99.89712%

99.89712% We were a perfect match. Or, near perfect. 99.89712%. For those who signed up for the program, a match as high as ours was rare. I did some research. There have only been thirty-seven matches in the history of the program to have scored higher than us. All thirty-seven are still together. Some for as long as forty and fifty years. Others until death. We had what’s known in the program as true love.

He was halfway across the world. I was on the other half. But he sent me an invite, at two o’clock on a Saturday, to go down to the HQ and share our memories with each other. This was a huge step. Normally reserved for marriage. But these circumstances were different. This was true love.

They laid me down on a bed of foam. The room was dark. It felt like I was floating. They placed something over my eyes. It was made of rubber. I could feel the electricity tickling my eyelashes. “Are you ready?” a voice asked me. I lifted my arm. Put up my thumb. I felt a jolt. It was blank. For a moment. And then. I was in his head. For a moment. In his body, I mean. His dark room was identical to mine. I think I felt his heartbeat. But only for a moment.

There were waves of colors. I felt my breathing compress. My skin numbed. A halo of light. Then, I opened my eyes and saw a woman standing over me. My knee hurt. It was cut open. I was bleeding. A bike was overturned, a few feet away. Are you okay, sweetie? And then.

I was standing on the roof of a house. Looking downwards. I was so scared. My heart was crawling up my throat. There were three mattresses, overlapping one another, piled on the lawn below. Four kids. Young. All boys. Encircling the mattresses. Looking upwards. Jump, David! Jump!

And then. I was kissing a girl. A first kiss? It was awkward. Slippery. She kept her eyes shut, the way actors kiss in movies. Mine were open, too curious to look away. Then I was naked. And a beautiful girl was on her knees in front of me. I had always wondered what it felt like to have a dick. Now I know. And everything every boy has ever said or done to me suddenly made perfect sense. I was silent in that memory because David had been, but I could feel the swell in his chest and the love with which he looked down at her, as if he was telling himself over and over, I’m going to marry this girl.

I was in an ocean of memories. Time didn’t exist. Sometimes I was small. Celebrating birthdays. Making friends. Feeling lost and alone. Without the vocabulary or the emotional maturity to comprehend that loneliness. Other times I was older. First day at work. Living out the mundanity of day to day life. With a girlfriend, turned roommate, turned fiancé. A relationship that spanned five years. Before she handed back the ring. I met somebody. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan on this happening. I know you’re going to hate me right now. And you should. But you’ll always be my friend. I hope someday, I can be yours.

Then on the phone, talking to his mother. I was choked with his sadness. Feeling adrift in the world. Being forced to understand the reality he had been living with. The future he was waiting for. No longer existed. And his mother, doing what mothers do. Saying the perfect thing. You know how the program works. Every day you’re alive and every experience you have only helps the program calibrate what you like and don’t like. It’s learning who you are. Who you really are. Deep down. The way you never tell anyone else about. Every heartbreak only leads you closer to the one you’re supposed to be with.

Me.

I wanted to live in that room. In his memories. I wanted to go through the catalog of his life. Feeling his moments of happiness. Of sadness. Of weakness and strength. In seeing his vulnerability. In living the embarrassing moments of his life, I felt myself getting closer to him. I was falling in love. More with each moment. I wanted to feel his touch. On my own skin. I wanted to feel that swell in my own chest. When he looked into my eyes. And I stared back into his.

And then it was my turn. My turn to let him into my memories. Let him experience the awkwardness of my childhood. The uncomfortable kisses of my adolescence. The tears of heartbreak. Planning for the future. University life. The death of my father. And all the reasons that I had fallen in love with David— His vulnerability. His messiness. His insufficiencies. —were the same reasons, when my life was going to be dissected, I couldn’t go through with it.