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“Hey, Beck?” Tom said, softly enough that she wouldn’t have to raise her head from where it was resting on his shoulder.
“Mm?” Becky didn’t bother opening her eyes. They’d turned the TV down until it was barely audible, the absolutely garbage straight-to-TV Christmas movie they were ostensibly watching turning into white noise.
“Do you think—“ he gestured at the two of them, himself slumped against the back of the couch, and her slumped against him, so far she was almost lying down, “—this could have happened in every universe?”
Becky almost said yes on instinct. It was a comforting thought, that no matter how things turned out, Tom might be her constant. That if there were other universes, other Beckys, there would be Toms for them, and she wouldn’t be alone. That no matter how many times the timeline diverged from itself, all the branches would lead to a moment like this, cuddled up on the couch, soaking in each others’ warmth and too tired to get up and go to bed.
Then again, there were reasons they understood each other so well. The thought of those being constant too wasn’t nearly as comforting.
(The first time Becky came over for dinner, Tom’s dishwasher was broken, so they had to wash dishes by hand. The soapy water was slippery, and as she passed off a plate for Tom to dry, it slipped out of her hand. The sharp shatter of broken ceramic shot her out of her own body, her mouth keeping the casual smile from earlier on its own. It was always worse if she looked afraid. She could usually work through an episode like this without anyone noticing anything was wrong. But Tom carried her over the fragments like she was just as breakable and didn’t even think of picking them up until her mind was back in her head, and she realized she’d been shaking.)
“Do you think so?” she asked, so she didn’t have to answer.
Tom was quiet for a while, stumped. Becky smiled. See? Two can play at that game. “We… we just gravitated back towards each other, I think, is what I’m feeling,” he said. “It felt really right. Not that...“
When he didn’t continue, Becky rubbed his arm. “I was thinking the same thing,” she confessed.
(Becky didn’t know if Tom didn’t have nightmares often or if they just didn’t always wake her up, but they were worse during the Honey Festival. All those fireworks echoing, even from far away, blocking the moon with smoke and bright lights. It had been too loud for her to sleep anyway, and his head was in her lap, eyes screwed tight with a tension sleepers shouldn’t have. It would have probably been worse to wake him, so she just petted him like a cat a while, until the shuddering in his breathing calmed. The next morning, he apologized for it. “She was always trying to make me see someone about them, you know,” he said. “But I don’t think she ever stroked my hair.”)
“Well, I think if you needed a friend, I would have been there. I would have wanted to be there,” Tom said.
“In every single universe?”
“In every one of them.”
(If the universe is infinite, maybe there’s a Becky who married Tom straight out of high school. Who could never comprehend the feeling of a body going cold under her hands—not a patient, not anyone else. But she isn’t that Becky, and she dragged herself out of those woods and she’s alive right now, feeling completely safe in Tom’s arms. Feeling happy.)
“I would have found you, too,” she said. “You’re not getting rid of me.”
Tom made an offended little sound. “Hey! I don’t want to get rid of you!”
“Good!”
“Good.”
“But I think we do need to move to bed. This movie is…”
Tom patted her back. “Yeah, we should,” he said.
“Can you believe the people who say shit like ‘do you think we’d be together in every universe’?” Emma said.
Paul cocked his head at her. She was still hunched over the coffee table, the first draft of a lab report printed out and already covered in red ink. When she didn’t say anything more, he asked, “What do you mean, every universe? I thought there was only one. That’s what ‘uni’ means.”
“Yeah, me too, dude.” She looked up, briefly flashing him her sharp, white smile. “It’s supposed to be a soulmates thing, I think. Like, ‘no matter what happens, we would always find each other’.”
“Oh. Well, that seems sad.”
“Sad? I was gonna say stupid.”
“Well, that too,” Paul said. “But if we were destined to find each other in every universe—“ He blushed, realizing too late what that sounded like. Coming on incredibly strong, because they weren’t exactly dating. Just people who lived in the same apartment, had their breakfasts and dinners together, went to Beanie’s every lunch break to bring her her sandwich so her coworkers couldn’t eat it, and were frequently intimate. He didn’t even necessarily want them to be “exactly dating”, but he really, really hoped the other things would continue. “—I mean, it isn’t even proven that there’s more than one universe. Or, if it was, why should we care? The only one we’re ever gonna see is the one we live in.”
“Exactly, man. That’s what I’m saying.”
“But if,” Paul said, “If we were pulled together by destiny, or whatever, wouldn’t that feel, a little—I dunno, cheap?”
Emma gave up on proofreading her report entirely, leaning back against the sofa and looking up at him. Immediately, he had to look away. “How would it be cheap?”
“Well, y’know.” Paul hit his fists together. “It took me ages to work up the courage to give you my number.”
