“Shit, sorry.” I took off my wet boots and put them on the shoe rack, then grabbed some paper towels and mopped up the muddy prints. I microwaved a burrito, which started another fight. Why did I eat junk all the time? Why did it matter if we weren’t having sex? Maybe it’d be sexy if I got a job. Um, I had an actual job, I was doing groundbreaking freaking science. Playing with mice for two hundred bucks a week didn’t constitute groundbreaking science. Well, maybe if she asked me about trans-dimensionality or spooky action at a distance she might know how freaking awesome our discoveries were. Was I seriously rolling a joint right now? Why the fuck not? Then she was shutting our bedroom door, and I was alone, puffing really good ganj out the kitchen window. I knocked on her door to ask if she wanted a hit, and she told me to start looking for a new apartment.

So, yeah, I was hurt and heartbroken. I wanted our old timeline back: a reality where we wrestled on the couch, made love every night, and when the munchies hit, bundled into parkas and trekked it to the Shell station for cheese puffs. And no, it wasn’t morally right, or well-thought-out, or even a plan—I was just really high and had access to Erin’s hair. Seriously, I wasn’t trying to fuck up everyone’s lives. I only wanted to know if somewhere in the universe there was an Erin who still loved me.

Among the nine million things that could’ve gone wrong: I could’ve wrecked the space-time continuum; the Earth could’ve become a black hole; the program could’ve glitched and an alternate Erin would’ve been trapped between parallel realities in a netherworld where particle trash and hungry ghosts passed her forever. But what I was hoping, when I dragged one of her timelines onto mine, was that particles would instinctively know how to make room for other particles, that a parallel-timeline concert was also happening at the Blind Pig, and that Erin would find herself there, seamlessly dancing, without ever knowing the difference. So I closed my eyes and hit Enter.

By the time I got to the club, Erin was by the stage. Her hair was longer and her shoulders weren’t slumped from typing, and when she turned and saw me making my way through the crowd, I had that same fluttering feeling in my heart like the first time I’d seen her at the Film Club.

“Good band, huh?” I yelled.

“Ya!” she yelled back. “Did you see the first one?”

“No! It’s loud in here!”

“Want to go smoke a bowl?”

“Sure!”