Page 34 of You've Found Oliver

“What are you doing back here?” Sam’s voice echoes through the darkness.

I look around for him, but I can’t see anything through the wall of mist. Only my two hands, reaching out into the emptiness.

There’s nothing to grasp—no shapes, no corners of a room, no sense of time.

I wander around, hoping to catch his voice again.

I can’t tell how long I’ve been searching or what direction this is.

The moment I think I’ve found him, everything fades like sand through my fingers.

All that’s left is a strange feeling in my chest. An understanding that no matter what direction I run, no matter how far, I’ll never catch up to him.

The feeling stays with me even long after I wake up.

It’s another cold December morning. My breath turns to clouds as I head to campus.

It’s been a full week since waking up in this timeline.

I’ve come to accept that I might be here for good.

I’m still trying to figure out my schedule.

It would be easier if my phone was working right.

I can’t make any calls or open my apps without it glitching the entire screen.

I’ll have to get a new one soon. At least I can still send and receive messages. There’s one from Ben.

Morning

Text me when you’re awake

He’s always up hours before me. We had such an incredible night beneath the stars.

I can still feel his lips on mine, but there’s a knot of guilt in my chest. I can’t believe he missed the deadline for his fellowship application.

It was so important to him. I can’t stop blaming myself for it.

He would have won it if it hadn’t been for me, right?

We’re supposed to see each other again this weekend, but I know he’s behind on work.

I hate to think I might be for keeping him from accomplishing his goals.

Maybe we should take some time apart. Give him a chance to catch up.

As much as I love seeing Ben, all the traveling back and forth between our cities is exhausting.

Especially with finals coming up. My head pounds just from thinking about it.

I have Math Modeling in an hour, but I don’t feel like sitting through it again.

It makes me miss my spring schedule, especially Professor Clarke’s class.

As confusing as she is sometimes, it was the only course I truly enjoyed.

In a lot of ways, it was like a sanctuary from the world.

It brought me a sense of comfort. I miss her interesting lectures.

The questions she had us thinking about for weeks.

I decide to stop by her office. Maybe she’ll be in today. I’ve never actually been there before, so when I get to the philosophy building, I search around, looking for the door with her name on it. Thankfully, the light is on. I knock on the door and poke my head in.

“Oliver? What a surprise.”

“Hi, Professor Clarke.”

“ Professor ?” she says, almost teasingly. “That’s very formal of you. No need to call me that unless you’re in one of my classes.”

“Oh, right.”

I haven’t taken her spring class yet. I have to keep reminding myself that.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you? I hope Julie didn’t send you to check up on me.”

“No.”

She gives me a suspicious look. “Did someone else send you to check up on me?”

“No, I just thought I’d stop and say hi.”

“Oh.” She relaxes, pointing to the chair in front of her desk. “Well then, please, come in and take seat.”

It feels nice to see her again, sit down together. I scan the books on the shelves, written in different languages. There’s a few photos on the wall. “I like your office,” I tell her.

“Thank you.” She leans back in her chair. “It usually gets more cluttered throughout the year. So you’ve caught me at a very good time.”

“What are you teaching this quarter?”

“The Philosophy of the Mind,” she answers. “It’s one of my favorite courses to teach. Always fascinating to get students thinking about their own consciousness.”

“That sound interesting,” I say, nodding. “You know, I’ve been thinking about taking some philosophy classes.”

“Oh? What inspired that?”

“I’ve just been interested in it lately. I read this one quote somewhere that made me think about myself.” I pause to remember it. “It was something like, the home is our first universe .”

“Sounds like Bachelard.” Professor Clarke nods knowingly. “It must mean something to you, if it’s inspiring you to learn more. I’m curious what it’s made you think about.”

I stare at my hands and say, “To be honest, I didn’t really get it at first. I’m sure you know I moved around a lot when I was young.

I think that gave me a limited sense of what a home is, you know?

But I’m learning it’s more than the house you live in.

It’s something you make yourself. With the people you meet, the places you go.

” In a lot of ways, Ellensburg is my home, right?

It’s where I’ve lived my entire life. It’s also all that I really know.

I don’t understand much of the world beyond it.

I’m starting to realize I don’t understand a lot of things.

Professor Clarke laces her fingers together. “I’m glad it resonated with you. You might have enjoyed the class I’m teaching.”

“I wish I’d known about it sooner,” I say. “But I’m looking forward to taking your class in the spring.”

Professor Clarke frowns. “Unfortunately, I might not be teaching it in the spring.”

“Why not?”

“There are a few factors.” She picks up the stack of papers and sets them behind her. “It’s an additional course I take on every so often. Now that Julie is staying for the spring, I might need to cancel as I won’t have the time.”

“So when will you teach it then?”

“Not for a while. I’ll be on sabbatical next year, so likely when I return.”

