“Oh Grandfather, it was incredible!” He went on and on about America in the twenty-first century, at least what he had seen of it. He detailed all the unbelievable technological advancements that felt like they were powered more so by magic than by actual science. He described all the strange and delicious delicacies he had sampled in his short time away. And he told his grandfather about the wonderful boy he had met who had taken him in and helped him feel like he could actually belong somewhere.
Once Elias was done regaling him, Walter smiled and nodded. “Though I may not recall it now, given the timeline of everything, I am not surprised that I eventually decided to give you that watch. I could tell just how unhappy you have been of late. I am so glad that your recent adventure has given you the purpose and the joy that you have been missing all this time.”
In that moment his conflicted heart felt new resolve. His growing sense of heartbreak over the boy he’d left behind in the future and his grandfather’s observations about his change in demeanor revealed to Elias new clarity. “I…I hope to return one day, if I am able.”
His grandfather did not look sad when he told him this. His smile remained as he placed a hand upon Elias’s shoulder and said, “As long as you are happy, then I am happy, dear boy.”
…
A few nights later, Elias pulled the pocket watch out in his bedchamber. It was the middle of the night, and the only light that allowed him to see it was from a small stream of moonlight peeking in through his window. The anguish he had been feeling over being away from Tyler had built to a point where he decided not only would he certainly be going back to Tyler, but that he needed to as soon as possible. Before leaving Tyler, he had told him that he felt like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit in his world. But only now that he was back in his own time did he realize just how wrong he’d been. The future in America with the boy of his dreams felt more like an actual home than London ever did or (as he was starting to learn) ever would.
He had already worked out the plan in his head. He would inform his parents that a friend had offered to bring him along to America to work. They would surely be angry and try to prevent him from going, but once he disappeared, they would at least have an answer for his whereabouts.
Elias looked down at the watch. It felt cold in his hand, which seemed oddly appropriate. In a moment where he needed assurance and confidence, the magical object offered no comfort. Elias was still terrified of winding up in the wrong time or place or both. But he was a time traveler—he had all the time in the world. If he got it wrong he could simply try again, couldn’t he?
Elias took a deep breath and clutched the pocket watch. He closed his eyes, planting his feet firmly onto the floor. He had to know if he could do it. Focus. Focus.
Much like the first time he traveled, everything happened. Before he even opened his eyes again he already knew that he was in a different place, from the raucous sounds that were now filling the space. When he opened his eyes he was standing amid some sort of social gathering. A crowd of people were drinking, eating, smoking, singing, or some combination of the actions. He looked up; the ceilings were massive, and iron chandeliers hung with candles illuminating the wide room. Long wooden tables lined the room from wall to wall. From what he could tell, it looked to be a beer hall with all the frosted mugs being waved around with the foamy beverage.
Elias’s heart skipped every other beat as he approached the nearest patron. “Excuse me, sir? Can you please tell me where I am?”
A man with large ruddy cheeks and a bristled mustache frowned and started speaking to him in a language he couldn’t understand. German from the sound of it. Why had he never paid attention in any of his German lessons?
Well, he certainly had not made it back to New Jersey. Elias waited for the man to finish talking then smiled and nodded politely as a way of thanking him. As soon as the portly man turned back to his companions, Elias blew out a disappointed sigh. He curled his fingers around the watch and closed his eyes, picturing his own room and focusing on the little details, like the tassels on his bedding or the grain of the wood on the chair that faced his window. The room quieted, and when Elias opened his eyes he saw that it was because he was back in his own.
It was as dark as it had been when he left, but there was no way of knowing whether or not it was the same night or even the same year. The disorienting nature of the brief trip was enough to discourage another attempt that night, so he crawled into his bed. As exhausted as he was, sleep did not come easily. He had become so accustomed to the small bed in Tyler’s dormitory that his own large bed felt foreign to him.
The next time he attempted to travel back to Tyler was a more harrowing journey. He ended up in some sort of jungle or rain forest. He didn’t stay long enough to figure out the particulars or to be devoured by whatever predator was crouching behind the surrounding flora.
With each trip that Elias made, he was left wondering the same thing: would he spend his entire life searching and trying to get back to Tyler, to no avail?
Chapter Eighteen
Homecoming
Tyler sat in the courtyard of Briar Grove Academy with his camera in one hand. He had it open and recording, but he knew he was simply wasting memory on the device. It had become a habit, recently. Playing the part of the voyeur and waiting for something interesting to happen so that he might capture it.
But nothing interesting ever happened. Even after his whirlwind brush with worldwide internet fame. After explaining to Ms. Heron that it was fake and simply an effect he had been trying to master, the school sent out an official press release stating that the video was a student project and that the images produced were artificial. As soon as it had been dubbed a fake, the buzz around the video died almost instantaneously, and the internet moved on to the next big thing.
