by Chris Scully
It only lasted a minute, that gentle press of lips, but I felt it down to my toes. Jake pulled back, but not far. Close enough so that I could see his eyes, wide and confused behind the lenses of his glasses. He had the most beautiful brown eyes, so dark they were almost black. When he looked at me, I felt as though he could see straight through me.
“You’re not freaking out,” he whispered. “I thought for sure you’d punch me or something. Or at least run away.”
I smiled at that. If only he knew. “I’m done running.”
Jake cocked his head to one side. “You seem different.” He placed a tentative hand on my chest, right over my pounding heart. “Have you ever kissed a guy before?”
“You’re the first,” I told him truthfully. At the time, I hadn’t. That brief kiss had changed my life in so many ways; for a long time I would deny it, but none of my countless boyfriends and nameless lovers had ever matched the sweet thrill of that first kiss with Jake.
Jake shifted positions to get closer, and the saggy couch springs sent him tumbling into me. I caught him by the waist. He bit his full lower lip and raised one eyebrow. “Good catch,” he said. When I didn’t immediately let go, his arms snaked around my shoulders so that we were chest to chest. He stroked a hand down my arm and squeezed my bicep as if testing the muscle. “Is this okay?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Yeah.” My voice came out all hoarse. “Could you tell? I mean, about me?” It was the one question I’d never gotten up the nerve to ask.
“I wondered, but I always thought it was my wishful thinking. I didn’t know for sure, not until just now. Your secret’s safe.”
“Why me?”
“Are you kidding? You’re the hottest guy in school.”
It was such a teenage boy answer that I laughed even as I felt a stab of disappointment. Of course he was thinking with his dick—he was seventeen.
Jake leaned in close, until we were nose to nose. “But that’s not why,” he whispered, the words blowing gentle puffs of air across my lips.
“It’s not?”
“Nope.” Jake rubbed his nose against mine. It was a sweet gesture. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you.” He gave me a look that could only be described as cocky. “Can I kiss you again?”
I’d be crazy to say no, so I didn’t. He was more confident this time; there was definite tongue, tentative at first, then a little bolder as he explored, then I explored. Jake tasted like cream soda. I wrapped my hand around the nape of his neck, warm and slightly damp against my palm. I stroked the silky bristles where hair met skin.
So real.
“Jake? Are you down there?” The sound of his mom’s voice made us both jerk apart just as my own revelation finally hit me.
“Shit!” Jake sprang back to his side of the couch seconds before she descended the stairs. He fumbled with his glasses. “Hey, Mom. We’re here,” he shouted with a roll of his eyes in my direction.
“You’re real,” I breathed.
“Um, yeah.”
“Holy shit, I’m not dreaming—you’re really real.” I was torn between laughing hysterically and crying. “Coach said—wait, how did I get here?”
“Uh, you walked?” Now Jake definitely looked worried. “Eric, are you okay? You don’t look so good. Maybe my mom should take a look at you.”
“Take a look at whom? Oh, hello, Eric,” Jake’s mom said when she saw me. I had met her a few times, and she seemed really nice; friendly and open—the exact opposite of my own mother. “Is something wrong? Would you like to stay for dinner? I was just going to order pizza.”
I looked back and forth between them, my mind spinning in a hundred directions at once. How could this be happening? Time travel only happened in the movies. I realized she was still patiently waiting for a response. “Thanks, Mrs. Lockwood, but I really need to be getting home.” Did I ever. I would have loved to stay, especially when I saw Jake’s crushed expression, but I needed to figure out what was going on. Grabbing my backpack from the floor, I practically ran up the steps, Jake at my heels.
He followed me to the door and caught me by the arm. “Eric, are we okay?” he asked quietly. His dark eyes shone with uncertainty, and I wanted nothing more than to go back and hold him. But I didn’t.
“Yeah, we’re good,” I told him. “I’m not running. I just need….” To do what? To get the hell out of here? Oh Jesus, I had kissed him. My lips still tingled from the contact.
“Okay,” he said with a half smile, leaning against the door.
“I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.” I backed off the porch, nearly tripping on the stairs.
