Young Love Interrupted

Wilbur smoothed down the hair he had left as best he could. He stooped, hurting his back, and checked his teeth in the reflection in her doorknob. Maybe it hadn’t been the brightest decision to subsist on coffee for the last fifty years. No matter. He was here now. The machine worked. He was here, and Terry was somewhere behind that door.

Wilbur steeled his nerves. Somehow, this was more terrifying than stealing all that palladium had been. It made sense, he supposed– after all, this would be their first date in half a century. Well, his and Terry’s. He hoped the Wilbur from this universe had been a gentleman. He’d had plenty of time while welding and programming the machine to imagine what their lives would have been like, if his version of Terry had made it to 24– he would have proposed on her birthday, the ring would’ve been a sensible but classic diamond in a sweetheart cut, the wedding would have been small in order to save for their italianate house close to his work. He would have gone to work and come home to a pot roast and a medium-to-large sized dog and Terry, his sweet Terry, with her copper red hair and freckles like stars. Wilbur pulled her photo out of his billfold and smoothed out the creases. She stared back at him, young and bright.

He did briefly wonder how this version of Wilbur would take it. He’d never been a jealous man– or, rather, he didn’t think he would have been, if he would have had anyone– and surely this Wilbur would see reason. He would understand why Wilbur had to do this.

Wilbur shook his head. He was procrastinating. His life’s work had culminated all in this moment, standing in front of an ugly saltbox home. Before he could overthink it further, Wilbur rapped three times on the door and then sat and stewed in the silence, his throat thrumming with his own heartbeat.

Finally, the door swung open, and Wilbur’s knees almost gave out. There she was. Time had changed her, of course– her hair wasn’t copper so much as a clearly dyed bronze that Wilbur found quite ugly, her face was worn and lined, her lips thinner than he remembered. No matter– those were cosmetics, those could be fixed. What mattered was that Terry was here, she was whole, she was alive.

“Terry–” he breathed, before he noticed her thin lips pulled into a sneer.

“Go to hell,” she said before slamming the door.

Finding the version of himself that lived in this universe wasn’t hard, just took a bit of calibration. This version of Wilbur– Wilbur Beta, he decided– was posted up in a pub. Either because of the whiskey or because interdimensional travel was something every Wilbur assumed he would be capable of, Wilbur Beta didn’t seem too surprised to see Wilbur. His eyebrows did shoot up, however, when Wilbur told him he had been to see Terry.

“You saw Theresa? I’m surprised she talked to you.”

“She didn’t,” Wilbur admitted. “She slammed the door in my face.”

Wilbur Beta laughed hoarsely until he coughed. “Yeah, that sounds about right. She’s not my biggest fan.”

“Are you kidding?” The bartender, who Wilbur hadn’t realized was listening, leaned over his counter. “She hates your guts.”

“Why?” Inside his pocket, Wilbur rubbed his thumb over his billfold. “What went wrong?”

Wilbur Beta sighed. “My fault really. We’d been married a few years, we got older, she let herself go, as I’m sure you saw. I guess I just got bored. I slipped up, Theresa found out, and well, you see how she feels about me now.”

Wilbur pursed his lips. It was highly unlikely that this Terry would ever care about him, given what she’d been through. He’d have better luck with another Terry.

Terry Gamma, whose lips were plumper but had let her hair naturally turn white, was surprised but amicable upon answering the door.

“Wilbur! You’ve– well, I suppose it’s been a long time. What brings you all the way up here?”

Wilbur frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I thought that you and Jennifer–” Terry Gamma cut off as an indistinct voice called something from inside the house. “It’s Wilbur Bennett,” She called back. “Remember my old boyfriend from high school?”

A short, pot-bellied man with a shock of grey hair appeared at Terry Gamma’s side, putting his arm around her waist. “Glad to meet you, friend! Last I heard you and the missus moved down to Florida.”

Wilbur’s nose wrinkled. Terry Gamma was clearly disloyal to him– a true Terry, his Terry, would never have shacked up with someone else. Without saying goodbye, Wilbur spun on his heels, back to his machine.

The young woman who opened the door at Terry Eta’s modest house immediately started crying when she saw Wilbur.

“You came back!”

“I did?”

She reached out and snatched Wilbur’s hand. “She’s been asking for you, you know– you’re one of the only things she clearly remembers. I’m so glad you decided to see reason.”

