lionofstone

Devin is nineteen or he’s three months old or he’s dead. He’s beginning to realise that he’s all three at once. 

He cocks his head to the side and peers at the writing on the wall, trying once again to make sense of Spenser’s spiky scrawl. It’s easier said than done; Spenser’s handwriting is atrocious and the lines are squashed so tightly together that the chalk rubs itself out where the letters have overlapped. But there are a few words that stand out and make sense. Or make sense as words, anyway. Devin still can’t wrap his head around their meanings. 

Reality converges. Single entity. God-like powers. 

For all of Spenser’s good qualities, there’s no denying that he has a flair for the dramatics. Devin raises his hand and peers at the words through the spaces between his fingers. God-like powers. He has to scoff. He doesn’t have any god-like powers. He can barely operate a toaster without risk of serious injury. 

Then again, he did recently discover the existence of the multi-verse entirely by accident. 

“—vin? Devin?” 

“Hmm?” Devin answers without looking away from the chalkboard wall and his own hand, still suspended in midair. Spenser doesn’t take offence to this. They’ve known each other long enough that they’re used to each other. Or…have they only known each other a few days? An hour? No, at least a week. Devin can’t keep the different timelines straight anymore and it’s been less than eight days since the first intersection. But they’ve known each other at least a week and that’s given Spenser enough time to adapt to Devin’s nature. 

Spenser says, “Are you…intersecting?” 

Devin shakes his head. In the last one hundred eighty hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirty-six seconds (thirty-seven, thirty-eight), Devin has ‘intersected’ approximately forty-seven and a half times. He’s becoming used to the way that it feels like his head is being simultaneously squeezed in a vice and stretched apart like taffy. Spenser says that he gets a far-away look on his face and just stares at nothing. But to Devin, it’s not so simple. He’s just glad that Spenser believes him. 

Spenser always believes him. That, at least, is consistent across every reality Devin has found himself in. 

“No,” Devin answers out loud a moment too late. “No, I’m just…reading your notes.” 

“Oh,” Spenser says, perking up immediately and sliding over to lean against the chalkboard wall. Devin remembers Spenser begging his mom to put up the peel-and-stick wallpaper when he was seven years old, desperate to colour on the walls but insisting that chalk was much better than whiteboard pens. But that was in a different reality than this one, he’s pretty sure. He doesn’t ask. Spenser continues, “Do you like it? I’m still torn between calling it ‘intersecting’ or ‘converging’—I like intersecting just because of how it happened the first time, but converging probably sounds better as, like, a scientific theory—“ 

Devin lets Spenser’s voice wash over him, nodding at the appropriate times and keeping his gaze focused on the wall so Spenser won’t notice his eyes going blurry. 

The first time it happened, Devin was crossing the street. 

The crossing light was still red but Devin had walked through that intersection a hundred times and knew the patterns of the traffic lights like the back of his hand. He’d felt safe crossing anyway. So he’d stepped out into the road, carefully and precisely because his white trainers were new and he didn’t want to scuff them, and started to walk. He’d felt safe. He was listening to electro-pop through his earbuds, bopping his head in time with the beat, hands shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker. He’d felt safe.

And then that car had careened into the crossing, horns blaring and headlights blinding. Devin should’ve picked up his feet and ran but instead he froze as if he’d grown roots into the concrete and the car just kept coming–

Devin’s head felt like it was about to explode and implode at the same time and suddenly he could see a hundred million different possibilities laid out like a roadmap of intersections and roundabouts. Devin didn’t have a driver’s licence in that reality (although he’s pretty sure that he has one here, terrifyingly enough) but he’d reacted on instinct, spinning the wheel wildly and crashing into a different timeline. He’d been three months old wherever he ended up. His mother had fussed over him for about twenty minutes before the roadmap appeared again, flashing painfully into his mind. He’d taken another sharp turn and ended up back home, with Spenser.

Except that this isn’t Devin’s original timeline. He’s pretty sure that he’s dead in that one.

Spenser has been much more excited about the possibilities of this than Devin has been able to convince himself to be. Devin keeps flashing between realities, between timelines and lives and universes. Sometimes the writing on the wall is done in cramped chalk and sometimes it’s in a green whiteboard pen. Sometimes Spenser is brunet and sometimes ginger. Sometimes Devin lives with his mom and sometimes his dad and once, heartbreakingly, with both of them. The only thing that stays consistent is Devin himself; dirty nails, scabby face, nervous disposition.

Devin tries to come back to this reality most, but sometimes he thinks he gets it wrong. It’s so hard to tell. The trouble with the multi-verse is that, among infinite possibilities and infinite minute differences, there are so many realities that are functionally identical. Devin doesn’t know how to tell them apart and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s okay that he can’t as long as he keeps coming back to a Spenser that believes him.

“Devin, you zoned out again,” Spenser says with a pout. “I can never tell if you’re doing that ’cause I’m boring or ’cause you’re hopping off to a better universe.”

