Unbreakable (Unraveling) (2 page)

And it works. She manages to sweet talk everyone we run into. I’m just there to help with the heavy lifting.

We spend the drive home, with Cecily at the wheel, in silence. It’s not because we’re sad or even tired—despite the fact that this day has already been exhausting and it’s not quite noon. This silence weighs down on us because when you do this drive, you can’t deny that the world has changed.

The coast is the worst. Buildings are collapsed, homes demolished or just gone. The roof on my favorite restaurant, Roberto’s, caved in, and the patio cracked and split open, putting an end to my burritos-after-the-beach tradition. Trees have been uprooted, and they lie on their sides as if they’ve been discarded like weeds. In my old neighborhood, the trees took out any houses that hadn’t already collapsed from the quake itself. Debris is everywhere, littered across the grass and piled up on the side of the road.

But what’s worst is how it feels. Before the quakes, San Diego was the kind of place that felt alive. The sun, the ocean waves, the crowds of tourists—it had personality. Now it feels empty, destroyed. Dead.

This silence is one of respect, the kind that you observe.

Because it’s been a hundred and forty days since an old pickup truck hit me, and the warmth of the engine, the smell of locking brakes, and someone shouting my name were the last things I remembered. A hundred and forty days since I died.

Since my whole world changed.

Because I didn’t stay dead. Ben Michaels healed me and brought me back. Because of him, I had a second chance. I don’t know how it happened, but Ben changed my class schedule, argued with me in English, took me to Sunset Cliffs, and made me love him.

And then he left.

Now the whole world has changed—for everyone.

My dad died because he didn’t know what kind of case he stumbled on. I solved his murder, saved the world, lost my best friend, and watched Ben walk through a portal and leave this universe.

I stopped Wave Function Collapse, but the damage was already done.

All of the natural disasters hit at the same time—and no corner of the globe was spared. Tornadoes took out the Midwest. Earthquakes leveled cities close to fault lines and also ones that weren’t, like Dallas and Vegas. Tsunamis blanketed and sank low-level areas like Coronado Island, New Orleans, Manhattan, and parts of the California coast. Wildfires swept the nation in all different directions, reducing land, trees, houses—even people—to ashes.

And we weren’t alone. Other countries had been hit just as hard. Some of them were just gone.

Millions of people died.

Millions more went missing.

Modern life took the biggest hit. Satellites were knocked out of position, telephone lines went dead, electricity flickered out, and running water went dry. Aftershocks took out most of the buildings that were still standing. Hospitals overflowed with people injured and dying. Medicine and medical supplies were used up. We started running out of food and water. Almost nothing survived the looting.

As Cecily drives, I lean my forehead against the window and feel the warmth of the sun against the glass. I almost close my eyes to block out the reminders, but it’s pointless. I can’t forget what’s happened here.

“Don’t do that!” Cecily says, snapping her fingers at me as we go over a bump on the uneven road. “And by
that
, I mean that weird sad thing where you go all quiet and depressed.”

“I thought you knew I was lame like that,” I say, but I pull my head back and sit up straight. She’s bossy, but right.

Cecily smiles. “I know you better than you think, J.”

“Didn’t you know cheerleading is sort of a dead sport?” I ask. “I’m not sure you need to stay so peppy.”

She gasps and pretends to be offended, but I know she’s not. We both had a first-class ticket to seeing the world change. Well, maybe that was just me, but Cecily has seen the aftereffects up close and personal even if she doesn’t know the actual cause.

I’m about to say something else when I see it.

Ahead there’s a house, half standing with a sunken roof, and in front of it a few people are milling around, looking at an assortment of stuff laid out on the dead grass.

Cecily sees it too. “Oh, a yard sale! We have to check it out.”

It’s not that they’re likely to have anything we want. These yard sales are for trades. People need supplies—usually medicine or food—and they’re willing to give up other material possessions in order to get it.