Without asking, the woman dragged Wilbur through the musty house without closing the front door. The walls were sparsely decorated with photographs, each clearly labeled in bright pink post-it notes that stood out vibrantly against the hideous pink florals of the wallpaper. If Wilbur had lived here for very long, he definitely would have torn that up immediately.

Finally, the woman stopped, Wilbur almost running into her back. She darted immediately to the side of the woman in the semi-reclined twin bed in the center of the room, who Wilbur realized with a growing horror was Terry Eta. She turned slowly, the right side of her face numb and blank while the left side broke into a big smile. Wilbur took a step back.

“Will!” Terry Eta said, lurching up and forward in her bed. The young woman helped her into a sitting position. “I knew you’d come back! My love, oh my love, now we can–”

Wilbur had already dashed back down the hallway and out the open door.

By the time Wilbur arrived at Terry Kappa’s door, his hopes were already low. Still though– on paper, Terry Kappa seemed perfect. He’d conferred with Wilbur Kappa briefly before he’d come to make sure there weren’t any weird circumstances that could keep them apart, and when Terry Kappa opened the door, she looked confused, not angry. She even invited him in and gave him a cup of tea before sitting down across the table from him with her own.

“So let me get this straight,” Terry Kappa said, idly stirring her tea with a spoon. Her veined, pale hands held a slight tremor. Wilbur tried not to notice. “You’re from another dimension where I died young and we never got a chance to be together.”

“That about sums it up.” Wilbur looked around the kitchen. It was rather ugly, overadorned with posters and accoutrement. On the wall was a photograph of Terry holding a fat ginger cat. He hoped that was an old picture and there wasn’t a cat around here.

“Well, I mean, I’m shocked to be sure, but honestly, I shouldn’t be. You always were so very clever.” Terry Kappa smiled warmly. Her teeth were slightly stained, most likely by coffee.

Wilbur took a sip of his tea. “So, why did you and the Wilbur from this universe break up? He was sparse on the details.”

Terry Kappa sighed. “We just grew apart, I guess. We wanted different things in life, and Will– my Will– decided that he wanted grander things than little old me.” She reached out and grabbed Wilbur’s hand with her own. “But you should know that I never stopped loving him. And now there’s you and you crossed dimensions to find me again and, and I don’t know. I thought that I was too old to find new love– but this is old love, isn’t it? You and I?”

Her tired, wrinkled eyes met Wilbur’s, and he tried to smile back. He was distracted though, by the bottle of sriracha on the counter. Terry hated spicy food. Next to it was a bottle of multivitamins– Terry had believed vitamins were a scam by the government. He looked back at the woman in front of him and her faded, brittle hair and her pale skin marred by liver spots, not freckles, and instinctively, he recoiled. This Terry wasn’t right either. His Terry had been proud of her hair, had tanned meticulously. His Terry would never have let herself become this.

“I’m sorry,” he told her when Terry Kappa’s brows furrowed, although as he strode towards the door, it was her fault. He didn’t look back.

Wilbur took the beer from the tray and patted Terry Nu’s hand in thanks. She smiled, her copper red hair bouncing as she turned back towards the fridge.

“Anything else I can get you?”

Wilbur frowned. Her voice still wasn’t quite right– he couldn’t model it after anything but his memory, which had, after all, faded a bit after fifty years. Maybe he’d take her larynx modulator out after all.

“No, that’s okay, dear.”

Terry Nu grabbed a sugar free juice for herself and flounced back to Wilbur’s side. “So, what are you working on now?” She put her head down on her hands, watching Wilbur with shining eyes, her freckles like stars.

“Just tinkering around,” he replied. “Kind of between projects at the moment.”

“Well, I’m sure anything you make will be out of sight,” she said, smiling brilliantly.

“Thank you, dear.”

Wilbur kept tinkering, taking breaks to sip his beer. Terry Nu brought him another one when he was done, and stayed by his side, offering praise and encouragement for his inventions, just like she used to. Everything was just as it used to be, and Wilbur should have been elated that the love of his life was back, and she was perfect. Everything was perfect.

Wilbur took another sip and patted Terry Nu’s perfect hand. She’d inevitably follow him to bed in an hour, just like she used to, just like he’d programmed her to do. She was just right.

Wilbur lay next to her later that night and felt nothing at all.