I was just sitting in her class. I haven’t even finished reading The Poetics of Space . How could she not be teaching it? I must have gone quiet for too long, because Professor Clarke says, “Is something else bothering you, Oliver?”

I stare at my hands again. I should just tell her I’m fine, but she’d probably sense that’s not the truth.

I remember something she said in class. Time is always in motion .

I wonder what she would think about this strange situation I’m in.

I look up and say, “Can I ask you something else? It might be an odd question.”

“Please.”

There’s a brief silence as I think about how to word this. “Do you believe in alternate universes?”

“I have no reason not to,” she says.

“Is that a yes ?”

“It’s most certainly not a no .”

I lean forward, hoping she’ll say more.

“You’re not the first to ask this question,” she continues.

“Whether or not other versions of our world exist. There are endless theories out there, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Simulations, bubble theory, string theory.

Every field from philosophy to quantum physics has danced with the possibility.

Of course, there’s nothing to prove any of it.

But there’s also nothing to disprove it, either. ”

“So what you’re saying is, there are a lot of people who believe it. But no one actually knows anything,” I gather.

“What I’m saying is, there are a lot of people who are, at least, open to the possibility of their existence,” she clarifies.

“The universe is filled with endless paradoxes and contradictions that no one can explain away. Even the most fundamental laws that hold together everything we know to be true have been broken at one point or another. So maybe it’s not so crazy to believe that alternate universes exist all around us. Even if you can’t see it.”

“You think there are infinite versions of us out there?”

“I think there are infinite possibilities of how we live our lives.” She gestures expressively. “Different timelines of what-ifs branching out like tiny bubbles from a champagne fountain. Maybe from every seemingly inconsequential decision we make.”

It’s hard to imagine infinite versions of me. Me here. Me still in spring. Maybe there’s a universe where Ben didn’t pick up the phone and we never met. “Do you think we have any choice at all? As in, which universe we end up in. Sorry if that’s a stupid question.”

“That’s not stupid at all. Of course, I don’t know the answer.

” She pauses to think about it. “It’s more like time in that way.

We’re all limited by our perception of it.

Maybe it’s something that stretches and compacts and flows with no end or beginning.

We may never be able to change time, but we can change the way we understand ourselves in it. It just takes a bit of reorienting.”

“I’m not exactly sure what that means,” I admit.

“Think about the way we lose track of time,” she continues.

“It is a very real feeling that we all experience, isn’t it?

Like when we forget to look at the clock to count how many minutes have passed.

You see, we’ve been taught to check things off schedules, to think of time as something that is always running out, which in turn forces us to live ahead of ourselves.

In order to change the way we think about it, we have to understand how it tangles itself around every part of our lives in different ways.

Only when we stop trying to pin it down does time begin to move in another direction. ”

There’s so much to process. I’m not sure how much of it relates to me because I haven’t been living ahead of myself.

If anything, I’ve been trying to stop time from moving at all.

To keep things the way they are for just a little bit longer.

Now I’m reliving the last six months of my life.

I wonder what Professor Clarke would think if she knew.

I wish we could talk for another hour, for many more hours, but there’s a knock on the door.

Another student is here to see her, so I get up from the chair and say goodbye.

“Stop by anytime,” she says. “I mean that.”

I smile. “Thank you. I definitely will.”

I should probably get some studying done before class, but all I can think about are the other versions of me branching out in different timelines.

How do I know if I’m living in the right one?

I can’t believe Professor Clarke isn’t teaching her spring class.

And that Julie won’t be studying abroad anymore. What else might have changed?

I check my phone on the way to the library. There’s a message from Ben.

I was reading about Roy’s Comet. It became visible in July

Which is around the time I first received your messages

I pause to take this in.

That’s weird

Do you think it means anything?

I’m not sure. It’s probably a coincidence

I figure the comet’s gone by now

It’s actually still visible

But should be gone by tonight

I’m not sure what to make of this. I know Ben believes in coincidences more than fate.

But what if all these things are connected somehow?

Me getting stuck here at the same time the comet is disappearing.

Maybe there was a ripple in space-time or something, causing our worlds to flow into each other.

I know I’m just making stuff up right now.

I shouldn’t be thinking about this anyway.

I should be happy about being in the timeline with Ben.

But why does it feel like I don’t belong here?

I mean, it’s not like it’s going particularly well so far.

I already messed up a few things, includes ruining Mom’s birthday.

I think about what’s been happening with Ben, too.

I wonder if being together isn’t actually what’s best for him right now.

I know he doesn’t blame me for losing the fellowship, but I still blame myself for it.

He’d never failed a quiz until he started spending time with me. I’m the common factor across all this.

Ben’s the greatest thing to happen to me in a long time, but I would never want to hold him back from anything.

Especially when I don’t have my own life figured out.

I care about him way too much. I’ve never felt this stuck before.

I think again about the other versions of me.

If there really are an infinite number of possibilities out there, maybe there’s one where I find my way back.