Devin shakes his head and finally lowers his hand. “Sorry. I was thinking of going somewhere where your handwriting is easier to read.”

“Mom calls it ‘chicken scratch’,” Spenser says with a proud smile. Devin can’t help returning it–he likes the way Spenser says ‘mom’ with an ‘o’ sound even years and years after leaving America. (Or maybe he only moved two months ago, in this reality, Devin has no idea. He can’t ever bring himself to ask.) “I’ve worked hard to make my handwriting look like this. Terrible penmanship is like, a scientist’s trademark. Don’t you like it?”

There are lots of things Devin could say to that, lots of possibilities and outcomes and varying realities. He settles on, “Are you a scientist?”

Spenser sighs dramatically. “Not yet. But I will be! Your crazy powers are gonna be my big break.”

Devin figures it’s okay that he doesn’t know the exact details of every possible reality so long as the broad strokes of Spenser stay the same: that he wants to be a scientist, that he likes messy note-taking, that he believes Devin’s crazy stories about intersections and car crashes and being nineteen and three months old and dead all at once. Spenser believes him enough to try to study it and to cover his chalkboard walls in scratching handwriting. 

“Thanks for…helping me with this, Spense.” 

“You say that every day,” is Spenser’s easy response. Flippant, maybe. Devin does say it every day. But one day Devin might make a wrong turn and end up in the wrong place and he wants to be sure that, if he does disappear to some other timeline, Spenser knows how valuable he’s been. Devin doesn’t know exactly what happens to the realities that he leaves behind. It’s one of the many questions that Spenser has written on the wall. What happens to the other Devins? Is there even more than one? 

“I mean it every day.” 

Spenser just rolls his eyes and waves a hand casually through the air as though to say don’t worry about it or maybe of course. “So,” he says after a moment, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he does when he’s particularly excited. “I’m working on a theory. What if there really is only one of you in the whole of the multi-verse? You’d be truly unique, maybe the only person who really is—“ 

The downside of Spenser believing him so easily is that sometimes he goes off on tangents like this, bred purely of an astute scientific curiosity, that make it sound like Devin is the singular most important thing. It’s overwhelming and Devin never really knows how he’s supposed to react to it. But the sound of Spenser’s voice is something soothing and familiar so he lets him talk and tries to react well to his attention. Devin’s never really been a spotlight sort of person. 

“—and if you really are the only person who exists across the entire multi-verse, then you should really see what you can do and change.” 

“Wait, wait, what? I don’t want to try to mess with things! I just want to figure out how to stay in one place!” 

“But why?” Spenser asks earnestly. He talks with his whole body; he leans forward with his shoulders slumping and his hands raised in front of his chest, palms up. “I would love the chance to—maybe you can—anything, Dev, anything is possible. Infinite realities. Why would you want to just stay here?” 

Devin opens and closes his mouth several times before shaking his head. “I’ve already cheated death. I don’t want to mess with any more things. It feels like it would be…wrong.” 

“We don’t know what the rules are—if there even are rules!” Now, Spenser has his hands in his hair and he spins in a small circle by putting all of his weight on his back heel. “Maybe you get to create the rules! There’s a reality where physics don’t exist. Physics.” 

In his original reality, the one where he died, Spenser had told Devin about a paradox. It went like this: if the multi-verse is real, and every tiny, minute possibility can and does exist somewhere out there, then there is a universe where the multi-verse doesn’t exist. Essentially, the multi-verse exists. Except in the universe where it doesn’t. It had made Devin’s head hurt at the time and now it makes him feel like he’s about to intersect. He has to fight the feeling away. He doesn’t want to bounce into some other reality right now. 

“Why is breaking the laws of physics a good thing?” 

“Because you aren’t breaking them!” Spenser says, dropping his hands onto Devin’s shoulders for just a moment before they’re floating away, waving through the air as he paces through his bedroom. “If they don’t exist then you can’t break them!” 

“But surely they would exist,” Devin says reasonably. “They just won’t be the same as they are here.” 

“Semantics.” 

Devin sits down on the double bed and picks at the navy duvet, still staring at the chicken scratch writing on the chalkboard wall. Spenser continues to pace, muttering about missed opportunities and potential powers. Eventually, Spenser will circle back to asking Devin questions. He always does. For now, Devin shakes off another intersection and tries to remain completely and totally present in the moment that he’s currently in. He focuses on the feeling of the cold air drifting through the open window and the squeak of the mattress springs as he bounces lightly in his seat and the smell of chalk dust as Spenser picks up a new piece and starts to write on the tiniest bit of empty space. He’s not going to intersect again. He’s going to stay here forever. He just has to focus. 

He fails. 

