Bree had met Marsha in dance class and invited her into their group without even checking with them. The four of them had been friends for a few years and didn’t need anyone else. Then Marsha, whose parents had liked alliteration—as Marsha informed them that first day—trailed Bree to their lunch table and inserted herself into the group by latching onto Bree.

  Judith thought that the best thing Marsha had going for her was her unbiased, unrelenting loyalty to Bree, which extended to the group because that was how Bree said it needed to be, and Marsha had agreed.

  And Judith had to admit Marsha was loyal even when she was off doing her own thing. They could trust her with important things. But not about always being available. Everything was Marsha’s timing, which meant no one wanted to wait for her to show up now to learn what was happening.

  “Come on, tell us now,” April begged, her brown eyes wide.

  Bree hesitated, but before she could speak, Cindy hissed, “Well, Bree’s future husband just walked in. But don’t look!”

  Cindy’s “don’t look” message was ignored. Both April and Judith turned in their chairs and then back to Bree and Cindy, but not before Paul saw them, turned red, and walked back out the door.

  “Well, now you’ve done it,” Cindy said.

  Four

  Paul turned to leave the room so quickly he bumped into a group of students trying to decide what to order, causing a minor flurry of “excuse mes“ and appreciative looks from the women students and glares from the boys.

  Outside in the hall, he leaned up against the wall, trying to get his breath even though the hall smelled of cleaning solution and body odor. He almost wished he hadn’t taken that breath.

  What was that about? He asked himself.

  He was flustered and embarrassed over what? It was just a group of silly college girls sitting at a table staring at him. He was used to it. And it had been years since it had caused any reaction in him.

  Why now? Paul thought he had long outgrown the response to his looks. He had never thought winning a genetic pool of good looks as something to be happy about. He would rather be invisible. As far as he was concerned, his looks were a problem, not a gift.

  Growing up, he had been gangly and nerdy and mostly ignored by all his schoolmates. Now, as an adult, he knew he had been lucky in that respect. Instead of being ignored, he could have been bullied. Perhaps he had been—at least verbal bullying—but he hadn’t noticed.

  He had other things on his mind. More important things. Things he could never tell any of his schoolmates. They were secrets he would have to live with forever, and none of his schoolmates would ever understand, even if he wanted to tell them.

  To take his mind off his problems, he decided to learn about the world around him. Even as a child, he experimented with possibilities. What would happen if he put an obstacle in an ant’s path? The details and structure of life fascinated him, and everything else faded into the background.

  Paul knew his parents worried about his lack of interest in other people or in having friends. But for him, his life was okay, and he was happy being invisible and left alone. School was easy. People were hard.

  In high school, all that changed. He grew out of gangly. And the nerdy kid that no one had noticed became an object of tittering and long stares. Nothing had changed within him, but everything had changed about how the world saw him, and he began to live in a constant state of embarrassment at the looks he received and with a low-level terror that the boys who looked at him with hatred would physically turn on him.

  One of his teachers, Mr. Drummond, noticing his discomfort, asked if Paul had studied any form of martial arts. He had not and wasn’t interested. But Matthew Drummond spoke to Paul’s parents, and they forced him to go to an Aikido class with Mr. Drummond, who loyally went to a beginner class with Paul, even though Matthew had been taking lessons for years.

  Without Mr. Drummond accompanying him, Paul wouldn’t have lasted the first thirty minutes. Or come back. Mr. Drummond dragged him to class twice a week until one day Paul realized the terror had faded.

  By then, Mr. Drummond insisted Paul call him Matthew, or Mat, when they weren’t in school. At first, Paul resisted. But after countless hours of practicing together, he found that having his teacher as a friend was the most important thing that had ever happened to him, and calling him by his first name felt okay. However, he could never bring himself to say Mat.

  Paul learned quickly, and because of his diligent practice, Matthew was able to go back to his more advanced class, taking Paul with him. Matthew was the one Paul confided in about his embarrassment about girls. Matthew gave him tips on what to say, what to wear, and how to behave. He was the one who directed Paul to study statistics and astrophysics.

  Without Matthew Drummond, Paul didn’t know how he would have made it through high school or found the career that he loved so much.

  Matthew Drummond had passed away a year ago, and his long lingering illness gave them time to deepen their friendship, knowing they had little time. As Matthew would say, “I have a lot to say, so listen up.”

  Not a day went by that Paul didn’t miss Matthew, but today of all days, he wished he were there to help him understand why he was once again embarrassed after all these years. And afraid. And a little terrified. But he wasn’t afraid of something that martial arts or statistics could fix.

  The girl—the woman—who had walked into the room that morning was going to change his life. That, he knew without a doubt. It had already happened. His heart had leaped at the sight of her. An unbidden thought had come into his mind. How it could be possible, he didn’t understand. It didn’t follow his ordered view of the universe.

  He had thought, “I’m going to marry her.”

  How? Why? He didn’t know, but there it was, and what made it worse was he was pretty sure it was true. And that meant the life he had planned out for himself was probably over.

