#21. Crosswalk
Tris arrives at the crosswalk and stops as she sees the red hand signal on the other side. The crosswalk, composed of parallel black and white bars, connects one side of the sidewalk with the other.
Across the street, she can see a man with striking blue eyes, also waiting to cross.
The signal changes.
She moves through the alternating bars of the crosswalk, as if traversing through universes. Some bars she steps on, and some she steps over.
Six more steps until she passes the man.
Four more.
Two.
They pass each other.
Without glancing back, she continues walking.
If parallel universes exist, it's likely that we won't make the same choices, have the same friends, and fall in love with the same people in all of them—like how Tris and Tobias might not meet in every single universe. Of course, we'd like to believe that in every universe, our favourite pairing will get together, but the existence of universes where they might never meet just makes the universes where they do, that much more amazing.
And who knows? Maybe in some alternate universe, Veronica Roth writes an Allegiant where Tris doesn't die and a lot of us won't be here reading fanfiction. (: