Chapter 64

Ethan is in his bedroom with the door shut, avoiding Jasmine’s buffoon of a new boyfriend, when the text comes from Leo.

He has him saved as Leo Anxious Flight Guy.

He texts old-person style. Fully punctuated sentences.

Hi Ethan, it’s Leo here, from the Hobart flight. We shared a taxi home. I just wondered if you had seen the distressing video doing the rounds on the internet? Wondering if it’s fake?

Ethan has seen it. He nearly scrolled past it, but something made him stop. Maybe he subconsciously recognized the girl from the plane. It seems genuine. He checked and found a Tasmanian news site reporting the accident. Woman killed, another in critical condition after two-vehicle crash. He suspects Leo knows perfectly well it’s not fake.

He answers: Yes. Very bad. Reckon pure chance lady got one right?

Leo answers: Yes. Not worried yet! Remind me when you turn thirty?

Ethan answers: Oct 1. Not long! Will be watching my back! When u 43?

Leo answers: Nov12. Keep in touch, mate.

Ethan can’t seem to make himself feel properly frightened. He’s still skeptical, or at least relatively skeptical. It just feels so unlikely he and Harvey would both die young. Wouldn’t that be too much of a coincidence? Statistically unlikely?

He thinks about a long-ago statistics class where the lecturer asked students to estimate how many people in the packed hall shared the same birthday. Nobody was even close. The lecturer said everyone always gets it wrong. They wildly underestimate the likelihood because people have a tendency to put themselves at the center of the universe.

It’s called “the birthday paradox.” You think, What is the probability someone else in this room will have the same birthday as ME? You don’t think of all the possible permutations.

In fact, there is close to a one hundred percent chance that at least two people will share a birthday when there are just seventy-five people in a room.

Ethan is not the center of the universe.

Harvey’s death does not make Ethan any less or more likely to die. Ethan’s chances of dying are just the same as they always were.

So that’s maybe sobering. But still, he’s not worried.

He hears Carter’s booming voice from somewhere in the apartment and shudders.

He picks up the grip-strengthening tool his surgeon recommended he use three times a day after his cast came off, and squeezes. Five seconds on. Five seconds off.

His wrist aches.

He hasn’t been diligent enough with his exercises.