Emma raised her eyebrows. “I could tell.”
Paul ignored his embarrassment. “But you took it, right? And you called me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Now it was Emma’s turn to blush. “Well, I mean,” she said. “I thought it was cute, how into me you were? And kinda flattering. And you seemed entertaining to be around, and a good person—which I was totally right about, so, I’m a good judge of character on that.”
“Right,” Paul said, smiling just a little. “But, like, what if, in another universe, you met me on an off day, and got a totally bad first impression? Or what if I wasn’t good to be around? What if you never came back to Hatchetfield, and we never met? How could we have gotten together in those universes? There would need to be some—some multiversal puppet master, making all the different Pauls and all the different Emmas do exactly what it wanted, to make some cookie-cutter love story or something.” His nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought. It sounded so much like the sappy, romantic bullshit they pushed in musicals.
“Exactly! That’s what I’m saying!” Emma huffed a laugh, turning back to her lab report. “Okay, now I really have to get to work on these, though.”
“Okay. I was going to make a peanut butter sandwich. Should I make one for you, too?”
“Sure, man,” Emma said distractedly. “That’s brain food.”
A few minutes later, Paul returned to the living room with a plate in hand. He placed it by Emma’s work, lingering a while to watch her strike out a repetitive sentence. “For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “I’m glad you like me for what you saw in me. Not because the universe decided we were a cute couple.”
Paul couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “As if it could tell us what to do.”
“Hey, Pete, do you think we’d be together in every universe?”
Pete looked up from his book, raising his eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? I can’t believe I pulled like this once, let alone in every universe.”
“No!” Steph dropped her work entirely. “You’re such a freakin’ pessimist, man. I think you could have. And you can’t prove me otherwise, because you can’t jump between universes.” She rested her head in her hand and gave him a sardonic smirk.
“I mean, I can guess,” Pete said. “C’mon, Steph. I had a crush on you for like, all of high school. And I never acted on it once.”
“Yeah, because I asked you out before you could,” Steph said.
“True.”
“So? Who says us being together in every universe has to do with you? Maybe I just get good taste somewhere between the end of junior year and the start of senior year in every timeline, and then I ask you out immediately because I’m not a coward.”
Pete huffed a laugh under his breath, shrugging. “Then I guess I’m the luckiest guy in the universe. —Es. Universes.”
“Uh, what about me?” Steph scoffed. “We should at least tie , I think. ‘Cause you did say yes in every universe, too.”
Pete smirked, leaning forward across the table. “You don’t know that. Maybe alternate-universe-me played a little hard to get.”
Steph made an offended little sound, moving towards her with a manic glint in her eye. “Oh, come on. As if alternate-universe-you wouldn’t kill to go out with me.”
“Steph, you are the bravest, smartest, sexiest person I know, but there is no fucking universe where I learn how to hide a body so that you’ll date me.” Pete paused. “Actually, wait. Why would me killing someone make you like me more? Got something to tell me, Steph?”
Steph pursed her lips, looking coyly to the side. “Maybe I have a bit of a hit list racked up.”
“You do get into a lot of Twitter fights.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Pete realized he was still leaning over the table, the wood digging into his stomach. He settled himself back down in his chair, Steph doing the same. “Man. You distract me so easily.”
“Thanks. I do consider myself a distracting person.”
Pete didn’t even look back down at his work. “So, if you’re just gonna keep throwing me off, wanna turn this study date into a real date?”
“Hey,” Deb drawled. She was reclining in a beanbag chair, a blunt hanging loosely between two fingers. Like a guy in a black-and-white movie who was clearly supposed to be gay, but they couldn’t say he was gay, because rules, or something. “Alice. Hey. Hey Alice.”
The words finally came through (albeit fuzzily and from far away) when Deb poked her shoulder. Alice’s whole body jolted—unlike the words, the touch was very much there. “Whuh?” she responded.
Deb burst into giggles, even though nothing funny had happened. “Do you think we’re together in every universe, Alice?”
Alice’s brows knitted as she tried to picture other universes. Didn’t universe mean there was only one? “You mean, like… on Saturn, or something?”
“No, like, if there was a new universe every time someone made a decision, and it split off like branches and shit and every line was a new universe?”
Alice puzzled over that one. She imagined the world splitting in two a million times every moment—splitting when she said hello to someone on the sidewalk or didn’t, when she went in for a hug instead of a kiss, whether she got high or stayed sober. A million Alices, falling in love with a million Debs. Debs that should have been in love with her! Debs she never even got to meet because the other Alices stole them!
“Those bitches,” Alice whispered under her breath.
Now it was Deb’s turn to look confused. “What?”
“I’m not gonna let the other universe Alices steal you,” Alice promised.
“Aw, baby!” Deb slumped languidly off her beanbag, dropping her head into Alice’s lap. “It’s okay. Shh. Shhhhhh. The other Alices can’t get me. I’ll fight them. ‘Cause I’m with you.”
Alice took the blunt from her hand. She pulled a breath through it, then blew it back out. “Yeah,” she said. “And I’ll fight all the other Debs. If they wanted me, they shoulda come and got me first.”
“Gerald, do you think this would have happened no matter what?”
Gerald didn’t look up from his newspaper. “Hm?”
“Us getting married, I mean.”
“Yes.” Gerald didn’t even have to think about it. It was simply the truth.
“Really.”
“Yes, really! Maybe not right away, but eventually.”
Linda sat up in bed a little, her nightgown crumpled between her back and the headboard. “And how are you so sure of that?”
Because Gerald knew she’d tried out other men. Even before they got married. She did a good job of hiding from the town—so everyone she slept with thought they were alone in her affections, at least for one night—but she couldn’t hide it from him (or the private investigators he hired). Maybe other men would feel emasculated, knowing their wives were sleeping around. But it only made Gerald more secure in Linda’s love. After all, none of the other men had lasted more than two months. And even then, all they got was to sleep with her. He was the one she went to bed with, the one she woke up beside, the one who occupied her quiet mornings and cozy nights when she needed someone to confide in, or collaborate on her latest scheme. Gerald was maybe the only husband who could claim, for absolute certain, that no man could love his wife better than him.
He smiled at Linda. The late morning sun shimmered in her hair. “I just know.”
“Hey, Holly, do you think we’d be best friends in every universe?” Duke said, leaning over the counter and looking at her with those big brown eyes that’d never truly see her through thick lashes. That loving gaze of his was torture.
“Only about half of ‘em,” Miss Holloway answered. And then, because of course he couldn’t remember it, she added, “why do you ask?”
“I dunno—“ Duke rubbed the back of his pretty head with one strong arm. “I was just wonderin’ if you thought, maybe, something about this was meant to be.”
Miss Holloway smiled sadly. “It’s a nice thought.”
“So, you don’t think so, then.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Miss Holloway didn’t have perfect vision of all the timelines, of course. Half of them she could see clearly—see the moment that bastard Wilbur put his dagger in her chest, or eye, or one embarrassing time, the vein in her thigh (which she privately thought was a lucky shot—he should have hit nothing but flesh and bone)—but the ones where she lived longer were fuzzier, like she wasn’t even allowed to remember herself. And yet, when Duke walked in with those two girls, didn’t she feel like she knew him? Maybe that was her silver lining. Every world where she had to live with her curse, she wouldn’t be completely alone. She’d always have her just-a-bit-more-than-a-friend with eyes like a sweet cow’s who looked right through her.
“Y’alright there, Miss Holloway?” Duke said. “I didn’t mean to—sorry, it was a stupid question anyway.” His eyes dropped down to the checkered paper placemat under his arm. It was so painfully clear what he was asking.
“I love you, Duke. I think you’re my soulmate, too.”
He didn’t remember.
Of course.
“No such thing as a stupid question,” Miss Holloway said, putting a soft smile back on her face. Looking at him, it wasn’t too difficult. “Maybe such thing as a stupid answer, though.”
“What d’ya mean by that?”
Miss Holloway watched the man she loved look at her with nothing but open fondness. “The kind that breaks your own heart,” she said. He stared at her, still waiting for her response. “Maybe you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself.”
“Ted?” Charlotte mumbled into his sweaty chest, still a little breathless from sex.
“Yeah?”
Charlotte paused for a long moment. “Have you ever wondered if—“ she broke herself off. “Never mind. It’s a silly question.”
“So?” Ted shrugged. “I’m curious now. Stupid or not, I wanna hear it.”
“Do you ever wonder if—“ Charlotte chewed a lock of her hair—“If there are some people who are just… meant for each other? Who’d be together in every universe.”
Ted looked incredulously up at the ceiling of Sam Sweetly’s bedroom. There was a crack running from the overhead light halfway to the wall. Was she talking about her husband? That would be sad—imagining sweet little Charlotte tied down to a sadsack who couldn’t see the beautiful woman under those thick sweaters, not just because of her own decisions, but because the universe itself demanded they end up together. But she couldn’t be talking about him. Getting his hopes up vis-à-vis women had never ended well for Ted Spankoffski. “As in, every universe? No matter what?”
“Well, yeah! Don’t laugh at me, you’re the one who wanted to hear!”
“I’m not laughing!” Ted protested. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was aware this was the closest they’d ever gotten to pillow talk. “Char, I don’t even know if there are other universes. Besides, even if there was, I don’t think anyone’s destined for anyone else. Humans are physical beings! We’re not going around looking at each other’s souls. We look at bodies, and how people act. And if different people look good to you at different times, that’s just how it works. ‘Sides, who wants to be tied down to one person forever?”
