Parallel

by Lauren Miller

  “You don’t believe in God,” I point out. But my voice wavers a little.

  Caitlin hears it. “Abby, I was kidding. If this is happening, it has nothing to do with you. Or God.”

  “If this is happening, then I shouldn’t know it’s happening,” I remind her. “I shouldn’t be aware of the incredibly freaky fact that things are dramatically different than they were yesterday. But I am. There has to be a reason for that.”

  “Not necessarily,” Caitlin replies. “It could just be a fluke.”

  “A fluke?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe your mind is just different. Like the guy in England who can recite pi to the twelve hundred and fiftieth place.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I retort. “That’s encouraging.” I stare down at my half-empty beer, turning my cup in my hands. Maybe your mind is just different. Not exactly the answer I was looking for.

  “I know you want to make sense of this,” she says gently, “but sometimes science doesn’t give us the reasons we’re looking for. We can theorize about how things are supposed to work, but like Dr. Mann said, there are always outliers.”

  “You think he knew why we were really there?” I ask. “He kept looking at me, and then he made that comment at the end. . . .”

  “But you had that really awesome and totally believable creative writing cover story,” Caitlin deadpans. “How could he possibly have figured it out?”

  “I’m serious, Caitlin. What if he tells someone and they lock me up or something?”

  “Who’s ‘they,’ Abby? The government officials Dr. Mann has in his back pocket? The man’s been ostracized, stripped of tenure, and relegated to the fringes of mainstream cosmology. Even if he did tell someone, who would believe him?”

  “But you do?” I ask. “Parallel selves. Entangled worlds. Shared reality.” The words are barely audible when I speak them. “You really believe that’s the explanation for all this?”

  Caitlin hesitates, then nods. “I can’t explain why, exactly, and I doubt anyone could ever prove it, but, yeah. I do. So far, anyway,” she adds.

  “Okay, so here’s what I don’t understand, then,” I say. “If our world is really entangled with a parallel world, then it’s not just affecting me—it’s affecting everyone. Which means that right now, your memories of the past aren’t your own.”

  “Right. They’re my parallel’s.” Her tone is matter-of-fact. “I remember things that happened to her—and things that will happen to her over the next three hundred sixty-five days—as though they happened to me.” She balances the saltshaker on a grain of salt.

  “But they didn’t happen to you,” I point out. “They happened to the parallel you. Which means your memories are false.”

  “Technically. Yeah.”

  “Caitlin!”

  “What?”

  “You’re acting like it’s no big deal that the last year of your life has been erased!”

  “Not erased,” she corrects. “Modified.”

  “Rewritten.”

  “Rewritten,” she agrees.

  “And that doesn’t freak you out?” I demand. “The idea that your memories are being rewritten by someone else?”

  “That ‘someone else’ has the exact genetic makeup that I do,” Caitlin points out. “She’s me, under different circumstances.” She shrugs like we’re talking something trivial. “So, no, it doesn’t freak me out.”

  “She’s not you!” I insist. “For all you know, she could decide tomorrow to drop out of school and join the circus.”

  “But the overwhelming odds are she won’t,” Caitlin replies. “Odds are, she’ll do exactly what I would have done in her situation.”

  “Says who? Mine certainly didn’t.”

  “That’s because the collision made the path you took impossible,” Caitlin says calmly. “Your parallel self couldn’t take that drama class last year because it was already full by the time she got to DeWitt’s office. If she’d had the choice you had, she would’ve picked drama, just like you did.”

  I’m not convinced but don’t have the energy to argue. “If you say so,” I say. I drain the rest of my beer and stand up. “Another round?”

  Caitlin looks at her watch. “Our reservation is at eight o’clock, right?”

  Dinner. I’d completely forgotten. “Ugh. Can’t we cancel?”

  “Marissa will be devastated. She’s dying for you to meet Ben.”

  “Seriously? On top of everything else, I now have to make small talk with a stranger?”

  “Two strangers,” Caitlin corrects. “Ben’s bringing a friend.”

  “Right.” I sigh. “Who’s Ben?”

