I thought it was our beginning, but it was so close to the end.

I can’t believe I had forgotten about that so completely. How had my brain been powerful enough to hide that from me?

I guess I hadn’t wanted to remember. It was too hard.

I look down at the picture in my tight grip and turn the frame over to take the back off so I can look for a date.

There it is. The picture was printed only three years ago.

I don’t even need that confirmation. It’s obvious to me that this is a version of Aimee that I never knew.

It seems like I live here, in Avalon. And that Aimee does, or did live here too, or at the very least, visited. What if—

Oh my God.

It all comes crashing down on me, as hard and fast as a Florida thunderstorm in summer.

I suddenly know exactly what’s happening. Suspension of disbelief fully engaged.

This is the other life. The one I would have had.

I feel like I’ve missed an entire flight of stairs when I remember the words of that night at the carnival.

Usually, there is only one line here. You have two. Two lives, girl.

I’ve spent my whole adult life fantasizing about what would have happened if I’d turned right instead of left, gone to Ireland for school by myself instead of staying in Florida. I’ve spent my whole life blocking out that memory, not willing to think about what the fortune teller meant by that, because how often and how hard can you consider the words of a fortune teller at a local carnival?

But … what if she was right?

I will never know what she saw in Aimee’s palm. She never said it out loud. But when Aimee died, I felt a terrible, sinking certainty that maybe I did know.

And now, there is a deep knowing spreading through me, the kind that only happens when you are reluctant to believe what you already know.

I am in that other life.

Of course it’s not that I don’t want to believe it. It’s that it feels very, very hard to accept it.

Because I’m not a psychopath who thinks, yeah, sure, that makes perfect sense, the sky is green, time is a bagel, the Earth is made of Jell-O, yahoo, let’s all wear shoes on our hands now.

But I’m starting to think it’s the truth.