by Marissa Lete
I follow the sounds of my echo moving through the room, then down the stairs. The back door opens, and I race after the noise, grabbing a coat off the rack as I pass it by.
Outside, Maverick’s voice greets me. “Warm enough?”
“I think I’d be sweating even at the north pole.”
“Good. Walk with me?”
“Sure. But only if you tell me what brought this strange guy to my window at nearly eleven in the evening?” The sound of my echo starts to drift away from where I stand, so I follow it, moving in the direction of the woods at the edge of my backyard.
“Hold up, strange guy? I thought you would at least consider me an acquaintance by now,” comes Maverick’s reply.
My echo laughs. “Fun fact. Your status actually does depend on the circumstances.”
“So like, what kind of circumstances, exactly?” I can almost hear the eyebrow raise in his sentence.
“Hmm. Well, for starters, the time of day. I’m technically supposed to be in bed, so I had to bump you down a bit for rule-breaking.”
“Noted. What else?”
“I guess the location can change things, too. Because right now it looks like you’re leading me into the woods so you can murder me.”
“Wow, I didn’t think this through, did I?” Our echoes join in laughter at the comment. A few beats of silence pass and I continue walking in the direction the echoes had been headed, listening. A breeze drifts past, rustling the tree branches above and I shiver, pulling the coat tighter around myself.
I’m beginning to think I’ve lost track of the echo when a few feet away, Maverick’s voice appears again. “So if we stop here, does that move me up on the list?”
I walk toward the sound, listening as my echo says, “Not really. You’re still at strange guy, but you’ve dropped the risk of falling to ax murderer.”
Another gust of wind blows through the trees, but Maverick’s voice is easy to pick out, its low pitch standing out against the rustling of the leaves. “Okay, okay. So how can I move up on the list?”
My reply comes a beat later. “Well, you did bring me a jacket to stay warm, so you get points for that. But my hands are freezing.”
Another few seconds pass. “Does this help?”
“See, now I’m just confused. Because you were just at strange guy, but holding hands is definitely creeping into boyfriend territory.” I feel my heart flutter a bit at the thought of holding hands and boyfriends, but it just leaves me longing to remember this moment. To remember Maverick.
“Oh snap. Laura just used the b-word. Who are you?” Maverick gasps.
“Whatever. Just tell me why you brought me out here!”
“What, I can’t just surprise my girlfriend with a scandalous stargazing session whenever I want?” I hear my echo laugh, then Maverick adds, “Also, there happens to be a meteor shower tonight.”
“Seriously?” my echo replies, and I look up at the sky. It’s cloudy tonight, but there’s a gap in the trees right above where I stand that would be perfect for stargazing on a clear night.
“Seriously. Of course, we’ll be lucky if we see two or three. The peak isn’t supposed to happen until two or three, but assuming you want to go to school tomorrow, you’ll probably want to go back to bed a lot sooner.”
“Oh, okay,” my echo replies but doesn’t sound too terribly disappointed.
“Really it just made for a good excuse to get you out here with me.”
“I think that actually bumps you back down to strange guy,” my echo teases.
Maverick laughs, a low, gentle sound. “Alright, we need to watch, because we could only have so many chances to see one.” At that, there’s a rustling sound in the grass. Us laying down?
A long silence stretches into the night and I stare up at the sky, waiting to hear the continuation of the echo. It seems like such a sweet, romantic gesture, an interesting addition to the playful flirting from a few days ago. I wonder what, if anything, had happened between now and then.
“Look!” my echo exclaims, though there’s nothing but clouds for me to look at in the present. “Did you see that?”
“I did! Hurry, make a wish.”
There’s a brief silence, and I close my eyes. I wish I remembered this moment. I wish I knew what happened to you.
“What’d you wish for?” he asks.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” my echo counters.
“I would, actually.”
“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”
“That’s totally a myth,” Maverick fires back.
