The next morning, Sean's comfort of waking up in his childhood bedroom is muted by knowing he let his brother down, that he let his father down, and that he has to brave the mall two days before Christmas while hungover. Dad can only afford to close the garage on Christmas Eve and Christmas, and he takes their car with him to work. Since Sean's car is back in Savannah, he calls a Lyft and heads to the mall with his little brother (who is giving him the silent treatment) for a last-minute Christmas gift.

The mall is absolutely batshit.

Their driver almost gets sideswiped twice, and the poor guy is sweating through his hoodie when he finally lets the Diaz brothers out of the car. Sean feels guilty enough to leave him a big tip as hazard pay. On the sidewalk, a woman drops an armload of presents and yells at Sean for it, even though he is, like, ten feet away from her. They push their way inside, and the building seems to pulsate with people, like it is some kind of breathing organism from a Korean horror film.

A long line of parents with screeching children wait to meet Santa Claus, and Sean stops to get a handle on this madness. That's when Daniel gives a half-hearted wave and starts to head off.

"Dude, wait," Sean says. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not five, Sean," Daniel says. "I don't need you to babysit me at the mall."

"No, I mean, we should stick together since we're getting a gift for our father."

"Oh no, no, no" Daniel says, shaking his head. "Bro, you already ruined the gift we were going to give our father. I have, like, a hundred bucks saved from allowances. I'm going to get him something, probably something shitty since this is so last minute, but you are on your own. I am not bailing you out. Good luck, dude. I know it's going to be real hard for you because you'll have to think of someone other than yourself."

And then Daniel's gone, swallowed by the throng of humans and shopping bags. Sean stands there, surrounded by maybe a hundred bodies but still feeling alone.

And pissed.

"You fucking little brat," Sean mutters under his breath. All of this shit about Sean being self-centered, about him never thinking about anyone other than himself, it cuts under Sean's skin like a razorblade. Like, motherfucker, everything he has done has been about Daniel and what's best for Daniel. Sean has had the shit kicked out of him, has had guns pointed at his head, and has given up his literal freedom for his little brother. And having Daniel accuse him of not being able to think of people outside himself? It feels like being kicked in the balls and spat on at the same time.

Except . . . all of those things Sean did for Daniel, they didn't happen here.

It's not fair to be mad at Daniel because this Daniel doesn't know about all of that dark shit. And . . . it's good that he doesn't, right? He's better off not having slept under bridges or getting brainwashed by a cult or growing up without their father.

Deep down, Sean knows he should be happy. It's not about him. It's about Daniel. And Daniel's life is better here, and if that means Daniel hates his guts, then that's a small price to pay to give Daniel a normal childhood.

Sean just misses his hermanito so goddamn much.

And . . . why does the kid have it out for him so bad?

He gets that things are different in this timeline, but it's still muddy on how they are different. It's like each person in Sean's life gets a page in a journal. People like Toby and Sarah, he only knows in one life. So their pages are pretty clear, and he can easily read the writing on them. Finn, Cassidy—even his mom and grandparents—their pages are pretty clear too, because they only have entries from his other life. But Lyla? Or Daniel? Their pages have writing on top of previous writing. He can't make out the words on their pages at all, and that sucks. It sucks that the people he wants to be closest to are the ones he understands the least.

Sean sighs and pushes his way through the crowds, wanders in and out of stores. He has no idea what to get his dad. He hasn't checked his email for the link Daniel sent, so he doesn't know what the original gift idea was, but Daniel is a pretty sensitive kid, so it was probably something awesome. Something much more awesome than anything Sean could come up with.

And, shit, Sean remembers he doesn't have a gift for Daniel either, and he is even more lost there. What does this version of Daniel like? Video games?

After pushing his way through the mall for almost an hour, bumping into increasingly grumpy shoppers, Sean ends up in front of a kiosk of gift cards. He stands beside a dull man desperately hunting for a gift for a wife he doesn't understand, and Sean sighs. Gift cards are a shitty way to say, I don't get you. But that's where Sean is at with his little brother, the person who matters the most to him in the world.

But then, out of the corner of his eye, he spies a young woman. It's almost like his spider-sense tingles. Because he would know her anywhere, at any time, and in any time.

It helps that she looks the same as she does when she comes to visit him in prison, with black hair that hangs to her shoulders. She's wearing jeans with holes in the knees, even though there are below-zero wind chills. She never liked puffy jackets, so she has a sleek, black trench coat. It's open, and she's wearing an ironic Christmas sweater with Krampus eating a child. She's carrying a shopping bag and sipping a drink from Starbucks. Probably something pumpkin-spiced, which she secretly loved even though she thought it was "basic."

"Lyla?" Sean says, stepping over a toddler throwing a tantrum on the floor. "Hey, Lyla!"

She pauses for a moment, like she might reach for mace as she tries to figure out who this guy shouting her name is. Then she blinks. "Sean Diaz? Oh, hey man, what's up?"

"A lot!" Sean grins at his best friend. "How are you? How have you been?"

"Oh, you know, going to school. Senior year."

"Yeah, UCLA, right?"

She furrows her brow. "No, Washington State University."

"Oh." Sean could kick himself. Dumb. That was dumb. But UCLA is where she goes in the other timeline, so he just assumed . . .

"My mom ran into your dad," she says. "He said you were going to work for Nickelodeon or something."

"Sort of. I met a guy who works on Loud House, it's this kids show, and he really liked my stuff. I think it might be an in."

"That's real cool, Sean. I'm glad things are working out. It was real good running into you."

And then she starts to turn away.

"Hey, wait," he says, forcing a light-hearted chuckle to mask his hurt. "That's it? I'm not sure when we saw each other last, and, I dunno, I thought maybe we could make plans to catch up?"

"I'm kind of busy," she says. And Lyla has never been good about hiding her emotions from him, but she flashes a smile that is so obviously insincere that even if he didn't know her like the back of his own hand, Sean would recognize it as fake. "Maybe next time."

"But I. . ." he starts, but how does he finish that sentence?

I risked everything to call you after my dad died.

I haven't talked to you outside of a prison's walls in years.

I thought we promised to always be besties.

I miss you.

Dude, I love you.

I don't know why you're walking away from me. Please don't walk away from me.

I just really need someone to help me right now because

I am so goddamn lost in my own life and

I don't know what to do.

But he can't find the words to say that without sounding crazy, and maybe she wouldn't want to hear it even if it wasn't crazy. He's twenty-two and an adult and sometimes adults have to swallow their stupid feelings, and he has been swallowing his hurt for fucking years, so at least this has a kind of familiar comfort in its shittiness. He keeps his voice from wavering. "It was just good to see you, Lyla Park."

"It was good to see you too," she says.

She doesn't sound like she means it.

He wonders if she can see through his fakeness too, that actually his heart is breaking having his best friend walk away from him.

He almost reaches for a hug. They always hugged, even if they were just going to be apart for a few hours.

Instead, he watches her go, disappearing into the last-minute Christmas shoppers. Like his brother did.

Then he returns to the kiosk to buy a gift card for Daniel.