  “Marissa’s boyfriend. A junior at NYU. They met in New York two summers ago—Marissa was doing a summer session at Pratt and Ben was interning somewhere, I think. And the other guy is Ben’s best friend from high school who goes here. Purportedly superhot.”

  It dawns on me that I haven’t showered today. Or looked in a mirror. Caitlin sees the panic on my face. “Relax. It’s not even six yet. You have plenty of time to get ready. But maybe we should forgo the second pitcher.”

  “How about we get the pitcher and forgo the dinner,” I suggest, sliding back into the booth. “I mean, is this really the best time for me to be meeting superhot upperclassmen?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Caitlin signals the waitress for our check. “Now for wardrobe . . . what about that Marc Jacobs top my mom gave me for my birthday—the grayish purple one—with my straight-leg Hudsons? I wear them with flats, so if you wear heels they should be fine.”

  I picture my reflection in the bathroom mirror last night, my expression equal parts fear and delight. A girl in a pajama top and crew socks, ready for anything. Or trying to be.

  “Earth to Abby . . . did you hear what I said? Marc Jacobs top. Jeans.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. But that’s okay,” I tell her. “I already have an outfit in mind.”

  It’s amazing what a hot shower and some caffeine will do. By the time seven forty-five rolls around, I’ve relaxed into something resembling normal. Marissa sent me a text about an hour ago telling me that she and “B & M” would meet us at the restaurant, so I have the suite to myself. The pajama top looks even better than it did last night, probably because it hasn’t spent the past four months wadded up in a suitcase. I add a pair of black tights and a boyfriend blazer to the ensemble (my attempt to make the outfit East Coast–friendly) and slip into my cowboy boots. The look on Caitlin’s face when I step outside is priceless.

  “Whoa! You look amazing! Where did you get that dress?”

  “I got a crash course in wardrobe versatility from Bret Woodward last night. Where I saw a pajama top, he saw a dress.” I shrug. “So I went with it.”

  Caitlin looks impressed. “It totally works.”

  We set off for the restaurant, which Caitlin tells me is only a couple of blocks away. Now that I’m not in MacGyver mode, I notice things I didn’t this morning, like the Old Campus architecture and how distinctly urban the city of New Haven feels. There’s an audible energy on the sidewalk—students talking animatedly as they walk, music blaring from inside cars and dorm rooms, the hum of a crowd inside a nearby sports bar. This is what college sounds like. Something in me rises and swells.

  “So,” Caitlin says, linking her arm through mine, “I’m thinking there’s probably a good chance this is going to be our reality for a while.”

  “Don’t get my hopes up.”

  “Think about it,” she says. “My parallel certainly isn’t going to change her mind about Yale, and yours won’t decide definitively about colleges until she gets her acceptance letters in the spring.”

  “Yeah, but she could decide not to apply here at all,” I point out.

  “She won’t,” Caitlin replies, sounding very certain.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m the one who filled out the application.”

  I stop walking. “You did not.” />
  “With your permission!” she says quickly. “Your mom was bugging you to apply, and I knew the only reason you weren’t was because you thought she’d be disappointed if you didn’t get in. So I convinced you to let me fill out the application for you, and we submitted it without telling anyone. That way, if you didn’t get in, no one would have to know.”

  “But how did I get in? My grades were good, but it’s not like I had a genius-level SAT score or anything.” It wasn’t you who got in, the voice in my head reminds me. It was the parallel you.

  Caitlin rolls her eyes. “Abby, you spent the entirety of high school crafting the perfect college application. You scream well-rounded.”

  “So what about the essays? Did you write them?”

  “Of course not. I wanted you to get in, remember?” Her expression darkens for a split second, so quickly I wonder whether I imagined it. Caitlin’s always been self-conscious about her writing, and predictably self-deprecating. But the look I just saw was more like annoyance. “I used an editorial you wrote for the Oracle as your personal statement,” she tells me, “and an email you sent me as the five-hundred-word supplemental essay. All your words. Or, your parallel’s words,” she says, correcting herself. “Not that the distinction matters at this point.”