Maybe he’d be able to be more appreciative of his life-altering reality-bending powers if he could control them even a little bit. Instead, Devin’s head aches as it snaps back to the roadmap. If there is a reality where Devin knows how to drive, it’s clearly not a skill that’s carried over to this space between worlds. The driving metaphor would probably make more sense if it was but Devin can think of no other way to explain the hundreds of thousands of different lanes (parallel lines that were never meant to meet) and there’s a reason that ‘crossroads’ is such a common expression when referring to choices. Devin might not literally be behind a wheel but he certainly feels like he’s losing control and he doesn’t know how to break. 

There are headlights racing towards him and he’s frozen. There are a million possibilities in front of him and he’s frozen. 

Even a lack of choice is a choice. For a second, he’s back on that first crossing, electro-pop blaring. And then he’s in Spenser’s room again, picking at the pale blue duvet. Spenser is crouched in front of him, squatting near to the floor. “I lost you there for a second,” he says and Devin doesn’t think he’s supposed to notice the waver in his voice. “You good, man?” 

Devin has goose-pimples running up and down his arms. The duvet was navy before, wasn’t it? He’s ended up somewhere different again and has no way of knowing how much is different. Is it just the bedspread? What about the conversation they were just having? Spenser’s eyes are soft as he looks up at him, kind and familiar (even if they’re green and not brown), but Devin is very aware that this is a different Spenser than the one that he just left behind. But how can he explain that? How can he admit to not knowing anything about this universe for sure? 

He says, “Yeah. I’m fine.” 

“Did you intersect?” Spenser asks. A crease forms between his eyebrows as he speaks. Devin swallows and looks away. “Oh, Dev…” 

Spenser hops onto the bed next to Devin, swinging his legs back and forth. He might be the only person Devin knows who actually uses a box spring and a mattress, meaning that even as grown nineteen-year-olds, their feet don’t touch the ground when they dangle their legs over the side of the bed. This, at least, hasn’t changed between the universe he left and the one he’s landed back in. Just the duvet. Light blue, not navy. 

“I never know how long we’ve…I don’t know if my memories match with yours, anymore,” Devin says lowly, refusing to meet Spenser’s eyes. “Every time I go there…” 

“You end up back somewhere different,” Spenser finishes for him. 

Devin nods. They’re quiet for a long moment. 

When the silence shifts from contemplative to uncomfortable, Devin says, “When did we meet?” 

“We were…seven? I think? Maybe a little older. You lived up the street and when you saw the moving boxes in our recycling you tried to steal them.” 

“To make the world’s best cardboard fort, of course,” Devin says and he even manages a little laugh at the nostalgia of it. He remembers this. This is familiar. 

Spenser agrees, “Of course. And when you told me that, I had to get involved. You made fun of my accent, remember?” 

“I’d only ever heard Americans on the telly!” Devin defends himself, allowing a genuine smile to take over his face. Spenser returns it, knocking their shoulders together. 

“Anyway, we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

Devin’s smile is gone just as quickly as it arrived. “Except for when I intersect and jump into random universes where maybe we aren’t. Maybe one of these times I’m going to disappear into a timeline where I stole your cardboard and, instead of joining me, you just thought I was weird or something and we’re mortal enemies?” 

“Or where I never moved here.” Spenser’s face twists unhappily until he’s scowling at the chalkboard wall as if it personally insulted his mother. 

“Mate, you’re not helping.” 

“Sorry,” he shrugs apologetically. “I’m not sure what I can do to help. You’re right. There’re infinite universes, infinite possibilities. I don’t want to imagine ones where we aren’t friends, but they must exist. Just…make sure you come back to one with me in it, okay?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Devin promises, instead of pointing out that even doing that will leave other versions of Spenser behind. He thinks of the navy bedspread and wonders what’s happening in that universe now that he’s left it. 

The next morning, Devin wakes with a pounding headache that, thankfully, doesn’t seem to be dragging him into the intersection. It’s just a bog-standard headache. He’s kind of missed them. He’s spent the night in a sleeping bag on Spenser’s bedroom floor–a near-permanent fixture of the room, given how often Devin sleeps over unprepared–and any discomfort he feels because of it is definitely worth it. Spenser is still asleep. Devin sits up and rubs a random word off of the chalkboard wall, determined to stay quiet. But even this shuffling is enough to rouse Spenser, who’s apparently a very light sleeper in this universe. Something about this rubs Devin the wrong way, but he refrains from saying anything. 

“Hey,” Spenser slurs, then clears his throat and tries again. “Morning. Had a dream, gave me an idea.” 

“Go back to sleep,” Devin whispers. “You sound super tired.” 

Spenser waves off this concern, pushing both hands through the air as he sits up and rubs at his face. “Do you want to hear my idea or not?” 

Devin doesn’t need to answer. Spenser already knows that he does. 

“We’ve been thinking of you as the only one, right?” Spenser asks as they get dressed. 

“Sure,” Devin agrees, pulling on a spotted shirt and ignoring the new white trainers that are sitting at the base of the sleeping bag. “Hey, can I borrow some shoes?” 