“Maybe. But I’d rather not take any chances,” my echo insists.
“So what if I guess what you wished for, and you just tell me if I guess it right? Because technically then you’re not telling me,” Maverick suggests.
“Hmm. It’s risky, but I guess you can try if you want,” comes my reply.
“Challenge accepted. Okay, so what would Laura Jones wish for? Let me think,” Maverick pauses. “I know. A scoop of cookie dough ice cream, on a waffle cone.”
I shiver, partially because of the cold and partially because I remember the worker at Coffee and Cream knowing the exact same order Maverick just recited. It is my favorite. “Really good guess, but no.”
“An endless supply of French fries?”
“Why do you think I would want that?”
“Have you seen yourself around a plate of French fries?” He chuckles. “You’re pretty ravenous, actually. And you get territorial about them, too. Anyone who takes one—or even thinks about taking one—gets this horrifying glare.”
“Oh my gosh, stop it!” Both of us laugh, and I imagine the moment, laying on the grass next to a guy, joking around. It just seems so… normal. I envy my echo, wishing I could feel that normality right now.
“It’s super cute, honestly,” he says.
“Whatever,” the word comes out muffled as if my face is buried in my hands.
A minute later, Maverick speaks again. “Alright, I have one final guess, and then I give up.”
“Better think carefully, then.”
There’s a long silence, and the wind sifts through the trees again, gentler this time. I look up, watching the dark shadows of the leaves moving.
“That’s my final answer,” Maverick finally says. I frown, feeling like I’m missing part of the conversation.
“You might be right,” my echo replies, barely above a whisper.
“Knew it!” he exclaims.
“And my wish came true because I didn’t tell you what it was. Point proven,” my echo says matter-of-factly.
“Actually, I would have kissed you whether you told me or not, so point not proven,” Maverick replies, and my stomach drops. Kissed?
“Whatever,” my echo huffs. There’s another pause and I feel like I’m eavesdropping on an intimate conversation that was only meant for the people involved. Like I’m hearing another person’s life unfold in front of me. Not mine.
“You don’t have to wait for another shooting star to get another kiss, you know,” Maverick finally says.
“I’m okay with that being a permanent rule.”
“Deal, but only if I’m permanently upgraded to a rank higher than strange man.”
“I guess I can do that,” my echo teases.
He laughs, and silence falls across the backyard. I’ve heard myself meeting, flirting with, and going on a date with this guy, and I still have no recollection of any of it. And now, I’d apparently kissed him, though I definitely don’t remember kissing anyone, ever.
This happened a year ago. An entire year, and I have no idea what happened after this. Did we keep dating? Did we break up? And where is he now?
These echoes are giving me a glimpse into the relationship that Maverick and I must have had, but there isn’t any useful information about who Maverick is or what happened to him. I’ve got two pieces of solid evidence that he actually exists—the vase and the nametag—but how can they mea
n anything when no one seems to remember anything about him?
Chapter 14
Two days later, it’s Halloween. It’s a day I’ve dreaded for a few years now, ever since I grew out of my trick-or-treating days. Now, all the day brings is a constant stream of doorbell ringing, both from the past and the present. It’s a day where sitting in the office can’t even bring me peace and quiet, and going out is even worse because everyone throws parties on Halloween.
“You’re not going to dress up?” Mom calls to me from the stairs just as I’m about to open the front door to leave for school.
“Not a chance!” I call back, waving. There’s a decent amount of my peers who do dress up for the holiday, but I’m not one of them. I imagine that if Grace and I weren’t on such bad terms, she’d have convinced me to dress up with her—but under the circumstances, that wasn’t going to happen this year. Even Leo has been avoiding me since the confrontation on Tuesday where he confessed his love for Grace. I’ve seen glimpses of him in the hallways, but he hasn’t shown up at the lunch table or in the parking lot since.
