at Michael’s house, a few hours at Inferno (the infamous banned-for-five-years-but-now-it’s-back Halloween party in the courtyard of Pierson College), then on to the midnight symphony at Woolsey Hall.

“Which Power Ranger do you want to be?” I ask Michael.

“Green!” he shouts, flinging off the covers and leaping to his feet. “Go, go, Power Rangers!” With his hair all messed up, he looks like a little kid. With underwear-model abs. “I’m gonna get some water,” he tells me, then pads out of the room in his jeans and bare feet.

I hear the beep of an incoming call. “What about you?” Marissa wants to know. “Which color?” The line beeps again. I pull the phone away from my ear to check the number. It’s an L.A. area code, but I don’t recognize the number. Who could possibly be calling? It’s six in the morning on the West Coast, and none of the people I know in California remember knowing me.

“Abby?” I hear Marissa say. “Did I lose you?”

“No, no, I’m here,” I say. “Sorry. I was getting another call. Did you ask me something?”

“Just what color you wanted.”

“Oh! Yellow, I guess?”

“Yay! Okay, we’re buying them. See you guys tonight!”

As soon as we disconnect, it dawns on me that Caitlin probably doesn’t have a costume yet, either. She’s been spending so much time at Dr. Mann’s lab (and on the train getting to Dr. Mann’s lab) that I doubt she even knows it’s Halloween. I text Marissa to tell her to get all five suits, just in case. As I’m putting my phone back in my bag, it vibrates with a new voicemail.

“So what’re you up to today?”

Michael has reappeared, holding two glasses of water and sucking on an Atomic Fireball. His face is damp, like he just washed it. I, meanwhile, can feel dried drool on my cheek. I grab a stick of gum from my bag, eager to mitigate the effects of last night’s beer pong. My tongue feels like it’s coated in cotton.

“Library,” I say. “I have a YDN article to write and two hundred pages of reading to finish before my Philosophy of Theology midterm on Monday.”

“Let’s study together,” he suggests, handing me one of the glasses. “I loved that class.”

“You took Hare’s class?” I ask between gulps.

He nods. “Freshman year. After twelve years at a Christian school, I figured it’d be an easy A.”

“You went to Christian school?” I’d pictured a prestigious East Coast prep school, somewhere with a Latin motto and its own coat of arms.

“Yup. K through eleven.” Michael turns away and starts digging through the pile of clothes on his desk chair.

“But not senior year?”

“Nope. Senior year was public school.” He pulls out a Red Sox T-shirt, smells it, then puts it on. “Clean,” he declares, and grins. “You want some breakfast?”

There is so much I want to know about this guy whose bed I’ve just slept in. Despite the amount of time we’ve spent together over the past seven weeks, I can still count the things I know about him on one hand: He’s from Massachusetts. His middle name is Evan. His parents are divorced, and he’s never mentioned any siblings. And now, this latest tidbit: twelve years of parochial school. It’s not that he’s evasive about personal stuff—he just doesn’t offer it up. And I, not wanting to pry, don’t ask.

“So?” Michael says as he walks me to the door. Knowing the contents of the Beta pantry, I passed on the breakfast offer. “You up for a study date tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I tell him. “Sounds great.” Actually, the idea kind of terrifies me. Maybe if I spend today studying but act like I didn’t, I’ll know enough to seem believably but not embarrassingly unprepared. Just as I’m turning to go, he pulls me into a kiss. Grateful for the gum in my mouth, I kiss him back, tasting the cinnamon heat of the Fireball on his lips. I close my eyes and inhale, breathing in the scent of him, sugary cinnamon and soap. There’s something so familiar about the combination. I inhale again, deeper this time. And all of a sudden it’s not Michael I’m kissing but Josh.

I snap my head back, caught off guard by the memory. Michael gives me a quizzical look. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, uh, everything’s fine,” I say. “I should get going, that’s all. See you later!” I peck him on the cheek and hurry down the steps.

The crowd at Starbucks is pretty small for a Saturday morning, which is incentive enough for me to stop. It takes all my willpower not to think about Josh and that kiss as I’m waiting to order. The memory just keeps popping up, taunting me with its movie-moment perfection. The blanket of stars, the cool night breeze. Don’t be silly, Abby. I want to date you. Are you free tomorrow night?

An impatient homeless man in tattered army fatigues stands uncomfortably close to me in line, jingling coins in his hand. “It’s your turn!” he yells gruffly, inches from my ear. I step up to the counter and quickly order my latte.

“That’ll be five eighty-five.” The cashier looks bored.

As I dig through my bag for my wallet, the guy behind me taps his foot loudly and impatiently, still jingling his coins. Frazzled, I start taking stuff out and putting it on the counter. Mascara . . . keys . . . cell phone . . . a travel pack of Band-Aids . . . a package of highlighters . . . yesterday’s YDN. Where is my wallet? The coin jingling intensifies. When I was in L.A., I bought this great vintage messenger bag with five compartments—my consolation prize for having to put college on hold. Now I’m back to using my old slouchy black satchel, a bag with a mind of its own. Invariably, whatever item I need has disappeared to the very bottom. Like my wallet has done at this particular moment. By the time I find it, my latte is already ready and the guy behind me is about to lose it. “I’ll pay for his, too,” I whisper to the cashier, handing him an extra five-dollar bill. Feeling like I’ve broken the social code by taking too long in the Starbucks line, I keep my head down as I grab my coffee and bolt out the door.