WALKING down the street in a daze, I looked up at the darkening sky for answers. Okay, what now? “This isn’t really fair, you know,” I grumbled out loud to no one in particular. “Shouldn’t I have a guide or something? Am I supposed to figure this out myself?” Of course there was no response in the quiet street. I hadn’t really expected one. The only person who could possibly help me was Coach Carter, but at this hour who knew where he would be. First thing tomorrow, I had to find him. But in the meantime, if this truly was not a dream, I had nowhere else to go but home.
Before I knew it, my own front door loomed before me. The house I grew up in was a two-story yellow brick box built in the forties, with a manicured front lawn and spring bulbs sprouting in the garden. From the outside, it appeared neat and tidy; no one ever wondered about the darkness hiding inside. Like a doomed man, I approached the threshold.
As usual the front door was unlocked, so I let myself in and stowed my backpack in the closet. Funny how some habits never go away. I followed the sound of noises to the kitchen at the back of the house. At least there was no shouting tonight. Standing in the doorway, I watched my mom at the stove. She looked as I always remembered her; carefully pulled together in a white blouse and skirt, but haggard and tired around the eyes. And jumpy. Every noise from outside, every car door slam or loud voice would make her cringe. She gave a little shriek as she turned and caught sight of me. “Eric! You shouldn’t sneak up on someone like that.” She shooed me away. “Go wash up and sit down, dinner is almost ready.”
The dining room table was set with only two places, I noticed when I entered the room. “Where’s Dad?” I asked as Mom set a heaping plate of pot roast in front of me.
“At the Legion.” We exchanged looks, both knowing what that meant; a brief respite but trouble when he got home. My dad, retired Major Thomas Somers, was a bully, pure and simple. He used threats and intimidation to get what he wanted, and if that failed, occasionally he used his fists. He might have left the army but the army never left him.
Mom and I ate our dinner in strained silence, which, ironically, was not all that different from our current relationship. I studied her carefully. Maybe it took this trip down memory lane to remind me that we had both endured the same hell—she far longer than me. What was it Coach had said? That’s it’s never too late to throw in a new play? When she rose to clear the table, I put my hand on her shoulder and urged her to sit. “I’ll do it,” I said gently. She blinked at me in surprise then quickly looked away.
I washed and dried the dishes then put them back into the well-organized cupboards. I felt exhausted by the time I was done and decided to go to bed. Looking into the living room on my way up the stairs, I saw that Mom was dusting micro particles from the coffee table. My dad demanded a spotless house.
“Night, Mom,” I said. I hesitated then gave her a quick hug, something I’d never done in all the years I lived in this house. I left her gaping after me. Up in my room, I stripped down to my underwear and crawled into my narrow bed, where I promptly fell asleep.
THE alarm clock buzzed way too early the next morning. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to return to the amazing dream I’d been having, in which I finally got to kiss the boy of my dreams the way I always wanted to. But the alarm wouldn’t be ignored. I rolled over and blearily slapped a hand out to hit the snooze button, o
nly the clock wasn’t where it should be on the right side of the bed. I cracked open an eye and saw the Tron poster on the back of my door. What the fuck? I shot up and nearly fell out of the single bed. Holy crap, I was still in my childhood bedroom.
“Get your lazy ass out of bed and shut that thing off.” The sound of a fist pounding at my door and my father’s angry voice cemented my worst fear. This was no dream. Somehow I was really here; stuck in 1991. “You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you,” I replied. “Everyone on the block can hear you,” I muttered in a quieter voice. I shut off the alarm and swung my legs out of bed. Maybe I was in a coma or something. Or dead—and doomed to repeat high school over and over again. Although I did have to admit as I stood in front of the mirror a bit later, it was good to be back in my old body again, with everything firm and smooth. I ran a hand down my chest and gripped my cock through my boxers, still half hard from thinking of Jake—some parts firmer than others, it seemed.
My father chose that moment to stick his head in the door. “Don’t forget to mow the lawn after school.”
