The Same Time (Time Series book 2)

by Brona Mills

  ‘Because with a miscarriage, I’ll want to try again, and that’s not something we should risk. This way, I’ll want to know that I have a chance of maybe changing things one day. I’ll throw myself into my work. I’ll come up with the answers, something that eventually gives Audrey a chance at survival, and I’ll figure out how to come here. I’ll get it wrong the first sixteen times.’ He chuckles without mirth. ‘But eventually, I’ll save you, and I’ll understand. And then, I think I’ll end up at the hospital, ready to save you the first time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love you, Stella. We were the real thing. And we can be again. I’m so sorry for all the tears and pain that I’m going to cause. But I love you and I loved that baby so much. I took all of my grief and anger out on you, and it wasn’t even your fault. One day, I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. If you don’t, I’ll understand, and I’m okay with that. Because you’ll be alive to hate me for the way I’ve treated you.’

  ‘I won’t hate you, DD.’

  He nods. ‘I’m not going to hold you to that promise.’

  A suite at the Roosevelt Hotel should excite me. An indication that I can afford such luxuries in my home town for a night away. DD drove me back here from the clinic, took his time with my bag as I checked in, and refused the bellhop assistance to the room. I’m only a few steps inside the room and I can’t move any farther.

  I don’t want to sit down, relax, take a nap or a bath, or anything that would be an indicator of moving on from this. I need to stand still. I want to stay here, because taking another step will be like admitting I’ve accepted this and moved on. I run a hand over my flat belly, stilling when my hand reaches lower, where the baby was this morning. Don’t cry. Crying will be doing something. And doing something will be the same as taking another step into this room. Another step in my life, knowing my child will never be born.

  It doesn’t help knowing that Max will still have me. In fact, it makes it worse, knowing that wherever you go after death, my baby, the one in this reality who never managed to grow bigger than a peanut is there without me. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t listened to DD. If I had waited eight more months, when we died together, the baby wouldn’t be alone. The tremors wrack out of my throat in a low scream, tears choking their way through my sounds. I let my baby die alone.

  DD wraps his arms around me, and I sink into him, screaming. I let my legs fall. I don’t deserve to be able to stand. DD, however, feels the need to keep me in one piece as he grabs my thrashing hands and holds them, and me, tight against his chest. He buries his head next to mine. Only then do I feel his body shake with me.

  We cry ourselves into exhaustion, until we both merely cling to one another, slumped in the middle of the carpet near the doorway. Our bodies have no more tears, no more energy to push them out, but it doesn’t take the pain away. I untangle myself from DD’s arms and slide over to lean on the back of the door. Taking his hand, I pull him with me, and we sit side by side.

  ‘I never gave you the chance to show me how much pain you were in. I always assumed it was a decision you were okay with.’ He drops his face into his hands. ‘I’m sorry that I’m not going to be there for you.’

  ‘You’re here now.’ I place my hand over his and squeeze it. ‘I spent so much of our relationship scared that I’d taken you away from your wife. And here I was, the whole time, the one who put that haunted look on your face.

  ‘It’s coming. I can feel it.’

  ‘I can see it.’ I stretch my hand out to the light forming near his head. ‘Tell me you know how to get home when you’re done here?’

  ‘No matter what I do and say, I don’t blame you. Not really. Deep down I always knew that if you did this, there must have been a reason. I was so hurt that you never came to me and let me help you, let me be with you. I’m going to think a million reasons of why you’d do that. I’m going to question everything. Your love for me, and your loyalty, but please know, I never would have doubted you if it weren’t for this. And no matter what, you can’t tell me. It’s going to get bad. Our separation is going to be messy and I throw myself into my work. And my work leads me here, to save your life.’

  I never knew that words could physically knock the wind out of you. Our marriage isn’t going to survive this. I struggle to breathe and hear the rest of what he says, over the echo of my pulse and the noise that accompanies the light trying to take DD.