Charlotte didn’t respond for a moment. When Ted looked over at her, she was staring up just like he had been, her mouth slack. Not a frown, just a complete lack of any effort to make any other expression. “Oh.”
“But, y’know,” he said quickly. “Maybe some people find someone who’s close enough to perfect that the little things don’t matter. And they sorta—choose each other over and over again.”
“You’d better go,” Charlotte said despondently. “Sam’ll be—he said he’d be getting in late, there’s no reason to—“
“Char, honey, you know he doesn’t come home early. We have—”
“Don’t call me honey!” she snapped.
“Well shit, okay!” Ted sat up too fast, pushing her off him. If she was gonna pick some bastard who couldn’t even come home for “cuddle night” once a month over him, he didn’t want her either. He started putting on his pants with angry jerking tugs. “You know, you could tell me to fuck off. I could find someone else to fool around with. You’re not tied down to me, after all.”
“I’m not tied down to anyone,” Charlotte said icily. “Sometimes people have to keep making the right choice.”
“Yeah, sure.” Ted pulled his shirt on. “One day you’re gonna realize—“
“Goodnight, Ted.”
Ted sighed. “Goodnight, Char. See you at the office.” And he left her for her husband to find, and wonder why she was sleeping naked—if he noticed her at all.
“Hey, babe,” Ethan said. “D’you think we’d be together in every universe?”
Lex squeezed her eyes shut, leaning against the cool car window. “Babe, I’m tired. I don’t have the brain power for deep philosophical shit right now.”
“So, basically, what you’re saying is yes?”
“S’not what I said.”
“Because I think we would be.”
Lex cracked one eye open. Ethan kept his eyes on the road. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll bite. Why?”
Ethan flushed a little, his face scrunching up with thought. Hah. Hadn’t gotten that far, had he? “Well, I mean, who else would we be with?”
“We don’t have to be with anybody. We could just be single.”
“Yeah, but that’s no fun!”
“Is it? We could both be sleeping around so much.”
Ethan looked away from the road for half a second to raise his eyebrow. “Babe, we both have full time jobs, plus Hannah, plus you’re studying for the GED. When are we gonna find the time to sleep around?”
“Fair.”
“Besides, we’re best friends anyway, and you’re hot, and I’m hot! It just makes sense!”
Lex gave him a wry smile. “Y’know, most people wait for the other person to tell them they’re hot. Not that, like, it’s wrong, but—“
“I’m just telling the truth,” Ethan shrugged. “‘Sides, Hannah likes me. And you know you can’t resist that.”
That was true. Even before they were officially together, Ethan had been like a big brother to Hannah. Sneaking her snacks, listening to her talk about the songs she was making up, giving her his headphones when the world got too loud. Lex couldn’t pinpoint when she’d started trusting Ethan with her life—what was worth more to her than her life, really—but it had been early. Right from the start, he had just been that kind of person. If she didn’t trust him like that, he wouldn’t be Ethan? Did that mean she would have loved him in every universe? Maybe not romantically. But there would have been something… special there.
Not that Lex was going to admit defeat. She’d already committed to arguing.
“Hey, you know, maybe we should ask Hannah,” Lex suggested, as Ethan pulled into the school parking lot. Knowing Hannah, she won’t see the question as a romantic gesture. She’ll take it completely literally, and give an answer that makes too much sense, and then her and Lex will have Ethan outvoted two to one.
“Okay.” Ethan shrugged. He parked, and a minute later, the back door opened.
Hannah threw her backpack into the back seat, climbing in a moment later. “Hey Lex. Hey Ethan,” she said, her voice lacking energy but not exhausted.
“Hey Nanners,” Ethan said, brightly but not loudly enough to make her wince. Lex reached back through the gap between the seats to squeeze Hannah’s hand. “Are you good to answer, like, one question, or do you just need to zone out?”
“Yeah?” Hannah said suspiciously.
“Don’t worry, it’s not, like, important,” Lex added.
“Yeah, it’s important!” Ethan protested. He turned back to Hannah. “Do you think Lex and I would be together in every universe?”
“Yeah, obviously,” Hannah scoffed without hesitation. She didn’t say it like an opinion; she said it like a fact.
Ethan turned to Lex with a shit-eating grin. “See? See what I was telling you?”
Lex hit him lightly in the shoulder. “That doesn’t prove anything!”
“Uh, yeah it does! Who knows us better than Hannah? If she thinks we’re made for each other—“
Behind them, Hannah rolled her eyes and put her headphones on.
“Hey, Chas-ti- ty , do you think I’m meant to be your man in every—“
“Buzz off, Max. The only thing I’m ‘meant for’ is the kingdom of heaven!”