“You’re right. It was just one date.”

She almost looked disappointed at my reaction.

I realized that my coffee cup was empty. I picked it up and crumpled it in my hand. She smiled; I smiled. Two nervous, awkward smiles. I checked my watch, and she checked hers. We’d swayed on the edge of being something other than strangers, but that was all we could be here.

“Well, it was good seeing you, Karly.”

“You too.”

“Take care of yourself. Be safe.”

“I will.”

“Maybe—” I began, then stopped.

“Maybe what?”

“I don’t know. It’s foolish. I was thinking, maybe sometime we could try a do-over. On our date, I mean.”

She hesitated. “Maybe.”

I got up from the table, but then sat down again immediately. I couldn’t let go of her so easily. I couldn’t let this be nothing more than a vague promise of seeing her again sometime in an uncertain future. I needed more than that. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you one other question?”

“If you like.”

“It’s about your book. Why Portal?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no poem by that name in the book. And the cover, with the endless mirrors. I didn’t see any connection in the poems. What did any of that have to do with what you wrote?”

An answer rolled smoothly off her tongue, as if she’d said it a million times. “I tell people that the book was a portal from who I was to who I am. I was leaving my relationship with Susannah, and my guilt over what happened to her, in the past. I was stepping through a door to somewhere else. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.” But somehow I thought she was testing me, so I relied on my instincts and plunged ahead. “Except I feel like that’s not the real reason. Is it?”

She hesitated. “Actually, no. It’s not.”

“What is?”

Her fingers twisted strands of her hair in a gesture I knew very well. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

“I have no idea why I’m saying this to you, Dylan. I don’t know you, and I’ve never admitted this to anyone.”

Because we’re still connected, I thought.

“I’ll keep your secret,” I told her.

Karly stroked her cheek as she stared at me, studying me, evaluating who I was. A stranger. I could feel her debating with herself. When she spoke, even before she formed the words, I knew she was going to say something that changed absolutely everything. “Have you ever heard of something called the Many Worlds theory? It’s from quantum mechanics in physics.”

I wanted to scream, but I could barely breathe. All I could say was, “I have.”

“Do you know what it says? About the idea of living other lives? About parallel worlds?”

My voice was almost inaudible. “Yes.”

“Do you believe it’s possible?”

“Actually, I do.”

“I tried to drown myself,” Karly went on. “I nearly died.”

“I know.”

“I was in a coma for almost a month.”

“Yes.”

“The thing is, while I was in that coma, I went somewhere. I didn’t even recognize the place. It was some kind of—some kind of dollhouse. I know that sounds weird, but it was a huge dollhouse. There were other Karlys there. Endless numbers of them, all like me, as if they were passing through on their way to somewhere else. It was like I was inside those Many Worlds, at a kind of crossroads.”

She stopped. Embarrassment filled her face. “See, I’m crazy.”

“No. Go on.”

“I met one of the others there. I know how it sounds, but this woman was another me, living a totally different life. I told her everything that had happened to me, about Susannah, about how bitter she was about her business failures, about how we never got along. And then how I lost myself after she was gone. This other Karly understood my dark side, even though she had a much happier life. She was in love. She was married to—”

Karly stopped.

“Who?” I asked urgently. “Who was she married to?”

She looked down. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, she had a different life. Anyway, she wasn’t a poet, but she was talented and funny. We sat in a corner of the dollhouse, watching the other Karlys coming and going, and we wrote poems together. We wrote Portal. Her and me. We sifted through all that dark matter together and came out the other side.”

“That sounds like an amazing experience.”

Karly shook her head with something like wonder. “It was. Except none of it was real.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course it wasn’t. It was me talking to me. All I know is, when I came out of my coma, most of the poems from that book were already in my head. I knew what I needed to do with my life. I was finally ready to let go of the past and become a different person.” Suddenly, Karly pushed her chair back and stood up. “God, what am I doing? This is nuts. Please don’t tell anyone I said this.”

“I won’t.”

“I need to go.”

“No, wait, stay. I want to talk more. There are things I need to tell you.”

“I’m sorry, I really have to go. I’m meeting a student in my office. I don’t know how you found me, Dylan, but I’d rather not discuss any of this again. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

She gathered up her laptop and her papers, but I put my hand gently on hers. The hand where I wore my ring. “Meet me tonight,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please. I want to tell you a story.”

“It’s better if you and I don’t share anything more. We don’t know each other.”

“Karly.”

She stopped. I saw a faint tremble in her whole body. “What is it?”

“Don’t give up on me.”

Her hand covered her mouth. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she stared down at the table and hugged her laptop to her chest.

“Meet me tonight,” I said again.

Without looking up, Karly nodded. “Nine o’clock. Right here.”

Then she hurried away.

After she left, I was flying.

I was so high I couldn’t see any way back down, which is a dangerous thing. The higher you go, the farther you’re likely to fall. Even so, I allowed myself to dream that I could tell Karly the truth, and she might believe me. I began to wonder if she and I could really start over in this world and rebuild what we had. That was the first moment of happiness I’d had since the accident.

Then I went to see Roscoe, and he sent me plummeting back to the ground.

I told him everything that had happened in the past day—including finding the body of his Dylan by the river—and when I was done, he bowed his head in grief. When he finally looked up again, his eyes were as cold as I’d ever seen them. This was not Roscoe the priest. This was Roscoe the friend, and I’d disappointed him.

“I told you that you didn’t belong in this place,” he snapped at me. “I told you to go back home before more people suffered. Now look what you’ve done. Look at the wreckage you’ve already caused.”

“What happened by the river wasn’t my fault,” I protested.

“Is that true? Can I believe anything you tell me? You arrive out of nowhere with this story of parallel worlds, and now you tell me my real friend is dead. Murdered. How do I know that you didn’t decide to do this yourself? Get him out of the way, take over his life, all so you can find a way to be with Karly again.”

I shook my head. “Roscoe, you know me. I would never do anything like that—”

“Actually, you made it clear that I don’t know you. And you’re right. Yesterday you promised me that your only interest in Karly was to protect her from this so-called killer. Now here you are, telling me you think you can get her back, just as I predicted. I’m sorry, Dylan. Haven’t you done enough damage?”

“How is it damage if she and I are meant to be together?”

Roscoe exhaled slowly and loudly. He took off his black glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. Then he positioned them on his face and focused his hard eyes on me. “Do you know what I spent an hour doing just before you got here? I was talking to Tai. She’s devastated. Confused. Afraid. She thinks she’s lost her husband, a man she deeply loves, and from what you tell me, she’s right. I don’t care whether there really is a dead man by the river or not. I don’t care whether your story of parallel worlds is true or a delusion. What I care about is seeing my friend—a man I love—turn his back on his wife and pursue a relationship with someone else. That is not who you are.”

“Roscoe, I feel bad for Tai, but I don’t love her. She’s not my wife.”

“In this world, she is!” Roscoe shouted, his voice echoing off the high ceiling of the church. He closed his eyes, then spoke more softly. “I’m sorry. If you’re going to live in this world, you have responsibilities to this world. You can’t come in here and expect things to be the way they were. You made decisions here. You made choices here. You have to honor them.”