“Check this one out.” Erin swiped to an old photo of me at a weightlifting competition, my meaty hand on a beefcake dude, both of us giving a thumbs-up.

“Okay, that’s super creepy.”

“Kinda like if somebody grabbed you and put you in their timeline without asking?”

“I’m so sorry about that. Can you forgive me?”

“Yeah,” Erin said, putting her phone away and placing her hands against my thighs as she leaned toward me. “I think I can do that.”

Donnie brought me back to the lab and I gave him notes on traversing timelines, let him take EKG readings and draw blood samples for interdimensional radioactivity. I asked him to increase my next visit to three hours, then five, and soon I was at Erin’s lake house most of the day. We’d make love and smoke joints, and she’d practice new songs for me. There was no TV at the lake, so we did other things, like hiking and cooking and making plans to go kayaking once it got warmer. Being with her let me see how much of a slacker I’d been in my own universe. I envisioned that other me, slumped on the couch, my feet on the coffee table littered with roaches and beer bottles, playing video games all night, and I felt embarrassed for the person I’d become.

That evening when I returned to our small apartment, Erin was in the bedroom in front of her computer. I cleaned up the kitchen and did push-ups in the living room, and we didn’t fight or argue about not having sex, I just surprised her by cooking dinner, and Erin was happy to have the time to write. She’d left her earrings on the kitchen table. They were a small gift I’d found at the Tibetan shop downtown when we first started dating—two turquoise teardrops. Seeing them, I suddenly envisioned a timeline where Erin was gone from my life, taking her earrings and everything else with her when she left.

“Hey,” I said, standing in the doorway of our bedroom. Erin turned from the computer, annoyed, and I took a deep breath. “I know I’ve been smoking weed and playing video games all the time and probably haven’t been that interesting to live with.”

“Okay,” she said.

“And I know you probably felt really alone because of it. And I’m sorry. I haven’t been much of a boyfriend. I was hoping weed would help, because we used to laugh and have fun, but I was wrong. So, I just want you to know that I’d like to do other things with you, like take walks, or cook together, or … well … whatever you want to do. I just want to be with you.”