  ‘I’m always there for you when you need anything, and I’m always a dad to Max. Even after all these years, he still feels like my son, even though I only had him for a couple of years. He feels like mine. You still feel like mine.’

  ‘When you get back to your own time, you’ll finally know the truth, and we can work things out, okay?’

  ‘Absolutely, but I don’t expect you to wait for that long. We’ve both had some people come and go in our lives, and you need to know that I’m okay with your decisions, Stella.’

  ‘No,’ I sob, ‘I don’t want anyone else, DD. I only want us.’

  He runs his hand down my face, collecting my tears with his thumbs as he goes. ‘I know, Mighty, I know. But fifteen years is a long time to wait for me.’

  ‘Wait, you were at a dinner party with Mike and Liam. The one you said didn’t feel real.’

  ‘Yes,’ he shouts over the noise.

  ‘Who was the girl? She’s in trouble too. She doesn’t leave with you guys when you reset your reality.’

  David opens his mouth to speak, but the light has intensified and imploded in a split second, answers disappearing into blinding oblivion with DD.

  Today

  Friday, September 18, 2016

  I fetch myself a bottle of water from the mini fridge and return behind my desk, emotionally drained as Liam and Ethan wait for David to react. An eternity passes and I couldn’t care. To be able to sit and let myself get lost in the emotions of grief, without having anyone judge me, or feel the need to be okay with my decision, I sit. David stretches and takes my hand and passes me a sheet from the letter Ethan has kept closed for two decades.

  I unfold the page, surprised it’s only one line in the centre.

  Ask her for the truth. Then ask for her forgiveness.

  I crunch the paper in my hand and the sobs tear out of my throat. David leans forward and catches me as I crumble onto the floor and let the years of heartache consume me.

  After my tears subside, Ethan interrupts us. ‘I’m sorry, but we need to keep going.’ He hands us a box of tissues and when David stands, he tugs me to the couch next to him. ‘Maybe Liam should tell you about the time he travelled into the future.’

  David’s body goes rigid around me. ‘This is why you made contact with me in England?’

  Liam runs his hands through his loose hair. ‘Once we found you, it was imperative that we made contact. After that, you were the one who actually made the progress. You moved here and started your own work off the back of Audrey travelling. Dad and I were simply here, waiting.’

  ‘Tell me about your travels.’

  ‘I went forward in time. A version of what might have been,’ Liam tells David.

  ‘How do you know it was a version of the future and not simply the future?’ David asks.

  ‘I was a boy at the time and I witnessed our future lives from the sidelines. The adult version of me was sitting at dinner with you, Mike, and who I now know is Caitlyn. Although things were different, you guys never left England. Never had the careers you have now. Never had the wives you have now. In that reality, Audrey had never travelled, and Jessica was there instead. She was your wife.’

  ‘You never told me that part,’ I say.

  ‘When we spoke of this, I didn’t know who Jessica was,’ Liam says.

  ‘No, but I guess all sorts of interesting theories appeared in your diary journal once she showed up and you found out she was Mike’s ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘Not as interesting until Mike and Jessica started dating again.’ Liam toss
es back. He takes a deep breath and looks apologetic. ‘What good is it to speculate on what might have been?’

  ‘You got me hung up on the fact that David was in a ‘might have been future’ where I was dead.’

  ‘What?’ David spins me around to face him. ‘You said I saved you in your past.’

  ‘But there must be a version of reality, or a version of a possible future where you failed one time. And that was the version I visited,’ Liam explains. ‘The time that none of our lives played out like they did here, and Stella and Max paid the price.’

  David chews on his finger. ‘So we fix it. We figure out how to make sure I do everything I need to, so that version of the future never comes about. Ethan says the work is on track. We’re already on the right path. Audrey has travelled in this version of our lives. Mike and I moved here.’

  ‘And you married me, not Jessica. Maybe that was wrong. I always worried I stole you from a different life. Maybe you should have married her.’

  ‘And let you die?’ David spits. ‘Is that what you want? For you and Max to be dead?’