  So when he saw her sitting there, and her friends had turned to look at him, he had fled.

  Out in the hall, Paul breathed deeply, steadied himself, and decided to go home. He’d cancel office hours for the day. Heck, maybe even for the rest of the semester, so she would never walk into his office and make his heart slam against his ribs and lose his breath.

  “Get a grip,” he told himself. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen.”

  Although Paul knew ghosts didn’t exist, he knew life went on in some way, so he wasn’t too surprised to hear Matthew’s voice say, “And yet it does,” because that was what Matthew would have said if he were still alive.

  Paul also knew what Matthew would say next. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  His answer was, “I don’t know.”

  Paul could almost see Matthew laughing his big laugh and feel the slap on his back, encouraging him not to get in the way of where the universe was going to take him.

  Infinite possibilities in nature meant endless possibilities in life. That had been Matthew’s motto and Paul tried to make it his, too. But it was not one he found easy to live. Instead, he would try to figure out what would happen before it did, always trying to plan the outcome.

  Unlike Matthew, Paul was afraid of taking chances without studying every angle first. He knew all too well that sometimes things happen that change your life forever. And sometimes it is because of a stupid choice or a wrong action.

  What terrified him this time was that it was possible that the outcome was already determined, and he had nothing to say about it.

  Five

  While all that was going on, the missing Marsha was in the library, her head buried in a book. She loved the library, where everything was quiet, peaceful, and orderly.

  Marsha loved the feeling of holding a book in her hands and disappearing into another world, one of her own choosing. If she didn’t like a book and the world it created, she could put it down and open another. Not like life.

  Only when her stomach rumbled did she realize what time it was and that everyone was probably in the school’s coffee shop having lunch together, wondering where she was.

  Marsha could almost see the steam coming out of Judith’s head at her absence. It gave her a momentary sense of satisfaction that she had displeased the perfect Judith, but a feeling of guilt quickly replaced it. Once again, she was letting her friends down.

  This bouncing back and forth between emotions was not something that Marsha liked about herself. Of course, the list of what she didn’t like about herself, or anyone else, was much longer than what she did.

  There were only a few things that Marsha felt she did well. One was worrying. About everything. Today she was worrying about school. She liked it, and she hated it. Shouldn’t she like all parts of it?

  Bree said no, nobody had to enjoy all the things about school. After their first two years of college were over and they had taken the classes they had to take, Marsha would be free to take more of what she wanted.

  Besides, since their pact to stay in town only lasted through the first two years of school, she could also go anywhere she wanted to go after that.

  “But I don’t know what I want,” Marsha would say so quietly that Bree would have to bend in to hear.

  “I’m sure you do,” Bree would answer. “You just haven’t let yourself want it yet.”

  Marsha would turn away, knowing that Bree was probably right as she usually was, but that didn’t help. She still didn’t know. It made her laugh inside to know that most people read her independence as confidence when mostly it was confusion.

  Stuffing the book into her already overflowing backpack, Marsha hurried out of the library to meet her friends. As she passed the large glass door, she caught a reflection of herself. Tall, thin, a dancer’s body. Nothing she had to work for. But she worked hard at being a dancer, and that was where she found herself at peace.

  Maybe Bree was right. She did know what she wanted, and she was only afraid because she wouldn’t find it in this podunk town. Losing her friends seemed like too high a price to pay to do what she wanted to do in life.

  The library and the campus HUB were nearby, but even though she felt guilty for being late, Marsha didn’t hurry. She dawdled, as her mother would have said. It was a habit she had developed young, not knowing what would greet her when she got home.

  Sometimes her mother was in the kitchen making her a snack. Other days, Marsha would open the door and find her mother passed out on the floor. Marsha’s heart would race. She’d rush to her mother to see if she was still breathing, and since she always was, the wave of adrenaline that fueled her fear would sweep into anger or depression.

  Other times Marsha would open the door to a screaming lunatic and quickly back out before her crazy mother trapped her. Before she found Bree and her circle of friends, she would hide in the backyard, swatting at bugs in the summer and trying to stay warm in the winter, waiting for the manic version of her mother to be over.

  So she walked slowly, fully aware that her friends weren’t her mother, but also knowing that she had probably disappointed them again. Still, they never held it against her. Even Judith never let her anger linger. She reminded herself that they were her safe space and hurried through the hall to the coffee shop, almost bumping into Mr. Hunky professor, who looked as panicked as she felt.

  Wonder what that’s about, Marsha thought, as she looked for her friends.

  She saw them across the room. Their heads bent forward, giggling together. Cindy looked up and saw her and waved her over while practically hopping out of her chair in anticipation.

  “What’s going on?” Marsha asked.

  “Bree met the man she is going to marry!” April giggled.

  “She says she is going to marry him,” Judith corrected.

  “She will. You know she knows these things.” Cindy answered.

  Marsha looked at Bree, leaning back in her chair, smiling. “Is it true?”