Marissa and Ben are still gone when I get back to our room, which is good, because I want to be at the library by ten, and there is no such thing as a five-minute conversation with Ben Blaustien. He’s so well-read and well-watched and well-listened that he’s always just read/seen/heard some super-fascinating story on CNN.com or NPR that he assumes you’ll find equally fascinating and want to hear all about and then discuss at length. Great if you’re stuck in an elevator or standing in line for pizza at Yorkside. Not so great when you’re in a time crunch because you need to cram for a study session with the guy you’re pretty sure is your boyfriend even though neither of you have called him that yet.

I drop my bag on my bed and step out of my boots. As I’m unbuttoning my jeans, my eyes wander to the wall above my desk, to the spot where I hung my birthday present from Marissa. The photograph of Caitlin and me at the Freshman Picnic.

Only . . . it’s gone.

There’s a framed photograph there, but it’s of me by myself, sitting cross-legged under an oak tree on Cross Campus. It’s a cool, arty shot—obviously Marissa’s handiwork. But it’s not the picture she gave me.

Beads of sweat prickle on my upper lip. Where’s the other photo?

The memory of my fight with Caitlin comes barreling back.

“Oh, God,” I breathe. There’s no picture of us because Caitlin and I aren’t friends anymore.

No. That can’t be right. That fight was last October. Sure, it was awful, but there’s no way Caitlin and I stayed mad at each other for an entire year.

Frantic for answers, I dump the contents of my bag on my bed, but my phone’s not there. Crap. I must’ve left it at Michael’s.

With shaking hands, I reach for my laptop. If Caitlin and I stopped being friends last October, then my screensaver picture of Caitlin, Ty, and me at graduation doesn’t exist anymore. My screen lights up. The graduation photo is gone.

I click on the camera icon and quickly scroll through the rest of last year’s photos.

After October, Caitlin’s not in any of them. Not a single one.

I have to talk to her. Now.

I sprint from Vanderbilt to Silliman in my socks, colliding with four different sets of passersby and nearly taking out a man on a bike. When I get to Caitlin’s door, I bang on it. Her roommate, Muriel, opens it, still half-asleep.

“Abby?”

“You know who I am!”

“Of course I know who you are,” Muriel replies, looking at me like I have three heads. “But Caitlin’s not here. She’s at the lab.”

“Whose lab? Dr. Mann’s?”

Muriel nods, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

Grinning like a madwoman, I throw my arms around her. “Thank you!” Out of the corner of my eye I see the keys to Muriel’s Civic, hanging on a hook by the door. The next train doesn’t leave for an hour. “Can I borrow your car?”

Muriel shrugs. “Sure. It’s in the lot on Sachem.”

“Thank you!” I throw my arms around her again.

“Wait, you’re not high, are you?” Muriel eyes me suspiciously.

“No!” I grab the keys from the hook before she can change her mind. “I’ll bring it back this afternoon!” I call as I sprint down the stairs.

I make excellent time. Since it’s a Saturday, I ignore the PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY signs in the parking lot at Olin Observatory and park next to the only other car in the lot, a bright-yellow Smart car with Connecticut plates and an EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED window sticker. At least I know I’m in the right place.

According to the directory by the main entrance, Dr. Mann’s office is on the sixth floor. Once I’m up there, it’s not hard to find. His door is the only one covered in newspaper headlines about last year’s earthquake. Next to this door there’s another one, marked LAB. The knob turns easily in my hand.

I push open the heavy metal door and step inside. On the far wall, an oversized digital clock declares the time down to the millisecond. Beside it, there is a giant magnetic calendar with a movable red X on today’s date. Dr. Mann is standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling chalkboard that runs the length of the eastern wall, studying a string of equations, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. Caitlin is nowhere around.

Quietly I turn to go, hoping to slip out without being noticed. But the door clangs shut before I can catch it.

“Good morning, Ms. Barnes!” Dr. Mann calls.

“Hello,” I reply, suddenly feeling very awkward. “I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

“Nonsense! It’s not a disturbance at all. Come in!”

I find a smile and step farther inside. “Is Caitlin around?”

“She’s at the library, trying to track down an old manuscript for me,” he replies. “Friedrich Schiller’s Vom Erhabenen. Are you familiar with it?”

“Uh, I don’t think so, no.” I glance back at the door, wishing I could will my way back out of it.

Dr. Mann motions for me to sit, then turns back to the long string of variables, symbols, and numbers on the board, tapping his nose thoughtfully as he examines his handiwork.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’ve been calling it the destiny force,” he says.

