I was unable to breathe from laughing so hard. Moments prior, we had stumbled through the downtown streets of Miami in the comfortable February warmth, back to our separate hotel rooms.

Only we didn't go into our separate rooms.

For a brief second after you entered yours, I expected you to bid me good night and to find myself longingly staring at a closed door. Instead, the door opened wider before me and you beckoned me inside.

The swirl of drunken jokes we had been cracking on our walk from the bar continued to bubble in my brain and soon I was erupting again into a fit of giggles that devolved quickly into us both bent over in hysterical laughter.

In an attempt to steady my breath, I flopped down on the hotel couch. You sat opposite of me, trying unsuccessfully to pour glasses of wine while still cry-laughing yourself. More wine covered the end table than made it into each glass.

Cue more eruptions of laughter.

With a few shakey steadying breaths, I calmed down enough to sit up and accept the wine soaked glass you offered me.

Glasses clinked as we locked eyes.

"I haven't had this much in years" I thought to myself as a smile spread across my lips and was mirrored by your smile back at me.

I took a sip of wine and heaved a pregnant sigh.

We both knew what was happening here. What we both wanted to be happening.

I had never met your wife, and you had never met mine. But I knew in this moment that the phantom of both of them were in this room with us. Reminding us of reality. Reminding us that what was swirling in our minds was forbidden.

The distance between our bodies grew smaller as you crept closer to me so that we were both facing the piece of cheap, generic hotel art displayed before us. A passerby would see us and think that we were considering it.

But what we were really considering was what to do with the palpable electricity in the air.

I feel your breath on my ear.

"Listen...I don't know what you're thinking but - "

I don't give you the chance to finish your sentence before my mouth is on yours. Adrenaline surges through my body as I simultaneously ride the high of finally feeling you this intimately, and panic over my breach of morality.

I can't stop myself. And you do quite the opposite of pulling away.

Despite all logic and consequence, I let myself feel all of you completely. And it feels so good.

Sweat dripped down my forehead as I tried to conceive what lay in front of me. I had been hiking through the humid hell of this jungle for the last 48 hours. According to my directions, I should be finally nearing the Temple of Awakening. And after two days of dealing with the unrelenting heat, the constant buzz and bites of insects, and total lack of sleep due to fear of an attack by a ferocious predator, I had finally made it to a bridge that threatened to collapse with just so much as a heavy breath upon it.

I heaved my own heavy breath in a forlorn sigh.

I sat against the trunk of a tree that was so covered in humid condensation you would have thought it had just been raining. I considered my options.

I could climb into the valley below and survey the river. However, crossing the river could mean getting swept along by the current. Or inadvertently stepping on a sharp fanged water serpent. And that's assuming I could even manage to get safely down to the river bed. Not exactly an attractive option.

I could continue upstream a bit and see if there was a more sturdy passage available. But that would mean more bushwacking, and deviating from the already spotty directions I was provided.

There really was no way around it - I was going to have to try to cross this piece of shit bridge.

As he looked out onto the horizon, the beauty of the day was stunning.
Below him, the lake shimmered in the early morning light. Cold air seemed to snap everything into sharper focus. Dense forest surrounded his perch on the western bluff circling the lake. Eagles screeched loudly and proudly in the distance. For Tyler, there was no more perfect morning. Getting in a hike before winter really set in, when all of the summer tourists were long gone, was heaven. Head to toe, his body was electrified with the feeling of being totally alone in his favorite state park. It was a stark contrast to how he felt about the rest of his current reality. Just a few weeks ago, his wife passed away unexpectedly. Kristin had shown no outward signs of any on going health issues, but was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer during a routine exam. Little could be done by that point. Medical staff did all they could to try to keep her comfortable in those last few days, but the disease took its inevitable toll. Now, for the first time in 24 years, Tyler found himself alone. One day seemed to bleed into the next. Purpose felt as though it had been drained from his entire life. Quiet moments, which used to be so rare with Kristin around, were never ending. Rallying himself to go anywhere, to do anything at all, was a monumental effort. Somehow, he managed to force himself out the door this morning.
Turning on a familiar autopilot, he awoke before dawn and drove himself from his downtown suburb to the remote state park where he had covered so many miles - both solo and with Kristin. Unsure exactly why he was being called to go there, he followed the urge. Very quickly upon arrival, he understood. While what had happened to Kristin was a tragedy, it was not a reason to give up everything he had also loved. Xanthic light began to flood the horizon as he paused for a moment to allow his grief to wash over him - just for a beat. "You would love this view." Zipping up his coat a little tighter, he turned and continued on the trail he had walked so many times - feeling relief in a way that only the purity of nature can bring.

The day you've been waiting for has finally arrived. And is it actually everything you thought it would be? Did it live up to the fantastical version of reality you had created in your head?

