“We did bring a present,” Ethan says. “To make up for it.”
It’s a box of Godiva chocolates. The moment I see them, I want to shove them all into my mouth. I figure I can take them from Gabby later if I really want them. Or get some of my own. I know that if I say I want them, Henry will stop on the way home. He always gets me any food I want, at any time of night. He says that’s his job. He says it’s the least he can do. “You carry the baby. I’ll get the food.” His morning breath is terrible, and he’s cheap as hell, but I feel like the luckiest woman in the entire world.
The party goes on, all of us hopping from person to person, talking and sharing stories about Gabby. Just when the party seems to hit its peak, someone asks Jesse to tell the story of how he and Gabby met. Slowly but surely, everyone quiets down to listen in. Jesse stands at the base of the fireplace so he can be seen and heard by everyone. I asked him his height once. He’s five-foot-six.
“First day of geometry class. Tenth grade. I look to the front of the classroom and see the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Jesse has told this story about nine thousand times, and each time starts the same. “Although Gabby would say that’s not the first thing that I should have noticed about her.” He looks over at her, and she smiles. “But you’d have to notice it about her. She was gorgeous. And, to my delight, she was also short. So I figured I had a shot.”
The whole crowd laughs.
“But I didn’t ask her out, because I was a chicken. Three weeks into school, another girl asked me out, and I said yes, because when you’re fifteen and a girl asks you out, you say yes.”
The crowd laughs again.
“Jessica and I dated all through high school, and we broke up senior year. So what do I do? I go right out and find Gabby and ask her out. And we have this great date. And then the next morning, my ex-girlfriend calls me, and she wants to get back together. And . . . long story short, I married Jessica. Anyway, eventually, Jessica and I split up. We had to split up. We weren’t right for each other. And once I could see that, there was no turning back. So we divorced. And then, a few years later, I get a Facebook request from Gabby Hudson. The Gabby Hudson.”
That’s my favorite part. The part where he calls her the Gabby Hudson.
“And I get way ahead of myself, and I start Facebook-stalking her and wondering if she’s single and if she’d ever date me, and yada yada yada, the next thing I know, we’re at lunch on the beach in Santa Monica. She refused to let me pay and said going dutch was the most appropriate thing to do. And we started walking back to my car, and I didn’t tell her this then, because I knew it would freak her out, but I felt like I finally understood why people get married again. You get your heart broken, you fail at marriage, you’re not sure you’ll ever be up for it a second time. And then it all clicks into place, and you see that you failed the first time because you picked the wrong person. And now the right person is standing in front of you. So I waited the appropriate amount of months of dating, and then I told her how I felt. And she said she felt the same way. And now we’re getting married. And I’m the luckiest guy alive.”
That’s usually the end of his story, but he keeps talking.
“I was reading a book about the cosmos recently,” he says, and then he looks around and goes, “Hold on, trust me, this relates.”
The crowd laughs again.
“And I was reading about different theories about the universe. I was really taken with this theory that some very credible physicists believe in called the multiverse theory. And it states that everything that is possible happens. That means that when you flip a quarter, it comes down heads and tails. Not heads or tails. Every time you flip a coin and it comes up heads, you are merely in the universe where the coin came up heads. There is another version of you out there, created the second the quarter flipped, who saw it come up tails. Every second of every day, the world is splitting further and further into an infinite number of parallel universes, where everything that could happen is happening. There are millions, trillions, or quadrillions, I guess, of different versions of ourselves living out the consequences of our choices. What I’m getting at here is that I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices and they led me somewhere else, led me to someone else.” He looks at Gabby. “And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn’t end up with you.”
Maybe it’s the moment. Maybe it’s the hormones. But I start crying. Gabby catches my eye, and I can see that she’s teary, too. Jesse is done speaking, but no one can turn away. Everyone is staring at Gabby. I know I should do something, but I’m not sure what to do.
“Way to make the rest of us look bad,” Henry says loudly.
The crowd laughs and disperses. I look at him, and he wipes the tears from my eyes.
“I love you as much as that show-off loves her,” he jokes. “I just didn’t watch the same Nova special.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I know.” Because I do know. “Do you think that theory is true?” I ask Henry. “Do you think there are versions of us out there who never met?”
“Maybe one where you didn’t get into an accident and you ended up married to a cinnamon roll chef?” he says.
“Everything that is possible happens . . .”
“Do you wish you were married to a cinnamon roll chef?”
“I certainly wish you were better at making cinnamon rolls,” I say. “But no, this universe is OK with me.”
“You sure? We can try to defy space and time and go find another for you.”
“No,” I tell him. “I like this one. I like you. And her.” I point to my belly. “And Gabby. And Jesse. And Carl and Tina. I’m excited to get my nursing degree. And I’m OK with the fact that sometimes when it rains, my hip aches. Yeah,” I say. “I think I’ll stay.”
“OK,” he says, kissing me. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
He slips off to the bathroom, and I start to head toward Gabby and Tina, standing by the mini-cheesecakes. I’m mostly interested in the mini-cheesecakes, but I am stopped in place behind a linebacker of a man. I ask him to move, but he doesn’t hear me. I am about to give up.
“Sir,” I hear from behind me. “Can she get through?”
The linebacker and I both turn around to see Ethan standing there.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the linebacker says. “I’m a glutton for cheesecake. When I’m in front of it, everything around me is a blur.”
I laugh and fumble through. Ethan steps up with me.
“Six months now?” he asks. He takes a piece of banana cream pie.
“Seven,” I say, taking a piece of cheesecake.
“What is this? No cinnamon rolls for you?”
“It is a nighttime party,” I say. “So it’s OK. But I’ve been eating them pretty much nonstop lately. Henry says you can smell cinnamon in my hair.”
Ethan laughs. “I believe it. I’m sure I told you that after we broke up, I couldn’t smell a cinnamon roll without getting depressed.”
“You never told me that,” I say, laughing. “How long did that last? Until Thanksgiving break?”
He laughs back. “Fair enough,” he says. “It is true, though.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have broken up with me, then,” I tell him.
He guffaws. “You broke up with me, OK?”
“Oh, please,” I say. “Go sell it to somebody else.”
“Well,” he says, “whoever broke up with whom, my heart was broken.”
“Ditto,” I tell him.
“Yeah?” he says, as if this information makes him feel better.
“Are you kidding? I didn’t sleep with anyone else for years afterward, because I kept thinking of you. I bet you can’t say the same.”
He laughs. “No,” he says. “I definitely slept with people. But that’s . . . that didn’t mean anything.”
“I always thought we’d get back together at some point,” I say. “It’s funny how the teenage brain works.”