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “The destiny force,” I repeat.

Dr. Mann nods. “I am attempting to calculate the force—the pull, if you will—of a person’s predestined future.”

“So you believe in fate,” I say.

Dr. Mann pauses thoughtfully before answering. “I believe each of us was uniquely created for a specific purpose designed by the Creator, and that, because of that, there are certain things in our lives that we are destined by Him to do. The rest, I think, is soft clay: left entirely to the defining influences of choice, chance, and circumstance. And luck! Don’t forget luck.” He touches the capital L in his equation with his fingertip, leaving an imprint in its base. “The trick,” he says then, “is how to determine which is which.” He smiles. “But I’m afraid there’s no equation for that.”

Staring at the blackboard, I let my gaze blur. Every life, an equation. Who’s writing mine?

I look at Dr. Mann. “Chance and luck and all that aside . . .” The old man’s eyebrows shoot up at my wholesale dismissal of his variables, but I forge on. “Can a person avoid her destiny? Or refuse it?”

The professor’s blue eyes sparkle. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he tells me, turning back to his equation. “The force of one’s destiny, in mathematical terms. And, most particularly, whether that value varies from person to person.”

“So if my parallel and I are sharing a reality, then is our equation the same?” Dr. Mann gives me a curious look. “Theoretically, I mean,” I say quickly, feigning breeziness with an awkward wave of my hand. “If we were to become entangled with a parallel world, you know, like your theories suggest.”

“You ask exactly the right question,” he says, his eyes alight with understanding. “What is your sense of the answer?”

I falter. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I’d like to believe I have my own destiny, but I guess if my life weren’t entirely my own anymore . . .”

“Your life is always your own,” Dr. Mann says sharply. “You are a uniquely created being with a transcendent soul. A new set of memories or an altered sense of reality cannot change what is fundamentally true.” He’s watching me closely now, measuring my reaction. “Your path will change,” he says then. “Your destiny never will.”

“But what if I’m on the wrong path?”

“There is no wrong path,” he explains. “Not when it comes to destiny. There are only detours, you see.” He studies me for a moment longer, then adds, “You said something curious when you came to see me back in September. I’ve been puzzling over its meaning ever since.”

I try my best to keep my expression neutral. “Oh?”

“I believe your words were, ‘Why does no one but me . . .’” He trails off, his gaze unblinking and pinned on mine. “You stopped abruptly, as if you’d said too much.”

It takes everything I have not to look away. My palms are damp with sweat.

“A few moments later, Ms. Moss asked about anomalies.” Dr. Mann cocks his head to one side, like a bird. “It was a very specific question, if I recall, about the possibility that someone might keep their knowledge of the way things were before the collision.” He pauses as if waiting for my reaction.

“Oh,” is all I say.

He smiles sympathetically, as if we’re discussing a bout of indigestion, or a tooth that needs repair. “Is that ‘someone’ you?”

I expect to feel panic, but instead I’m washed in relief. Still, I can’t bring myself to nod.

Dr. Mann doesn’t press it. “When you’re ready,” he says kindly. “I’d be happy to help, if I could.” Then he looks past me and beams, the way a proud father might. “But I’d say you’re in good hands already.”

“Abby?” I turn to see Caitlin standing at the door, holding a stack of photocopied pages. She takes in my socked feet and the rim of slept-in mascara around my eyes. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great!” I say brightly. “I just stopped by to say hi.” Caitlin doesn’t buy this, and clearly, neither does Dr. Mann. But he just bows politely and reaches for his jacket. “I could use a cup of tea,” he announces, moving toward the door. “Would you girls like one?”

“No, thanks,” we say in unison.

As soon as the door clangs shut, Caitlin beelines over to where I’m standing. “What are you really doing here?”

“Dr. Mann just asked if I kept my real memories,” I whisper, even though we’re alone in the room. “I didn’t say no.” Caitlin’s face lights up.

“So we’re telling him?” she asks excitedly.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But that’s not why I came.”

“Abby, if he knows anyway, why not just—”

“I remember the fight.”

Caitlin gets quiet. “Oh.” She fiddles with her grandmother’s bracelet. “It was awful,” she says softly.

“It wasn’t really us,” I remind her, as though it’ll make a difference now. “It was them.”

“Those bitches.” It’s a joke, but her voice is sad.

“How did it end?” I ask. “Please, fast-forward to the happy ending. How did we make up?”

“We didn’t,” she says. “Not officially, anyway. You called me on your birthday and acted like it never happened. That was the first time we’d spoken since the day of the fight. Unless you count the encounter our parents orchestrated on move-in day, which was so awkward and awful that my mom burst into tears two minutes in.”

But October 30 to September 9 is nearly eleven months. The longest Caitlin and I have ever gone without talking is three days. Memorial Day weekend 2003, after she didn’t save a seat for me on the bus to the aquarium for the sixth-grade field trip (I found out later that Ms. Dobson told her she couldn’t).

“We stopped being friends over a guy?” I say. “Over Tyler?”

