Warmth pools around my body and mixes with cold. The corners of my eyes start to water, and images blur.
“Andre, I’m serious! Do not leave! If you leave now…”
Rule number two of time travel may be to only jump from point A to point B, but rules are meant to be broken. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Whether Michael or Blake or anyone else likes it or not.
* * *
There’s something unsettling about being in the place where someone died.
I’ve been around death before. In the hospital one time, about five years ago, when we were visiting my cousin, another kid in the room coded. Mom and Dad did their best to distract me, thinking that, at twelve years old, I was too young to face death. Now, five years later, I’m more familiar with it—and the concept of it—than most teens have to be.
Maybe that’s what I should write my college essay on.
But this is different. I have the power to stop this.
And in a few minutes…seven, to be exact…Dave is going to get in his car, head home, and get T-boned by a drunk driver, dying instantly. At least, I like to think it’s instant. No one should have to suffer.
I take a moment to massage my side. The pain is intense, but the adrenaline running through me is enough to quell it. After I give myself a few seconds to take a deep breath, I walk half a block, until I’m standing in front of the coffee shop: Jameson’s. It’s one part bookstore, one part indie music house, and one part piss-poor coffee. A lot of the college students in town come here, and it’s a melting pot. As such, the owner caters to that crowd with movie nights, debate nights, and poetry nights. Hell, political watch parties happen here every two years, with ticket sales on a first-come, first-served basis. It makes sense that Dave is here.
I hesitate for a moment before walking quickly toward the door. My mind reels with dozens of scenarios and possible solutions. What if someone I know sees me? What if he isn’t here? What if I’m too early? Too late? What if I get distracted?
The possibilities are endless, but only one solution matters: success. I’m not lucky enough to have the luxury of failure as an option. I made a promise to myself. This is the right thing to do. This is what I should do. Fix Dave, and then he’ll fix me. Everyone wins.
Except Michael.
Will his life be better or worse without me? I’m not foolish enough to think that my influence on the world is going to have widespread positive, or negative, ramifications.
But affecting one person? Changing one life? That I can do. That I will do. After all, isn’t that what everyone, deep down, hopes for? To make a difference in one person’s life.
Michael was that person. And the question is, will any of it matter? Even if we do everything right, if my plan goes perfectly…will we still end up together? Part of me desperately hopes so. But I know we don’t make sense. I know he shouldn’t have to wait for me. He should live his own life.
I can’t dwell on the pain of that. Right now, I need to focus. I’m only going to get one shot at this.
Keeping close to a wall, about twenty feet away, I wait. It’s not long now—three, maybe four minutes until he leaves. I need to account for him getting in his car, starting it, driving into the intersection. All of that will happen quickly. I need to be ready to act.
What if it doesn’t go according to plan? What if something different happens? He’s on his way home, doesn’t get hit by the drunk driver, but skids into a river instead? Or has a heart attack? Or something else?
The door to Jameson’s opens, and deep laughter flows out. A gaggle of half a dozen students, wearing jackets with a mix of different college logos, spills into the parking lot. But I only care about one in particular: the well-built man who looks like a football linebacker, with the jaw of someone who could definitely run for president. The one with the same red hair I saw in the picture, the same red hair his mom has.
The man I’ve been waiting for.
The feeling of coldness melts away and is replaced with a low, burning warmth. Adrenaline, that’s what this is. The rapid heartbeat in my chest, the warm tingling in my fingers, the ringing in my ears, and the way everything feels distant but present all at the same time.
One shot.
One chance.
One moment.
One step. Then another, and another.
I haven’t thought through what I’m going to say. Maybe I should have—maybe it all should have been rehearsed, so I could function on autopilot. But I’m best when I’m going off the cuff; I know that about myself. And if I succeed, I won’t have much time to think about it and critique myself. Once the clock passes 3:15, and Dave isn’t dead, everything will change. The world will shift, and this reality won’t exist anymore. It doesn’t matter how I make that happen, as long as I make it happen.
Simple.
But the sound of a car coming up behind me, closer than it should, and stopping abruptly, jolts me from my thoughts.
And the person who steps out of it makes me forget everything.
Twenty-Six
Mrs. McIntyre slams the door of her bright red Prius hard. She’s wearing one of those Russian-style faux-fur hats that you see in old movies with a matching infinity scarf. The blacks and reds of her outfit play well off her lipstick and the slight rosiness of her cheeks.
“Are you going to stand out here and get frostbite, or are you going to get in the car?”
Claire and I stand in a silent stare down. What is she doing here? How did she find me?
“Let’s go, Andre. That isn’t a request,” she says softly, subtext heavy in her voice. She’s not demanding; she’s asking, pleading. This isn’t the same Claire McIntyre I’ve known.
And that scares me.