  Says who?

  “Well, thank you,” I say. “Or, thank her. If I’d woken up at Northwestern this morning, I’d be catatonic by now.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I’m serious, Caitlin. I couldn’t do this without you.”

  “You’d never have to,” she says. “Even if you were at Northwestern. You’d still have me.” She points to a small, dimly lit restaurant with Japanese lanterns hanging out front. “We’re here.”

  The place is crowded, but Marissa is easy to spot (largely because she starts waving like a maniac when she sees us). The guy sitting next to her is cute(ish) in a skinny-jeans-and-horn-rimmed-glasses sort of way and has his arm around the back of her chair. “M” has his back to the door, so at first, all I see is a green shirt collar and a dark-haired head. “Keep it moving,” Caitlin whispers from behind me, nudging me forward. Just then, M turns his head toward us. Our eyes meet, and we both smile.

  M for Michael. And he’s even cuter than he was this afternoon, if that’s possible.

  “The guest of honor arrives,” Marissa says as we approach the table. The guys stand to greet us. “Abby and Caitlin, meet Ben and Michael.”

  “So you’re the birthday girl,” Michael says, pulling out the chair next to him. “This saves me the trouble of stalking you,” he whispers when I sit, then flags down the waiter to order a round of “s-bombs” for the table. “And bring a tall glass for this one,” he adds, pointing at me. “It’s her twenty-first birthday today.” There’s no way the waiter believes this, but he doesn’t question it.

  “What’s an s-bomb?” I ask when the waiter is gone.

  “Sake bomb,” Michael explains. “A shot glass of hot sake, dropped into half a glass of beer, and then chugged as fast as possible.” He laughs at the disgusted look on my face. “It doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds. Promise.”

  “He’s lying. It tastes exactly as bad as it sounds,” Ben says. “But after the first one, you won’t notice anymore.”

  Ben is right. By the second round, I couldn’t care less about the taste: My sole concern is mastering the art of the shot glass drop so as to minimize beer splash (I gave up on being the fastest drinker during the first round—even teensy Marissa can chug faster than I can, although the comparison isn’t really fair, since she’s dropping her sake into sparkling water. Something about beer causing “accelerated amino acid catabolism,” which, yes, she said with a straight face). Marissa, Michael, and I are in the midst of a pretty heated competition. Meanwhile, Ben and Caitlin aren’t really participating in the frenzy. They’re leaning back from the table, talking in a way that doesn’t really invite group participation. I glance over at Marissa to see if she’s annoyed by it, but she’s too focused on improving her chug time to notice that her boyfriend appears to be totally taken with another girl.

  “Whatcha guys talking about?” I ask them, adding a slight slur to my words so I sound drunker than I am and thus less like I’m calling them out.

  “Caitlin’s telling me all about astroparticle physics,” Ben replies, looking decidedly un-guilty. He smiles at her. “Well, maybe not all about it, but the parts my pea brain can understand.”

  “Ben’s a journalism major,” Caitlin announces. “He interned at the Huffington Post last summer.” I shoot her a look. I’m probably supposed to know that already. Thankfully, Marissa jumps in before I have to respond.

  “I told her that,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But what I didn’t tell her is that Michael is really good at lacrosse. And he’s in a fraternity. Right, Michael?”

  “Uh-oh,” Michael says as our waiter arrives with the food. “If those are my two best selling points, I’m in trouble.”

  After the waiter distributes the plates, conversation pretty much comes to a standstill as we collectively inhale an obscene amount of sushi. The food helps balance the alcohol, and by the time Ben signals for the check, I’m feeling really good. Full, slightly buzzed, and more than slightly enamored with Michael, who seems to be enjoying himself just as much as I am. Right now he’s leaning back, arm around the back of my chair, lightly rubbing my shoulder with his thumb. I close my eyes and lean into him, soaking this moment in, thankful that my brain malfunction (because, really, let’s call a spade a spade) will allow me to remember this tomorrow even if no one else does.

