Parallel

architecture. Yet somehow, I dreamed about him, standing behind this iconic gate.
    My instinct is to doubt myself. Maybe the gate wasn’t this gate. Maybe the guy I saw wasn’t Michael. Because, really, how could it have been?
    But it was.
    I stare at the image, imagining myself walking through that gate and stepping into the campus beyond it. A thought pops into my head, strange and powerful: This is your destiny.
    “I don’t believe in destiny,” I murmur, but this is a lie. I just never considered that mine could be anything other than what I planned.
    I riffle through the college brochures until I find the most worn of the bunch, its purple corners bent and soft from use. “This is my destiny,” I repeat to its immutable cover, tracing the capital N with my finger. But my voice sounds flat and unconvincing.
    I look back at the Yale brochure and make a decision. If they send a scout to the Head of the Hooch, I’ll talk to him. And if he tells me I should apply, I will.
    I drag the email to my drafts box, just in case.

14
    HERE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2009
(game time)
    My eyes fly open and dart to the clock: 6:01 a.m. The yellow Post-it is right where I left it last night, stuck to the side of the nightstand, illuminated by the clock’s eerie blue glow.
    REMEMBER THANKSGIVING!!!
    Not that I need the reminder. It doesn’t take much effort to recall this particular memory. It stands out among the others, lodged at the forefront of my mind.
    The fight with my mom. Showing up at Josh’s house unannounced. Meeting Michael for the first time, not as some unattached and available freshman girl, but as his younger brother’s girlfriend. In other words, already attached. Completely and utterly unavailable.
    I fall back against my pillow, letting the new reality wash over me. I’m not with Michael anymore. As of right now, it’s as if our two-and-a-half-month relationship never happened.
    I wait for that familiar knot in my gut, the sick dread. But it doesn’t come. Instead, there are gentle butterflies. The excited kind.
    I rest my hand on my stomach, trying to make sense of what I’m feeling. How can I be okay with this?
    Because it means you’re with Josh.
    “No,” I whisper in the dark. “I am not in love with my boyfriend’s brother.” Hearing myself say it, I almost laugh out loud. Who’s the boyfriend and who’s the brother? “This whole thing is seriously effed up,” I say to my ceiling.
    I close my eyes, picturing Michael’s face. He makes me laugh. He makes my palms sweat. He’s a ridiculously good kisser. All are very important qualities in a boyfriend.
    And then there is Josh. A face that is hazier yet somehow more familiar. I don’t know him very well at all, and yet, there is something so indescribably right about him. About us. When I was with him yesterday, I felt strangely complete, as if I’d found something I’d been looking for. But why?
    “Is he my soulmate?” I say these words out loud without meaning to. My voice sounds strange in the darkness. “Josh is my soulmate,” I add, trying it on for size. I feel a flood of happiness as I picture what could be our future together. Watching USC football when I’m with him in L.A. Eating deep-dish pepperoni at Yorkside when he’s with me in New Haven.
    Yale.
    My mind, which until this moment had been calmly evaluating my new set of circumstances, suddenly begins to race. I’ve been wondering how I could’ve ended up at Yale without Caitlin around to convince me to apply. Now I know: My mom sent in the application. But my parallel undid it when she found that email.
    I don’t go to Yale anymore.
    I leap out of bed for my phone, but the battery is dead. My laptop is plugged in next to it on my desk. I bang on my space bar to wake it up, only to discover that it’s not on standby but turned off. “Dammit!” I shout, pressing the power button repeatedly. “Turn on, you piece of shit!”
    “Abby? What’s going on? Why are you up so early? And why are you cursing at your computer?”
    My mom is in the doorway, squinting at me in the dark.
    “Oh. I, uh . . .”
    She reaches inside my room and flips on the light. We both blink from the shock to our retinas. “Is everything okay?” she asks. “I could hear you all the way downstairs.”
    As my eyes adjust to the light, I see a flash of blue above her head. There, above my door, right where it should be, is my Yale pennant. Caitlin’s bracelet is on my