Spenser doesn’t even question it, just gestures towards the wardrobe with one hand. “But what if you aren’t unique?” 

“Gee. Really makes me feel special.” 

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” Spenser shakes his head and grabs a hoodie from the back of his desk chair. “I’m saying, what if other people intersect? What if there’re other people like you who could help?” 

“Even if there are,” Devin says slowly because he really doesn’t want to get his hopes up, “how would we find them?” 

Spenser doesn’t slump or frown or show any signs of discouragement. It’s not in his nature to let silly things like multi-dimensional travel slow him down. Instead, his grin stretches even wider and he snatches his car keys off his desk to point in Devin’s sceptical face. “We go for a drive.” 

Devin doesn’t bother questioning this train of thought. 

They go to the car. They drive. 

Spenser talks while they drive but not about what they’re doing. He just natters about the weather and what’s been on the telly. He doesn’t sound American anymore, not after twelve years in England and moving so young, but Devin still keeps an ear out for the accent anyway. It comes through on the occasional vowel, something that Spenser must hold on to through conversations with his mum. It’s soothing and familiar in the way that the colour of the sky is: ever-present and consistent. (Devin has yet to find any reality where the sky isn’t blue. He’s not sure how he’ll react when he finally does.) 

Spenser drives them to the largest roundabout in town and circles through it a few times. “When you go…there,” he asks finally, “is it like this?” 

“No,” Devin answers swiftly. “It’s an intersection, you know that.” 

Spenser nods. “Parallel lines? Stoplights? Crossings?” 

“That’s the best way I can describe it.” Devin’s tried to find other comparisons. He doesn’t drive. In his original reality, he’d failed the theory test twice. If he could describe that place between worlds in a different way he would. But whenever he goes there–whenever he ‘intersects’ as Spenser calls–he feels like he’s behind the wheel of a car and has to act quickly to avoid cashing. To avoid being hit. “A roundabout is too…smooth. Stuff leads into other stuff. But there…it’s like you said, it’s an intersection of different timelines meeting like lines on a graph.” 

“I…” Spenser trails off. 

Devin’s stomach churns. “You didn’t say that, did you?” 

He shakes his head, pulling his lips between his teeth. “No. But it does sound like something I’d say. I said it was a convergence of different realities. Focusing in on a particular entity. You. But it’s not a merge, is it? It’s too harsh to be that. So maybe it’s not converging on anything. Maybe it’s just a crossing, a-a point where you can choose a direction to go.” 

“Okay,” Devin says. It makes as much sense as anything. “But how does that lead to us finding someone who could help?” 

Spenser raises a finger and finally picks an exit out of the roundabout. “I’m getting to that.” 

They drive only a few seconds in silence before Spenser starts speaking again. “In a roundabout, everyone is going the same direction, moving the same way, until they take an exit. There’s no…rush or fighting or anything. But at a junction–an intersection–people are waiting at stoplights and revving their engines and hoping that they get to take their turns first. It’s more of a competition, right?” 

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to think of driving.” 

“Which one of us has their licence? Trust me on this,” he laughs, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “So if your place between realities is more like a junction than a roundabout, then you’re in competition with other people.” 

“I’ve never seen anyone else there,” Devin says dubiously. 

“Have you been looking?” 

It’s a fair point. For the most part, Devin just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible. He doesn’t want to be there. He wants to find a reality as close to his original one as possible and just stay there, safe and sane and normal. He’s certainly not been taking time to explore the various roads or pathways. 

Spenser pulls up to a stoplight and points through the windshield at all the other lanes and lights, the other cars that also sit around them. “All of these places where people could be waiting. If you can find one of them, and speak to them, maybe they could help you learn.” 

Devin licks his lips and pulls his knees up to his chest, so his heels are on the seat with him. It’s not a totally safe position to sit in but he can’t bring himself to care. Spenser doesn’t scold him for it. He sits silently like this until the light changes and the car starts moving again. “If I do find someone, and that’s a big if, and they agree to help me…I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my way back here. And I don’t know what happens to…this…me when I’m not around.” 

“I know,” Spenser says, staring resolutely out of the windshield and swallowing thickly. “This isn’t the universe that you come from, though. You said it’s different. But there was a you here before yesterday and he was my best friend and he told me about these intersections and–and I don’t know if I’ll ever understand how that could have happened but it did. So I know that even if you go, I won’t be alone. I’ll still have him. You.” 

Devin looks out the passenger side window and blinks hard. “I’ve met a lot of different versions of you now. How is it that you’re brilliant in every reality?” 

“That’s scientifically impossible,” Spenser says with a weak laugh. Maybe it is. It still feels true. After a beat, Spenser says, “If you leave because you’re trying to figure it out, it’s gonna suck a lot less than leaving because you can’t help it.” 

That’s probably true. 

Devin’s bog-standard headache starts to pound again. It’s starting to feel a little less bog-standard. “I think I’m gonna go.” 

Spenser says, “Okay. Good luck, man.” 