  “Abby?” Michael sounds concerned. I don’t blame him. His sake-bombed date is sitting at the table with her eyes closed. I open them and smile.

  “Hi.”

  “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh. Best birthday ever.” Bret’s face pops into my head. I said the exact same thing to him last night. Was that really less than twenty-four hours ago?

  Michael points at his watch. “And it’s only ten o’clock. Whaddya say we make this an unsurpassable standard of birthday excellence?”

  “Does that involve more drinking?” Ben asks.

  “Most definitely,” Michael says, nodding. “Significantly more drinking. And quite possibly some dancing.”

  “Some” dancing is a vast understatement. Turns out, Ben knows a guy who knows a guy who’s the bouncer at Alchemy, a townie club east of campus (how the guy from New York has the hookup in New Haven, I have no idea). It’s old-school hip-hop night, and the cramped space is already crowded with white people trying to bust a move. The five of us spend the next two hours on the dance floor, stopping only for two-dollar kamikaze shots and increasingly frequent pee breaks.

  “What’s next?” Ben asks when the house lights come on. As if on cue, I yawn.

  “Looks like the birthday girl is partied out,” Michael notes.

  “No, I’m not!” This is a lie. I am completely partied out. My hair is plastered to my forehead, and my tights are damp with sweat. I yawn again, giving myself away. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  “I’m sleepy,” says Marissa, leaning against Ben and closing her eyes.

  “Yeah, I should get home,” Caitlin says. “I have class at eight. And Ab, aren’t you shopping that poli-sci class at nine?”

  Yikes. Classes.

  Michael drapes his arm across my shoulder, his skin as sticky as mine. “Looks like we’re outnumbered,” he says to Ben. “Should we call it a night?”

  By the time we walk the ten blocks back to Old Campus, I am basically asleep on my feet. Once we pass through the main gate, Caitlin hugs me good-bye. “Call me tomorrow,” she whispers, giving me a squeeze. “Wherever you are.”

  “Let me walk you,” Ben says casually. “You shouldn’t walk alone.” I glance quickly at Marissa to see if she looks annoyed, but she doesn’t—she just looks sleepy. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caitlin hesitate.

  Just then, her
phone rings. Her face lights up when she checks the caller ID. “Hey!” she says, answering it. “I was just about to call you.” Caitlin mouths, “I’m fine” to Ben, then sets off across the quad.

  “Boyfriend?” Michael asks.

  “Yep. He goes to Michigan.” I watch for Ben’s reaction, but he doesn’t have one. He just puts his arm around Marissa and steers her toward our building.

  When we get back to our room, Marissa and Ben disappear inside, leaving Michael and me in the hall. I’m in the midst of trying to decide whether to invite him in when he says, “I had a really great time tonight.”

  “Me, too,” I say, as I silently will the parallel me to stay on whatever life track will bring her to this precise moment. For the first time in a long time, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

  I want this. This moment. This reality. This life.

  These thoughts scare me, because there’s no guarantee that everything won’t change again tomorrow. Anger and gratitude compete inside my brain. I hate that my parallel could erase this, but I also know that she’s the reason it’s happening at all. I focus on the tiny flecks of amber in Michael’s green eyes, illuminated by the warmth of the yellow bulb above us.

  “Happy birthday, Abby,” Michael says, right before leaning in to kiss me. His lips are soft but firm as they move against mine, his palms gently cupping my face. My eyes flutter shut, quieting everything but the sensation of Michael’s mouth on mine.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I hear him say. I just nod, not trusting myself to speak coherently at this moment, my lips still warm from his. Michael kisses me once more lightly and turns to leave. I watch until he disappears down the stairwell, then let myself inside.

  Ben looks up from the pillow pallet he’s making on the floor. Marissa is sprawled out on the couch, already asleep.

  “So you like him,” Ben says.

  “I just met him.”

  “So? You can still like him.” Ben finishes with his makeshift bed and lies down on top of it.

  “I don’t even know his last name,” I point out.

  “Carpenter,” Ben replies, and closes his eyes. “And he likes you back.” Smiling, I head to the bedroom.