She exhales heavily and says, “I changed my mind. I realized I was making a major life decision based on fear and decided that it was a worthier thing to follow your dream than to have no dream of my own. I couldn’t stay home for a guy, in the end. I figured if it was meant to be, then me leaving for an opportunity like this wouldn’t mean saying no to a life with him eventually. And he wasn’t really getting it together yet. The weed-smoking was a lot back then, and obviously it just was different then. Like a whole-ass lifestyle.”

It’s true. When we were teenagers, you didn’t have to be a prude to think the stoners were lame. Now, in California, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have gummies, a vape pen, a topical cream.… I could go on.

I hear her phone buzz on her stack of things in the aisle where she left them.

“That’ll be Theo,” she says. “I usually put the kids to bed.”

“Okay.”

She pauses, then says, “It is annoying, you’d think he could do it one night without me. Maybe I should divorce him.”

She’s kidding of course, and I laugh gratefully. “I love that guy, I think you should stay forever.”

We both laugh, then when the awkward silence hits, she inhales through her nose and says, “I’d better…”

“Yeah, for sure.”

She goes back out into the empty theater and picks up her phone, then gathers her things. She holds up a hand to say goodbye, and I hold mine up.

“Turn the lights off, yeah?” she says.

She goes through the squeaky door to the outside, and I’m left by myself.

That night, I text Cillian and he tells me that he’s got a busy night at the pub. I text Kiera, too, who says she’s busy but can’t wait to see the show tomorrow.

I get back to the cottage, absent of all the company I’ve had recently, and feel overwhelmed by the emptiness.

It’s not that I feel sorry for myself or panic at the idea that I have to face an entire evening alone.

No, it’s weirder than that. More complicated.

In the last couple of days, I’ve been feeling more and more divided. Tense but relaxed. Happy but worried. As if I’m slicing into two. And I’ve seen enough movies, consumed enough stories, to fear what I think might be inevitable.

Tomorrow night, after the show, I have a flight from Dublin to LAX. I have no intention of getting on that flight. I would cancel it if I could, but of course my ticket doesn’t exist. It’s from the other reality. So why am I so afraid that the end will come and take me?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE