My phone buzzed. A text from someone named "Mom."
"Thinking of you today, sweetheart. Three years is a long time. She'd want you to be happy."
Three years. In this world, Nina died three years ago.
And I was still here. Still living in our apartment. Still surrounded by her memory.
I needed information. I needed to understand this world before I could find a way back.
I searched my phone. Messages, photos, social media. Piecing together a life I'd never lived.
In this universe, Nina and I met the same way — coffee shop, spilled equations, love at first chaos. We dated for two years, just like my world.
But here, she wasn't a secret government physicist. She was a professor at the local university. Normal job. Normal life.