Caitlin hesitates for a second, then says, “The fight wasn’t about what you told Ty. Not really. I was upset about that—and embarrassed about what he did in the lunchroom, and horrified about what you said about Craig—” Her voice breaks a little at his name.

“Oh God, Caitlin. I can’t believe I—I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I said some awful things, too. I was just so angry at you already.”

“Angry at me for what?”

She looks away, but not before I see the hurt in her eyes. “You promised to edit my essay for Yale.”

Her personal statement. The one thing Caitlin asked me to do for her last year. The one thing. How many times did I promise to edit it? Half a dozen, at least. I remember being annoyed that she felt like she had to keep asking me after I’d already said I’d do it. As if I needed to be reminded how important it was to her. I knew how self-conscious she was about her dyslexia. How much she was relying on my help. And I never even read it. The worst part is, I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten until now.

My armpits tingle with shame. I can blame my parallel self for lying to Tyler and for saying what she did about Craig, but this broken promise is on both of us, because I forgot, too. Between classes, play rehearsal, cross-country practice, and my own college applications, there wasn’t a lot of space left in my own brain last fall. I remember feeling frazzled and overwhelmed for most of the semester, just trying to keep track of everything I had to do. How many other promises did I break? Who else did I let down?

I’m a jackass. A self-absorbed jackass.

Now it all makes sense.

“Cate, I’m so sorry,” I tell her, my eyes welling up with tears.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says, hugging me as my tears spill over. “I should have just told you why I was upset . . . or reminded you again. I knew you’d just forgotten. But you were so busy with your own stuff, and I figured the essays wouldn’t even matter that much if my SAT score was high enough. When it wasn’t, I freaked.”

I pull away and look at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I choked,” she says. “Two hundred points lower than my lowest practice score.”

“Oh, Caitlin. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was embarrassed,” she replies. “I didn’t tell anyone.” My chest aches at the thought of her going through that alone. How disappointed she must have been. How anxious and afraid. “When I didn’t get in, it was easy to blame you for that, too,” she explains. “I was still so mad at you. I told myself that if my essay had been better, the score wouldn’t have mattered as much.”

“Wait, what? You didn’t get into Yale early?”

Caitlin shakes her head. “Wait-listed till February,” she says. “That’s not how you remember it?”

“No! In my version, you got your acceptance letter the day before Thanksgiving.”

Caitlin looks puzzled for a moment. Then something clicks. “Martin Wagner,” she says. “I’ll bet he was the reason I got in early.”

The name is familiar but I can’t place it. “Who’s Martin Wagner?”

“Josh’s stepdad,” she replies. “He was supposed to do my Yale alumni interview. Josh was helping me prepare. After our fight, I requested a different interviewer. The woman I ended up with was a total nightmare.”

“So that’s what you were doing,” I say. “My parallel saw you and Josh in the chem lab that morning.” At the mention of his name, another memory comes to mind. Sitting with him on a wooden swing, feeling his fingertips on the inside of my arm as we kiss. “Wait, were we a couple?” Even before Caitlin responds, I know the answer is yes. There is no way that kiss wasn’t the beginning of something. The muscles around my rib cage contract, like a corset. “For how long?”

“I’m not sure,” she replies. The corners of her mouth form a small, sad smile. “You and I weren’t exactly dishing relationship details. All I know is it ended before prom.”

Prom. In the real version of things, I was in L.A. and didn’t get to go. At the time, I told myself it was no big deal, but deep down, I regretted missing it. “Did I still go, though? With someone else?”

She nods. “You went with Tyler. As friends.”

“After he asked you, and you said no.”

Caitlin looks surprised. “You remember that?”

“No, I just know Ty. And you.” I look down at the floor, willing myself not to cry. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to turn out. Tyler should’ve been at that dance with Caitlin, not with me.

“Hey,” Caitlin says softly, touching my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay. In the end, everything turned out the way it was supposed to.”

I meet her gaze, the eyes I know better than my own, and nod. “We’re okay,” I repeat.

“We’re okay.” Her voice is unequivocal, as if she’s never been more certain of anything in her life. A deep, ineffable gratitude washes through me. Her forgiveness is more than I deserve and yet I have it, completely. I grab her hand, my throat suddenly tight.

“I couldn’t do this without you,” I whisper.

She squeezes my hand. “Yes, you could,” she says. “But you won’t have to.” She lets go of my hand and unlatches her bracelet, a delicate gold chain with an antique clasp. “Here,” she says, putting it on my wrist. “As long as you wake up wearing it, you’ll know we’re okay.”

I smile, running my finger over the tiny gold loops. “Why’d you pick up?” I ask. “On my birthday. If you thought we were still fighting, why’d you answer my call?”

“I dunno,” she says thoughtfully. “I wasn’t going to at first. But it’d been so long, and it was your birthday. . . . I guess I figured if you were making the effort, I could at least hear you out.” She shrugs. “Then when I answered, you acted like it was totally normal that you were calling me. I knew something was up. So I met you at the library, heard what was happening, and brought you here to see Gustav.”