Does anything ever live up to that reality?

And yet you continue to hope beyond reasonable sanity that each new experience, each new relationship, each new anything will be THE thing that turns your desperate need for your life to have meaning into the truth of the matter.

"This time things will be different."

How many times have you told yourself that?

Is it ever actually different? Or is it just the same tired story playing out in a different context?

Sure - let's ride it out one more time. But let's not be surprised when the reality of what you've been hoping for without actually taking any meaningful steps towards is a shadow of the expected fulfillment you had built up in your head.

And when it all inevitably comes crashing down yet again, how about next time instead of saying "I hope next time will be different" we take a good hard look in the mirror and say "Next time, I will be different."

Because real fulfillment doesn't come from the perfect relationship, or the perfect job, or the perfect set of friends, or the perfect whatever because none of those things exist.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect.

And hell - most of your life isn't even within your control.

But there is something that is. Every day you have a choice. You can choose to wake up and and hope that your life will be different, or you can choose to be different. You can choose to show up to your job differently, or to your relationships differently.

You can choose to treat yourself differently than life has treated you.

When you wake up tomorrow - ask yourself: what am I choosing today?

We're the kind of twins you cannot tell apart.

My entire existence with Ellie has been in tandem, both of us staunch rule followers.

However this summer, I was determined to break our reputation. No longer would we be looked at as the goody two shoe twins, but rather, like all of the other kids at our tiny sleepaway camp, we would live in reckless abandon of conformity. We would no longer sit on the sidelines. We would run, headlong, into our days and push the limits of our nights.

But I knew I could not act alone. For I was so intimately tied to Ellie that no matter what I did solo, if she were to continue to instill doubt in all of us by hanging back, or questioning our judgement, I would still be associated by proxy. We would have to act together.

And what better statement to make than taking the fabled plunge off Green Rock cliff?

"Do not go home tonight."

I blinked dumbfounded at the message displaying on my iPhone screen from an unknown number. What the fuck?

"Sarah, is everything alright?"

I look up, phone still in hand, at the rest of the table. With a flash of embarassment, I realize my cohort of coworkers is starting at me. It's Thursday night - happy hour at the local Cheesecake factory. Spending time outside of work with the people I'm already forced to spend 8 hours of my days with isn't my favorite thing. But I know our boss is a chill for the tradition, and since I'm new in town and really can't afford the one pillar of my life that's stable [my job], I tend to bury my pride and make it out.

My co-worker, Chelsea, gives me a look of faux concern. Chelsea is one of those people that can't help but to kiss authority's ass. Someone else's discomfort, like mine in this moment, is her oppurtunity to turn on the fake empathy and endear herself to everyone by playing the part of concerend coworker. She flips her hair back and although her brow furrows in a calculated guise of giving a shit about me, her eyes are shining. She continues on:

"Michael was just talking about his snowboarding trip from last weekend, and we all know how much experience you must have had with the sport coming from way up in Vermont and all. But you were clearly so...distracted."

I hastily shove my phone back in my coat pocket.

"I - uh - yeah - didn't really do many winter sports while I was in Vermont. And I didn't grow up there...just went there for college."

With my absolutely abysmal and unengaging response, the rest of the group turns back to their regularly scheduled gossip. I sip my too-sweet cocktail and count down the minutest til this will all be over.

After what feels like an eternity, the group begins to disperse. Those with little people back home make a show of saying how they simply MUST get back to their families. This is my reprieve. I slip out quietly amongst the parents. Thankfully, no one questions my Irish goodbye.

Once in my car, I lock the door out of habit and pull my phone back out of my pocket. The same message still shines on my screen. I chew my lip and try to decide what to do. This is probably a scam right? Some kind of tactic for a data collection company to try to get me to tell them my address or something. As a super non-tech person, this concept seems logical enough and I decide to ignore what is surely just your run of the mill attempt to steal an identity, and head for home.

I sing along to my nostalgic early 2000s pop punk playlist as I zip along the highway - thankful that the traffic Gods of Atlanta are choosing to be kind to me tonight. I've lived a lot of places in my life, growing up the daughter of an Air Force pilot, and as far as I can ascertain the traffic in Atlanta is the absolute worst in the country.

My drive home this evening is uneventful, thoughts of the mysterious text drowned out by Yellowcard and laughing to myself at various coworker related incidents that had occurred throughout the day.

I make the last turn into my cul du sac and immediately slam on my brakes. Parked in front of my house is a black van. A split second after my brain was able to comprehend what I was looking at, the van's engine revs to life and headlights illuminate my neighbors yard. The text I received earlier comes crashing into the forefront of my mind, and although there could be a 1,000 rational explanations for what this van could possibly be doing here, I act on instinct - get the fuck out.

