I'm Going to Lose Her, Again

Part 3: Deal with the Devil

"So, theoretically, somewhere, the other version where she didn't die is out there." My eyes widened. Could this be true? He leans in closer, looking me right in the eyes. "Would you like to go there?"

I thought for a moment, would I like to go there? A world with Ella again. But would she be my same Ellie? She would be a little different in every universe, of course, but I'm guessing she'd be my soulmate in every single one. Is it worth it to fall in love with another Ella if she isn't my Ellie? She could look different, feel different, she would maybe look at me different. There's not even a guarantee she'd love me. If everything in the universe is a yes or no question, then in this universe she loves me, and in another she does not, right? How many does she love me? How many does she not? All the doubts in my head swirled around, talking over each other, until the steady thump of my heart started to drown them out. And my heart only beats for Ella.

"Yes. How do I get there?"

He laughed and opened the hatch to sit down on the truck bed. "You're really going to agree without knowing the whole deal?" He patted the seat beside him.

"Deal?" He didn't say anything about a deal before this. He smiled again and I saw the look in his eyes I was beginning to become all too familiar with. This has to be his favorite part of the game.

"Well I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. You get your Ella, and I get something too."

"What do you get?"

He sighed, thinking for a moment, and lifted a small flower from the bush next to him, twirling it in his fingers as he thought to himself. Finally, with a shrug of his shoulders, he spoke.

"Entertainment." He paused for a second before looking over at me and chuckling at my confused expression. "Come on, you're a smart girl. Figure it out."

Entertainment... Could it be that he admires us as soulmates and would enjoy watching us fall in love one time after another? No... he's a little too... sinister for that. Something tells me this guy doesn't find joy in the same things I do. And then, it hits me.

"She dies in every universe."

"Yes, you're on the right track..." he starts plucking the petals off of his flower, letting them gently fall to the ground and watching as the wind catches them, scattering them in a small pile off to his side.

"And I never do. I have to watch her die every time?"

This gets another small chuckle out of him. "Every time." Finally void of all its previous beauty, he lays the stem of the flower on the truck bed between us. "But there's one more thing you haven't noticed. Look at this flower. It could wilt, or it could not wilt. But now, after I've pulled its petals off, it's changed. It can't do either. No more divergence points can come out of its petals. It will simply exist until it dies. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

I do. "You're pulling me out. I can't make any more divergence points."

"Exactly, which means every universe you're soulmates with Ella, which isn't all of them – I know, sad, boo-hoo, cry about it later – can no longer break off into infinite universes with every divergence point. However many there are now, there will always be."

"How many are there?"

He smiles and I see the evil cross over him once again. "What would be the fun in telling you that?"

I watch the stem between us as the wind carries it off it's spot on the truck bed, slowly rolling along the ground until nature takes it over the cliff's edge. Is that what I would be like? No ties, nothing to hold me down, nothing to hold me up, never knowing when the last time I would see Ella was.

"What happens after I run out of universes with Ella?"

He thinks for a moment, bringing a knee up onto the truck bed so he can lean back against the side as he sits, staring up at the sky like the answer is up there. So he hasn't made this deal before, I'm the first one. I can work with that. I straighten up in my seat, trying to project confidence as I begin to negotiate this 'deal'.

"When I'm on my last universe with Ella, I die with her." He laughs at the absurdity.

"Absolutely not. That's a little too merciful for my taste." He sighs and pauses to think. "After your last universe with Ella, you die of old age."

I smile. He's not invincible, after all. Worst case scenario would've been I still never die, and I live out the rest of eternity without Ella, without love, without happiness. Either he's not as smart as I thought he was, or he's not as cruel as I thought he was. At least not as cruel as he wants me to believe he is.

He stands up off the truck bed and plucks another flower, walking over to me and putting it above my ear to hold my hair back, smiling in a way that only makes me more and more unsettled. "Think it over, yeah? I'll be back to see what your choice is tomorrow night." He turns around and starts walking back into the woods.

"Do you need my address?" I call out after him.

"Don't worry, I'll find you." And with that, he disappeared into the night.