I study her eyes and look over in the general direction that I saw Dave and his friends walk. I have less than two minutes left. Two minutes to stop him from getting in that car. Two minutes to—
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions about why I’m here,” she says.
“Along with other things, yes, that would be a fair statement.”
“As do I. I’ll explain everything to you, but you have got to get in the car,” she urges. “Andre, if he sees you—let alone me? Do you know what that would do to time? I’m risking a great deal to save you from your own mistake.”
“I made a choice, a promise,” I insist. “I can’t just—”
“To Blake? Did he put you up to this?”
“To myself.”
“Those are the best promises, but they can be easily broken when logic comes into play. I, for all intents and purposes, am logic.” She gestures to her car again, this time with a flourish of her hand. “Please,” she whispers.
“If I don’t, what are you going to do?” I ask. “If I go and stop Dave…”
“Two things could happen: one, you succeed and change history in a way that cannot be fixed, which violates—”
“Rule number three.”
“Or two, the more likely outcome, I’ll go back in time and stop you from stopping him.”
“And you know I’ll do the same.”
She smiles, the type of grin where only a corner of her mouth lifts.
“Then we’ll just keep going back and forth until one of us slips up and creates a paradox that has bigger ramifications than either of us can resolve,” she concedes. “And I surely don’t want that. And something tells me you don’t want that either, Andre. And that you’re smart enough to know that there really is no other choice for you here.”
One minute left.
“Fine,” I concede. I circle around her car and slip into the passenger’s seat, closing the door behind me. The warmth of the leather seat sends a shiver up my spine, and the blast of dry, hot air relaxes my joints.
Claire follows, and before she even has ti
me to put her seat belt on, I speak.
“What are you doing here?”
She pulls off her gloves, finger by finger, until the thirty remaining seconds pass. We watch as Dave’s car peels out of the parking lot and he drives toward us. My breath hitches as he passes us, bobbing his head to some music, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He looks…happy. Like that meeting, whatever it was, replenished some well that he had been yearning to fill.
And he has no idea what’s about to happen. No idea that in a mile he’s going to die. Just like that.
“You and I aren’t that different, Andre,” she finally whispers, forcing the words out. “We both want to do the right thing. We’re both type A people. We both do what we believe is best, consequences be damned.” She turns to me, and her eyes are slightly red. Tears glisten at the edges of her eyes. But they don’t fall. “The difference is, I’ve learned with age that some things cannot be changed. Some things have to happen. And this is one of them. Blake really didn’t put you up to this?”
“No. I promise. I think, if I’d told him, he would’ve been against this as adamantly as you are. He isn’t as dense or contrarian as you think he is. I’m doing this because I think it’s the right thing to do. I don’t think Dave should die. And I don’t think this is the life I was supposed to lead. I’m doing this for a lot of reasons, but they are all my own. And, honestly, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t do this. How are you okay with letting your son die?” I blurt it out before I can stop it. “You’re a time traveler. You can stop things like this. Fuck the rules.”
I know I’ve spoken out of turn by the way she pauses and closes her eyes. I can hear her counting to ten in her head, even if I can’t actually hear it. Mom does the same thing when she’s angry and holding it back.
“No, Andre. I can’t,” she finally says when she opens her eyes.
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I’m here because I come here every day,” she says, her voice breaking just slightly. “I come here to watch my son’s last moments. To see him happy. To know that instead of coming straight home from the store, where I’d sent him to pick up eggs, he swung by Jameson’s to get a quick drink with friends. To know that I called him, yelled at him, and guilted him into coming home, and because I did, because he peeled out of the parking lot at that exact second to get home to me, he died.”
She takes a breath, covering her mouth with her hand. I hear her whimper and choke it back. I feel the tightness in my chest winding.
“But I can’t change it, Andre. That’s one thing I cannot do. You’re right, fuck the rules. I can’t change it because that’s my code of conduct. Because those are the lines I live by and will not cross. Because if we do not have lines, Andre, with all this power that we have, what will we become? We cannot, even with this power, choose to change things just because we don’t want to feel pain.”
“But why can’t we?” I argue. “There is a line between abusing power and using it to make the world better, Mrs. McIntyre. You’re smart enough to know when not to cross that line.”
She chuckles, but it’s one of those chuckles that is filled with sadness instead of comedy.
“Stronger men and women than me have thought that they could do exactly what you’re suggesting, Andre. And every time, they realize that they have done more harm than good. And it breaks them.”
She turns in her seat to face me and touches my shoulder, forcing me to look at her.
“It will break you too. You will make one change and find two other things that you need to change. You’ll change those two, and then find four more. You’ll never be happy. You’ll never create the world you want, and before long, the world you now reside in will become so different, so horrific, that you will do anything in your power to end it.
