When Love Isn’t Enough to Stay

The fluorescent lights of the Catalyst Creative Institute hummed their usual Tuesday morning melody as Meg crouched behind the supply closet door, her heart hammering with anticipation. She could hear Leo's footsteps echoing down the hallway, At twenty-six, she should probably have outgrown this kind of thing, but the joy of making Leo jump never got old.

"BOO!"

Leo shrieked, stumbling backward and nearly dropping his coffee. "Jesus Christ, Meg! You gaved me a heart attack "

Meg doubled over with laughter, her navy blue cardigan slipping off one shoulder. "Your face! Oh my God, I wish I'd recorded that."

"You're a menace," Leo said, but he was grinning, that easy smile that made managing the institute's seven creative departments almost bearable. "One of these days, your going to regret underestimating" "one of these days your going to regret challenging me"

They fell into step together, walking past studios where painters splattered canvases with controlled chaos, where photographers adjusted impossible lighting setups, where fashion designers argued passionately about hemlines. The Catalyst wasn't just a workplace—it was a living, breathing organism of creativity that had changed the face of contemporary art. And Meg and Leo, inseparable co-managers, were its beating heart.

"Ready for the Innovation Awards next week?" Leo asked, pulling up the schedule on his tablet.

"When am I not ready?" Meg shot back, at the thought of another event where she'd stand beside him in some rented gown, and watching him charm everyone in the room and also a little certain red head back at the studio he's been dating since a month

“Good. Because Harper’s coming with us tonight.”

“Yes, can’t wait to see her. What kind of dress is she going to wear?”

“Red,” Leo says, grabbing his keys. “She’s even more gorgeous when she matches her hair.”

Meg’s smile holds, but something inside her dips She nods like it’s nothing,

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “She’ll look… great.”

Leo glances at her for a second too long, as if he hears something in her voice she didn’t mean to let slip. Meg looks away before he can read her fully.

Harper isn’t right for him.

But that isn’t Meg’s place to say. Not anymore.

The event is loud, glittering, full of people who talk with their hands and laugh too loudly. Harper drifts through the crowd like she’s been doing this her whole life, red dress catching every camera flash and gently pulling leos arm behind her and Meg squeezes through clusters of people, trying to keep up, . She loses sight of them for a moment — before Leo turns, searching the crowd until he finds her.

He nudges her shoulder gently

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s take a picture.”

Meg stiffens. “A picture?”

“Yeah. Just us.”

Her throat tightens. “sure but Harper’s over there. Don’t you want pictures with her?"

Leo sighs softly, like he expected her to say that. “I know. But I already have tons of photos with her tonight. And I don’t have any with you.”

Meg looks down at her shoes. “Leo…”

“And besides,” he adds, nudging her again, “this is the first month of the new year. It’d be great for the company. Co‑managers. New beginnings. All that.”

She hates how reasonable he sounds. She hates how much she wants the picture and how much it hurts at the same time.with all things considered

“Okay,” she whispers.

He pulls her gently toward the photographer. Harper is across the room, laughing with someone from the fashion department, not even looking their way.

Meg stands beside Leo, close enough to remember every reason she shouldn’t be this close.

The photographer lifts the camera.

Meg lifts her chin.

Leo rests a hand on her back and as soon as anyone knew it next morning arrives far too quickly.

budget meetings, artist temperament management, a heated debate about whether the sculpture garden needed more abstract pieces. Meg was in the middle of negotiating with a particularly stubborn architect when her phone buzzed.

Leo: Storage room. Now. Emergency.

She excused herself and jogged to the back of the building, where they kept old exhibition materials. The door was slightly ajar.

"Leo?"

The world tilted. A cloth pressed against her face, chemical-sweet and suffocating. Her vision blurred, Leo's shout echoing from somewhere inside the room, and then—

Nothing.

Consciousness returned in fragments. Rope biting into her wrists. As she sits on a chair And Leo sitting across from her similarly bound, his face pale in the dim light of what looked like an abandoned factory.

