Page 100 of What's in a Kiss?

“What about Jake?” Masha says.

“What about him?”

“You said on the planet you come from you’re single. When did you two break up?”

“We were never together. We’re more or less strangers.”

“That’s not possible,” Masha says. “I can maybe believe the rest, but I don’t think there’s a force strong enough to keep you and Jake apart.”

“That’s really nice,” I say.

“I wasn’t trying to be nice. I hate your relationship. It cost me my best friend.”

“Masha, you know how inThe NeverEnding Story, Bastian enters the book?”

“Yeah. The book needs him to kill the Nothing.”

I take a deep breath, about to drop the most insane part of my hypothesis. “I think kissing Jake Glasswell at prom is myNeverEnding Story. And my Nothing.”

“You mean—”

“In the life I’ve been living these past ten years, we didn’t kiss. We actually got in a fight and I never spoke to him again—well, not until I saw him at your wedding last week.”

“And then what happened?”

“I was standing before him at your altar—maid of honor, best man positions, you know. And your yogi officiant, who in this life is somehow a rabbi—”

“Rabbi Dan? Who married us? Hangs out at the weed café?”

I close my eyes. “That’s the one. He did something. He said some words about lives being inextricably entwined, and the next thing I knew, I was in a different dress, a different life, in a marriage to a stranger—and I was a pariah at your wedding. In your life. My mom won’t even speak to me.” I start to cry. “I hate it here. I want to go home. But—”

“But you’re in love with Jake,” she whispers, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“But I’m in love with Jake,” I wail. “So I’ve been trying to figure out how to stay. I thought if I could make up with you, and my mom—and let me just say, the attempt with my mom went twenty times worse than this, if you can believe it.”

“I can... I heard the podcast on the way here.” She sighs.“So you’re having to choose between true love—I mean, I suspect that’s what it is, right?”

“The truest.”

“And what you say is a true bond with your mother and best friend. It’s an existential crossroads. I can see why you’re here.”

“There’s one more thing about the other life.”

“What?”

“Jake is very famous.”

Masha laughs.

“No, he is. He could probably run for president. Most of the country is as in love with him as I am here, and I feel like I’m robbing them of the joy of him, robbing him of the chance to live out that amazing experience.”

“Is he happy?”

“I have no idea. We’re not in touch, so it’s not like I’d know.”

“Is he happy here, with you? I know what it looks like from the outside, but you can never really know.”

“He’s happy. Almost nauseatingly happy.”