I quickly grabbed my pants and held them in front of me. “No, sir.” My hands were still trembling as he shut the door. Even after all these years, he still had the power to turn my stomach into knots.
THERE wasn’t much learning happening with finals done and only a week left in the school year, so I skipped first-period English and went searching for Coach Carter. I found him in the equipment room, counting basketballs.
He didn’t seem surprised to see me. “What the hell is going on? What did you do to me?” I shouted.
“I’m helping you out, kid.”
“Am I… am I dead?”
Coach’s booming laugh rang out. He cuffed me upside the head.
“Hey!” I rubbed my left ear to ease the sting.
“Does that feel like you’re dead?”
I glared at him. “So this is real? All of it?” My mind said it was impossible but the facts were starting to say otherwise. My knees felt weak, and I had to sit down on a stack of wooden chairs. “Why did you do it? Send me back here?”
“You only got sent where you wanted to be, Somers. I’m just along for the ride. Of all the times and places, this is where you chose. Question is… do you know why?”
Thoughts of yesterday, of kissing Jake were fresh in my mind. Of course I knew. “Yeah,” I said.
“Gotta say I’m a little surprised. I thought we’d be back in that game against BYU. But I suppose this is where it all began, isn’t it?”
I hung my head. The game he referred to had ended my football dreams. My first college game, and we were trying an option play where I would hold the ball and pitch it to the running back at the last minute, just before being tackled. It was a risky play and required perfect timing; I didn’t have it. “I saw him coming, you know, the defensive end,” I confessed, rubbing the back of my neck. “I could have turned, avoided the hit full-on, but in that moment I knew I didn’t deserve to be there. I didn’t want to be there.” I had landed awkwardly and fractured my leg in three places, thus losing my scholarship and ending my brief escape.
“That’s some powerful guilt you got there,” Coach said quietly.
“I never told anyone that before.” I wiped the moisture from my cheek and took a steadying breath. “How is this even possible? It’s crazy. Shit like this doesn’t happen.”
Coach draped an arm over my shoulders. “Was it crazy when Montana threw that high pass off of his back foot into the back of the end zone to come back and beat the Cowboys in ’82? Was it crazy when with 1:23 on the clock and down 17-12, Herman Edwards ran the ball twenty-six yards into the end zone to score the winning touchdown against the Giants? What about the Broncos’ miracle ninety-eight-yard drive in the AFC Championship game? Kid, when something miraculous happens, you don’t ask questions.”
“All I’ve got are questions. How do I save him? It’s only one more day till prom.”
“Guess you’ll have to rewrite the play.”
“But I don’t even know how this works,” I whined sounding more than ever like the teenager I was supposed to be. “Am I stuck here? Can I go back again?”
Coach shook his head. “You’ll just have to wait until the clock runs out.”
“Jesus, stop with the football metaphors already. What does that mean? You’re not exactly being real helpful here.”
“You have until the end of prom—”
“Tomorrow night,” I finished.
“Hey, Coach, we need you on the field.” A skinny little freshman stuck his head in the door, and Coach Carter replied that he’d be along in a minute.
“Son,” he said, with a final look at me, “you get to call the play this time. But be careful; sometimes no matter how many times you rewrite and rerun the playbook, the score turns out the same.”
ALL day long I wandered through school in a daze and tried to act as normal as possible. Or at least as normal as a teenage boy can be. Fortunately, the entire school seemed in holiday mode and brain power wasn’t required. I had never been a great student. I usually sat in the back of the classroom and dozed, so I don’t think anyone even noticed my current distraction. At lunch I sat at the “cool” table in the cafeteria with Trish and Brad and the rest of the popular kids and listened to them go on about plans for the summer. Almost automatically, my eyes found Jake, sitting with a strange goth girl at an unobtrusive table in the corner, playing cards. What would happen if I went over there?
“Are we boring you, Eric?” Trish asked teasingly, digging her bubble-gum-pink nails into the leather sleeve of my jacket. It had been a long time since I’d actually looked at a woman and considered her attractiveness, but at the time I had thought Trish was gorgeous with her perfect blonde curly hair and blue eyes. Now all I saw was the spitefulness carefully hidden behind the pretty exterior. It made me feel slightly sick that I had ever considered these people my friends, when I knew what they were capable of. Trish leaned her head on my shoulder just as Jake looked up and noticed me. A shadow passed across his face before he quickly turned away.