Of course, not many people have medicine or food to spare. But we do. Between my connection to the FBI and Cecily’s family running one of the largest evacuation shelters in the area, we have access that normal people don’t. There’s a case of water and an economy-size bottle of aspirin in the back of the truck. I can’t give it all away, but I can give these people something.

“It looks like they have books,” Cecily adds as we crawl to a stop. “Maybe they’ll have something for Jared.”

He needs a new book. We can only reread
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
so many times. As he’s pointed out, it’s the middle of the story.

I get out of the truck. A man wearing broken glasses approaches us, but I let Cecily talk to him. She’s the friendly one, after all.

There are some old clothes and blankets off to the side, and then a row of DVDs. I look at them just in case there’s something
X-Files
. We lost our collector’s edition box set when our house collapsed. Electricity is too spotty still to play DVDs, but once it comes back, my brother will miss them.

The collection is mostly indie movies, so I head for the books. It’s a lot of literary stuff, a lot of classics, and not necessarily the good stuff, in my opinion. I know I should want to preserve
Moby Dick
or
Great Expectations
, but I just can’t make myself do it. Then I see a flash of a red-and-black book cover.

I reach for it, excitement making me feel giddy and light-headed. I turn, ready to call out to Cee to tell her what I’ve found, but I’m not looking, so I walk straight into some random guy.

He’s taller than me, and my face plows into his shoulder. The soft cotton of his shirt rubs against my cheek as I stumble against him. He grunts and drops all of the books in his hands. I pause, taking a minute to make sure I have my balance before I look up. Even though it wasn’t really my fault, I’m about to apologize.

Only the words get stuck in my throat.

“Sorry about that. The danger of picking up too many mass-markets,” he says with a tentative smile, a smile that says he’s a little embarrassed.

And suddenly everything around me stops. The sounds of the other people, the wind in the trees—it fades away, and all I see is the guy in front of me. Everything about him is the same. The wavy hair, the dark eyes, the self-conscious half smile.

I close my eyes, sure that I’m imagining this, that too much sun and not enough sleep have finally gotten to me, but when I open them again, he’s still there.

It’s like I’ve conjured him out of thin air.

“Ben?” I whisper, because my whole body feels like it’s frozen, like I’m worried he’ll disappear.

B
en blushes, and that’s all I need.

It’s like he never left, like he’s been by my side the whole time, like we’ve been sharing half smiles, stealing glances at each other, and blushing because we remember too well what it feels like to melt into each other, press our lips together, and forget how messed up the world is.

I let out a yelp and throw my arms around him. I don’t ask what he’s doing here or how long he’s been back or even why he hasn’t come to find me. I just pull him close and hold on to him with everything I’ve got. I revel in how real he is. The feel of him under my hands, the warmth of his skin, the muscles in his arms, the breath in his chest. He’s real.

Only he’s not
right
.

It’s after I’ve thrown my arms around him that I realize what’s different.

And it’s not just the awkward way that he’s standing limply in my arms, like someone who’s been tackled by a crazy chick he’s never seen before. It’s that he doesn’t feel right in my arms. It doesn’t feel like we fit, and he even smells different—like spices and wet grass.

I know what that must mean.

Flustered, I pull back from him and start rambling. I don’t even know what I’m saying, but it has to be some sort of awkward apology, because he shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, then opens his mouth to say something before shutting it again.

My heart is pounding in my ears and my throat feels thick. A wave of desperation rolls through me, stinging my eyes and carving a hole in my chest. This isn’t fair.

I look at him again, and suddenly all I see are the differences. His hair is a little too short; his eyes are a little too light and maybe not sad enough; his chest is a little too broad; and he’s wearing khaki shorts and an NFL sweatshirt. I fight to suck down enough air to keep from hurling all over his Adidas sneakers.

This guy isn’t
my
Ben at all. He’s a stranger wearing the same face.

Because there isn’t just one universe, but rather many. A multiverse. There are thousands of different universes, and one theory is that they all started parallel, but when different people in the different universes made different choices, things grew outward differently.