It should have been a relief for Tyler that his and Eli’s secret was no longer the center of attention. But instead, this revelation was crushing. They would have been left alone. It wouldn’t have mattered at all. But Eli had already made the decision that leaving would be the best thing for them both. And it wasn’t like there was a way for Tyler to send Eli a message to let him know that everything was okay and that it would be safe for him to come back.
The only people who still cared about the video were other film students and even a few industry professionals who wanted to know the secret to how he got it to look so realistic. Of course, he didn’t have an answer for them, so he opted for the radio silence tactic and simply ignored most of the messages. The only one he had been tempted to respond to was a professor from NYU wanting to meet with him to talk more about the program and give him a tour of the campus. It was all he had ever wanted for most of his life and yet, he would not have felt good about capitalizing on something that wasn’t technically his and that he’d never be able to recreate.
Now he was back to trying to capture candid moments at BGA but, compared to what he had recorded that magical night in the library, nothing could ever be considered fractionally as amazing. Still, with everything that had happened and given his sudden lack of a roommate, he couldn’t stand being alone in his dorm room.
As had become pretty typical of this time of day, Vanessa and Charlie had met up for some serious PDA before their next class. Before, whenever he spotted the two of them he had always felt jealous because he wished he could take one of their places. Now he was jealous for an entirely different reason. He wanted what they had, but with someone else.
With Eli.
The other day, in history class, Vanessa had tapped Tyler on the shoulder with her pencil.
“Hey, where’s English? We haven’t seen him around in a while.”
“Family emergency,” Tyler had explained. “He had to cut his vacation short and go back to London.”
For all intents and purposes, it was true.
Vanessa’s eyes softened and worry tinged the corners of her lips. “I hope everything is okay.”
So did Tyl
er.
It seemed like everything brought back painful memories of Eli. He’d walk into a store and on the overhead speakers, a Bowie song would be playing and he’d have to steel himself to prevent a complete breakdown in public. He’d be surfing through stuff to watch on Netflix and he would get recommendations based on things that Eli had watched while using his account. Then of course, there was the video footage that still sat on his computer. The interview, the scenes from the Gathering, but most importantly, the clip of the night Eli had first arrived.
Still, as much as his heart was dwelling on Eli, his head knew that the world kept on spinning and he would have to go along with it. He still had to go to his classes and do his homework, Oscar and Zoe still asked him to make plans, and whether or not he liked picturing a future that Eli wasn’t a part of, he still had to plan ahead. Namely, college applications.
A month later he opened his laptop and pulled up the essay he had been neglecting. The one he’d been working on in the library the night that Eli showed up and changed his world forever. Tyler stared at the daunting amount of white space on the document in front of him. The only things he’d managed to type out previously were his name, the date, and the prompt question he had chosen about the film that had the biggest impact on him.
Tyler was ready to shut his laptop again without making any progress when it struck him. Maybe the whole problem was that he’d picked the wrong prompt. At that time it had seemed like such an easy essay question. He pulled up the school’s application page on their website and took a look at the other offerings. From the list, he selected a different prompt entirely:
Who is someone that inspires you, whether in your art, your everyday life, or both? Why?
Before he knew it, Tyler was typing away, writing all about his British “friend” (who, for the purposes of the essay he dubbed Elliott) and how this friend viewed things with a sense of childlike wonder, as if he were experiencing the world and its mysteries for the first time. Tyler explained that this is exactly how he wanted audiences to feel while watching his films one day. It was something he hadn’t even really considered before, but as he typed it out he realized it was true. He also wrote about how his friend taught him the beauty of being different and standing out from the crowd, that “fitting in” wasn’t important as long as you were happy.
By the time he finished, Tyler had an essay that was double the word length required for the application.
The next week, without telling either Oscar or Zoe, he left the campus for a lone trip into New York. He had contemplated driving but decided against it, since parking would be hell, and he actually enjoyed getting to just sit back and enjoy the train ride in peace.
He hoped that the high energy and the constant stimuli would be a good distraction and help get his mind off everything, but like some sort of heartsick magnet, his feet led him to all the major spots he had taken Eli to when he showed him the big city. He started with Central Park, lingering around Strawberry Fields and listening to John Lennon’s voice crackle through the static-y speakers of someone’s nearby boom box.
He went for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, but instead of looking up at Lady Liberty, like all the tourists snapping photos on their phones had come to do, Tyler just stared at the water, feelings of emptiness crashing against him like the waves hitting the side of the boat.
He briefly contemplated stopping to get a hot dog at one of the many stands lining the streets, but he didn’t have any sort of appetite. His stomach felt tight with knots and he figured, even though he really should eat, he wouldn’t try to force anything down just for the sake of it.
