Lori Lucero

Parallel Lives Lori Lucero

If Jen can't get back to her usual self, she'll end up having to do everything all over again. Jen is a thirty-seven-year-old middle-school teacher in 2012. Overweight, underpaid, in debt, and with a bitter divorce pending, Jen wants to start over. Then Jen is hit by a car. When she awakens, she is a thirteen-year-old kid with her same parents and siblings, but it is still 2012. Initially Jen resists accepting her new reality, insisting that she is thirty-seven years old. However, faced with the possibility of confinement to a mental health ward, she is forced to play along. Jen struggles to understand her situation. She jumps on every possible source of information until she stumbles upon some discussions in theoretical physics regarding parallel universes. Could this be what happened to her? She contacts a quantum physics professor, who tells her he can help her go "home", thus leaving her with a major decision. Should she stay and relive the pain of adolescence, but have the chance to make better life choices? Or should she return to her highly flawed but familiar life?