Though it sucks eating alone, I’ve been using the time to focus on my studies. I can’t afford to get another bad test grade, at least not without risking parental involvement, which I don’t ever want to have to go through. I’ve put my parents through enough stress throughout my life, and the last thing I want them to worry about is my grades.
So after school, I head straight home, hoping to use the few hours I have before the doorbell starts ringing nonstop as effective study time. And I do, for the first forty-five minutes or so, until I hear an echo of my front door opening. Footsteps walk into the kitchen, the sound of plastic bags along with them. I hear things being set down on the counter, then Dad’s voice. “Kara, honey, are you home?” he calls out.
“I’m coming,” Mom’s voice echoes from her office. Her footsteps enter the kitchen.
“I got the stuff you asked me to get from the store. What’s all this about? I thought we were just going to order pizza tonight?”
“We were, but we’ve had a slight change of plans,” Mom’s echo replies.
“What do you mean?”
“Laura texted me. She invited Maverick to come over tonight!” Mom sounds way too excited.
“Did she?” Dad replies.
“Yes, and I don’t want to scare him off. I’m going to make my famous meatballs.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about scaring him off, Kara. This is our chance to find out more about him. Intimidate him a little bit and see if he’s even a good fit for Laura,” Dad says. I almost laugh at the idea of my dad trying to intimidate a guy I brought over. If I’d ever actually brought a boy over, which I don’t remember doing.
“No, Jeff, we can’t scare him away,” Mom replies.
“Why not? If I don’t think he’s good for Laura, I have no problem telling him exactly that.”
“This is her chance, Jeff. The first boy she’s ever dated—even though she won’t call it that. If this goes well, she might gain some confidence and realize that she can live a normal life, just like the rest of us,” Mom tells him, concerned. I repeat the words back in my mind, closing my eyes. I know my parents always wished they’d had a normal kid, and I’ve felt so bad about it. They didn’t ask for this life, none of us did, but there’s nothing we could do about it.
“I get that, but if he’s not treating her right, then things could get even worse,” Dad points out.
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about. You remember him, right? He helped you move all that furniture. He seems like a total sweetheart. And I’ve never seen Laura so happy before,” Mom replies, and I can hear the smile in her voice. I try to imagine feeling so happy, with no chaos or confusion surrounding me. But I can’t. Not while listening to an echo of something I don’t remember anything about.
“I know. But I still want to make sure his intentions are in the right place,” Dad adds. Then I hear the plastic bags shuffling, the fridge opening and closing, and the sounds of food preparation beginning.
Mom and Dad must have both known about Maverick, too. But they don’t seem to remember anything about him, either. Do they? How could someone exist in the echoes of the past, yet no one from the present has any clue about them? No me, not my parents, not even Penny or Tony, who he supposedly worked with. No one seems to know who he was…
Except for that girl at Coffee and Cream. She seemed to recognize me and might have remembered Maverick. But I’m not sure if that was solid evidence or just her mistaking me for someone else.
For the rest of the afternoon, I listen to the echoes of dinner being made while I work. Mom comes home while I’m deep in focus, more on the echoes than my homework. She sets two giant bags of candy down on the counter, then walks into her office without saying another word.
Then, around four-thirty, the echo I’ve been waiting for appears. The front door opens, then closes, and a moment later I hear my own voice in the kitchen.
“It smells delicious in here!”
“Hey, guys!” Mom’s echo replies.
“Well, well, well. It’s about time you showed up here again,” Dad’s echo adds.
“Hello, Mr. Jones. How are you doing?” Maverick’s voice appears, just across the room from where I sit now.
“Oh, just fine. And you?” Dad replies. I imagine a handshake ensuing.
“Good, thanks. Do you need help with anything?” Maverick asks.
“No, no! We’ll take care of it, you two just have a seat!” Mom replies.
“I am a cook over at Louise’s, Mrs. Jones, so it’s no problem, really,” he adds from by the sink.
