A Million Worlds with You

Fate doesn’t guarantee us a happy ending. We’re not promised to be together no matter what. But in dimension after dimension, world after world, fate gives us a chance. Our destiny isn’t some kind of mystical prophecy. Our destiny is what we do with that chance.

Songs and movies tell us that when you meet the one you love, the planet stops spinning, the clouds open up, and your heart begins to sing. Reality is messier than that. The truth is, we meet new people all the time, but we can never tell exactly what they might mean to us. You never know who you’ll forget, or who you’ll need forever.

But just because something’s been damaged doesn’t mean it’s ruined.

Because I want you to be happy. With or without me, whatever it takes.” Theo sighs. “That’s the difference between wanting someone and loving them.

Every moment, every day, we are all making something -- whether it's science or art, a relationship to a destiny -- building it choice by choice, moment by moment.

When we're in pain, people are too quick to say, Get over it, move on, it's not that bad. But we don't get over grief by denying it. We have to feel it. We have to give it its due. Somethings that means doing the exact opposite of "moving on." We have to dive down to the very depths of our sorrow, relive every terrible moment, and endure the torture of asking what could have been - and what will now be. We have to bleed out before our hearts can start beating again.

I’m forcing us both to confront the fact that one of our most beautiful dreams was a lie. We both believed in destiny as a kind of guarantee—a promise from the cosmos that we would have our time together in virtually every world we shared. But now I see that believing only in destiny means giving up responsibility. We fooled ourselves into thinking happiness was a gift we would be given time and time again. It’s so much scarier to admit that our lives are in our own flawed, fallible hands. Our futures are not kept safe for us in the cradle of fate. We have to hack them out of stone, dig them out of mud, and build them one messy, imperfect day at a time.

Every single world we've visited isn't just random—it's the result of countless choices, all of them combining to create a new reality. You and I have been given an infinity of chances, and that's so much more than mot people will ever get—but in the end we get to live in only one world, and that's the world we make. I want us to create that world together.

Sometimes the memory of horror is worse than the horror itself.

We are all the center of our own universe, and all of us in someone else's orbit. It's a paradox, but sometimes paradoxes are where the truth begins.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” If a guy tells you, I have trouble trusting women, you don’t assume he’s just had bad experiences and you can fix things by being the nicest, best woman of all time. You go, Thanks for the warning. Good luck with that. Nice knowing you. Then you walk away without ever looking back. And if someone says they’re going to hurt you? Don’t stick around and wait for them to prove it.

Nobody deserves a broken heart. Everybody deserves to be loved.

The truth is, we meet new people all the time, but we can never tell exactly what they might mean to us. You never know who you'll forget, or who you'll need forever.

He takes my hand and says, 'Let's make a world.

But we don't get over grief by denying it. We have to feel it. We have to give it its due.

If you know you're loved, deep down know it, something deep and precious inside you will always be safe. If you don't have that love - or don't know that you do - then you're vulnerable. Unshielded. Exposed to all the hardness and horror of the world.

How do you grieve for another you?

Please, I thought. Don't be fooled. Look inside my eyes and see the difference. It's our only chance. Please, Paul. Know me. And he did. He did.

We have to bleed out before our hearts can start beating again.

Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll go do my postdoc work somewhere else, at a university far away from California, far away from all of you. You and me and Paul, we’ll still Skype and text, just a little less often than we used to. I’ll spend some time feeling sorry for myself and listening to emo music, then I’ll spend some time partying too hard and probably sleeping with a few of the wrong people, and finally someday I’m gonna meet a woman who actually makes me glad I didn’t get you. Because she’ll be to me what Paul is to you, right? She’ll be the one.

But this role doesn’t need an adventurer as much as it needs someone who can... look at each world with fresh eyes. Who can perceive things deeply. Not an adventurer—an artist. You were the one we needed all along.

Sometimes, hope is even harder to bear than grief.

Our destiny isn't some kind of mystical prophecy. Our destiny is what we do with that chance.

Maybe a soul can be broken, just like a destiny.

My parents would call it genetics. To me it seems like alchemy—the luminous space between science and magic.

We both believed in destiny as a kind of guarantee—a promise from the cosmos that we would have our time together in virtually every world we shared. But now I see that believing only in destiny means giving up responsibility. We fooled ourselves into thinking happiness was a gift we would be given time and time again. It’s so much scarier to admit that our lives are in our own flawed, fallible hands. Our futures are not kept safe for us in the cradle of fate. We have to hack them out of stone, dig them out of mud, and build them one messy, imperfect day at a time.