Devin nods in the passenger seat and when he looks back up he’s on the drivers’ side in the space between worlds. For the first time, he doesn’t try to rush out. He turns his head. 

There are other people here. 

Not many. Not even half-a-dozen. And they’re all spread out, the nearest one looking to be a hundred or so metres away. But there are other people that Devin can see across the expanse of roads and traffic lights. There aren’t any cars, not really, and there’s no steering wheel for Devin to wrench. It was always a tenuous metaphor and now that Devin is looking, actually looking, he can see all the ways that it falls apart. It’s still an intersection of timelines all interconnecting and converging on this meeting point but it’s much less like a road and much more like a web. 

Devin stares at the nearest person until she turns to look back at him. It’s difficult to tell at this distance, but he thinks she winks. 

On impulse, he goes after her. 

She picks a seemingly random universe and falls into it, dropping like a trapeze artist. He follows after her and lands on his feet on a plain dirt road. This reality has a sepia tint and, for the first time, Devin doesn’t seem to be dropping into a pre-existing version of himself. He hadn’t even known that was possible–that he could go to universes that he didn’t belong in. The woman tosses a glance over her shoulder and grins at him. “First time?” 

“Forty-ninth, actually.” 

She just laughs at that, scrunching her nose as she does so like she thinks he’s something remarkably funny. “You’re English.” 

“Yes?” 

“My reality doesn’t have an England, you know. The accent really doesn’t agree with me.” 

“Have you only met people from Manchester or something? There’re lots of English accents.” 

She shrugs. “I don’t like yours.” 

Devin opens his mouth to respond and she actually shushes him, like he’s a child. Sure, he’s younger than her but a good ten years or more, but still. He thinks he’s allowed to be offended. She smirks at his expression and says, “If you can still keep count, you haven’t done this enough.” 

He would argue the point but she is right. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Probably not,” he agrees. “I barely know how to do it.” 

“And you want me to help you?” she laughs again but this time he thinks it might be at least a little fond. 

“I don’t have anyone else to help,” he says. “Well. I have a friend who’s tried but he…” 

“But he can’t come, can he? He’s not convergent.” 

Devin shakes his head. “Not as far as we know.” 

The woman tilts her head enough that the hair of her short black bob brushes her shoulder and purses her lips. “You’d probably know by now if he was. You’re, what, seventeen?” 

“Nineteen.” 

She nods once. “That’s older than anyone I’ve met started. Must’ve been a latent ability. Did something trigger it?” 

Devin shifts from one foot to the other. He’s still wearing Spenser’s shoes. “I’m pretty sure I died.” 

She whistles. “Yeah, that’d probably do it. I’m Liane.” 

“Devin.” 

They shake hands. 

“Follow me,” Liane says, and then she drops into a dead faint, but she’s gone before she hits the ground. Back to the intersection, most likely. Devin huffs at her lack of proper explanation and follows. 

The intersection is quieter now; Devin still sees it as rows and roads and stoplights, but there’s a peace involved that wasn’t there before. Coming here intentionally, rather than being forcibly dragged, is clearly the better way to do things. Liane is closer this time, standing only a few feet away. She looks at Devin sideways and he settles into place. 

“What do you see?” 

Devin looks, properly looks, for maybe the first time. A hundred million lanes, a billion roads. And on each of them, a quick snapshot of a different reality. He can’t make sense of all the differences, all the ever-so-slight variances in colour and contrast. How is he supposed to understand? There’s just so much. Too much. “The multi-verse,” he says finally. “Infinite roads.” 

“And how have you been picking which one to take?” 

“I haven’t been, really,” Devin admits. “I just try to find ones that are familiar.” 

“Why?” Liane asks and she sounds genuinely baffled, her jaw staying open at the end of the word and her eyebrows pinched together. “You have literally infinite choices—you could find universes where you’re rich or powerful. Or ones where magic is real or people have superpowers. I spent a year in one where frogs could talk. Only frogs. It was amazing.” 

Devin says, “That sounds really weird.” 

“Oh, it was, but that’s what made it awesome! Don’t you get it, there are literally infinite options. Why would you want to stay somewhere boring?” 

“Maybe there is magic in my reality,” he says. “You didn’t ask.” 

Liane scoffs. “I can be pretty sure. You don’t have the look about you.” 

Devin supposes that she’d know better than him on this point. He doesn’t say anything and Liane takes this to mean that she’s right. Since she is, Devin can’t even be offended. 

“We can’t stay here forever,” she says, and then she points to a reality that Devin had immediately written off because it seems to be post-apocalyptic. But before he can protest, Liane is dropping into it and Devin has no choice but to follow. He’d told Spenser that he would try to learn. 

When he appears next to her, he thinks he was right to ignore this particular timeline. It looks and feels like something out of a bad movie. The air feels thick with humidity and the sky is overcast in clouds of greenish-grey. 

“Isn’t this great?” Liane says cheerily. “It’s like getting to be in a film.” 