"Meg," he whispered urgently. "Are you okay?"

Before she could answer, footsteps echoed across the empty space. A figure emerged from the shadows, and Meg's breath caught. And she says "whoa you never told me you were a twin and Leo says "I'm not" "wait a second tattoos lean muscular figure ,blue eyes your not Leo's twin your from a parallel universe well shit now I've seen it all

And as megs placed it all together.leos eyes held a wildness her Leo never had,

"Hello, Meg," the stranger said, and even his voice was different—rougher, weathered by something her Leo had never experienced.

"How did you get here?" her Leo demanded.

And Leo ignoring him He crouched in front of Meg, studying her face with an intensity that made her skin crawl."look Leo I don't know whats going on here or how you got here but I'm not who you think iam "calm down I know You're so different from my Megs "Your Meg?" The words felt strange on her tongue.

"My fiancée. and

i knew the second I kidnapped you were completely different from that blue flannel my megs loves the color pink and when i see you work alongside this guy you hate asking help from him just because you like doing things yourself my megs wasn't as independent as you and from how your a little manly ,feisty and rather went go Karting with him than getting your nails done with your sister my megs wasn't nearly as a tomboy as you . But the eyes... your eyes and hers are the same.and thats why you are worth it even though theres things i can change from you your still worth it

"Then what happened to her"

"She died six months ago. Car accident"

Meg's heart clenched in remorse. "I'm sorry."

"I've been searching through universes, trying to find her again. Trying to find any version of her I could save, could keep, could loved and yearned for her a bit more."

For a moment—one terrible, tempting moment—Meg considered it. Yearned for it. So close, yet so far. Here was a Leo who wanted her, who loved a version of her enough to tear through reality itself.

Leo listen to me Your Meg sounds wonderful, but she's not me. And I'm not her."Leo's face crumpled. "But you could be""No," Meg said firmly, working at the ropes behind her back. Her ability—the one she'd discovered at sixteen and told no one about, not even Leo

I know what you're going through. At some point, we all have to let go."

"Don't." His voice was sharp with warning.

"I know how hard it is. When I told Leo I had feelings for him and he didn't feel the same, it destroyed me.I thought maybe someday I'd get over him, but I can't. I'm still in love with him."and Leo looked at her with eyes wide with shock and Meg glancing at him with remorse because it's not what he wanted to hear"But I found coping methods. Ways to live with it. Ways to still be happy. And I can help you to"

"I don't want coping methods!" Leo pulled a gun from his jacket, pointing it at the other Leo. You’re the version of her the universe left behind. He’s the only thing preventing balance.”

"NO! Leo please please meg pleated with tears in her eyes"

If you do this, you’ll only trap yourself in the same loop you’ve been dying in but this time I'll be trapped with you

You know how this story ends. And I’ll hate you forever for it. Do you really want me to be chasing ghosts across universes to

The barrel wavered. Leo’s features collapsed under the weight of everything he’d been holding back, and violently shaking sobs that tore through him.

Meg finally broke free from the ropes and moved forward carefully. She took the gun gently from his hands and slid it across the floor. Then she pulled him close, cradling his head against her chest, lowering them both to the ground."sĥĥh it's OK It's time to let go," she whispered. "I promise to put you back together."

They stayed like that until his crying subsided. Meg untied Leo, who watched with confused, complicated emotions playing across his face.

"We should go," Meg said softly.

They'd barely made it outside when someone tackled the other leo to the ground and Meg screams "ahh, leo you said you weren't going to say anything" "I didn't!" Leo protested

"I don't know who this guy is"The stranger snarls, “What did you do?”

Leo shouts, “I had to! I couldn’t help it!”

Meg watched the two idiots go at each other,and realized she had enough and tackled the stranger over and getting on top of him and pinning him over . "Enough, asshole!"

The stranger's eyes flashed with an unnatural light. Meg felt herself lifted and slammed against the building wall, his hand closing around her throat with supernatural strength.

"Cole! Cole!" Leo shouted.