I wanted to get up and walk away but I had no way of knowing how much my actions would affect things; my useless guide hadn’t explained the rules. Anything I did from here on in would be changing history, and if there was one thing I learned from a wasted youth spent at the movies, it’s that if you fuck with the universe, sometimes it fucks back. Butterfly Effect, anyone? I looked back at Jake. Did it really matter as long as I didn’t let him down a second time?
In the afternoon I had PE. I tried to talk to Coach Carter again but he blew me off and disappeared into his office while the class ran track. It was a sunny spring day, and I welcomed the chance to clear my mind and just let go. It felt good to run again, to feel my muscles stretch and burn and let my thoughts wander.
I tried not to think about what would happen after tomorrow night—would I be able to go home? Did I want to? I pushed those thoughts away. For now, I just had to come up with a plan to stop Jake from going to Prom tomorrow night. Kissing him yesterday had changed things, had actually changed history, but how much? That, I couldn’t know for sure, so best to just avoid Prom altogether.
Brad lumbered along beside me, his impressive bulk soaked with sweat, huffing like he was going to keel over any minute. I slowed my pace to allow him to keep up. “You might want to lose a few pounds so you don’t have a heart attack.”
Brad flipped me the finger. “So,” he puffed, “you finally gonna nail Trish after Prom?”
I shrugged. Twenty years ago, I had rented a motel room with the intention of taking Trish there after Prom, but the night had ended differently than I ever could have imagined.
“You know she’s gonna think you’re not interested.”
“What’s with all the concern about my sex life?” For the first time I wondered if Brad’s homophobia had deeper meaning. We ran another lap without talking. As we neared the school side of the track, I noticed
Jake and the goth girl sitting together in the bleachers. I felt a little surge of happiness to see him and couldn’t stop the smile that came to my lips.
“Hey, isn’t that the homo?” Brad asked, just as we passed the stands, close enough to see the wink that Jake gave me. “What the fuck was that?” Brad raced over to the raised platform. “You making eyes at me, princess?”
I saw Jake get to his feet and stick out that stubborn chin of his. “You?” he practically sneered. “Hell, no. I’m not interested in Neanderthals.”
I’m not sure Brad even knew what a Neanderthal was, but he recognized an insult when he heard it. Brad went crazy and tried to jump over the railing. Just in time, Jake jumped up two rows, out of reach. I grabbed onto Brad’s massive arm to hold him back, but it was like wrestling a giant, squirming hog. “Jake, get out of here,” I ordered. Jake looked like he would protest, but thankfully his companion had a little more sense and dragged him away.
Brad jerked away from my grip. “The fuck are you doing?”
I jumped in front of him when it looked as though he would follow. We were the same height although Brad had at least a hundred pounds on me. I could take him if I had to. “Leave him alone, Brad. I mean it.” He drew up short at my tone.
“Aw, are you sweet on the little fairy?” he snarled. This was the Brad I remembered—red-faced and eyes blazing—not the pathetic shell of a man I met at the reunion.
“He’s the reason I’m passing Biology, asswipe. He’s been tutoring me all semester.”
“Are you sure you haven’t been playing ‘hide the sausage’? I hear he’s real good at that.”
Okay, so I might not be the poster child for the well-adjusted homo, but neither would I let small-minded bigots like Brad Davis get away with bullying those smaller and weaker than him. All the rage I had kept bottled up for nearly two decades came roaring out of me, and I slammed my fist into his face. Brad, unprepared, dropped to the ground, cradling his nose. Not for one moment did I forget what Brad and his buddies had done after Prom. This was my chance to change all that. Cradling my throbbing knuckles, I leaned down and gripped the front of his Trojan Football T-shirt with my one good hand. “That was a warning. If you lay one finger on him, I’ll personally take a baseball bat to your knees and you can say goodbye to your football career. The same goes for the others.”