  “It is!” Bree said, grabbing Marsha’s hand and pulling her down to the empty seat beside her.

  “Who are you going to marry?”

  This time Cindy couldn’t help herself. She almost tipped over her chair in her excitement. “Professor Hunky!”

  Six

  Current time…

  “Professor Hunky,” Bree said out loud to herself, remembering that day.

  She had been radiant, knowing that her future lay before her, bright and shining. Her friends laughing, believing her because she had so often known things before them and was so often right, but mostly because it sounded like a fairy tale.

  They had all believed in them back then, devouring Disney movies and happy endings like candy. They would whisper to each other about their dreams of a fairy tale life during their many sleepovers.

  But that was then. This was now. And now Bree knew there were no such things as fairy tales. She knew they had all missed the fact that the stories never told you what happened after the prince and princess got married. Now she knew what happened. They get old and one of them dies. After all, that’s what happened to her.

  What really made her mad was the fact that she hadn’t died. It should have been her. It would have been easier for Paul. He had friends, work, and travel, and women would be again crawling out of the woodwork if Hunky Professor was free again.

  Instead, he had died, and she had nothing. Instead, here she was still sitting with her back up against the door, holding the letter with stickers all over it to make sure she noticed and didn’t throw it into the junk pile.

  Did he expect her to keep going on as usual? Did Paul expect she would continue to get the mail every day, go through it, sorting, filing, and taking care of things? Perhaps he did. On the other hand, he made sure his letter stood out, just in case she wasn’t wholly herself after he died.

  Idiot, she thought. Of course, I wouldn’t be.

  Yes, she had married Professor Hunky, who had let her down and died. And now she had nothing and nobody. It was the same story she had been telling herself every day for the past month. While he was sick, she didn’t have time to think. She had him to take care of, and then he took that away too.

  But that letter was making her curious. And she knew Paul would have counted on that. Her curiosity and her need to solve puzzles in life. So now, despite herself, she could feel a desire to do something returning. She tried to will it away. This dreamy, depressed, lonely state had become a safe place to live, and she didn’t want it to slip away all because of the letter.

  Sighing, Bree leaned back against the door, still on the floor surrounded by mail and a letter that wouldn’t leave her alone. She would have to open it at some point. Just not now. She wasn’t ready.

  Besides, she had to go to the bathroom, a much more current problem than the one she was stuck in. Plus, she was hungry. That she was hungry was also new. She had forced herself to eat something every day, knowing that despite her complete lack of desire to do anything or see anybody, she wouldn’t be dying anytime soon.

  But hungry had not been part of the equation before. However, hungry or not, she knew she didn’t have the energy to eat anything other than the food bars and frozen vegetables she had been eating for the last month. And she was sick of them. She finally wanted something different.

  As Bree shuffled to the bathroom, she knocked over a pile of mail, and it irritated her. There it was again, a feeling she hadn’t had since Paul had died. Dismay over disorder. And also the pain.

  The pain that she had deadened, hiding from it, was sticking its head up, reminding her that although Paul had gone away, the pain was still there. What was different was now she was ready to admit that perhaps it was possible to feel the pain and live again.

  Leaning against the sink in the bathroom she had so carefully designed, she stared into the mirror at herself and started to cry again. Perhaps she had died but had gone to hell. Her hair, usually short, sassy, and silky, now looked like straw pieces.

  And her skin, to which she had so carefully applied creams and lotions, was gray and covered with little red bumps, probably from not washing it for days. Dark blue circles lay under her eyes, and her eyes were now so bloodshot they looked red. All that work, keeping herself beautiful for Paul, had disappeared along with him.

  However, the unfamiliar feeling of hunger was growing stronger. Bree knew she couldn’t go out looking like this, but she could order pizza. Opening her office door—where she had once spent most of her days but hadn’t seen since she had taken care of everything she needed to do after Paul died—she found her phone charging by her computer. Thanking her past self for at least taking care of that bit, she pulled up their favorite pizza shop and ordered—a whole pizza just for her, something new. Also new, no meat on half of it.

  Just that realization was almost enough to send her back to the floor, but the letter was waiting. And she needed to be ready to read it, which meant a shower and food.

  Thirty minutes later, feeling marginally better, Bree handed the pizza delivery woman enough money to cover the pizza and a generous tip and was grateful that it wasn’t the usual boy who delivered when Paul was alive.

  Bree almost asked where he was, her curiosity driving her again, but instead ducked her head and mumbled thank you. But not so soon that she didn’t notice the dismay in the young girl’s eyes as she glimpsed the mess lying on the floor behind her and Bree’s gray face.

  Before she could say anything, Bree stopped her by saying, “I’m fine, just getting over something.”

  The girl nodded, said thank you, and turned away. But Bree, watching through the peephole, saw her turn back to the door as if she wanted to knock again and make sure, but shook her head and headed back to her car.

  Of course, the girl knew what had happened. She and Paul were regulars at the pizza shop. Someone would have told them why they had stopped coming in. She should have thought to order from someplace else.