“Well, this setup sucks. I don’t want you living with some other me, sleeping there, eating together; I want you here, with me, in my reality. You said you liked this me better, right? Can’t you break up with that other me and move into my timeline?”

“Well … I mean … I’ve got my family in the other world, and my job.”

“You could still visit them. Get a new job here.”

I lay in bed wondering if that could work. Could I go back and visit my parents for the holidays, catch up with old buddies? And what about the other Erin, the one I had photos and memories of, the one who’d been sending me happy texts again, my lover who I was falling back in love with?

A small jewelry tree stood on the dresser, and hanging from it was the pair of turquoise earrings from the Tibetan shop that I’d bought Erin.

“Where’d you get those?” I asked. I got out of bed and looked at them. They had the same small fleck of tarnish in the silver, precisely the flaw in the pair I’d given Erin.

“Didn’t you give me … Actually, let me see them,” Erin said. I brought the earrings to her. “I can’t remember where I got them, but they’re really nice.”

I didn’t mention the earrings to Donnie when I got back to the lab, but that night I searched and couldn’t find them anywhere. “Stop looking for things and come kiss me,” Erin said, wrapping her arms around me. And though I wanted to double-check the bathroom cabinet, she pulled me into the bedroom where we made love again.

The next morning, Erin asked me about her favorite coffee mug. We’d gotten it a year ago when we drove cross-country to see her parents. “The one we got from Montana with the big heart on it?” she said, rummaging through the cabinets.

I couldn’t find it until that afternoon when I went to get water at the lake house and saw the mug in Erin’s cabinet. “Do you recognize this?” I asked.

“Nope. Maybe somebody left it when I had a party.”

I didn’t say anything, but the next time I visited her, my PlayStation was in her living room. “Why’d you bring this?” she asked me. “I don’t even have a TV.”