“You never told me about the fight?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to,” she admits. “Since you didn’t remember it, and no one here knew anything about it, I could pretend like it never happened.”

Metal clangs against metal as Dr. Mann comes through the lab door carrying a cup of tea and a half-eaten scone. He’s wearing at least a fourth of it on the front of his shirt. Dr. Mann sees us watching him and smiles mid-bite. Another chunk of scone lands on his tie. I stifle a giggle.

“I should probably get back to work,” Caitlin says, hopping off her stool. “Gustav is leaving for Munich on Tuesday, and he wants me to finish his grant application before he goes.”

“Well, then. I’ll leave you and Gustav alone.”

She sticks her tongue out at me, and I am hit with a wave of relief that despite the fight and everything else, Caitlin and I are okay. I throw my arms around her. “I love you,” I whisper, hugging her tight.

“I love you, too,” she whispers back.

“Soulmates,” comes Dr. Mann’s voice. “The most enduring of human relationships.” He’s staring thoughtfully at his chalkboard, munching on the last of his scone. “That’s what we’re missing.” He brushes the crumbs off his shirt and steps up to the board. With the sleeve of his jacket and a broken piece of chalk, he makes several quick revisions to his equation.

When he’s finished, he returns the chalk to its dusty ledge and takes a step back. His eyes remind me of an old-fashioned typewriter—right, down, left, right, down, left—as he studies the complicated string of numbers, symbols, and signs. “You asked if you could miss your destiny,” he says then, with a nod at the board. “Not if you find your soulmates first.”

“Soulmates, plural?” I ask him. “How many does each person have?”

The old man smiles at his equation, as if the answer is right in front of us. “Exactly as many as she needs.”

Caitlin’s hand catches mine. “One down,” she whispers.

“Hey, Abby, who’d we get the fifth costume for?” Marissa asks. She’s hunched over her laptop, watching the Power Rangers opening sequence on YouTube while Ben watches the World Series on our TV.

“Caitlin,” I tell her, putting down the bio textbook I’m not really reading. “But I forgot to ask her if she even needs it.” I dig through my bag for my cell, then remember I don’t have it. “Hey, can I borrow your phone?” I ask Ben. “I left mine at Michael’s.”

“Sure,” he says, and tosses it to me.

Michael answers on the second ring. “Why is Nick Swisher such a d-bag?”

“Huh?”

“Abby?”

“Who’s Nick Swisher?”

“Such a douche bag!” Ben shouts from the couch.

“He plays for the Yankees,” Michael explains. “Why are you calling me on Ben’s phone?”

“I can’t find mine. Did I leave it over there?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll look. Where would you have left it?”

“Your bed,” I reply, forgetting my audience. Ben snickers. Blushing, I step into the hall, letting the door shut behind me.

“Nope,” Michael says. “Don’t see it. Are you sure you left it here?”

“I think so . . . I realized I didn’t have it as soon as I got back, and I didn’t go anywhere befo—” Starbucks. I must’ve left it on the counter when I bought my coffee. “Crap.”

“Uh-oh. Where’d you leave it?”

“Starbucks. I stopped for coffee.”

“Call it,” he tells me. “Maybe someone picked it up.”

I do, but no one answers. As I’m hanging up, I remember that I never listened to the voicemail I got from that 310 number. I quickly dial my mailbox to retrieve it.

“Please enter your password,” comes the automated voice.

3-7-7-3.

“I’m sorry,” the voice says. “You have entered an incorrect password.”

I enter it again, slower this time, making sure to get it right.

“I’m sorry. You have entered an incorrect password. Please hang up and try again.”

I stare at the keypad, puzzled. 3-7-7-3. The last four digits of Caitlin’s home phone number. That’s been my voicemail password since I got my first cell phone in ninth grade. Could whoever has my phone have changed the password? Don’t you need the original password to do that?

The fight. My parallel self must’ve changed it.

I try the last four digits of my parents’ phone number and the last four digits of Tyler’s, but neither work. Equally annoyed at myself, my parallel, and the thief who’s commandeered my phone, I punch out Caitlin’s number. As soon as I hit the call button, her name appears on the screen. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. This is Ben’s phone. Why does my roommate’s boyfriend have Caitlin’s number?

The phone is still in my hands when Caitlin’s voicemail picks up.

“Hey, it’s Abby,” I say after the beep. “Why does Ben have your number in his phone? I’m calling to see if you need a costume for tonight and if you want to walk over to Inferno with us. Lemme know.” I start to hang up. “Oh—I lost my phone. So call my landline.”

“Did you find it?” a male voice asks. Ben is standing in our doorway.

“Nope.” I hand him his phone, then step past him into the common room. “I called Caitlin,” I announce to Marissa, louder than I need to.

“Is she coming with us?” Ben asks casually.

“I got voicemail.” I want to ask him why the hell he has Caitlin’s number saved in his phone, but not while Marissa is in earshot.

