She didn’t need to push aside thoughts of unfaithfulness or guilt, for in that moment she had given herself fully to story. The worlds had split. She could never understand how, though they had discussed bubble universes, their worlds like membranes floating trillionths of a trillionth of an inch apart from each other; dark matter separated them from the world they had come from, that Mother Earth had unfolded herself from, spiraling them here, across some hidden fourth dimension of space and across space into this parallel. They collided into each other, energy converting energy into hot matter and radiation, their impact no accident nor fate but part of the endless saga of creation and destruction and recreation. Two bodies pinned together with the force and mystery of a singularity.

She lay atop him, curled into him, as they finished, panting and slick against each other’s bodies. He held her as if he were afraid she would again become mirage, turn figment and float away. She breathed out deeply, her laughter surprising her. “Why weren’t we doing that the whole time?”

He laughed wryly, squeezing her, kissing her atop her head. “I didn’t know it was an option, mujer, believe me.”

She slid onto the wool blanket, and he turned sideways, facing her, their legs entwined, her head resting in the crook of his arm.

“You would leave your people for me? Though you’re meant to be here? I sometimes feel like this is your myth, your people’s story, and I’ve just fallen into it by mistake. I’m not meant to be here. I’m an intruder, not sure how I got pulled in …”

“You’re my story, mujer. I made you a promise. I’ll stay with you as long as I can. We’ll figure out what to do next once we get there. First, we have to get you home.”

Her pulse quickened at the word home. Here on the floor, lying with Chance, their whole lives seemed to stretch in front of them. It could stay this way. It didn’t have to end.

She didn’t have to rise from the dead.