Parallel

myself it was no big deal, but deep down, I regretted missing it. “Did I still go, though? With someone else?”
    She nods. “You went with Tyler. As friends.”
    “After he asked you, and you said no.”
    Caitlin looks surprised. “You remember that?”
    “No, I just know Ty. And you.” I look down at the floor, willing myself not to cry. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to turn out. Tyler should’ve been at that dance with Caitlin, not with me.
    “Hey,” Caitlin says softly, touching my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay. In the end, everything turned out the way it was supposed to.”
    I meet her gaze, the eyes I know better than my own, and nod. “We’re okay,” I repeat.
    “We’re okay.” Her voice is unequivocal, as if she’s never been more certain of anything in her life. A deep, ineffable gratitude washes through me. Her forgiveness is more than I deserve and yet I have it, completely. I grab her hand, my throat suddenly tight.
    “I couldn’t do this without you,” I whisper.
    She squeezes my hand. “Yes, you could,” she says. “But you won’t have to.” She lets go of my hand and unlatches her bracelet, a delicate gold chain with an antique clasp. “Here,” she says, putting it on my wrist. “As long as you wake up wearing it, you’ll know we’re okay.”
    I smile, running my finger over the tiny gold loops. “Why’d you pick up?” I ask. “On my birthday. If you thought we were still fighting, why’d you answer my call?”
    “I dunno,” she says thoughtfully. “I wasn’t going to at first. But it’d been so long, and it was your birthday. . . . I guess I figured if you were making the effort, I could at least hear you out.” She shrugs. “Then when I answered, you acted like it was totally normal that you were calling me. I knew something was up. So I met you at the library, heard what was happening, and brought you here to see Gustav.”
    “You never told me about the fight?”
    She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to,” she admits. “Since you didn’t remember it, and no one here knew anything about it, I could pretend like it never happened.”
    Metal clangs against metal as Dr. Mann comes through the lab door carrying a cup of tea and a half-eaten scone. He’s wearing at least a fourth of it on the front of his shirt. Dr. Mann sees us watching him and smiles mid-bite. Another chunk of scone lands on his tie. I stifle a giggle.
    “I should probably get back to work,” Caitlin says, hopping off her stool. “Gustav is leaving for Munich on Tuesday, and he wants me to finish his grant application before he goes.”
    “Well, then. I’ll leave you and Gustav alone.”
    She sticks her tongue out at me, and I am hit with a wave of relief that despite the fight and everything else, Caitlin and I are okay. I throw my arms around her. “I love you,” I whisper, hugging her tight.
    “I love you, too,” she whispers back.
    “Soulmates,” comes Dr. Mann’s voice. “The most enduring of human relationships.” He’s staring thoughtfully at his chalkboard, munching on the last of his scone. “That’s what we’re missing.” He brushes the crumbs off his shirt and steps up to the board. With the sleeve of his jacket and a broken piece of chalk, he makes several quick revisions to his equation.
    When he’s finished, he returns the chalk to its dusty ledge and takes a step back. His eyes remind me of an old-fashioned typewriter—right, down, left, right, down, left—as he studies the complicated string of numbers, symbols, and signs. “You asked if you could miss your destiny,” he says then, with a nod at the board. “Not if you find your soulmates first.”
    “Soulmates, plural?” I ask him. “How many does each person have?”
    The old man smiles at his equation, as if the answer is right in front of us. “Exactly as many as she needs.”
    Caitlin’s hand catches mine. “One down,” she whispers.
    “Hey, Abby, who’d we get the fifth costume for?” Marissa asks. She’s hunched over her laptop, watching the Power Rangers opening sequence on YouTube while Ben watches the World Series on our TV.
    “Caitlin,” I tell her, putting down the bio textbook I’m not really reading. “But I forgot to ask her if she even needs it.” I dig through my bag for my cell, then remember I don’t have it. “Hey, can I borrow your phone?” I ask Ben. “I left mine at Michael’s.”
    “Sure,” he says, and tosses it to