Our landline rings, and Marissa reaches for it. “Hey, Caitlin!” she says a moment later. She listens, then nods. “Okay. We’ll just meet you there then.” I glance at Ben, but he’s fiddling with his phone. “Yep,” I hear Marissa say, just before she hangs up. “I’ll tell her.”

“She doesn’t need a costume?”

“No,” she replies. “And she told me to tell you she’s probably going to skip Inferno. Said she’d catch up with you at the concert.”

“Did she say why?”

Marissa shakes her head. “But she sounded stressed. Work maybe?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I glance back at Ben, but he’s still busy with his cell. “I guess I’ll walk over to Starbucks to see if they have my phone.”

On my way there, I run through reasons why Ben would have Caitlin’s number. Marissa gave it to him. Marissa called Caitlin from his phone and he saved it.

Ben and Caitlin have a thing.

I push the thought from my mind. Caitlin wouldn’t do that to Marissa. Not after Craig. There’s just no way.

My phone, of course, is not at Starbucks. Annoyed, frustrated, and suddenly very tired, I treat myself to a caramel latte with extra caramel and take the long way back to my room. Ben passes me as I’m coming up the entryway stairs. “Going to buy vodka,” is all he says. He doesn’t slow down.

Marissa is standing on her head in the common room. “Ben’s acting weird,” she announces.

Dread pools in the pit of my stomach. “Weird how?”

“I dunno. Just weird. Antsy.” She bends her legs, lowering them until her knees are resting on her triceps. “Has he said anything to you?”

“To me? No.”

In one fluid motion, she dismounts from the headstand and stands up. “I’m probably overthinking it,” she says. “People act weird sometimes. It doesn’t always mean something. Right?”

“Not always,” I agree.

Just usually.

“Wow.”

I follow Michael’s gaze over the rowdy crowd to the back of Woolsey Hall, expecting to see another elaborate costume. Instead, I see Caitlin, wearing plastic lab glasses, a form-fitting white lab coat, and five-inch magenta Louboutin stilettos . . . and not much else. Her long blond hair is tied back in a low ponytail, and her face is bare except for the five coats of black mascara layered on her lashes. She looks amazing. I suddenly feel very dowdy in my yellow uni-suit.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, leaving Michael by himself in our overcrowded row. “Don’t lose our seats.”

“I’ll try my best,” Michael replies, sliding over to the center of the three seats we’ve claimed. Marissa took Ben to “Haunted Yoga” at the Grove Street cemetery, so it’s just the two of us trying to hold three seats. “But hurry. I’m not sure how long I can fend off the seat vultures.”

I make my way through the costumed crowd to where Caitlin is standing.

“Sexy cops, sexy nurses . . . why should scientists get the shaft?”

“My thoughts exactly,” she replies, curtsying a little.

“Why didn’t you come to the party with us?” I ask her as we weave back through the crowd toward our seats.

“Oh, I just had some work to do,” she says, keeping her voice breezy.

“At ten o’clock on Saturday night?”

“Yup.”

Caitlin does not use words like “yup.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

She sighs and looks me in the eye. “Ben.”

I stop walking. A fat guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear crashes into me from behind, nearly knocking me over.

“Sorry!” he slurs. Caitlin pulls me out of the way as he barrels past us.

“Nothing’s going on,” she tells me in a low voice.

“He has your number saved in his phone.”

“He asked for it when he walked me home after your birthday dinner. He did it so casually, it didn’t feel like a big deal.”

“He walked you home after my birthday dinner?”

Caitlin nods. “Michael went with you and Marissa back to Old Campus, and Ben walked with me. I told him I was fine by myself—I think I was the least drunk of all of us—but he insisted. We got to talking, and before we knew it, it was three thirty.”

“Those are alternate memories,” I tell her, keeping my voice down. “In the real version, Tyler called you right after Ben offered to walk you home, and you left. The four of us walked back to my room together.”

“Why was Tyler calling me at two in the morning?” Caitlin asks.

“It was your thing. You talked every night before you went to bed.”

“Every night? Did he also wear a lock of my hair around his neck?” Caitlin makes a gagging motion. “Why do relationships make otherwise cool people act like morons? And I can’t even make fun of him for it.”

I don’t respond.

“Abby!” Michael motions for us to hurry. A guy in a rubber Bill Clinton mask hovers at the end of our row, stalking the empty seats.

“Coming!” I call to him, then turn back to Caitlin. “What else?”

“There’s nothing else. A few phone calls and emails. That’s it.”

“He’s Marissa’s boyfriend, Caitlin.”

“I know that, Abby.”

“Do you like him?”

“He has a girlfriend.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“Yes, I did,” she says firmly. Then, looking past me: “We should sit, the show’s about to start.”

“Does he like you?”

I see her hesitate and have my answer.

“Poor Marissa,” I say then. She’s the one whose heart will be broken here, and she hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s just another casualty of the chain reaction my parallel started when she tried to play Cupid.

Caitlin looks hurt. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Abby.”

