The Potion is the Person

She’d proved it could be done but it was a bittersweet discovery. All Kristin could think about now was how to change her own life. She sipped hot coffee mindlessly, not noticing the sweat starting to glisten around her temples. She felt chilled inside. It was time to leave, and Regina hadn’t shown up. She was almost an hour late. Kristin reluctantly pulled the badge from her pocket…a token really but just when she was ready to use it, Regina walked in.

“I’m glad you came.”

“I almost didn’t. It hurts too much, losing you again.”

“I’m also losing you.”

“You could stay.”

“You know I can’t.”

A week ago, Regina was packing up Kris’s apartment when Kristin appeared in the doorway. It only took a moment for Kristin to realize she and this Regina had a unique friendship. Shocking because Kristin and the woman she now thought of as B-Gina hated each other.

“Are you a ghost?” Regina was crying and mumbling to herself when she noticed Kristin in the doorway. When Kristin shook her head, Regina insisted. “You must be. Or my mind finally snapped.” Then she sobbed earnestly.

Kristin looked around the small apartment. It was her place…mostly. It looked the same but with slight differences. There was a large canvas of her and Regina joyfully screaming on a roller coaster ride. Carpet instead of laminate flooring. And some items had been packed in boxes stacked in a corner.

“I’m not a ghost,” was all Kristin could come up with.

“Then who are you? From that other universe you’re always talking about?”

Yes, she and this Regina had a unique friendship. She learned that this world’s Kristin had been killed in a car accident. She was also a scientist and Regina was her best friend.

“Kris was brilliant. And fun. But lately, she worked so much. She had taken a week off and we had a bunch of plans together. Now I’m packing up her apartment.” More crying. “How’d you get here anyway?”

It was unnerving to know that you could be alive but your counterpart in another universe might not be. She hadn’t considered that.

“I discovered a portal in a coffee shop.”

Regina’s genuine interest was refreshing. Over a pizza, they talked for hours about multiple realities, the Mandela Effect, and other mysteries of the cosmos.

“Kris must have been close to a breakthrough of her own. It would explain why she was working so much lately.” Regina sniffed but mercifully, she didn’t start crying again.

“I’d like to see this world. Maybe we can do some of those things you and your Kris were going to do.”

Kristin worked a lot too and one of the reasons was because she didn’t have any friends. There wasn’t anyone to do anything else with. Certainly not B-Gina. 25 years of animosity and here she was gal pal-ing it with the woman in the multiverse. Weird.

She and Regina spent the week together. A movie, a cooking class. They spent a day going to antique shops. They attended a basketball game. And the best thing was the “Mexican food” tour. Every day, they went to a different Mexican restaurant. Regina said she and Kris intended to eat at every one in the city and rank them. In her own universe, Kristin subsisted on microwave meals that all tasted the same.

What can you learn about yourself by going through your things that aren’t really your things? Kristin felt like she was spying on a better version of herself, researching who she could become. Her sudden and surprising affection for Regina compelled her to help pack the apartment. There were photos and mementos from travels together. Music and books that Kristin didn’t allow time for in her own life.

And the stories…The ceramic frog Kris kept in her pocket whenever she went on a date to “let Aphrodite know I’ve already kissed enough frogs.” That time they were invited to a “toga party” and were the only ones who showed up wearing sheets. That time they got stuck in the snow because for whatever reason they needed to go to the mall after a blizzard.

The scientist in Kristin knew that memories were finicky. She was meeting Kris through the filter of Regina’s grief. Still, seeing herself through someone else’s eyes, someone who loved her…was a gift.

“How did you and Kristin meet?”

Regina cocked her head. “You aren’t my friend over there? “

Kristin shook her head.

“We knew each other in high school but she didn’t like me…” she paused, chuckled. “One day she came into my shop. Said she was having headaches, couldn’t sleep. She wanted a natural remedy. We actually talked for the first time.”

Kristin took Regina’s hand. “I have to go. But thank you. You’re going to be okay. You meant a lot to her. Remember that.”

Earth Remedies. Kristin had walked by the shop dozens of times, never noticing it. She knew the remedy for her life was not a potion but a person. She peeked in the window and saw Regina at the counter. She took a deep breath and walked in.