Me vs. Me by Sarah Mlynowski Read Free Book Online Page B

and press my back against the door. My head pounds.
    When did this craziness start? When was the beginning of my double life? I retrace my mental steps. Today is Sunday in Arizona. I’m engaged. Yesterday was Sunday in New York. I wasn’t engaged. The day before that was Saturday in Arizona. I woke up in the desert. We had brunch at Alice’s. The day before that was also Saturday in Arizona. I also woke up in the desert. I told Cam I didn’t want to marry him. I finished packing.
    So what happened the night before that?
    I shut my eyes firmly and try to visualize the night in question. The night that Cam proposed. The night we were lying in the back of the truck, watching the falling stars.
    It can’t be. It can’t.
    My wish? My wish. I wished I didn’t have to choose. That I could live both lives. Stay with Cam and move to New York. Have it all.
    I sink to the bath mat. It’s not possible. Is it? How else can I explain what’s happening? How else can I rationalize how I’ve been living two separate lives?
    Â 
    I tell Cam I need to borrow his truck to return to my place to pick up a few last-minute things.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œClothes, makeup…not that I have anywhere to put any of it.”
    â€œI’ll make some space.”
    Instead of going to my apartment, I stop by the emergency room to see if there is something wrong with my head. Like a brain tumor. After a few hours, I finally get to see a doctor.
    â€œLately, I’ve been existing in two universes,” I tell him. “Is that a psychological condition?”
    He rubs his chin, looks into my eyes with a flashlight and asks me if I’ve been under a lot of stress.
    â€œA little,” I say.
    â€œYou look okay to me,” he says. “Try to get some sleep. Do you want antibiotics?”
    â€œNo thanks.” I decide not to tell him the whole story. It’s not like he’s going to believe me. If this is real and I’m not going bonkers, then someone else in the world must have gone through this, too. Someone who can tell me how to make it stop.
    Back in my old apartment, I get comfy on the futon, laptop on my knees, and try to figure out what the hell has happened to me.
    I Google multiple lives and get over forty-three million hits. There are mentions of reincarnation, cats and, inexplicably, real estate. But nothing about my weirdo predicament. I try alternative lives and get another thirty thousand hits. Most of these are scenarios of regret. About what could have/would have/should have been. Then I land on something called Many-Worlds Interpretation. According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse, many-worlds is defined as: “…an interpretation of quantum mechanics that proposes the existence of multiple universes, all of which are identical, but exist in possibly different states.” Different states? Does that mean parallel universes?
    I keep reading and reading and my heart pounds louder with every click, with every article. “These different states are caused by a divergence that splits the universe into two.” I discover that there is a whole theory in quantum mechanics (whatever the hell that is) that believes that whenever there is a choice, or a possibility, reality splits into a new world. Therefore, there is a new independent world for every different possibility. Anything that could happen does happen. There are books and information about this theory all over the Internet. There are over twenty thousand hits on this on Google. People have done experiments on this theory. Real scientists.
    Could this really have happened to me? Yes. Yeeessss. My life verged the morning after Cam proposed. I’m not crazy. I am not crazy! What happened to me has been written about! Wahoo! Perhaps there’s a support group?
    I get slightly nervous when one of the sites says that communication between these distinct universes in not possible,