“Except it’s real.” 

She shrugs. “Haven’t you ever left a movie theater after a really good movie and you’re all hyped up and all you can think about is the world that you were just watching? And you wish you could do something half as interesting as the main characters?” 

Devin has to nod. He can’t lie about it. 

Liane grins. “Well, now you can! Isn’t that fun?” 

“I suppose,” Devin says slowly. “But how do you…I mean, until now I’ve only gone to realities where I actually exist. I just drop into the version of me that exists there. But these places–I’m just appearing wherever you are.” 

“Anything’s possible,” she says. “You haven’t quite wrapped your head around that yet, have you? It’s the multi-verse. Literally, anything can happen. Has happened. Is happening. They aren’t just parallel lines, you know.” 

“I know,” Devin cuts in. “Infinite realities all coming from different directions and meeting. And we can jump between them.” 

“Exactly! People like you and me, we can go anywhere and be anyone. So why would you want to go somewhere familiar? Why not go somewhere weird?” 

Devin doesn’t want to answer her out loud. But internally he thinks of Spenser’s chalkboard walls and the world’s best cardboard fort and years of combining their music taste until they could independently put on the same song even when they’re apart. Devin only started listening to electro-pop because Spenser got into eighties synth-pop first. Spenser only has decent shoes because Devin started collecting trainers when they were fourteen and would rant about the different brands and their quality comparisons. He thinks of Spenser being there through his parents’ divorce and of the sleeping bag on Spenser’s floor and of teenage afternoons spent in fast-food restaurants, eating ice cream. 

He asks, “How can you stay in one place? Without being yanked back to the intersection?” 

Liane sighs. “I still don’t understand why you want to.” 

Spenser had said ‘Make sure you come back to one with me in it’ and Devin thinks if he can manage that, if he can find a universe where they’re friends, then everything else will be okay. Because Spenser believes in him and he believes in Spenser and he doesn’t want a life where that’s not true. And he doesn’t think that Spenser does either. 

To Liane, he says, “I want a life.” 

“You already died.” 

Devin blinks and behind his eyelids he can see headlights racing towards him. “Yeah,” he says, “and apparently I get a second chance. Or a third, or twenty-seven million chances, or whatever. There are so many universes. I just want to pick one and live–” 

“I didn’t want to have to tell you this,” Liane cuts him off. She crosses her arms over her chest and sighs heavily. “I really hoped I could convince you that it’s more fun to go off and live new lives instead. Because it is, you know, it’s really fun being a convergent and getting to jump between realities. There’s so much to choose from and so much you can learn to do.” 

“What did you not want to tell me?” 

Liane looks out over the barren landscape. “Being convergent means that we can go anywhere and be anything, with no limits on the possibilities. But that doesn’t mean that we’re limitless. We can’t stay in any old reality forever and we can’t stop it when we get dragged back to the space between worlds. We can just choose to accept it. Convergent lines are always heading towards something and as convergents, we’re also heading towards that place. We can’t help it.” 

Devin feels like he’s swallowed an ice cube. There’s a sudden pit of cold in his stomach as what Liane is saying sinks in. “So for the rest of my life, I’m going to be bouncing between universes? It’s happened fifty times in a week!” 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But yes. The only universe that any of us can stay in without being forced out is our original reality. But if you’re dead in yours…” 

Electro-pop. White trainers. Crossing the street while the light was red. Devin remembers dying in flashes of tiny memories. Headlights. The weight of his earbuds. Someone shouting from the other side of the road. The impact, thankfully, is something he doesn’t remember. He’s not sure he’d be able to cope if he did. 

If only he hadn’t frozen. If only there had been someone there to pull him back. 

“What if I wasn’t dead?” 

“What?” 

Devin says, “What if I wasn’t dead? We can jump into all these different timelines, what if I just jumped in at a different point on the line? Just a few minutes before and I could save my own life–” 

“Your place in your original reality is fixed,” Liane says apologetically. “Jumping into different realities can affect them and their outcomes, sure, and maybe you can merge into them at different points. But with your original timeline…Believe me, I’ve tried. You just can’t.” 

Of course. Nothing in life is easy. 

Devin kicks at a rock on the ground and tries not to think about how he’s wearing Spenser’s shoes. There’s got to be a way around it. There’s got to be something. 

“What did you want to change?” Devin asks, just for something to say. 

Liane doesn’t answer for a long time. Devin begins to wonder if she’s going to. The air feels heavy with every breath and it’s starting to get uncomfortably warm. He’ll want to leave this place soon, regardless of what Liane says. When she finally does speak, all she says is, “I hurt someone close to me. And I have wished every day since that I could take it back.” 

Devin doesn’t know how to react to that.

She says, “Let’s go.” 

