I look at the clock; it’s 8:00 p.m. Maybe that conversation with Cricket can’t wait until tomorrow. I dial her number.
She answers with a guarded tone, as if she’s not used to my calling her.
“Hey—can you talk?”
“Yeah…” Still guarded.
“Is this a bad time? I can call back.”
“No, it’s just that I’m not used to you calling me. You always text. What’s up?”
I cringe—my brain must have misplaced that pertinent piece of information. “Sorry, it’s just…” How am I going to bring up Zach without knowing our history with regards to this subject? I take a deep breath and jump in, partly because I don’t know what else to say, partly because I am extremely anxious to move forward with Zach. And I can’t, apparently, do that on my own at the moment, not without knowing more details about his personal history. “I have something to tell you.”
“Um, ok…what?”
“Well …” How to start this without sounding like a crazy person?
Asking to see Cricket in person will give me a few extra minutes to figure out what I’m going to say. I need to tell her, of course, about the time travel, but I’m not sure if we have that kind of friendship. I mean, is she the type of friend that will believe anything I say, support me no matter what? Or will she tell me what I need to hear—that I’ve gone off the deep end, for instance—instead of what I want to hear? There’s only one way to accomplish everything I need to accomplish in one fell swoop. The lab. Zach’s dad’s research files. I need proof, and I need to show it to Cricket. She will believe me and help me figure out a way to fix this mess, right?
“Actually, I need to talk to you in person. This is going to sound nuts, but can you meet me at 656 Washington, behind the old dry cleaners? Tomorrow morning?”
“Um, yeah. I guess. What time?”
“Ten o’clock?” So far, so good.
At the lab, Cricket walks up to my car and gets in. Last night’s storm has lingered, and the sky is threatening rain, again. “Ok this place is creepy. I’ve heard about this place. What gives?”
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel and fidget with the air vents, still trying to get a handle on what to say. “Have you ever believed in something so much you thought you might be going crazy? Like something no one else would ever believe?”
“You mean like seeing a ghost?” Cricket shudders. “Is that why we’re here?”
“No, I mean like…” The words were going to sound unbelievable no matter how I went about it. “Knowing who you’re going to marry.”
“You know who you’re going to marry? You brought me all the way down here to tell me that?”
“No—I mean, yes. Sort of—”
“What’s going on?” Cricket asks, nervously.
I just stare at her, completely at a loss how to even begin. It’s a story that began over four years ago, one that has yet to be completed. There are so many things I want to tell Cricket, but to start at the wrong turn could prove disastrous. One mention of time travel without proof and my story would be dead in the water.
“Yes,” I say. “Do you believe me?”
“Sure. It’s possible. People can have like premonitions about things that will happen to them. Like, my dad told me about this guy who predicted his own death. He went and bought a suit and planned his own funeral, right down to the music that he wanted played. Then, he died, just like he predicted. Weird, huh? Is this someone you have a crush on?”
“Sort of….”
“Well then, of course you think you’ll marry him, whoever it is . . . . ” She looks at me hopefully, as if expecting me to say his name.
Annoyed, I glare at her without thinking. “No. I know it.”
“Ok, how do you know it then? How exactly do you know who you’re going to marry?” She is getting visibly annoyed, and disappointed that I’ve not told her who it is.
I point to the side of my head. “It’s all here.”
“It’s in your head? Well, duh!”
“No, I mean… I have memories and thoughts that I never had before—not before the accident.”
“So did the fall actually damage your brain?” Cricket tries to sound calm, but I can tell she’s worried. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine. It’s just that…” How to proceed—it is tricky. On one hand, it would be nice to know I’m not, in fact, crazy and that the accident hadn’t somehow caused all this to materialize in my head as some post-traumatic fantasy. Cricket wouldn’t know that, of course, but she’s level-headed and practical, and she always has the right answers—the ones that make the most sense. It would be a relief to see another human being’s reaction to my incredible experience.
On the other hand, in all likelihood, she’s not going to believe it. In fact, she might even feel compelled to take this to my parents or Dani or worse, Zach himself. Not that I believe she would betray my trust, but in her concern for my well-being, she might reach out to people I’m close with. It might be detrimental in the long run to tell her anything about this. It’s not like she can actually do anything about it. She can’t help me win Zach over. That’s already written in stone.
Come to think of it, what am I so worried about anyway if my future with Zach is already determined? That we will be together, some day, no matter what else happens between now and then.
It’s because I am impatient, because I can’t stand the thought of not spending every minute of my life with him, and maybe because I know I have the power to change everything. Maybe, in the end, that’s the only thing that matters right now. I’ve got this. Right in the palm of my hand.
“Never mind,” I say. “It’s just wishful thinking. I’m sorry I dragged you out here. I just wanted to get out of the house for a while.”