  ‘No, I just—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter much,’ Ethan interrupts. ‘David’s right. We are in a different version of events. The problem is at one point in David’s travels, he does something serious enough to get lost. To cross over into the alternate future. Our job now is to find a way to keep him on the right path.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to go. Now that we know everything, we can keep him safe. We can keep him here,’ I tap on the table.

  ‘If he doesn’t travel in the crash with Audrey, he’ll never save you any of those times in your past,’ Liam says.

  ‘What if he doesn’t come back?’ My grip around David’s hand tightens. ‘When he left me in the hospital, he never knew if he was getting home. What if that’s why? Because he knew there was a chance he was going to get lost somewhere?’

  ‘And now that will be the case,’ Liam tells us. ‘By having this conversation, David will know that when he leaves you in 1994, everyone is nervous about where he might go next. Which means there might never have been any danger. But us worrying about it here, has made a loop of that fear that we’ll be stuck in forever.’

  I slouch on the couch and rub my head. ‘This is ridiculous. You said when everyone disappeared at dinner in that alternate future, they were going somewhere.’

  ‘We need to find out where, and make sure Caitlyn goes with them.’ Liam tells us. ‘Make sure she’s safe, because right now, she’s the one I’m worried about the most.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this, David.’ I run my hand over his arm. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘This is my whole life’s work. Trying to help Audrey and figure this out. I’m not going to ignore all I’ve learned and sit back and not try to save you in your past. Remember when we talked about the butterfly effect? When one small thing can change everything? Well, the reverse is also true. Not changing one small thing can change everything as well.

  ‘I can’t live in a seemingly perfect future, complete with a new wife, knowing that it cost you and Max your lives. I used to think that the universe would change things if it all got too fucked up, it would snap us back to the reality we were supposed to live out. But what if the life we were living, me and you, was the one we were supposed to have? What if sitting in an alternate future, laughing and drinking beer with an old friend was the mistake, the life that needed altering?’

  ‘What if you’re wrong? You haven’t been there yet.’

  ‘I’m not wrong, because when I look at Jessica, my heart doesn’t flutter the way it does when I look at you. We had hard, painful times, but it was real. Every day and every emotion was real with you, because the love was real, and the universe was real when we were together, and even when our relationship ended it still felt real.’

  David lets go of my hand and stands. ‘Liam and Ethan need to see my notes in the attic and we can finally start working together on this. There’s a box in storage marked 2016—it’s time to pull it out and work together. See what’s connected.’

  ‘Where are you guys even going to start?’ I ask.

  ‘We need to travel by proxy.’ Liam smiles at me. ‘When Audrey travels in the crash, we need to make sure David and I can harness that ability and go along with her.’

  ‘Every time DD left, I was right next to him. The light never took me along. I’m sure Mike is the same with Audrey.’

  Liam slides his hands in his pockets and smirks. ‘I agree. We need to build a time machine. Lucky for you guys, we’ve already started.’

  ‘You’ve spent a lot of time telling Mike you would try and keep Audrey safe.’ I tell David. ‘Even if that meant putting a stop to her travels.’

  ‘I know. But I never knew who else I’d be risking by not letting it go ahead.’ David catches Liam’s eye and pushes the door open, but halts in his track.

  ‘I was there?’ Caitlyn asks from the doorway.

  I jump, forgetting she was working in the outer office. ‘What were you doing listening?’

  ‘It took me a long time to find you.’ She’s looking at Liam. ‘All I ever knew was your first name.’

  ‘What do you mean find me?’ Liam steps forward.

  ‘You left me a bunch of tapes when I was a kid. You said I was going to save David’s life one day. And that I needed to be ready. I needed to figure out how to anchor myself to him or we’d both get lost forever in the switch.’

  ‘The switch?’ I ask.

  ‘Between realities.’ Caitlyn turns to me, then back to Liam. ‘Versions of the future. That our families would be shifting between a few of them, and I had to make sure I went along too.’

  ‘What tapes are you talking about?’ Liam asks.

