Every Last Minute (Time Wrecker Trilogy Book 1)

by Ellen Smith

  Mara had put in a call with Dr. Ricci’s office as soon as they got home. He hadn’t called back yet. Will looked at the clock and counted the hours until her next dose. He hoped Dr. Ricci would straighten things out soon.

  Now, Mara was huddled in her recliner with a heating pad wedged under her shoulder, eyes focused on her phone. “Chris has raised over seven thousand dollars in fewer than six hours,” she said.

  “I can’t believe he used our Christmas card picture for the image on the campaign,” Will grumbled. That was just the first of a carousel of Will-and-Mara images that Chris had posted. Another was their wedding photo, one was a picture of them at Thanksgiving a few years back, and another was a snapshot taken when they first started dating. An actual snapshot, since Will hadn’t had a digital camera back then. Chris must have gone to the trouble of scanning in the image of their first happy picture, post-surgery.

  The images made them look so healthy. Lucky, even. Just two crazy kids who’d been in love for years. Two people who had just been tempted to follow a bad path and needed a good old-fashioned talking-to to realize how good they had it.

  “Three thousand people have shared his campaign so far,” Mara said. “Just since this morning. And the comments. Have you read what people are saying about us?”

  “Stop checking the updates,” Will told Mara. “Seriously. We need a media blackout.”

  “Mom says it’s best to keep on top of what people are saying about you.”

  “Your mom is a lawyer and the wife of a politician.” Kind of a crooked politician too. He didn’t add that part. “You and I are just regular people, who ran into some bad luck and have a chance to fix it.”

  Mara bit her bottom lip. She looked so cute when she did that. Usually. Not so much now, when everything was going wrong. “I hate this,” she said softly.

  Will almost dropped his cell phone when it rang. It was a DC area code. He hovered his thumb over the screen for a minute. It couldn’t be Dr. Ricci. They would call Mara’s phone. What if it was someone from his school? A reporter? His in-laws?

  “Should I answer it?” Will asked.

  “Well, don’t let it go to voicemail,” Mara said. “Then if it is a reporter, they’ll hear you say your name and know they have the right number.”

  “Right.” Will clicked speaker. “Hello?” he said brusquely, trying to disguise his voice. Mara looked like she was holding in a burst of the giggles, despite herself.

  “Yes, hello, is this William Sterling? It’s Nayana Patel.”

  Will didn’t know whether to feel worried or relieved. “Nayana! Hi. This is Will. Will and Mara, I mean. She’s right here.”

  “Excellent. I’m hearing there’s a bit of an issue on social media about the timeline rectification.”

  Will tried to read Mara’s eyes from across the room. Did this mean they were disqualified? “There’s definitely—I don’t know what you’ve heard, but my brother and my mom are really against time wrecks, so when they found out we were considering one, they really—” Will let his voice trail off. She knew. Everyone with the Internet could know that.

  “Yes, I see,” Nayana said. “I’ve been in conversation with Dr. Hendrix and Traci Bryant about how to proceed. But first, I need to know—do you want to proceed?”

  Will felt his mouth dry out. He looked helplessly at Mara.

  “Here’s where we are,” Nayana continued. “We have all the pieces together from your discussion with Traci during her visit and from your appointment with Dr. Hendrix last Friday. We can go ahead and file for a court appearance with the judge. If the case is approved, things will move very quickly after that. We’ll move you to a secure location and we’ll begin doing simulations to reenact the event.”

  “What kind of secure location?” Will asked. “Like, Witness Protection Program?” That didn’t feel like such a bad idea.

  “Not quite that intense, no,” Nayana said. “After the trial, we’ll put you and Mara up in a hotel until the timeline rectification is complete. You’ll also have a security guard during that time to ensure that you travel safely to and from the area where we conduct the simulations.”

  “We’ll need a security guard?” Will asked, temporarily stunned. Across from him, Mara’s forehead creased into a deep frown.