“I know,” I tell her, giving her hand a squeeze as we inch down our row toward Michael. “It’s not your fault.”

It’s mine.

The Yale Symphony Orchestra’s annual Halloween show is more than just an orchestral concert. The musicians play the soundtrack to a student-made silent film, complete with several live-action sequences and a crazy pyrotechnic finale (there’s no way the fire marshal is on board with this). With three thousand college students stuffed into an auditorium that seats twenty-five hundred, it’s a raucous, borderline chaotic affair. By the time the houselights come on afterward, I’m both hoarse and deaf from all the screaming.

“Should we go to Toad’s till close or skip it and get pizza instead?” Michael asks us as we’re inching toward the door after the show. Getting thousands of people into the building was a lot easier than getting them out.

“Pizza,” I reply. “I’m too tired to dance.”

“Ooh, pizza sounds good,” Caitlin says. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

“Yorkside or Wall Street?” Michael asks, pulling out his phone.

“Yorkside,” we say in unison.

“Cool. I’ll text Ben.”

Caitlin and I exchange a glance. She feigns a yawn. “Actually, on second thought, I think I’ve passed hunger and descended into sheer exhaustion. I’m just gonna head home.”

“You sure?” Michael asks, slipping his hand into mine as we descend Woolsey’s front steps. Throngs of costumed revelers spill out onto the sidewalk and into the intersection of College and Grove as uniformed campus security guards try in vain to break up the crowd, which moves toward York Street in a Toad’s-bound mass. “All roads lead to Toad’s!” I hear someone shout.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Caitlin puts on a smile. “You guys have fun.”

“Brunch tomorrow?” I ask.

“Definitely.” She squeezes my hand and heads off down the sidewalk.

Michael’s phone buzzes with a text. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” he says. “The lovebirds are calling it a night.”

Yorkside is packed when we get there, so we split up. Michael goes to the counter for our pizza, and I claim a booth near the back.

“I hope you like pepperoni,” Michael says as he approaches the table, balancing two paper plates and a pitcher of beer. He’s holding our cups between his teeth.

“Who doesn’t like pepperoni?” I lift a slice off the plate and take a bite. Hot, gooey mozzarella sticks to the roof of my mouth.

“So what’d you think of the show?” he asks, biting into his own slice.

“I thought it was awesome. You?”

He nods as he chews. “Loved it. It’s one of those quintessentially Yale things, you know?” He takes another bite, and a glob of pizza sauce sticks to his upper lip. “I used to make fun of that stuff,” he says. “A capella groups, theme parties, singing at football games. But then I got here and realized how cool all of it is.” Then, with a laugh: “Utterly dorky, but cool.”

“I didn’t even know any of it existed until I got here,” I say as I try not to stare at the sauce on his lip.

“So what sold you?” he asks.

“Sold me?”

“On Yale,” he says. “What convinced you to apply?”

“Oh . . . ,” I falter. The reasons I didn’t want to apply pop into my mind, reasons that seem more like excuses now. “Academics, I guess.” When in doubt, go with the lamest, most generic reason ever. “What about you?”

“Lacrosse. And the fact that it was a hundred and one miles from my house.”

“Lucky number?”

He laughs. “I had a minimum distance requirement. I had to be at least a hundred miles from home. Lucky for me, now it’s more like a thousand.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mom moved the summer after my freshman year.” Then, casually: “To Atlanta, actually.”

I blink. “Your mom lives in Atlanta? Where?”

“Lilac Lane,” he says, drawing out his vowels. His attempt at a Southern accent sounds like Crocodile Dundee on sedatives.

“I meant, what neighborhood? And why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I don’t know anything but the street address,” he replies. “And I haven’t mentioned it because I generally don’t.” His tone doesn’t invite a follow-up question, but for once I don’t let that deter me.

“But you know I’m from there, right?” As I say this, it crosses my mind that he might, in fact, not know that. What else have I assumed he knows that he actually doesn’t? Ohmigod, he doesn’t even know my last name. I rack my brain, trying to come up with a single instance where I’ve heard him use it, and can’t come up with one. Mortifying.

“Yes, silly. Of course I know you’re from there. I was planning to mention it eventually, I just hadn’t yet.” This explanation is laughably lame, but I opt not to point it out.

“How much time do you spend there?” I ask him.

“Last year, I only went home for Thanksgiving,” he replies.

“And this year?”

“Same. Arriving Wednesday night at eight fifty-two p.m., departing Friday morning at eight forty-eight a.m.,” he says. “Same flights as last year.”

“Short trip.”

“It’s a long thirty-six hours,” he says flatly, and reaches for the last slice. He doesn’t elaborate.

I pick at a piece of pepperoni, not sure what to say next.

We sit in silence for a few minutes as Michael works on his second piece of pizza and I play with the rest of mine. Should I change the subject? Wait for him to say something? After a few bites, he smiles. “You know what’d make those thirty-six hours better this year?” he asks me. His tone is lighter now, his eyes brighter. “A turkey dinner at the Barnes house.” He takes another bite, watching my reaction. I’m so elated that he just used my last name that it takes me a second to realize that he’s just invited himself over for Thanksgiving.