Everyone in this world could have a doppelgänger out there—more than one. There could even be other versions of me living different lives in different worlds.

Just like there could be other versions of Ben.

Like this one.

I
thought about
my
Ben Michaels every day.

All one hundred and forty of them.

I try to keep myself busy, and most days I can push thoughts of him to the back of my mind, but I can’t forget him. I’ll be doing something mundane, like teasing Jared and ruffling his hair or helping Cecily at the evac shelter, and a memory of Ben or something he said will just strike me.

Like the time Cee and I were fueling the last of the gas tanks and I told her, “I’ve always loved the smell of gasoline.”

And suddenly I was overcome with a moment and I was somewhere else—
Ben and I standing outside Kon-Tiki Motorcycles in Pacific Beach, a breeze coming off the ocean, my skin feeling strangely empty and open. My fingers intertwined with his, I moved into his space and laid my forehead on his chest. His whole body relaxed, as if tension was rolling off his body in waves. His free hand came up and his fingers slipped through my hair before his hand settled between my shoulder blades, and I whispered his name
.

There’s always a second where I’m lost in the memory and I feel light and happy. A giddy smile will overtake my face, and it will almost feel like he was just here.

Almost.

Then the heaviness of reality sets in, and I remember that I’m alone. That Ben is gone.

And it’s like my heart breaks all over again.

Nights are worse. I lie awake and think of the way Ben’s lips tasted against mine, or the strength in his long fingers and the way they felt against my skin. Sometimes missing him is visceral—I remember what it was like to have his arms around me, and I can feel their absence.

What I miss most is the way he smiled against my cheek.

But this isn’t
my
Ben Michaels.

W
e stand there—me and this stranger—for a minute, unsure of what to say next. I still can’t believe he’s real. Ben told me he’d never run into a double in this world. I guess I’d assumed one didn’t exist.

The guy must know I mistook him for someone else, because he says, “I just moved down here from San Clemente.” He gestures to another guy behind him who is a little thinner with dark hair that’s cut a little shorter but has the same curl at the ends, and he has the same deep-set eyes. He looks almost identical. “My brother and I came after the quakes took out our house. We heard there was more food down here.”

His brother—Derek
.

“It’s the military presence,” I mumble. Hopefully that’s enough of an explanation. I can’t force myself to say anything else. I’m too busy looking over his shoulder. His brother looks so much like him, just an older version. I don’t ask what happened to their parents or what kind of lives they used to have. I just stare.

Finally the guy who’s
not
Ben says something that’s half grunt, half mumble, then bends down and starts picking up the books he dropped.

I almost help him. I ran into him, which is why he dropped the books, but for some reason, I can’t make myself help. I don’t want to get sucked into a conversation with him. I don’t want to know who he is or why he’s here or what he’s like. It doesn’t matter. His similarities and his differences will both feel the same. They’ll hurt.

I look over my shoulder. Cecily is handing two bottles of water to the guy with the broken glasses, but she’s looking at me. I have an overwhelming need to get out of here.

So I do.

I head back to the car, grabbing Cecily and pulling her with me.

“Hey, wait, is that Ben Michaels?” she says. “Oh my God, I thought—”

“It’s not him.” I don’t want to explain what little I know of the multiverse and doppelgängers. Not now.

“But—”

“Cee, I said it’s not him. Do they have anything you want?”

Cecily shakes her head.

“Can we get out of here?”

She must see it on my face, whatever it is that I’m feeling. Or maybe it’s just her good-friend instincts that let her know this is a dead topic. Either way, she nods and moves around to the driver’s side. “Out of here it is.”

I get into the car, my door slamming shut behind me.

Cecily starts the car and we pull away, leaving Ben’s lookalike behind. I curl my hands into fists to keep them from shaking, and lean my head back against the seat.

A few times, I catch her glancing at me, and I know she wants to ask what my deal is. But she doesn’t. Because that’s what makes our friendship work. We tease each other—she’s too high-spirited and I’m too bitchy—but we’re there for each other when it matters.