My understanding of identity has been shattered—I am one facet of an infinitely faceted being called Jason Dessen who has made every possible choice and lived every life imaginable. I can’t help thinking that we’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.

remember how the wine had stained your lips. I’ve always known, on a purely intellectual level, that our separateness and isolation are an illusion. We’re all made of the same thing—the blown-out pieces of matter formed in the fires of dead stars. I’ve just never felt that knowledge in my bones until that moment, there, with you. And it’s because o

“So you’re saying it’s fate.” She smiles. “I think I’m saying we found each other, for a second time.”

I shut my eyes, thinking of the five notebooks stacked on my bedside table. Almost every page is filled with my increasingly manic scrawl. I keep thinking if I write enough, if I’m specific enough, that I’ll capture a full-enough picture of my world to finally take me home. But it’s not happening. Amanda isn’t wrong. I’m looking for a grain of sand

It all points to the fact that my identity isn’t binary. It’s multifaceted. And maybe I can let go of the sting and resentment of the path not taken, because the path not taken isn’t just the inverse of who I am. It’s an infinitely branching system that represents all the permutations of my life between the extremes of me and Jason2.

What a miracle it is to have people to come home to every day. To be loved. To be expected. I thought I appreciated every moment, but sitting here in the cold, I know I took it all for granted. And how could I not? Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together.

don’t know. I could see it getting to the point where it didn’t feel real anymore. Because it isn’t. The only thing that’s real in this moment is this city. This room. This bed. You and me.”

If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?

All the tiny, seemingly insignificant details upon which my world hangs.