“The worst part,” she continues once they’re back in the intersection, staring at all the different paths, “was spending time in universes where I didn’t do that to him. Or the ones where he forgave me. Knowing that I couldn’t stay there forever, knowing I couldn’t fix it in my own reality…that’s why I go to all the strange places. Then it’s different enough that I can escape my mistakes. Maybe you should do the same. Escape your death.” 

Devin shakes his head. “I made a promise.” 

Liane doesn’t ask for any clarification. In the end, she just says that if he ever changes his mind, she’s sure that they’ll cross paths again. “There aren’t many of us. You know where to find me.” 

And then she disappears into a reality that looks like it’s filled with flashing lights and Devin picks one where he can see Spenser. 

He drops into the middle of a conversation. Spenser is driving, tapping his fingers against the wheel. He’s wearing a grey hoodie, not the black one of the Spenser Devin left earlier, but that seems to be the only difference so far. “And I was thinking about the implications of time travel, you know,” Spenser is saying. “It might be possible for you.” 

“Not everywhere,” Devin says. 

Spenser glances to the side and frowns. “You’ve just intersected, haven’t you?” 

Devin nods. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.” 

“It’s okay,” Spenser says, waving as another car lets him switch lanes. “You’re still you. Anyway, what do you mean?” 

Devin tells him about Liane and their conversation about fixed realities. Spenser listens intently, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, and doesn’t interrupt. When Devin finishes, Spenser says, “I think you’re missing the obvious solution.” 

“Which is?” 

“You can’t alter your own reality. She can’t alter hers.” At Devin’s blank look, Spenser continues, “What’s stopping you from helping each other?” 

“I feel like that might be breaking the rules.” 

Spenser grins cheekily. “What rules?” 

“I don’t know, the laws of the multi-verse or something. Those probably exist, right?” 

“How should I know? You’re the convergent one.” Spenser turns onto a quiet street and parks on the pavement at the side of the road. “Speaking of, it’s so cool that you’ve got a name. It’s like you’re part of the most exclusive club ever. Convergent. I guess I’ll have to change my notes. You don’t intersect, you converge. It’s like you’re a superhero or something.” 

Devin can only grin at Spenser’s enthusiasm. “I don’t know about that.” 

“Nah, you are,” Spenser insists. “The point I was trying to make is that you and Liane could help each other. You could help her and she could save your life. And then if you went exploring other timelines it would be your choice, not cause you’re some sort of multi-dimensional wandering spirit possessing other versions of yourself.” 

“Oh man,” Devin says with dawning realisation. “That’s what I am, isn’t it?” 

Spenser just nods mutely. 

“This is why you’re my best friend, you know,” Devin tells him seriously. “You make me think.” 

“And here I thought you liked me for me.” 

“Oh, shut up.” Devin reaches over to shove playfully at Spenser’s shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve…just thank you. For being my friend.” 

“It’s hardly a burden,” Spenser replies, rolling his eyes. “But thanks for being mine too, dork.” 

Spenser sounds more American in this timeline. Here, they probably haven’t been friends for quite as long as they were in Devin’s reality. But it doesn’t really matter because Spenser still believes all of his crazy nonsense and still wants to help him. Devin tells him, “You’re brilliant in every universe.” 

“Scientifically impossible,” Spenser scoffs. It’s nice that some things are consistent. “Are you going to try it? Saving your life?” 

“I think I am. I promised you that I’d always go back to a world with you in it, so I’ve got to at least try, right?” 

“Right,” Spenser nods. “Get out of here, then.” 

Devin has learned that listening to Spenser is usually a good idea. So he goes. Back to the convergence or the intersection or whatever it’s called, back to Liane so he can get back to Spenser. So he can save his own life. 

Liane is sceptical. He can understand why she would be. Even he’s not totally convinced that it’ll work. But it seems like something that’s worth trying. Eventually, Liane agrees. 

“Me first,” she says. “And yes, that’s me being selfish. I knew I was convergent before I…before. You didn’t know you were convergent before you died. If we change things so that you don’t die, there’s no telling what will happen to your abilities. If I save your life first, you might not be able to help me. If we do me first, then I can still help you.” 

Devin nods his agreement. 

Liane doesn’t tell him what he’s going to undo. He gets the feeling that she doesn’t want to think about it. Since they’re erasing it from existence, he can’t really blame her. “If you jump in there,” she says and shows him where, “and tell me not to go to the bookstore, I think that’ll stop it.” 

“You think you’ll believe me?” 

She nods. “I know myself. Just tell me the truth.” 

Devin picks the timeline. The Liane he ends up in front of is a good five years younger than the one he knows but she laughs the same way. She’s saying something into a mobile phone but thankfully the conversation seems to be wrapping up. He doesn’t want to interrupt but he doesn’t want to wait too long either. He’s not sure how big his window of opportunity is. Liane hangs up and shoves her phone into her tote bag. 

Devin slides out in front of her and she stops, looking at him with a scowl. “You’re blocking traffic,” she says. 

He says, “Don’t go to the bookstore.” 

“What?” 

