Everything All at Once

A whole lifetime of loving you feels like more than a fair exchange for immortality. Don’t you think?

“Eternalism. It’s a philosophical theory of time. It means . . . We have these limited brains, right? We can only understand so much at one time. So we experience life in a very specific way, in a linear, chronological way. Each moment leads to the next, and once one moment has passed, it’s gone forever. Right?”
“Yeah . . .”
“But what if time doesn’t actually work like that? What if that’s only the way our brains process it? What if time really exists, like—everything all at once, all at the same moment, every single moment happening at the same time, over and over, for all eternity. Simultaneously.”
“That would mean . . .”
I pointed at the picture. “That you and my aunt are still in this moment. Forever. She’s still alive. No one ever dies. You’re not that special after all,”

I just have crazy feelings for her, man!’ and I was like, ‘At no age—but especially not at your age—is it acceptable to show a girl you have feelings for her by bullying her. That contributes to a patriarchal society and reinforces archaic gender roles that nobody has time for anymore.’ And then he was like, ‘What does patriarchal mean?’ and I realized I had overestimated my audience.

That both freaked me out and made me unbelievably excited.

“If anyone’s going to excel at this college thing it’s you, Lottie. You’ve been ready for college since your first day of preschool. You wouldn’t even let me walk you into the classroom, remember? I got this, Dad.”
I didn’t remember, admittedly, and that also didn’t really sound like me.
When had my anxiety kicked in? Sometime after that?
And why?

“Lottie, seriously? You have such a problem sharing,” Em said, grabbing the almost-empty carton of fries from me.
“Sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t sorry. You should never apologize for fries.

I went downstairs to see if there was any coffee made. There was—I poured myself some into a mug that said Luke’s Diner

I hope the party was a success. God, I love a good party. I love a bad party too, because then you can steal a little bit to drink and go out on the balcony with a friend and make your own kind of fun

“Why would I get his number?”
“So you can call him and go on barfingly cute little hetero dates, obviously,”