“You could chop these tomatoes for me if you want to?” Dad offers.
“No, no. Don’t even listen to him! Jeff could use the practice, anyway,” Mom throws in, laughing. After a few beats, she asks, “How is your Mom doing? I still think it was so sweet of her to bring over those flowers. Is she busy tonight? She’s welcome to join us for dinner, of course!”
“She’s volunteering for her school’s trunk-or-treat tonight. She teaches Kindergarten over at Lakefield Elementary.”
“Oh, how sweet! We’ll just have to catch her next time, then.”
“Definitely,” Maverick replies, then adds, “Are you sure you don’t want some help with that?”
“Oh, Jeff! I said slice, not mash. Maybe I should let Maverick do this,” Mom laughs.
“I agree,” Dad replies.
“On it,” Maverick replies. I hear a drawer opening, then the faucet running again.
“So you’re a cook at the diner, huh?” Dad starts, his voice on the other side of the counter now. “Do you plan to work there for a while?”
“For now, yeah,” Maverick answers, and I hear the sound of a knife cutting through what sounds like lettuce. “I’m taking a couple of classes at the community college right now while I finish my high school credits through a homeschool program. I hope to get into State next year.” It’s the same college I’d been looking into. Grace wanted me to go there with her and be roommates, but I’m not entirely sure I want to go to college, a place where thousands of students have been through for years. Maybe online school is the best route for me.
“That’s nice! What do you want to study?” Dad’s echo asks.
“For undergrad? Biology, probably. I eventually want to specialize in neuroscience, though.”
“Neuroscience! Wow, how’d you decide on that one?” Dad sounds shocked.
“I’m just… fascinated with how our brains work, I guess.”
“Interesting,” Dad replies. “So what’s your Dad up to, then?”
There’s an awkward pause until Mom finally speaks up. “You don’t have to answer that. Jeff—”
“No, it’s okay,” Maverick jumps in. “My Dad isn’t around. I never really knew him.”
“I am so sorry, Maverick. Jeff is just really… interested in getting to know you. He didn’t mean to bring up anything painfu
l,” Mom says hurriedly.
Maverick laughs, though. “It’s okay. I think you have a right to know more about your own daughter’s boyfriend.”
There’s a pause, and then my own voice echoes from the other side of the kitchen. It surprises me because I’d almost forgotten that this entire conversation is an echo and that I’m not actually seeing it unfold in the present. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?” I hear myself ask.
“Maybe because we’re all wondering if you’re going to correct my use of the word boyfriend, or if you’re going to finally let it go,” Maverick answers. The room fills with laughter.
“You know, I think I’m starting to like this kid,” Dad says, chuckling.
The conversation continues, and I listen, hoping to catch some chunk of information that might help me in my search for answers. Dad starts telling stories about some of the crazy things he did with his friends when he was in high school, and then Mom makes small talk, careful to avoid anything that may be too personal, I notice.
Around six o’clock, I hear the front door opening today, and Dad enters the kitchen carrying a shopping bag. He looks at the two bags of Halloween candy on the counter, then down at the bag in his hands.
“Kara,” he calls to my Mom. She enters the kitchen, eyeing the bag in his hand as she does. I hear the echoes of the past around the table laughing at the same time.
“You bought some too, didn’t you?” Mom asks, just after I hear her echo say, “Well we’d better start cleaning up before the trick-or-treaters make their appearance.”
Dad of the present sighs. “I guess I’m just going to have to eat it all,” he says, and I strain to hear the echoes over him. There’s the sound of kitchen chairs scooting across the floor, then plates being collected.
I hear an echo of the doorbell ringing, and then my own voice saying, “I’ll get it.” A beat later, the doorbell rings today.
“I’ll get it,” I tell my parents, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. I grab one of the bags of candy from the counter and head to the door, hearing it open in the past just before I open it today. After I hand out the candy and close the door, Maverick’s echo appears next to me.