“No problem. Hey—as long as we’re out, you want to get ice cream?”
I can’t think of anything that sounds better right now… well, I can think of one thing. But I need this brief moment of normalcy—an easy, stress-free escape—in the form of ice cream, shared with a good friend. I need to collect myself and prepare for my next move. Because I have a feeling it’s going to be a big one.
“Sure,” I say. “That sounds great.”
Picture two typical teenage girls, sitting across a table from one another, eating ice cream. One of them—the one that smiles and talks nonstop—is having rainbow swirl. The other one, the one with the long dark hair and the circles under her eyes, is having rocky road. She pauses for a moment, as she watches her friend—the ever-cheerful one who is enjoying her ice cream to the fullest. And all she can think about is rocky road—yes, it is, she thinks.
I am seeing this contrast so completely; it is like a sparkler lit up in my head. Cricket lives in the ever-present world of linear time. She is the kind of person who accepts things for what they are. She has no regrets. She is full of hopes and dreams for the future. Anything can happen, and she’s ok with that. Me, on the other hand? I’m miserable because I know things. I know my future has Zach in it. I have the fairytale ending within my grasp. Which is a great place to be, until you realize that one dumb move can turn the whole thing into a tragedy that would make Shakespeare cringe.
Two girls eating ice cream. Simplicity.
Gut-wrenching decisions are far from simple.
If I could go back to simple, it would be when Zach and I were just innocent kids, with no knowledge of anything that is to come. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a rotten friend, none of this would have happened to us.
I like your hair.
All I had to do was smile at him. Two words would have done it.
Thank you.
Foundations are so simple. Love starts small.
So, I decide to go back. Wasn’t it Zach himself who’d said that time travel was created for me
in a way? It’s what I do. I have to do it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. But the when and where…
I can see going back to that school bus. Zach and I become friends, Dani gets jealous and we grow apart. I hinge my decision on this logical outcome: If Dani and I had never been best friends, she might have never been at my party to begin with. And even if she were, she certainly wouldn’t have been sitting on that bench with Zach, just before the storm hit. Why would he be sitting with her when he was there to see me? Dani wouldn’t have died. And finally, I wouldn’t have been on that swing. I would have been with Zach. Which means my accident would have never happened. Zach and I—together from the start, no time travel, no chips implanted in heads, no wires, no confused searches through time for each other. Nothing but real, true love.
This is how it was supposed to be.
Back at home, I sit down at my desk, push the power button on my computer and stare at the screen. A box comes up asking for my password and I type in the only one I’ve ever known—Soliloquy18—the same one that had unlocked my files on Zach’s computer. My heart aches to remember the two of us together, Zach trying to convince me he knew so much about me, how badly he’d wanted me to trust him, to go along with him on the journey that was meant just for us, the one I’d given up to save my friend.
Given up…
The words just don’t sound right.
Because I don’t give up. There will always be a way, no matter what. Even if time travel didn’t exist, there will always be a way. Options abound in life, and we have imaginations, so giving up is just plain silly, if you ask me. On top of everything else, we have something no one can ever take away. Determination.
Determination means that I’m in this, whatever happens. Determination is power. And power is what makes us strong enough to live with consequences, because we tried. Someday, years from now, I will either be with Zach or I won’t—but no one can say I didn’t try.
My options are many, and one of them holds the key to my story—the one that will unlock my destiny with Zach. The beginning is key. My only problem is that I’m not sure where we began.
Did we begin on a school bus long ago? In a park, on my 13th birthday? In a mall four years later? Or did we begin at some other random point on the timeline? Where and when was the spark that started this fire?
The first problem is not a new concept for me: Changing the past will change the future. That’s a given. So, no pressure—right? Been there, done that. I get it. The trick is changing it in such a way that it doesn’t erase me, Zach, or Dani from the planet. Those are the critical elements. Secondly, it’s possible that my actions could erase the accident on my 13th birthday, thus erasing time travel all together, which means—come what may—I’d never get another chance to make this right.
There are other scenarios, of course. Like I said, I’ve been down this road before. One or all of us could die. This realization sets like a rock in my stomach. But something else is setting there, too—something light, full of hope, a dandelion seed drifting on the wind. It feels right, makes more sense than anything else. It’s my gut instinct. And my gut tells me what I believe: That regardless of whether time travel exists or not, Zach and I were meant to be together. I’ve already seen the future. I know what’s there for us. Some things never change. Some things get planted in the dirt and come back, year after year. They grow wild and never stop. Some things start small like a seed. A tiny spark.
