“What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I think I left the panini press on,” Eli says, darting a glare at me.

  “We don’t eat paninis.” Masha laughs, then follows his gaze to me. “Oh.”

  “Let’s go, Masha,” Eli says. “You know what the doctor said about stress.”

  My best friend slips an arm around her husband’s waist. She lets her breath out, and I love her for doing this for me.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I didn’t tell you why we were coming here because a) I knew you wouldn’t agree to it, and b) the explanation is totally insane. Basically, Olivia needs a favor.”

  “And you said yes?” Eli asks slowly. “To what, exactly?”

  “A vow renewal,” I say. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “We got married a week ago,” Eli says.

  “It’s never too early to reignite your love,” I say.

  Eli squints at Yogi Dan. “Rabbi? Why are you dressed like a yogi?”

  “Actually,” Dan says, looking at himself, “this is very similar to how the Essenes dressed during the Second Temple period.”

  Masha points at Yogi Dan, her eyes growing wide. She touches Eli’s arm. “Do you remember when I told you about the wedding I actually wanted?” she whispers.

  “The one Babushka would never agree to?” Eli says, then seems to grasp her meaning. “How does Olivia know about it?”

  I take the opportunity to place the bouquet in Masha’s hands. She rotates the flowers in her palm, studies them closely. “Yellow and white callas,” she says under her breath. Her gaze travels up to my dress. “Gold palette.”

  I nod.

  “Is this what it was like?” she asks me. “Did I get what I wanted?”

  “It was beautiful,” I say. “Very intimate. Just your style. The chuppah was nicer and we had live music, but otherwise—”

  “What’s with your lipstick?”

  “This wasn’t your preference. I did it for continuity, and luck.”

  “And my babushka?” Masha asks. “She agreed to this?”

  I hesitate before telling her the truth. “Not at first, but there was a brunch where we set some boundaries. I told her to check herself. We worked it out.”

  “You did that for me?” she says.

  “BBS, Mash,” I say, and when her eyes shoot toward mine and I see the distance that her mind has to travel to fathom the possibilities of our friendship, to feel as naturally giving toward me as I feel toward her . . . it makes my decision that much clearer.

  “Let’s just do this,” she says.

  “But what the hell is this?” Eli says.

  “I think,” Masha says, “the rabbi . . . yogi . . . Dan marries us? Again?”

  “Actually,” I say, “first, we’re waiting on—”

  “What exactly did I miss?” says America’s Sexiest Voice behind me.

  “Jake!” I run to him, kicking up sand and leaping into his arms. He catches me, kisses me softly on the lips. It’s so good to hold him that I almost quit the whole plan on the spot. “Thank you for being here.”

  “What’s this about, Olivia?” he asks warily, eyeing the chuppah, the flowers, my dress and half-painted lips. I see I’m not the only one who was up all night. In the High Life, it’s agony for Jake and me to spend time apart. I hate that I’m trying to get back to a place where we don’t see each other, don’t need each other, don’t care about each other. I hate that leaving him is the best choice I have.

  “You didn’t tell Jake?” Masha asks me.

  “Tell me what?” he says. “What’s going on?”

  I press my hands to his chest and gaze into his beautiful green eyes. I’m going to miss this view. “Will you indulge me for a few more minutes?”

  He sighs. “And then you’ll explain what’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain everything.”

  My hands shake as I pass out the programs. Yogi Dan’s copy has a handwritten script on the back, the words he said the last time we did this transcribed to the best of my memory for him to repeat today.

  “Stand here, please,” I place Masha under the chuppah before Yogi Dan. “And you here, Eli.” I place him next to Mash. The newlyweds share a glance, brows furrowed, but they don’t move while I place Jake on the far side of Eli. Then I stand on the far side of Masha.

  I take out my phone and cue up “Just Like Heaven,” the song that would have played right after Mash and Eli kissed, if we hadn’t skipped realities. I want to have it ready when the moment is right.

  “This is the song I wanted to walk out to during the recessional,” Masha says, incredulous, glancing at my screen.

  “I know,” I say. “And you will.”

  She squeezes Eli’s hand, and the four of us face Yogi Dan, who meets Jake’s eyes, then Eli’s, then Masha’s, then mine. The moment is right. I cross my fingers behind my back.

  “Friends and loved ones of Masha and Eli,” Yogi Dan says in a booming voice. “We welcome you in peace and love.”

  I watch my best friend and the man she loves in profile. I watch their faces as they hear the words they wanted spoken at their wedding. Masha’s features soften as she listens. Eli’s eyes fill with tears. And Jake—

  I can’t bring myself to look at him yet, though I feel him looking at me.

  Then it’s my turn to give my reading. I open my copy of To the Lighthouse and hear Masha gasp. It’s not my original copy from AP English—my High Life mom would have donated that by now. I picked this one up at Diesel yesterday. The cover’s different, but the words I need are the same.

  “ ‘What art was there, known to love or cunning,’ ” I read, “ ‘by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving [make them] one?’ ”

  Masha stares at me as I finish, a hand pressed to her lips. I get the feeling that beneath her fingers, she wants to mouth our code—BBS. But she won’t. Not here. And it’s for the best. It gives me something to look forward to.

  “And now,” Yogi Dan says, consulting his program, “a reading from the world’s Best Man.”

  Jake looks confused. “Is that supposed to be me?”

  I hand him the King James Bible, also new from the bookstore, and flip it open to the bookmarked page.

  “ ‘Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?’ ”

  As he finishes reading, his eyes cut toward mine, and I realize I’m not wondering anymore about what these words mean to him. He is a man who believes in marriage and in love. I’ve been lucky enough to bask in that belief this week, but I have to step away from it now.

  “Our maid of honor made a powerful point in her reading just now,” Yogi Dan says, and I remember how the last time he said this, I’d felt competitive pride. I was trying to win. I was trying to make Jake lose. I didn’t understand we could win so much better together.

  “Olivia used the word inextricably, a gold-gilt frame for the union you dawn today. Your lives never will untangle after this ceremony. You are forever connected, inextricably.”

  I know what I have to do. I raise my eyes to Jake. He’s looking at me. I knew he would be. What was once a shallow game of chicken is now a profound expression of love. How strange that both experiences ignite the same sensation in my core, that building heat, that tingling flush in my cheeks. Is this it? Is it working?

  “You may kiss to seal your love,” Yogi Dan says.

  I break my gaze away from Jake to see Masha and Eli lean in for a kiss. I missed this part, once upon a time, and it’s beautiful to see.

  Except that when I look back at Jake, he’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at Masha and Eli, too. He’s clapping, the way you do at this point in the wedding, and I realize in horror we’re still in the High Life.

  I grab Jake’s shoulders, pull his focus to me. I stare into his eyes and will him to hate me, will myself to hate him.

  “Liv?” he says.

  “It didn’t work.” I turn to Yogi Dan.

  He shrugs. “Try the joint.”

  “Seriously?” I demand. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “What do you got, Olivia?” he challenges.

  “I don’t know,” I mutter, feeling catastrophically alone. Until I look at Jake.

  If Jake’s claim about his Moleskine is to be believed, both Glasswells fell for me on the first day of spring semester, junior year. Almost at first sight. Both Jakes wanted to climb the trellis to meet me as Juliet, but shied away because they were scared. Which means . . . the annoyance I’d always assumed was haughtiness in my Real Life might simply have been Jake struggling to reach me, to know me, to get me to see him.

  Which means . . . all those moments from Masha’s Real Life wedding that I’d filed under Glasswell being a dick—from Lyft pickup to ceremony stare-down—was I wrong about those, too? The sureness of my answer solves something inside of me.

  “Okay.” I close my eyes. “Here goes.”

  I have to get this right. It’s the most important thing.

  “Jake.” I meet his eyes. They give me courage I didn’t know was available. I think back on our bravery at prom. “I know there’s another world. One where we . . .” I pause, seeking the words, “could be as good as we are now. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in this world that have separated me from my mom and my BBS.” I glance at Masha, whose nod urges me on. “But in that other world, where I come from, I’ve really only made one.”

  “What was your mistake?” he says, indulging me.

  “I didn’t kiss you the first time I had the chance.”

  He smiles. “Surely, there’ll be other opportunities,” he says in that sexiest voice. “You could seize the next chance, if it means so much to you.”

  I open my mouth, then close it. Is it that simple?

  But in my Real Life Jake and I are galaxies apart. “I can’t,” I tell him truthfully.

  He steps closer to me, tips his forehead down to mine and whispers. “I feel like you should try.”

  “You don’t understand,” I protest. “I’m messy. And you’re—”

  He touches a finger to my lips. “In love with you. Here. There. Everywhere. All the wheres in all the worlds. Always.”

  Tears fill my eyes. I kiss his finger at my lips. I take his hand and run my thumb along his wedding ring, while he still wears it, while he’s still mine. I rise on my toes and press my mouth to his. And just in case it’s the last chance I get to say it, at least let it also be the first.

  “I’m in love with you, too. Everywhere.”

  The opening chords of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” play around us. Light blooms in my periphery. The ground beneath me shakes, then falls away.

  For a moment everything is black.

  “Jake?” I call into the darkness. This didn’t happen last time. I’m supposed to still be staring at him under Masha’s chuppah on the beach, just back in my Real Life, where we’re not married, where I drive a Lyft, and he’s a star.

  But I’m not under any chuppah. I’m nowhere near a beach or Jake. Fear grips me as the darkness shifts and I blink in sudden florescent lighting.

  I’m . . . in high school. Walking toward my English class. I look down at the bomber jacket I’d gotten for Christmas, at my skinny jeans and Converse, and I know it’s the first day of spring semester, junior year. Rounding a corner in the hallway, my shoulder bumps someone else’s. I look up and see it’s him. Seventeen years old and gorgeous, and—didn’t this moment really happen? Didn’t I glare at Jake instead of realizing I should have fallen head over heels right then?

