Chapter One

Lives are not straight lines, linearly stretching onward into infinite space. They are, if lines at all, curled and tangled, like long headphone cords in the pocket of the universe. They loop around each other, brushing, twining, and knotting into a mess of shared experience. No one lives in a vacuum, after all. No one's life goes unbent, untouched.

And if life is a line, then each bend must be a choice, a turning point. If the multiverse theory is to be believed, then each of these twists spawns a new universe, a universe in which a person may choose frosted flakes over cheerios for breakfast. Or, more impactful, a politician may take a bribe (bend), rise rapidly through the ranks (twist), and eventually find herself in an elevated office, but in the pocket of an organization that she would, in another universe, be free from (knot.)

In one universe, a little boy becomes a man, becomes a night guard. (Small loop.)

In this same universe, some years (millennia) earlier, a little boy becomes a man, becomes a king. (Larger loop.)

Pride. Jealousy. Betrayal.

Loop, loop, loop—

Murder.

Knot.

So really, breakfast food is inconsequential in the scheme of the universe—in any universe—and the events therein.

Except when it's not.

Do not lay your head on the toilet.

Lola knows she's reached a low point in her life when she has to make a mental note not to use a public commode as a pillow. She'd known those eggs had looked questionable. The continental breakfast spread really had been too good to be true.

She'd been fine that morning; the first stirrings of stomach distress began shortly after noon, culminating in a rush to the nearest bathroom when the group's itinerary leads them to the Museum of Natural History.

"Lola?" There's a knock at the stall door. "Mr. Decker sent me to make sure you're still alive."

"More or less." Her voice sounds as retched as she feels.

"Do you want someone to take you back to the hotel?"

Lola likes Jessica, she really does, but at this moment she would only feel relief if the other girl was to be, say, abducted by aliens. Or dropped into a deep hole. Or anywhere but outside of Baño de Lola, population: one. (Uno. Whatever.)

"M'good." Translation: I probably don't have to be hospitalized; please leave me alone to wallow in my misery.

"That's not very convincing."

Lola would say something else, but her ground-glass voice speaks louder than words. In short, she's fresh out of Oscar-worthy performances.

"Look, just text someone if you need anything. If you feel up to it, take a taxi back to your room. I'm sure they'll reimburse you." Her footsteps retreat and Lola hears the door to the bathroom swing closed.

"Frickin peppy, do-gooding—" The rest of Lola's grumble is choked by a wave of stomach acid.

Fair enough, universe, fair enough.

During the next two hours Lola endures small children on school trips knocking on her stall door ("It's occupied, go away."), well-meaning old ladies trying to fetch someone for her ("Hnng, no thanks."), and she's pretty sure someone tries to save her immortal soul by shoving a pamphlet under the door.

GET OUT OF HELL FREE CARD

THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR—

"Are you kidding me?" she asks the world at large. The monopoly man stares blankly back at her. "Timing is everything, Jesu—er." She flips the tract over guiltily. Rich, judgmental bastard.

Sometime after receiving the tract and memorizing every in-stall advertisement, Jessica shows up again.

"Oh my god, you're still in there?"

Lola puts her hand over the face-down monopoly man. Shh, it's okay, buddy.

"The floor has accepted me as one of its own. I am floor person. We are floor legion."

"…I honestly don't know you well enough to judge whether you're delirious or just weird." They'd only just met on this sight-seeing slash college-visiting trip. Jessica wants to major in theater. It explains the voice.

"Yes."

Jessica sighs impatiently.

"Well, we're almost finished up here, so why don't I find you a barf bag for insurance, and you can make your way to the front?"

"Yeah, uh, okay." Lola stands, painfully stretching her stiff knees. Purple and blue spots dance in front of her eyes, and she braces herself against the partition. The sudden shift in her equilibrium brings on dry heaves—there isn't anything left in her stomach to bring up—and she silently swears off poultry by-products for the foreseeable future.

The look on Jessica's face when Lola emerges is priceless. She glances in the mirror and sweet plastic Jesus—and dammit, she can't say the Lord's name without thinking of Park Place—she does look like a reheated corpse.

"Do you need a doctor?" Someone needs to tell Jessica that while projecting is important on stage, one should lower one's voice around invalids.

"N—" Her voice catches and she clears her throat. "No, I'm good. Just gonna…" She waves her hand vaguely, indicating either "I'm going to wash up at this sink" or "my wrists can't hold the weight of my hands anymore, look at them flop."

The sinks are those irritating 'press and try to wash your hands in the next three seconds' models. She holds the faucet down with one hand and plunges her face under the stream, nose pressed against the porcelain.

I will not think of all the germs in this sink. That are now on my face. That will target my weakened immune system and give me some sort of super virus—

She washes her face twice.

Lola McGivers, despite what her teachers and local law enforcement may think, doesn't generally go looking for trouble. The problem is she's very charming and trouble just wants to be around her. It wants to bask in her aura.

She can't blame it.

Her most recent transgression—which was totally not her fault, really—resulted in a trip to the emergency room and a red arm cast that matches her favorite lipstick. On the downside, the cast is on her right arm, making even the simplest tasks difficult. On the upside, she is one step closer to ambidexterity, so who's the real winner here?

So when she tells Jessica that she's going to flag down a cab, tour group be damned, she means it. She doesn't want to sit on a bus in a crush of other people at the moment. (If the circumstances were different, Lola wouldn't be averse to some free time in the city. Just because she doesn't actively seek trouble doesn't mean she doesn't mean she's blocked it from her friends list, so to speak.)

Jessica sees her to the stairs leading to the main entrance.

"I'll tell Mr. Decker that you're going back. Nicole will check on you before dinner." Nicole is Lola's roommate; she's far more interested in getting her boyfriend alone than playing nursemaid. Lola assumes Nicole won't be going back to their hotel room at all.

Jessica heads back into the heart of the museum and Lola wobbles down the stairs, lightheaded and parched. She's halfway across the atrium—hey, Teddy, lookin' majestic—when she sees the water fountain. It's down a hallway leading toward some bathrooms, and to her tired eyes it's lit up like the Holy Grail.

My salvation has come.

The water is tepid and has the metallic tang of city pipes, but she gulps it like it's agua de vida and she's Ponce de Leon. Her stomach reminds her with an angry jolt that this water is not, in fact, a cure-all. She runs for the nearest doors.

This is not a bathroom, her brain says.

Gonna barf anyway, her stomach answers.

Her legs save the day.

It's only after she geysers water and bile into the toilet and her eyes refocus that she registers her surroundings. This is definitely an employee bathroom. It's a tiny, single-stalled room, and through the open door Lola can see… lockers? She toes the door shut. The custodians can drag her cold corpse out later, for all she cares.

Her eyelids flutter and she sags.

Fucking eggs.