When I open my eyes the room is empty. Frankie is gone.
Whoa. I grab on to my bedpost for support. First my blinds, then my clothes, now my brother has vanished, too!
I think I’m trapped inside some kind of government experiment.
Then, a few seconds later, I hear the toilet flush and I exhale in relief and stumble back into the hallway just as Frankie plods out of the bathroom. I grab his arm again and pull him back to my room.
“Frankie,” I say, my voice rattling. “I’m like really freaking out here.”
Frankie sighs. “I told you. Apologize to Sequoia for whatever you’re fighting about and she’ll stop crying.”
Sequoia and I are fighting?
Okay, slow down. One mystery at a time.
“It’s not that. I think…” I let out a breath. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
Frankie does not look in the least bit fazed by my admission.
“This morning,” I go on, “everything was different. This room was different. This bookshelf was different. My closet had different clothes in it.”
Frankie squints at me, like he’s not following.
I huff impatiently and try a different tactic. “Where do I go to school?”
He gives me a dubious look. “Is this that game you play where you make us remind you of how smart you are and how lucky you are to go to the Windsor Acad—”
“Aha!” I shout, making him flinch. “You see! This morning, I didn’t go to the Windsor Academy. This morning, I went to Southwest High. And I was best friends with Laney who cheated on me with Austin who you don’t even seem to know exists!” I flail my arms wildly. “And now everyone is acting like I go to the Windsor Academy except no one is even supposed to know that I got into the Windsor Academy because I hid the acceptance letter so people wouldn’t think I was crazy for choosing to go to Southwest High for a boy! Except now the acceptance letter is hanging on my freaking wall like … like…” I pause, trying to make sense of my own chaotic thoughts. “Like my whole life is on a different track or something.”
Frankie stares at me, his face all scrunched up the way it is whenever he’s working on the Sea of Quantum Entanglement section of his board game. “What did you just say?” he asks, an eerie twinge to his voice.
“Nothing,” I mumble. “Never mind. I’m not making any sense.”
“No,” he insists. “Say it again.”
I collapse onto my bed, breathless and fatigued. “I said it feels like my life is on a different track or something.”
Frankie’s eyes grow wide and then he starts mumbling, like he’s having an argument with himself. “Could it be? No, it can’t be. But what if it is? It’s not. I mean, it’s only a theory, right? It’s not like it’s been proven. She could just be having a delusional breakdown. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised—”
“Frankie,” I interrupt. He blinks and focuses on me, like he forgot I was even there. “What are you talking about?”
“I…” he begins hesitantly, raking his teeth over his bottom lip. “I think I might know what’s happening here.”
“You do?” I ask.
He exhales loudly. “Yes. I mean, I have a theory, and you know theories are only speculative. I’ll have to gather more data, do some more research before I can make any conclusive…”
“Frankie,” I urge him.
But he’s already off again. Lost in his own thoughts. It happens a lot. “But if I’m right, this could be huge. I mean, supernova huge. If we could somehow prove this and submit it to a scientific journal, this could change everything. Everyone would read it.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “Stephen Hawking would read it! Maybe he’d even come to visit!”
“Frankie!” I yell in an attempt to bring him back.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He grabs me by the shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin, as his eyes light up. “Kennedy, I don’t think you realize what you’ve done.”
I scoff. “We’ve established that part already.”
“It’s quite possible you’ve altered the fabric of space and time.”
“English, Frankie.”
“Fine. To put it simply”—he flashes me a mocking smile—“very simply.” He spreads his arms wide like a televangelist welcoming new followers. “I’m pretty sure you’ve traveled to a parallel universe!”
I think my brother anticipated some kind of fanfare after that because he’s staring at me with this expectant look on his face. But I just stare back at him, my expression completely blank. Then I let out a sigh and stand up from the bed.
“Frankie,” I warn. “Enough with the parallel universe crap! I need real explanations.”
“This is a real explanation,” he maintains. “And it’s not crap. It’s a scientific breakthrough!” He runs over to my desk and grabs a notebook and pen from the top drawer and starts writing furiously. I peer over his shoulder to see a mess of incomprehensible scribbles, diagrams, and equations.
I snort and go back to pacing. “There’s another explanation. There has to be. It must have something to do with hitting my head on the stairs today. I mean, Dorothy hit her head and woke up in Oz, so I could feasibly hit my head and wake up in”—I glance around my vaguely familiar bedroom—“well, whatever this place is.”
“Parallel universe,” Frankie supplies with his head still bent over the notebook.
I ignore him and keep pacing. “Maybe I hit my head so hard I’m lying in a coma in the hospital right now. Maybe this is all some really messed-up coma delusion. Maybe—”
My rant is suddenly cut off by a strange chirping noise. I freeze and spin around, searching for the source. “What was that?” I ask, panicked.
Frankie rolls his eyes, sets down the notebook, and walks over to the schoolbag on the floor. “Don’t be so dramatic!” he admonishes, flipping it open. “It’s just your SnipPic alert. Somebody probably commented on one of your photos.”
He pulls out a hideous pink sparkly contraption and proffers it to me.
I shake my head. “That’s not my phone.”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s pink.”
Frankie nudges the device toward me. “And sparkly. Now take it.”
I hesitantly take the princess-colored monstrosity, turning it around in my hands. It’s definitely the same model as my phone, but this cover is vomit-inducing.
“Who picked out this case?” I ask.
“You did,” Frankie says, sitting on my bed and resuming his scribbles.
“As a joke?” I confirm.
He purses his lips. “I don’t think so.”
The phone lets out another startling chirp and I nearly drop it. I fumble to swipe it on and navigate to the SnipPic app where I have—
Holy crap. Seventy-five notifications???
From who? I don’t even know half that many people!
I click on the app and scroll through my feed. I don’t recognize a single picture in here. This is definitely not my profile. This phone has to belong to someone else. That’s all there is to it.
But I stop when something oddly familiar catches my eye. I scroll back three photos and stare in astonishment at the screen.
I remember this photo. I first saw it on CoyCoy55’s feed a week ago. She was in the student union with Luce_the_Goose, posing for one of those Caption Challenges they always do.
As I study the picture, a shiver runs through me, chilling me to the bone.
It’s the same photo. The same table. Even the same caption.
With one major difference.
I’m in it.