Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

It had to be exact, which was easy when you had a variety of instruments with which to measure distance, angles, and other environmental variables. Not so easy when you were eyeballing it in a room that was literally being shaken apart.

Dr. Byrne and Nick struggled to keep the angle steady, reflecting the beam of the laser directly back onto itself. Penelope stood behind the X-FEL, her mirror catching the split photons as they passed through the portal. Together, it should be enough to create a powerful interference pattern that would disrupt the portal.

If only they could keep the mirrors from moving.

“Higher,” Josie yelled. The rumbling was so intense she could barely hear her own voice. “Ten degrees.”

Jo’s room was literally falling apart around them. Chunks of plaster loosened by the violent shaking crashed to the floor. The bookcase pitched forward, falling face-first onto the bed like a diver doing a belly flop. The window rattled so fiercely she thought it might explode.

“It’s not working,” Jo screamed.

Josie didn’t lose focus. She stood right next to the mirror. They were so close. “Just an inch more.”

Suddenly the shaking stopped. The mirror had hit its target and Josie watched with rapt attention as the hole in the middle of the portal fluctuated, then rippled as the particle waves began bouncing against one another. Dr. Byrne and Nick held the mirror firmly, the angle perfect.

In an instant, the hole in the portal was gone. The surface blurred and the image of Josie’s parents distorted. The portal was closing. This time for good.

“Let’s go,” Nick said, grabbing her hand.

“Are you sure?”

Nick smiled. “Hurry up.”

Josie plunged into the portal, her hand clasped tightly in Nick’s. Only this time the substance around her felt heavier. Less like pudding and more like setting concrete. She could barely move. Her legs strained against the portal but she wasn’t getting anywhere. Her lungs ached as she began to run out of air, and she grasped Nick’s hand tighter. She reached out blindly with her other hand, desperate for the clean air of her basement, but felt only the thickening goo around her.

She opened her mouth to scream but the viscous substance filled her mouth. The light began to dim as she choked and gagged.

Suddenly Nick’s hand was ripped from hers; then she felt a violent shove and her body lurched toward the other side of the portal.

A hand was on her arm. Then another. Someone was pulling her into the light. With a final heave, Josie flew out of the portal onto the basement floor.

“Where’s Nick?” she gasped.

Josie’s dad knelt down by her side. “Jo Jo, he didn’t make it.”

Josie’s body went numb. “What?”

“He pushed you through,” her mom said. “He let go and shoved you toward us.”

Her dad stroked her hair. “Then Penelope and I grabbed you and pulled you free.”

Nick was gone. He’d died trying to come with her, swallowed up by the suffocating substance of the portal. She’d lost him again, this time for good.

Josie clasped the necklace in her hands, and cried.

7:10 A.M.

JOSIE’S DAD TURNED AROUND FROM THE DRIVER’S seat with a look of concern on his face. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Josie glanced out the car window. The brick façade of Bowie Prep loomed above her, familiar and yet different. It was her school in her universe, and yet nothing about it was the same as it had been a week ago. Josie’s hand strayed to the necklace that rested against her chest. Or more precisely, she wasn’t the same. After all that she’d been through, the idea of facing Madison and Nick and a school full of people who still gossiped about her in the halls as she walked past suddenly seemed unimportant.

“Josie?” Her mom leaned around the front passenger seat. “You don’t have to go. We don’t want to rush you into this.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Josie saw her dad reach out, take her mom’s hand, and squeeze it affectionately. Despite her own sorrow, she was so relieved her parents had found each other again.

Josie stared out the window. She couldn’t just sit at home. Every time she stopped doing something, every time she closed her eyes, she thought of Nick, and the sorrow of losing him washed over her afresh. No, she had to go back to school. It was the only way she could keep going.

“I’m ready.” She opened the door and slid out of the car. “Penelope will be there. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Bowie Prep felt strange as Josie slowly made her way upstairs to her second-floor locker. She remembered her first day at school in Jo’s world, the excitement and anticipation she felt, combing the hallways for a glimpse of Nick. She’d expected to find a boyfriend with whom she could make amends for the mistakes in her own relationship, but instead she’d found something else.

Love.

She was no longer afraid to face Madison and Nick in the hallway at school. She was no longer afraid of the whispers and rumors. None of it mattered. Nick was gone, she would never see him again, and her love would live with her forever, a dull ache that would never go away.

She rounded a corner, lost in her own painful memories, and ran straight into her ex-boyfriend.

“Josie!” Nick said, a look of relief on his face. “I’ve been looking for you.”

She thought she’d prepared herself for this, to see her ex-boyfriend who was the identical twin of the love she had lost, but her heart clenched at the sight of him and it took every ounce of her strength and self-control to keep the tears at bay.

“Hey,” she said. It was all she could manage.

“Hey?” he said with a playful grin. “That’s all you’ve got for me?” Nick leaned down, his lips reaching for hers.

“What the hell?” Josie dodged his attempt, her stomach instantly sick at the idea of kissing him.

Nick reared back as if he’d been slapped. “What? Come on, after the other day I thought we worked this all out. Madison and I are done, I swear. Just like I texted you.”

“You broke up?”

“Yeah, gorgeous,” Nick said, slipping back into their old routine. “I told you—you’re the only girl for me.”

Josie curled her lip. A week ago she’d have killed to hear this Nick say those words to her again, but now? Now she just felt sorry for him.

“Sorry, Nick,” Josie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you thought, but I’m not interested.”

“Huh?”

She reached to her neck and wrapped her fingers delicately around the necklace. A strange sense of calm washed over her as she turned her back on Nick forever, and walked down the hallway. “Go back to Madison. You two were made for each other.”

3:59 A.M.

“Are you sure?” Nick says.

Jo nods. “It’s the least I can do.”

Nick’s face is anxious. “And she’ll see it?”

Jo shrugs. “She should. She’s seen everything else.” She glances at her watch. Only fifty-five seconds until four o’clock. “Hurry up.”

Nick looks into the mirror in Jo’s bedroom. Jo follows his gaze, even though she knows what he’ll see: her room. Just her room. A regular reflection of a regular room, not another room like hers, with a girl who looks like her but isn’t.

Josie used to wish she lived Jo’s life. Now it’s the other way around.

Nick sighs and turns back to her. “I’m ready.”

“Go ahead.”

“Josie,” he says, staring straight at Jo but without seeing her at all. “I’m here. I’m okay. Dr. Byrne pulled me out of the portal.”