He ventured over to the Met and, just as he had been hoping, the Illingsworth exhibit was still open and running. He purchased a ticket and wandered through the gallery. He now had a new appreciation for the paintings knowing that Peter and Eli had been friends. Being here now, among all the paintings, he felt connected to Eli—they felt like a tangible connection to the past and to Eli’s world.
After a few minutes of searching the exhibit, he finally came across the painting he really wanted to see. The one of Romeo and Juliet that had been dedicated to Eli. Only now there was a noticeable difference: there was no red splotch in the center. The wine stain was gone. Tyler looked to the bronze placard on the wall beside the painting and, instead of the dedication with the brief description of how the painting had been auctioned off with the proceeds donated to the effort to locate the missing Caldwell boy, it simply listed the basic facts about the painting: its name, the medium, the year it was completed, etc.
Tyler yelped with joy then covered his mouth, embarrassed as the other patrons and the security turned to look at him. He did it! Elias had changed the past. That meant he had been able to pinpoint a specific time and place and was able to transport himself there. And that meant he could potentially do it again.
But he had already told him that he did not belong here. What was it he’d said? Like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit? Tyler wished he could have another chance to prove to Eli just how wrong he was about that. Prove to him that he did belong here. With him.
He left the museum and barely paid attention to where he was walking. This was the city he had grown up so close to, the one he had come to countless times over the course of his life. He didn’t need to hit all these tourist traps. He could find a coffee shop in the East or West Village and just chill for a bit. He could take the train over to Brooklyn and find some good bookstores to peruse. He could explore one of the boroughs he hadn’t frequented quite as much, like Queens. The city was massive and he could go anywhere, do anything.
But instead, when he looked up from the concrete, he realized that his stupid feet had brought him to the king of all tourist traps: Times Square.
LED screens were flashing and blinking, car horns mixed with clips of the songs from the different Broadway shows being advertised most prominently. People from all over the world, some speaking languages he didn’t even know the names of, stood together to take a picture in matching T-shirts in front of a particularly striking billboard, or families would try to get a picture with a cartoon character, only to realize that the man in the dirty, generic Elmo costume was actually muttering profanities and conspiracy theories under his mask and so they hurried along. Couples stood at the top of the illuminated red stairs and tried to take selfies while mid-kiss.
Before, Tyler would have found it so obnoxious. But now he was viewing it all through Eli’s eyes, and it was like he had said before: beautiful.
There, amid the sea of tourists and locals alike, without a shred of embarrassment or shame, Tyler started to cry. He was smiling as he did it, still thinking of how much beauty the city had to offer, but tears were steadily streaming down his face as he sucked in breaths of less-than-fresh air. No one stopped to ask him what was wrong. No one patted his shoulder and told him it was all going to be okay. This was the city, and everyone kept their noses down and minded their own business. At all costs, they avoided the stranger randomly sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk. But Tyler didn’t care. So much had happened to him in such a short time, but only now was he really starting to feel it. He felt it all and damn it, it hurt like hell. Except for the release. The release felt freeing.
…
One night he was completing another of his college application essays in the library. Every noise made him jump; every time he heard footsteps he would turn to look expectantly but each time his hopes were dashed when he found a classmate or the librarian walking by.
He couldn’t spend every day like this. It was too much for him to take. He reached into his bag and pulled out his noise cancelling headphones, put on a David Bowie playlist, and got to work.
He was about three pages in when two fingers tapped lightly on his shoulder. When he removed the headphones and looked up to meet a pair of big blue eyes, he felt an all too familiar, fluttering, warm-from-the-inside-out feeling.
The fireflies were back.
The small sting had his heart rocketing with a joy he couldn’t describe. He hadn’t been expecting to see Eli ever again, except for watching footage on a screen. This joy was being pulled back by a certain sense of what he could describe only as self-preservation. He’d already gone through so much pain after Eli walked into his life and then vanished out of it. Eli had the power of time travel at his fingertips. What if he got bored or felt restless? Some people had to worry about their boyfriend moving to a different city or getting involved with someone new. With Eli, it would be a constant worry if he would leave Tyler for a completely new century.
“Oh good, you know who I am, then.” Eli’s voice sounded somewhere between tired and relieved.
“You’re here,” Tyler said, “you’re really here.”
“I really am,” Eli said with that adorable accent of his.
“I…I wasn’t expecting you to come back. You made it seem like the last time I saw you really would be the last time.”
“To be honest, I believed it would be. At least, at first. I thought it was what I needed to do for you to have a normal life. But I quickly realized how foolish I was being. I was trying to help you and only ended up hurting both of us. I’m very sorry about that. Can you forgive me?”
“And if I do forgive you…if I let you back into my life…what’s to stop you from leaving again?”
“Stop me from…what?” Eli blinked, his eyes wide. He clearly hadn’t been expecting any kind of doubt or hesitation from Tyler.
The Time Traveler's Guide to Modern Romance Page 16