Would you believe me if I told you I could feel every single hair on my arms, raising up, just thinking about it? Like static, all around. I have the hands-down worst case of goosebumps I’ve ever had, and not just on my arms, but everywhere. And I am literally freezing to death. I rub my arms to flatten the bumps, and after a while, I feel warm again. There is a chatter of thunder that begins slowly, then within seconds, gets louder, and finally, booms like crazy. I leap a foot off my chair. I keep thinking my parents are going to rush upstairs to check on me, but then I remember they aren't home.
I feel a blast of frigid air, like the storm is all of a sudden right there in my room. I look up expecting to see it, but I know the window is closed, and anyway, I am safe in my chair, sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen. It is somewhere around 4:30 p.m., and I am already exhausted, which, for me is a rare occasion. I tap my fingers on the desk, click my inbox. I must have hit the wrong button because suddenly, the picture just locks up and won’t do anything. I pick up the mouse; drop it lightly, but nothing. I am going to have to restart the darn thing. I am not really in the mood to wait, so I plop down on the edge of my bed instead and sigh, looking around my room.
The thunder returns, building from a small ripple to a searing crack that is so loud, it feels like it has entered my body. “Dang,” I say out loud, looking around. I look back at my computer screen. The storm rumbles. The lights flicker and a thunder bolt, the loudest one I’d ever heard, roars. My ears won't stop ringing. My computer goes blank, which is as good a reason as any to find something else to do. Something important. Something that will make the universe right again.
Tess
Fuller Park is where it all began. Where I began, in a way. I’m sitting here in my car, the radio low, my phone in hand. Maybe I will talk myself out of this and text Dani or Cricket to meet me so I can tell them the whole story. I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? Telling a story? A great concept, except that before you can tell it, you have to know how the story ends and how all the pieces fit together. I may know how the story is supposed to end, but I sure don't know how to fit all the pieces together.
It is just starting to rain. The beads of water on the windshield are glimmering. I focus my attention on one single bead, staring at it until it gets too heavy and streams aimlessly down. I wish Zach was here with me. It wouldn’t matter that he doesn’t know he’s supposed to love me. I am crying now so hard that everything is a blur—and I have a moment of doubt. What if I’m not doing the right thing?
I begin to realize that living without Zach would be better than loving him from afar. I know what I have to do.
*
Then, the oddest thing happens. I start thinking about Mr. Graves, my seventh grade biology teacher, who stopped right in the middle of class to tell a story about his dog Ripley. That dog had turned around in perfect circles for a whole minute that morning, he said. Mr. Graves was way more amused with the story than we were, but I was interested because I had always wanted a dog and besides, I had a major crush on Mr. Graves, so anything he had to say was valuable. Plus, it was getting ready to rain outside. He rambled on for like five hours and then he just looked at us, his eyebrow arched up like a mad man, and said, “You know, they say animals behave strangely when a storm is on the way.” Then, thunder boomed outside and all of a sudden, everyone’s eyes were glued to Mr. Graves.
“Some believe they can even predict disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis,” he’d added. Somewhere in the back, Becky Morgan scoffed quite loudly. I thought she was going to get in trouble, but Mr. Graves was in a good mood. He liked to tell stories. And so, he finished it, plopping a piece of chalk on the blackboard tray, smacking the dust from his hands. “Turns out,” he’d said. “Ripley had a cocklebur in his tail.” There were exactly four of us who laughed, out loud, not because it was all that funny, but because the lights had started to flicker and some of us were jumpy by that point. I know I was. But it was a good kind of jumpiness, the kind where you are literally on the edge of your seat, ready to get started. To me, storms were both beautiful and scary, dangerous and intriguing all at the same time. Then the lightning cracked and the lights went out.
I look down at my arm, the hairs prickling up, wondering if what Mr. Graves had said was true. Can animals somehow predict a disaster? Is there something in their wiring that alerts them, some magnetic field that gets a wedgy every time the barometric pressure goes up? What if people have it, t
oo?
And if we can predict a disaster, can we also predict the beautiful things, like love? Does our body know love—feel it—before our mind does? Before we can even say what it is? Do we just know when it’s right, when to follow it?
Following love never fails. Love is supposed to just happen. It’s not a science project. It isn’t contained in a computer chip. It’s not delivered through some tangled mess of wires attached to someone’s head. It’s real. And once you’ve experienced it, you just know. And nothing will ever change it.
Love: It transcends time. It stays.
And if I give it up, it will come back to me, if it’s meant to be. I don’t need the chip. I don’t need the memories that are recorded on the chip to have Zach Webb. If everything were to be erased—the chip, the memories, the coma, the accident—then the path of my life would take one of two directions: With or without him. Without the research and the chip and time travel, I would have no knowledge of what we were supposed to have. It would just happen. Or not. And I have to be ok with that. This is how I know my decision is the right one: I can’t live the rest of my life wondering if Zach Webb will come back to me, if he will become the memories I have of him.
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