As the countdown began, the glass tube around me began to rise. I was temporarily blinded by white light all around me, as my platform rose. I wanted to simultaneously scream, faint, and vomit all at once. My body was buzzing with adrenaline.

My eyes relaxed as the hard electric lights faded and I temporarily found myself in darkness as I transitioned from below to above ground.

However, this reprieve was fleeting as I was once again blinded by a different light.

The glint of sunlight, against snow.

I raised my hand to my mouth and gasped in realization. I had been right.

The last two Hunger Games were in a temperate climate, where the tributes death were due to each other and less so the elements. I predicted that the Gamemakers would want a different spectacle this year.

I looked out at a snow covered meadow in the middle of a dense pine forest.

My hand reached for my front pocket, containing the one item from my district I was allowed to bring with me into the Games.

Coming from District 11, I didn't have much to choose from. After my name had been called at the Reaping, I had been escorted away and given 5 minutes in my home to choose my item.

Praying against hope that my intuition was right, I chose the one item in my possession I fathomed could help me start a fire.

I fingered it now in my pocket: my grandmother's magnifying glass.

The late autumn wind whipped my hair as I looked out at the wooden dock in front of me. Although no snow had fallen yet, the air was bitterly cold.

Although surely not as cold as the watery depths where Myra's body had been discovered.

Driving here, I felt extremely conflicted. What was the point, really? Nothing was going to bring her back. Surely, my logical brain knew this. But I had to see it for myself. I had to understand what she saw in her last moment's on Earth.

Last Wednesday, I got the phone call that no parent ever wants to get. It's the call that happens to parents on the news, but never ever to you.

Except that this time, it did.

I was woken up at just after 2AM on a regular, November week night, by the sound of my cell phone buzzing.

At first, I ignored the call and silently berated myself for forgetting to turn on "Do Not Disturb". Surely, this was another one of the handful of spam calls one gets a few times a week. When I didn't pick up, however, the phone continued to buzz. And buzz. With bleary eyes, I grabbed my device and eyed the incoming call. A call from an unknown number with a 534 area code was coming in. A jolt of panic. That was the area code of Myra's college town.

"Hello - is this Mr. Reed?"

What followed after that was a careful delivery on the part of the police dispatcher conversing with me to inform me that some local upstate New York kids had been playing earlier this evening at Covington Lake and had found something strange floating in the water. That something strange had turned out to be a body. Myra's body.

In the heart of the city, under the neon lights Our paths crossed, igniting endless nights Drawn together by an irrefutable force Our lives starkly veered and took a new course We partied and danced, like there would be no tomorrow Stifling and burying our collective sorrow We smoked and we drank and continued to consume Ignoring our reality, our inevitable doom Weeks turned to months, and months then to years And we kept on running, never addressing our fears We spent so much time orbiting one another We never stopped to realize we didn't know each other Never stopped to ask "Who are you? Who are WE?" Instead we fell further into a together-but-separate fantasy We were living as strangers, we just didn't know it But eventually our faces started to show it The stars in our eyes began to fade Upon our shoulders, a burden clearly weighed We went through the motions, tried to make things right But it was very clear to us, there was no hope in sight And then one day, as quickly as our start You made the decision to silently depart Though the silence between us had dragged on and on It was still somehow quieter with you being gone And after all this time, this distance, this blur I just really wish I knew who you were

"Someone is definitely fucking with you."

My girlfriend Myra shakes her curl-covered head and goes back to making breakfast. The familiar sounds of butter sizzling in the pan as she fries up her eggs, the coffee pot chiming out its completed brewing cycle, our dogs nails clacking against the hardwood floor as they wait for a rogue morsel to escape the pan. These sounds surround me but I hear none of them. Instead I hear my own heartbeat ringing deafeningly in my ears.

I don't know what to make of what I've just read. The letter was addressed to me...in what was most certainly my own loopy antiquated cursive handwriting. And Not only was it addressed to me, but it was FROM me.

But not me. Another me, in a different universe. The Other Me seemed to be living a life quite similiar to mine - same neighborhood, same two dogs, married to a wonderful woman, albeit not Myra.

"At least you're queer in all universes we've been made aware of," Myra had chuckled as we read through the letter together.

However, despite the similiarities described by Other Me, there was a huge concerning difference. In Other Me's world, people keep randomly disappearing. Vanishing into thin air. They are scared they might be next.

And somehow, they think it's my version of reality that's causing the problem.

Having gone to a modest liberal art school to procure a [pretty much useless] English degree, I had no idea where to even begin to fathom the logistics of this.

But I could tell from Other Me's letter that they were desperate. And somehow inside of me, I knew they were sincere. And although this is absolutely utterly insane, I want to try to help.