Page 65 of What If It's You?

“If I broke up with Ollie, that would be the end, right?”

“How do you figure?”

“So it’s not just you and me that are different because of this, right? Ollie is too. But if I ended things with him, maybe there’s a way that he could get back on the same track he’s on here. And you and I could…you know.”

“Get together?”

“Exactly. It would close the loop on the question that started all this in the first place. The timelines might be out of sync, but in both worlds I’d wind up with you…right?” I said, ignoring the leaden feeling it brought on.I don’t want to be with Drew.But better to try it from that starting point, knowing how we turned out, than wind up in the wrong life altogether. Or just…not wind up.

“It’s possible. It would at least give the problem sequence a hard end point,” Drew said, tone distant. “Honestly…I don’t know if it would work. But it’s…what you want?” As always with Drew, I knew the question wasn’t loaded. He simply wanted to know.

And the answer was no, of course. It’s not what I wanted. But I needed to fix this any way possible, not just for me, but for Ollie. Knowing what I’d stolen from him—a life in which he achieved everything he’d always hoped for, managed to live out what had always seemed like an impossible dream—how could I not at leasttryto give him a chance at that? Maybe if I did, there would be some point in the distant future when we could find each other safely. And build something even better.

“Yes,” I lied. “It’s what I want.”

“In that case—yes. There’s at least a solid possibility this could work. If you want to do it, I’d say it’s worth a shot.”

“The only problem is I don’t know how to get to World O. The other world,” I said, collapsing into the couch. That was rather alargeproblem.

“I might be able to help with that, actually,” Drew said.

“Seriously?”

“I told you that stopping the individual sequences wasn’t working, right?”

“Right…”

“Well thereasonit isn’t working, as far as we can tell, is that there’s an unidentified user in the system, which means we can’t see what sequences that user is running and therefore can’t manually stop any of them. Just guessing at the user’s identity might cause evenmoreproblems, and if—”

“It’s okay, I don’t need the full picture, just the high level.”

“Right. Sorry, I think I’m like…ninety percent caffeine right now.” I smiled, an echo of tenderness for my friend creeping in even in the midst of the chaos. Just because I now knew that he wasn’t my person, that didn’t negate why I’d asked the question in the first place. “Anyway. Now that we know who the user is, I can assign it, then log it out.”

“Because it’s me?”

“Who else could it be?” I could almost hear him shrug. “Shutting off my original ‘What if Laurel had said no’ sequence wouldn’t have pulled you into this world in the middle of the night if this computer weren’t still interested in you. But if we’re right, and itisyou, then logging you off fully in this world should terminate all your sequences here. Whichshouldsend you back to that world.”

“Permanently?” The excitement seed that had been sittingdormant through most of the conversation started shooting out roots, a tiny stem, miniature ovoid buds…

“Maybe. But if other-me hasn’t fixed things on his side, I can’t predict what will happen. I can tell you that after we try this, if you somehow wind up hereagain…I won’t have any more levers to pull.”

“So in that case…I’d be staying. In this world.”

“Yup. And at this point, the program has gotten so mixed up over where you’re meant to be, there’s every possibility youwillwind up back here. That computer and this one have clearly become entangled. Even if what we’re talking about fully solves for whatmycomputer is doing, it won’t touch the other one. That computer might still have major bugs that could result in it kicking you back here. Or it’s possible in that world they’ll wind up scrapping the entire thing, and if that happens…”

I couldn’t let him finish that thought. Dana had outlined that worst case very chillingly already.

“So I have one shot at this?”

“If that. I’m eighty-five percent sure I can send you back to that world rightnow,after that…honestly, we’re so far outside the realms of what’s even theoretically possible at this point, who knows.”

I smiled sardonically, Drew’s unintentional echo of Dana amusing…or it would be if we weren’t talking about me winding up in the wrong life, or in limbo, or dead in the theoretical box he’d gone and actually created.

“So…do you want that? To go back?”

“I do,” I admitted. “It’s not because I don’t care about you, Drew, I do. But…I’m not thisme,I’m not actually the person that wound up with you.”

“You don’t need to explain, Laurel. Anyway…I never would have asked the question if I wasn’t wondering the same thing. Whether we were right for each other, I mean.” The gentleness of his tone, the rough edge of what might be tears deepening hisvoice, split something open inside me. I heard him take a few deep breaths as I blinked furiously against the tears stinging my own eyes. There were a lot of ways to love someone. And to hurt them. “Anyway,” he finally said. “Ready to head out?”

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