  ‘Information on where to go, what to look for. How to start harnessing the ability to control movements in time.’

  ‘To travel by proxy?’ Liam’s eyes narrow. ‘And you’re coming too?’

  ‘You said in the tapes that Mike never travelled with you in the crash, and it was lucky he didn’t or there would have been a conflict.’

  ‘What conflict?’ I ask.

  ‘That he was in love with someone called Audrey, and that he’d be focused on trying to find and save her. His energy would pull us apart. But I travelled there with you, and once we found ourselves at a dinner party, I had to know what to do, to bring David home.’

  ‘That’s where you’ve been these years?’ David asks her. ‘Travelling for Liam’s research?’

  Caitlyn nods. ‘I never knew that you were all involved.’ She looks at the ground and kicks her feet around. ‘Honestly, I never really knew if it was true or if I was chasing someone else’s crazy dream. Until Mike married Audrey, and then I knew I had to keep going.’

  ‘Huh. This is interesting,’ I say.

  ‘What is?’ Ethan asks.

  ‘Them two. They were the only ones together in both versions of a future that David visited.’ I smile tightly. ‘It’s like, out of everyone, they are the ones who were really meant to be together.’

  Caitlyn shakes her head. ‘We’re not together. We’ve never met properly.’ She blushes.

  ‘No, but the moment you did, the two of you were interested in each other. And you were the only ones in the other future that could have had a relationship without the interference of time travel. It’s just, I don’t know. A little disappointing that the rest of us don’t get that guarantee too.’

  David’s phone beeps and he dumps his coffee cup in the kitchen sink. ‘You guys want to order in dinner? Audrey’s going to be late at the charity tonight and Mike is sending out SOS signals.’

  Caitlyn catches my eye and before she can speak I stand. ‘Can’t. I was on my way out somewhere important.’ I take David’s hand. ‘I need to go, but can we talk tonight when I get back?’

  He stands and kisses me on the forehead. ‘Of course. I’ll take Liam and Ethan upstairs and we can see what we can start working on.’
r />   We all file out to the hallway, Ethan and Liam heading towards the stairs to the attic office. David follows me to the front door.

  ‘You guys head up. I’ll be a second,’ David tells them.

  Liam calls back to Caitlyn. ‘Don’t forget your coat. This should only take a few minutes then we can get out of here.’

  At the front door, I pause to put my boots on. I straighten up when I feel him standing too close to me, but lose my balance a little as I try to push my heel into the other boot. His arm instinctively reaches out for me and my insides melts at his touch on my back. With the knowledge that we might be able to salvage our relationship, his small touches mean more than they have over the years. There was a time when we were together he would touch me like this, when we were getting ready to leave the house and he wouldn’t take his hand off me. He’d start with resting his hand on my back while I was adjusting my hair in the mirror. Then he’d hold my coat out for me and run his hands down my arm. He’d wind his fingers in with mine and hold onto them when we locked the front door.

  Sometimes he’d pull me under the crook of his arm and walk me the three feet to the car. I remember turning into him when he’d open my door and he would kiss me before I got into my seat. Sometimes it was a long kiss, a deep kiss. Despite spending the whole day with me already, and despite going wherever we were going together, he would take the extra time to kiss me, to let me know that he missed kissing me. Other times it was a chaste kiss on the lips or the cheek or the tip of my nose. But it always lingered. He always took his time. Like he always wanted me to know how important I was to him. How much he loved me, loved kissing me, loved helping me into the damn car.

  It’s gone now. His touch, his kisses. He stopped me from falling over, but when he lets go, my heart continues to tumble off the cliff.

  ‘Ready?’

  I gulp and smile tightly. My back is already cold. It wasn’t cold before, but somehow the absence of his touch has been reawakened.

  David beeps my car and opens the door for me. It’s silly. It’s just a car door, but it’s something he hasn’t done for me in years. My heart has been battered at the bottom of the valley floor for so long, I never thought about what I’d do if he asked for it back.