"Hey, hey, fuck off!" Megs Leo yelled, rushing forward.

Cole punched him casually, sending him sprawling. Then he looked Meg up and down, his grip still tight on her throat. "This is the one you found? I've been to many universes and seen many Megs better than this one."

Despite the pressure on her windpipe, Meg managed to speak. "Ooh, charming. You know We have the exact same dumbass back at the office. We call him Liam."

Cole's eyebrows rose. "You talk tough. I might have underestimated her."

"You want to talk about tough? How about you put me down and deal with me without that freaky shit you did to me?"

"Please, what can you—"

Meg's leg shot up, catching him square in the mouth. He dropped her, stumbling back and touching his bleeding lip. "You knocked the feeling out of my lip."

Meg rushed to her Leo's side as Cole charged. The other Leo intercepted him, holding him back.

"Cole fuck off!" the tattooed version shouted "we need her, to help fix the universes!"

After everything calmed down—after explanations about multiverse tears and timelines collapsing, about the wrong people finding Portals and messing up realities and disrupting the fabric of existence—Meg sat on a concrete barrier, processing.

"So I have to go through every universe to fix them?" she asked. "See several Leos enjoying their lives without me, finding happiness I can't have, while I'm trying to get over him?"

Cole nodded. "See, this way we help each other. You help us to stop idiots like this one from getting into realities they're not supposed to be in and disrupting universes, and also help him cope. And you said you're trying to get over him. Looks to me like you're halfway there—you could have gone with him, but you didn't because you knew it was wrong. That's why you were meant for this. To set things straight. This is serious. If you don't join us, there will be consequences for other universes."

Meg held off until she knew what she wanted. Work looked the same on the surface, but nothing felt simple around her Leo anymore. watching her with new awareness, with questions in his eyes.

On the fourth day, he cornered her in the hallway.

Megan, we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” she said without slowing. “It’s fine. My feelings don’t matter.”

Leo frowned, stepping after her. “What do you mean they don’t matter? Meg—”

She kept walking.

“Meg!”

Leo shouted for the first time since she'd known him. She stopped and turned around in a fast motion

"yes yes I'm still in love with you Is that what you wanted to hear? Like it makes any difference? You still don’t feel the same.” "Meg I'm sorry" “just like i said ” “No difference what's so ever .” after some thinking it over she finally made up her mind

Later, after turning it over in her mind she finally made her choice.

She found Leo in the studio.

“Meg!” he said, smiling like nothing had cracked between them. “How’s training? Exhausted yet?”

“Very.”

She stood there for a moment, steadying her breath. “Even though you can’t love me the way I love you… I cherish every year we had together. I hope you find someone who scares you the way I used to.”

His smile faded.

She stepped closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “I love you in every universe, Leo. And that’s what makes this universe’s goodbye unbearable.”

And then she rewound time.

The world blurs. Memories unravel.

She erases everything.

The scares.

insults and jokes—vanishing like smoke. Every scare, every

laughter.and

The moment she confessed.

All of it.every shared look—erased

watching the memories fade:

She went back further, to the very beginning, to the day they'd met.

"Hi, I'm Leo."

"Meg.”

Gone.

“Jesus, Leo, you look like a UPS driver.”

Gone.

“I have feelings for you.”

“Yeah, I know. I just want to be friends.”

she unmade it all.

Tears streamed down her face as she watched three years of friendship disappear. But it was the only way. she could leave without destroying him. The only way she could move forward.

When she finished, Leo blinked up at her from his desk, seeing her for the first time as a stranger.

"Good morning, miss. Is there anything I can help you with?"

The way he looked at her—polite, distant, empty of recognition—hurt more than any goodbye ever could.

She stood there, holding a thousand memories he no longer carried, feeling the weight of loving someone who had forgotten her entirely.

"I'm fine," she managed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Are you sure?" Concern crossed his mind, the kindness that had made her fall for him still there, even without their history. "You're crying."

"Yes." She wiped her face. "I'm just learning how to carry the absence of someone I loved."

He looked confused, sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."