  I know it now. So I take the chance. I smile. “Hi. I’m Olivia—”

  There’s another flash of light, another rift beneath my feet. Suddenly, I’m at the gas station near my parents’ house, filling up my car. When I look over, I see him watching me. He grins. I grin back. “You go to Palisades,” he says. “I’m new—”

  Flash. A boy steps onto a darkened stage, facing me up on the makeshift balcony. I’d know the moment anywhere. Auditions for our senior play.

  “So strive my soul,” Jake says.

  “A thousand times good night,” I say, knowing I’m supposed to exit now, but I can’t. I stand transfixed as he says his next line.

  “A thousand times the worse, to want thy light—”

  Flash. I’m on a picnic blanket on Mulholland, leaning in to kiss Jake first—

  I’m in Masha’s parents’ basement, watching him lean in to kiss me—

  I’m in the ice cream aisle at Ralph’s, holding two pints of gelato as I wrap my arms around him and make the first move—

  I’m on a boat, fishing with my dad and Jake and when my dad turns away for an instant, Jake leans over and shyly, quickly pecks me on the lips, beating me to it, much to my surprise—

  I’m at prom, on a curb, and Jake says, I know there’s another world, and I say, Me too, and we both lean in at precisely the same time—

  Flash. I’m at my father’s funeral. Jake’s there, holding my hand . . .

  I’m on a plane flying to New York, jubilant with excitement to see my long-distance boyfriend.

  I’m on a plane flying to LA, counting the days until he’ll visit me in two months.

  I’m taking acting classes at night.

  I’m standing backstage on the first day of Everything’s Jake.

  I’m on a ferry to Catalina with Jake, Masha, Eli, and my mom, to celebrate her fifty-fifth birthday.

  I’m holding the keys to the first rental house Jake and I share in Laurel Canyon.

  I’m on a couch with my feet in his lap, writing a lesson plan for my drama class at LAUSD.

  I’m reading Podcasting for Dummies.

  I’m at the mixer in my mom’s garage, slurping gyokuro and laughing with her and Jake as we discuss Get Out of Your Inner Hero’s Way, which I think I finally read.

  I’m standing at Masha and Eli’s intimate gold palette wedding, gazing at Jake Glasswell, who’s gazing at me. There’s a hazy dreamlike quality to the moment that tells me I haven’t landed where I’m going yet. That I’m here temporarily for a reason. I grasp that this wedding is happening because Jake and I just rescued Yogi Dan from the weed café. This wedding is happening because ten years ago at prom I ditched Eli to hang out with Jake. In a moment, the two of us will give our readings. Jake will win, and that’s okay. I know something he doesn’t, that we’re on the brink of a brand-new world. I smile at him. I can’t help it. It takes him a second, but then he smiles back—

  Flash.

  I’m back in darkness, seeing nothing, but knowing everything: I could have met this man a thousand ways. We could fall in love a thousand times, in a thousand places, with a thousand sets of circumstances. We could write a thousand different love stories, and the details would be different, but our hearts would be the same.

  Here. There. Everywhere. All the wheres in all the worlds. Always.

  “I love you, Jake Glasswell!” I sing out into the void with joyful certainty, just as light blooms again in my periphery, and the ground beneath me shakes, and Yogi Dan’s voice says from over my shoulder:

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Masha?” I spin to face the bride. Our eyes lock, and I can see the change in her immediately. It’s all there between us—our history, our laughter, tears, and love. I’m back at her real wedding. I’m back where I belong.

  “This is your wedding dress,” my voice breaks as my fingers trace the tulle of her gown. “This is your wedding hair.” With trembling hands, I pat, very gently, her bouffant. I look up at the canopy above us, lightly threaded through with ranunculus. “This is your gold wedding palette. And your eighteen wedding guests—”

  “This is it.” Masha reaches for my hand and squeezes. She’s smiling, the only bride in history who would patiently indulge such an interruption at the climax of her wedding ceremony. “You good, Liv?”

  Tears well in my eyes. I lift our clasped hands and press them to my heart. “This is your maid of honor.”

  Masha nods, biting back a laugh. “Last time I checked.”

  “What is she going on about?” Eli says in Masha’s ear.

  “Oh fuck,” I gasp. “Did I just wreck your wedding?”

  “Not yet,” America’s Sexiest Voice says in my ear. “But you’re dancing near the edge.”

  Slowly, I turn to face Jake, and oh my God, he’s gorgeous. I feel my body light up at the sight of him and it must be obvious that I’m glowing, but then—

  It occurs to me that while I was on my kaleidoscopic voyage through every love story with Jake, I don’t know exactly when I landed back in my Real Life. Specifically: was it before or after I publicly proclaimed my love for Jake at Masha’s altar?

  “Did I say anything . . . unexpected just now?” I whisper.

  “As a matter of fact, you did.” Jake smiles.

  “I can explain—”

  “Olivia,” Eli cuts me off. “All you said was Glasswell. Can we continue? I’ve got a bride to kiss.”

  “But she said it with a lot less rage than usual,” Masha says.

  “I definitely detected a note of fondness,” Jake says.

  Jake’s teasing me—a reassuring return to form, but there’s more to it. Like, in some unconscious part of his mind, he knows what we’re capable of feeling for each other, of being to each other.