I couldn’t meet Angela’s eyes, and so I suggested we go into the theater and start a movie. Any movie. Because being in a darkened room, where no one would see all the crap written on my face, was the best place to be. Under the circumstances, we agreed to put on a dumb comedy, because it was less likely to make anyone hurl. For the life of me, I can’t remember what movie it was or tell you anything that happened in it.

When it was over, I tried to wrap up the evening quickly. I was the first one out of my seat, and I did my best to make small talk as I tried to herd everyone toward the door. But even my small talk now had larger implications.

“So Paul—since you’re like Mr. STEM—what do you know about alternate universes?”

“Is this a video game question?” he asked. “Because I kick ass on Death Parallax. I can school you in multiple universes, free of charge.”

“No, it’s a real-world question.”

“Hmm,” he said. I wasn’t quite sure what the “hmm” meant. Maybe he was impressed, or just surprised that I would ask such a question. “Well, according to string theory, there are either ten, eleven, or twenty-six dimensions. But sometimes I think Nobel Prize winners pick random numbers just to piss off the other Nobel Prize winners.”

Then Norris said something about there being a black hole in Uranus, and that was the note that ended the evening.

I took a moment at the door to give a heartfelt thanks to Paul. “Y’know—for the chicken,” I told him.

“No problem,” he said, catching my meaning. “I hope you feel better.”

Norris left with Kendra leading the way, and I could already tell they wouldn’t be going on another date in any universe.

Leo and Angela were the last to go. I can’t deny that I was awkward in my goodbyes to them. That could be easily attributable to my heaving stomach—which really was heaving, just not because of the chicken. But less than a minute after they left, I saw Angela’s purse next to the pool table, just as the doorbell rang. I grabbed it, to hand it to her at the door, but the purse, like the bad chicken, was just a ruse. She had left it on purpose.

“What is going on with you, Ash?” she asked as we stood in the foyer, me holding her purse, and her refusing to take it until she had an answer. “And don’t you dare tell me it’s something you ate.”

There was truth, and there was TRUTH. The bigger truth was not something I could share, but the smaller one—the personal one—I could speak to, even though every instinct for self-preservation told me to shut down and say nothing.