He’s really not sure how much he should say. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to prevent from happening but he knows how important it is to Liane that he does. “Look, I’m really new to this whole ‘convergent’ thing, but–trust me. You do not want to go to the bookstore. Somehow it leads to something that you really don’t want to happen. Please.” 

“You know about convergents?” Liane asks, narrowing her eyes. “Come with me.” 

They don’t go to the bookstore. Devin is thankful for this. Instead, Liane takes him to a plain, boring park, and sits down at a picnic bench across from him. They stare at each other for a full minute before Liane demands that he explain. He does, as best as he can. “Like I said, I’m really new to this. And you didn’t tell me what I’m trying to stop. But you can’t go back within your own reality. It’s fixed. Which means that I can’t stop myself from dying and you couldn’t stop yourself from making this mistake. We thought that we could help each other.” 

Liane considers this for a long time. “And all I have to do is pull you out of the road before the car comes?” 

Devin nods. “Please. I know it’s a lot to ask when you don’t even know what I’ve stopped.” 

“It’s not a lot,” she says, shaking her head. “But from the sounds of it, if I do that you might not be convergent anymore. If the car hitting you was what triggered it…if we undo that…” 

“That’s okay,” Devin says. “I don’t care about being convergent. I care about living my life.” 

“You really mean that, don’t you?” 

He swallows thickly and nods. “I mean, it’s fascinating. It’s wonderful. But it’s too much. I can’t…I’m nineteen or I’m a kid or I’m dead or I’m all at once. There are infinite lives that I could lead but I just want one. One that I can have that’s mine, not something that I’ve borrowed for a few days at a time.” 

Liane nods slowly, staring out across the park. “You sound really weird.” 

“Yeah, you said that you don’t have England in this reality–” 

“No, not that–well, that too–but I mean that I can’t really imagine giving up the multi-verse for anything. But it’s worth it to you,” she turns back to him and smiles. “I think you have a unique appreciation for life.”

Devin shrugs. “I was never really one for ‘what-ifs’. And now that I’ve seen them I’m really not. I don’t like them.” 

Liane laughs, scrunching her nose. “Maybe that’s a side effect of not knowing about until recently. I figured it out when I was half your age. Okay, Devin. I don’t know how you’ve helped me exactly, but I can certainly try to save your life.” 

They go to the convergence together. Devin finds his reality easily. It’s the centre of it all for him, the place he goes when he doesn’t pick anywhere else. And maybe this time he won’t be reliving his death. “Here,” he says to Liane. “I crossed the street without looking. You’ll just have to pull me back.” 

She nods and he watches her drop into his reality. Then he closes his eyes and drops as well. 

The crossing light is still red but Devin’s walked through this intersection a hundred times and knows the patterns of the traffic lights like the back of his hand. He doesn’t bother waiting. The light will change in half a second anyway. He steps out into the road, carefully, because his trainers are new and he doesn’t want to scuff them already. There’s electro-pop blaring through his earbuds, a particularly upbeat song that Spenser sent him the other day, and he bops his head in time to the music, smiling a little. 

A car careens into the crossing, headlights flashing and horn blaring. 

Devin should pick up his feet and run but instead he freezes like he’s grown roots into the concrete and everything is happening fast and slow at the same time. For a second it’s like he’s seeing the intersection from a completely different perspective. There’s a voice in his heart saying pick a path and Devin almost does, he almost turns down a different street but– 

“Gotcha!” 

Someone pulls him back onto the pavement. The car races through the lights and disappears around the corner. Devin’s breathing hard. There’s a hand curled around his bicep and when he turns the woman’s face is entirely unfamiliar. “Who…what?” 

“Look both ways, kid,” she says. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he says, tugging his earbuds out of his ears and patting at his chest like he’s checking for injuries. He looks down. She’s pulled him out of the road and into a puddle. His new white shoes are splattered with mud. But he’s alive. “Yeah, I think so.” 

The woman smiles. “Good. Take care of yourself, Devin.” 

She’s all the way across the street before he realises that she knew his name. He calls out for her to come back, but she either doesn’t hear him or chooses to ignore him. He stands on the pavement on the side of the crossing for a long time, wondering what on earth just happened, and then he turns on his heel and heads back the way he came. 

Spenser answers the door on the second knock. “Dev?” 

Devin had just left Spenser’s house a few minutes before, but Spenser holds the door open and lets him inside anyway. Devin leans against the door to close it. It’s been five minutes but he’s relieved to see Spenser anyway. It’s been five minutes but it feels like so much longer. 

“You okay, man?” Spenser asks, dropping his hands onto Devin’s shoulders like he’s trying to hold him in place. Which is kind of silly, since Devin doesn’t really want to move. “What’s up? You only just left.” 

“Yeah.” He doesn’t understand it but he thinks that he promised Spenser something and that this is following through on it. He says, “I just…I had a feeling that I needed to come back.” 

END.

more by Leandra Inglis:
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