A question and alternate universe answers

"Have we met before?"

"No?" What a weird question to be asked while browsing a book store. You definitely would have recognized the woman asking you that question if the two of you had met before, as she was not someone who's appearance was easy to forget.

"Or, if we have, you might've looked different when we knew one another because I don't recognize you. Sorry," you apologized, realizing just how rude outright admitting to not recognizing someone who believed she knew you was. Honesty and rudeness were unfortunate siblings, you thought to yourself. You often found yourself unaware of how rude what you said was until after having said it, making apologies routine in your vocabulary.

In an alternate universe, you had feigned remembering having met the strange woman before, and been invited out for lunch as a response, "to catch up on old times," despite having no memory of said old times. In that universe, one shared meal began a decades long friendship, during which the woman eventually admitted she had not, in fact, recognized you whatsoever. She just saw where in the bookstore you were browsing and knew the two of you would be good friends, so she lied in order to get the two of you to arrive at that friendship. In one universe you forgave her; in another, that revelation was the end.

In another universe, the two of you had been best friends as children before tragedy had struck, driving you into self-isolation and her into the false belief you despised her. In that universe, she lacked the courage to ask if you two had met before, all too aware that you had. In that universe, you had to be the one to reconnect, apologizing as Jewish law suggested you do to those you have wronged. The fact the wrongdoing had been in the past decade hadn't mattered nearly as much as your guilt, and her relief at learning she had never been at fault for your friendship's demise. You reconnected, the distance ironically having welded you closer together now that you had returned to one another's lives.

In the current universe, that same tragedy had struck your life, but you had been a reclusive child even before then, the trauma having driven you deeper into loneliness' clutches. In the present, the woman was apologizing, suggesting perhaps you merely looked like an old classmate of hers.

"Well, we may not have met before, but we can meet now. I'm Fletcher, currently looking around the bookstore so I don't get sunburnt waiting at the bus stop. What's your name?"

And she introduced herself, saying she was there to purchase a novel for a book club she had just joined. You asked her what the book club was about, placing a hold out on the novel using your library's app on your phone, as you would not be able to afford purchasing a book at the moment.

You then took note of the time, traded phone numbers with the woman so in theory you could try to attend the book club, and began the sprint back to the bus stop to make your bus before it left. You made it, earning a glare from the woman who had been waiting at the stop the entire time that you ignored.

In an alternate universe, you had missed the bus, turned around dejectedly, only to find the woman had followed to see if you would make it and, seeing you hadn't, offered to drive you home. In another universe, your sprint to make the bus ended with you as a casualty in a pedestrian vehicle crash, the bus nowhere to be seen as the ambulance made its way to save you. In yet another, you had gone out for dinner with the woman, missing the bus and crash altogether in favor of beginning a beautiful new friendship.

In the universe you currently occupied, you stared out the window, mind wondering about alternate universe and doppelgangers, if maybe you had one that the woman had met, or if you were just absent-minded enough to actually forget her. You wondered just how many people you meet in your life. You wonder how many are one tine interactions, if you'll make it to this book club, if you're ever going to see the bookstore woman again. You wonder what it says about you that her name already escaped your consciousness. You look in your contacts on your phone, struck by how many numbers are people you no longer know, then lose more time deciding whether or not to delete them until you realize you missed your bus stop and ring the bell to be let off so you can begin walking home.

In another universe, you had those same thoughts but hadn't opened your phone, so you rang the bell before your stop arrived. In yet another, you had never made the bus at all, were en-route to the local hospital following the crash. In others, you were dining with the woman you either had or had not met before, or she was driving you home. The universe you currently occupied, a breeze accompanied you on your longer than usual walk home. Your routine was normal when you entered. Your parents had eaten without you, so you were expected to cook yourself dinner. You thought about skipping dinner altogether but cooked nonetheless, not wanting to wake up hungry later. There's another universe you had skipped dinner, others where your parents had cooked for you instead of expecting you to cook for yourself.

Your life continues, universes spread ahead of you, branching off with every decision made by you and others. The science fiction author in you continues to fantasize about the others while the realistic aspects of you drown in the mundane life you find yourself trapped within. Why else would a chance meeting at a bookstore bring to mind universes you had secret pasts with the stranger you likely had never met before? Some part of you longed for connection, for mystery, for more than what you lived.