“But, more importantly, just because we have won the genetic lottery, doesn’t mean that we get to be immune from heartbreak. That’s what makes us human, Andre. And when you have a power that exists outside the law, feeling human is the only way you remind yourself that you are human.”
Another group of college students comes out of Jameson’s. Police cars speed by. The group looks up, but they continue on with their conversation, heading to their cars.
She sighs, leaning back in her seat for the first time. “Did you consider what would happen to you if you went through with this? To your liver?”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“You may be, but what about everyone else? The eight billion other people in the world? Even assuming that David’s death didn’t have bigger ramifications on the global stage,” she reminds me gently but firmly. “You can’t just assume that you can change one thing and that’s the only thing that will change. That’s rarely what happens when you meddle with time. It’s why we don’t.”
An ambulance speeds by.
“I’m having tea now,” she says in an almost dreamy tone. “When David dies. Blake is upstairs playing that stupid Call of Duty game. My husband, he’s at work… God bless him. He’s going to be the last to find out, and I’m going to have to tell him.”
We sit in silence for what feels like ten minutes, neither of us sure what to say.
“Ask the question that you want to ask, Andre,” she urges.
“I don’t…”
She holds her hand up, opens a compact mirror with her free hand, and stares into it while dabbing at her eyes. “Take a moment and think. What’s the question you want to ask more than anything. Something you’ve been wondering for the past month? Something I didn’t fully answer before? Even if you haven’t thought it yet, not consciously at least, you know what it is.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. My mind is filled with other things. Dread at having to face Blake again, anger at myself for thinking this would actually work. Pain. Hurt. Fear. All of those things. But a question? What could she…
And then it clicks.
“Why did you pick me?”
She smiles, closing the mirror with a loud click. “There we go,” she muses. “Finally, you ask.”
Claire turns to me in her seat. The belt slides against her chest and pulls tight with a loud click. She reaches over, placing her hand over my own, and gives me a firm yet soft squeeze.
“I put a lot of pressure on you,” she says. “Throwing you into my world and not preparing you. Expecting you to continue our family line. I didn’t even ask if you want to—have children, I mean. And I don’t need to know. That’s not a weight I should put on anyone, not my own children and certainly not you. I take full responsibility for that. For you being here. For not…focusing enough on you.”
“And on Blake,” I remind her. “He’s the one who’s suffering. He…feels lost without Dave. His older brother was his guide, no matter how put together he seems.” I hesitate, but she squeezes my hand again, a silent confirmation that I should keep going. “He told me all of this because he felt like he couldn’t come to you,” I say quickly, so I can’t take it back. “And there’s a reason for that.”
“Because I’m prioritizing my own guilt and feelings over my son?” she asks. “Trying, including by bringing you into our family, to keep a piece of David going?”
I hesitate. “Is that a question or…”
“I already know the answer.” She smiles, gently moving her hand to my cheek and squeezing it. “I think about that every day. We all deal with grief differently, Andre. I watch my son’s last moments over and over again, trying to find a way to keep his memory living on—figuratively and literally. My husband buries himself in his work, in the languages of the past, to distance himself from time travel, and in turn, distance himself from David’s memory. And Blake? Blake is trying to fill the hole that his brother left in our family, without being swallowed up by the weight of his memory, and he doesn’t even know that, in doing so, he’s tearing himse
lf apart.”
“So why don’t you do something about it?” I ask. “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”
She chuckles again, softly. “No, of course not. You mean it in the most honest way possible.”
She falls silent, sitting back and looking out the window, as if the answer is out there. It’s starting to snow, just a bit. Flurries dance in the air, twirling a beautiful ballet as they descend from the heavens.
“I suppose it’s because I can control this,” she says, gesturing around her. “I know how this story ends. I know what it’ll feel like, and I know that, when I want it to, the feeling can be over.
“I cannot control how Blake feels. I can’t fix that. I can’t remove his pain. You tried to. That’s not only brave, but also—”
“Stupid?”
“Kind,” she says gently. “It’s a kindness. Knowing what you’d sacrifice? You only do that for someone you care for. Someone you love.”
“I don’t know about that,” I scoff.
Claire arches a brow. “Really, now? You went through all of this because, what? You’re a good person? Come on now, Andre. That’s admirable, but foolish. Everyone has some selfishness in them. What you tried to do goes against the rules of human self-preservation. And the only reason humans go against that is because of love.
“He needs someone, Andre. For the longest time, I thought it was me. I thought I could fix everything if I could just…give him space. David was like that. He figured things out on his own, so I assumed that Blake would follow in his footsteps, given the chance. I was wrong.”
“I don’t…think that’s what he wants or needs, though,” I say. “I don’t think he’s looking for you, or anyone, to fix things or try to replace his brother or anything. I think he just wants to feel like there’s someone who has his back.”
Yesterday Is History Page 17