“You have pizza sauce on your lip,” I say coyly. He licks his lips. “Still there,” I tell him. He smiles and reaches for a napkin.

“You’re just gonna leave me hanging, huh?”

I lean forward, my thumb reaching his upper lip before his napkin does. “Pretty much,” I tease.

“No sympathy at all for the poor, lonely guy who can’t bear to spend Thanksgiving away from his girlfriend?”

“Nope.” My voice sounds tight. Airless. Probably because sometime between his use of the word “girlfriend” and this moment, I stopped breathing. It’s the first time he’s said it. Suddenly, intensely, I want to be exactly that. His girlfriend. For as long as fate will let me.

Parallel Abby, please don’t screw this up.

“That’s a shame,” Michael says, leaning across the table until his face is inches from mine. My eyelids flutter as I breathe in the spicy-sweet scent of mint, pepperoni, and aftershave. Who knew the smell of cured meat could turn a person on? My lips tingle in anticipation. I’ve been thinking about that kiss my parallel self got from Josh all day, unable to shake the memory of it. This is exactly what I need: an even more amazing kiss to take its place. I let my eyes close, feeling his lips touch mine, wishing we were in his bedroom instead of this crowded restaurant.

“Abby?” a small voice says. My eyes pop open. A tearstained Pink Ranger is standing next to our table, holding a plastic pumpkin.

“Marissa? Are you okay?”

“Ben broke up with me.”

“What?” My eyes dart to Michael. His eyebrows are arched in surprise, but the expression strikes me as false. The face you’d make at your surprise party, when it’s not a surprise at all. He knew. I look back at Marissa. “When?”

“Right before I puked in this pumpkin,” she says miserably, holding out the orange plastic container, which is, indeed, filled with vomit. Michael recoils. I take the pumpkin and set it on the floor beneath the table.

“Sit,” I tell her, sliding over to make room. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Too much.” She puts her forehead down on the table.

I look at Michael.

“Uh, I’ll get some water,” he says, and stands.

“What happened?” I ask as soon as Michael leaves.

“I don’t know.” She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. “He just started acting weird. I kept asking what was wrong, and he kept saying he was just tired. But he didn’t seem tired, you know? So I told him that, and his face got all twisted, and he said he’d wanted to wait until tomorrow to tell me, but he felt like he was lying by not saying anything. And then his voice broke, and I knew.” Her eyes well up again. “He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but he just didn’t feel the same way about me anymore. And that’s when I puked.”

“Where were you?”

“On our way back from the cemetery.”

“You did yoga like this?”

She nods miserably. “I don’t know where I got the pumpkin. Someone must have given it to me.” She nudges it with her shoe. “There’s candy at the bottom.”

I look down and instantly regret it.

Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.

Michael returns with a pitcher of water and some breadsticks, which he sets on the table in front of Marissa. She stares at the cup vacantly.

“Should I . . .” Michael looks from Marissa to his empty seat as if not sure what to do with himself.

“I think we’re good,” I tell him. I doubt Marissa wants her ex-boyfriend’s best friend listening to her sob about their breakup. Plus, although I don’t think I can reasonably be mad at Michael for not ratting Ben out, it feels a little like he’s on Team Ben right now when I’ve just become captain of Team Marissa. Neither of us is neutral. “Call you tomorrow?”

Michael looks relieved. “Hang in there,” he tells Marissa, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Let me know if you want me to punch him in the face.”

Marissa’s eyes well up with fresh tears. “I love his face,” she says miserably. I give Michael a you-should-leave-now look, and he gets the hint.

“You should eat something,” I tell Marissa when we’re alone. “A breadstick at least.” I break off a piece and hand it to her. “I think it’s whole wheat,” I lie. But she reaches for the rest of my pizza instead.

“That has peppero—”

“I keep replaying it in my mind,” she tells me, midbite, either unaware or unconcerned that she’s breaking about ten of her food rules right now. “It’s like something happened today . . . but nothing happened. He was with me the whole time. I just don’t get it.” She shoves the last of my slice into her mouth and reaches for what’s left of Michael’s.

I, of course, know exactly what happened. Ben realized that his secret wasn’t a secret anymore. He felt like he had to pick between Marissa and Caitlin, and he picked Caitlin. He doesn’t realize that he just lost them both.

But the thing is, he never should’ve thought Caitlin was an option. She was supposed to be off-limits the night they met, wholly and happily unavailable. But she wasn’t because my parallel tried to play cupid, destroying not just Caitlin’s relationship with Tyler but, ultimately, Marissa’s relationship with Ben.

Of course, my parallel didn’t know how powerful her words were, how far-reaching the consequences of her lie would be.

We never do.

Everything is a cause.

It’s not a new idea, but still, I am stunned to stillness by its truth.

Everything we do matters.

I reach for Marissa’s hand. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, knowing these words are insufficient but wanting—needing—to say them anyway.