“You okay? Your face is mad red.”

I cover my mouth so he doesn’t have to watch me try and throw up.

“I saw Genevieve back there with your boy Thomas. She’s not going to tell Nicole she saw me, right?”

“I don’t think they even talk anymore,” I manage. He’ll be lucky if Genevieve doesn’t take on a Dark Alternate herself and rat him out. “I think I should go home and rest. See you later this week?”

“You still like Thomas, don’t you?”

I don’t want to lie to him, but the truth might cost me him.

Collin shrugs. “It sucks, but it’s for the best. I’ll see you later this week, Aaron.”

He walks away. I watch him. I really wish people would just start punching me in the face again. At least a punch in the face would make me feel worthy of being hit. All this—Thomas and Genevieve laughing without me, Collin not giving enough of a fuck about me—makes it clear that no one would have any problem forgetting that I existed.

Maybe that’s the only way Leteo can work. For the forgettable. No one wants to be forgettable. But I’ll take that risk.

8

IMPOSSIBLY FORGETTABLE

   I try not to be home when Eric is around. Out of all my relationships since being unwound, ours is the only one that hasn’t changed. Even remembering all the times he teased me doesn’t shift anything; we’ve always given each other shit, after all. But I’m kind of, sort of, definitely awkward around him because even though he knows, I never actually came out to him. Still, the apartment is small, and the arguments with Mom to approve me for another procedure are loud and daily.

I get to Good Food’s early to dodge Eric before he wakes up.

Mohad has been really cool about me missing work. But on Tuesday I asked him to give me some extra shifts because I needed to get out of the house. My mom only agreed to it because Mohad banned Brendan, Skinny-Dave, and Nolan from the store. He even told me I could call the cops if they showed up while he stepped out.

More than anything else, I thank Mohad for not firing me yesterday when I completely zoned out during a customer transaction. I gave this guy change for a fifty twice. That asshole naturally took the cash and bounced, but Mohad could see on the cameras that I didn’t pocket it—just got really distracted, I guess.

I spend the afternoon doing the same bullshit: cashiering, taking inventory, cutting conversations short about why my friends jumped me, sweeping, more cashiering, cutting more conversations short. It’s nearing the end of my shift when Mohad asks me to mop the beverage aisle. I prop up the caution: wet floor sign, dip the mop in the bucket, and almost freak out when Thomas and Genevieve appear. They slowly approach me.

His head is low, like when he couldn’t face me at Leteo.

Her head is high, like she’s won a prize I could never have.

My head is spinning, like I’m drunk on worthlessness.

“Hi, Aaron,” Genevieve says. “Do you have a chance to talk to us after work?”

“You can talk to me here.” I start mopping, but then Thomas’s cologne hits me and I retreat back to my corner.

Genevieve peeks into the next aisle and says, “Your mother told us about Leteo. Why would you do this again to yourself and everyone who loves you?”

“You’ll never get it.”

It’s impossible to explain the emotions cycling through me to someone who never forgot her life, later remembered it, and now has all these memories bleeding into each other. Every day feels more like chaos, like I’m never going to get my life straight—no pun intended—like starting over again is better than game over. Surely there’s some Leteo support group for those whose buried memories have been unwound. On the other hand, I don’t need any more sadness in my life listening to other people’s tragedies.

“Aaron, it’s you who’s not getting it,” she says. “Leteo fixes some things, yes, but it ruins everything else. I’ve been with you every step of the way, as much as I could, and pieced together everything else myself. This is not the happiness you want.”

I throw the mop onto the floor. The clattering makes Gen flinch.

“I can’t have the happiness that I want. On top of everything else, why should I have to carry around that weight too?” What I feel for Thomas is the loudest thing I’ve ever had ringing through me. I can be me again—or some form of me—when that ringing shuts up.

Thomas steps toward me. “I’m trying to make sense of this, Stretch. This guy, Collin . . . The one we saw at Comic Book Asylum and at the track field. You forgot him, but still knew him?”

“I forgot my time with him,” I say.

Thomas looks me in the eyes and I turn away. “What does that mean for me? Do we have enough history that you would still recognize me? Would you forget me?”

“Maybe,” I say, wishing I were somewhere else, even back home with Eric. “I don’t know exactly how Leteo puts together their blueprints.”

Thomas sniffs. I look up. His eyes are red and watery. I haven’t seen him cry since Brendan laid into him. “Remember back in June when we left that Leteo rally? You agreed with me that everyone serves a purpose. Is our friendship really so worthless now?” he asks.

When I don’t answer, he turns to Genevieve. “I’m going.”

It doesn’t sound like an invitation, but she looks at me one more time before following him anyway.

Genevieve is right: I don’t want this happiness, but blind happiness is better than inhabitable unhappiness.

After my shift, I go straight to my building, ignoring Baby Freddy’s shouts to hang out. I enter the lobby just as my mom exits the downstairs Laundromat, pushing the heavy load of clothes in a shopping cart. I come up beside her and take over, heading to the elevator.

“Genevieve and Thomas stopped by,” I say, keeping my cool.

She doesn’t even try and play it off or explain herself. “Thomas too?”

I press the elevator button. “Yeah. Did you only recruit Gen for the mission?”

“Outside your family, she loves you the most,” Mom says. “I thought that was my best shot.” Maybe so, but I guess Gen thought bringing along the guy I want to be my happiness might be a better bet. That girl is really something else. “I’m tired of this fight, Aaron. I know it’s my responsibility as a parent to give you the life you want, especially since I failed at getting you your own room and finding you a father who didn’t get so lost in his own head, but I don’t want to lose my son.”

The elevator arrives but we don’t get on. “I just don’t think I’m that different from him.”