  “It’s a precaution. Once the timeline rectification is approved, we work hard to ensure the safety of all the participants.”

  Is the procedure that dangerous? Will started to ask, but Mara waved her left arm to get his attention. With one finger, she made a slicing motion across her neck.

  “What? Are you hurt?”

  Mara sighed. “No, I was just trying to tell you. They can’t do a timeline rectification if someone from the original event has died. So once the time wreck is approved—”

  “They’ll do everything they can to make sure we stay alive.” Will finished. “But not until the judge gives the approval.”

  And then we can’t back out.

  “Until then, we’re on our own,” Mara said.

  “Nobody’s threatening to kill us,” Will said. “They just want to stop us from . . .”

  Mara lifted her eyebrows.

  “Chris isn’t going to hurt us,” Will said. “He would never do that.”

  “And the three thousand people who have already shared Chris’s campaign? The ones who now have pictures of what we look like and know that you’re a teacher in DC and I’m a researcher? Used to be,” Mara corrected herself. “You don’t think any of them are fanatical enough to try to keep us from time wrecking?”

  Will’s blood ran cold. “That wouldn’t happen.”

  On the phone, Nayana cleared her throat delicately. Oops. He must not have kept her from overhearing after all. “Mara is correct that once the timeline rectification has been approved, we do everything possible to offer you protection. However, our department simply doesn’t have the resources to offer that level of protection to every participant who is notified of the possibility of a timeline rectification.”

  So. Chris put us in the crosshairs. We’re on our own unless we agree to the time wreck and it gets approved. Will would have appreciated the irony more if it weren’t his and Mara’s lives at stake.

  “Because of the amount of interest in this case, Traci and I can work to try to move up your hearing with the judge,” Nayana said. “That is, if you’re willing to proceed.”

  Will looked at Mara. He didn’t want a time wreck. He didn’t want this life map, either. They had to choose.

  Mara let her head fall forward in a single, defeated nod.

  “Yes,” Will said. “We’re willing to proceed.”

  * * * * *

  Dr. Ricci’s office didn’t call them back that day. Mara took the higher dose of painkillers when she was due for her next pills.

  So we couldn’t get the prescription for the lower dosage filled because the pharmacist thought she was abusing pills. Now, as a direct result, Mara’s taking a higher dose than the doctor prescribed.

  Will didn’t appreciate this round of irony, either.

  Mara kept an eye on the Internet while they made dinner. “Four thousand people have shared the campaign,” she commented as Will put a frozen lasagna in the oven.

  “People will click to share anything,” Will said. “Most of them don’t really care.”

  “The campaign got picked up by the One Life, One Time website,” Mara said. “Look. They tweeted about it and asked for people to donate.”

  “Well, it is right up their alley,” Will said. “Their whole organization is devoted to stopping time wrecks.” He was trying to keep things light. Keep it from feeling so serious. But he couldn’t stop looking over at the front door, wondering when Chris would show up.

  By the time the lasagna was done, the whole apartment smelled like cheese and slightly burned plastic. Will pulled it out with two oven mitts while Mara set the coffee table with napkins and silverware. As s
oon as she was done, the phone was back in her hand. “Hashtag YSOLO is trending on Twitter,” Mara said.

  “YSOLO? What does that mean?”

  “It stands for You Should Only Live Once. Apparently One Life, One Time used it as a hashtag and it took off.”

  “You should put it down so we can eat,” Will said gently. “People are going to say what they’re going to say. We don’t have to read it.”

  As if he wasn’t just as preoccupied with the news. But Mara said, “You’re right,” and put the phone on the charger. She even carried one of the paper plates, heaped high with steaming lasagna, over to the coffee table. Will followed and sat next to her on the couch.

  “Want to watch TV?” Will asked.

  “Not really.”

  The side of his fork made little grooves on the paper plate as he cut apart each mouthful.

  “So what are you going to do tomorrow?” Will asked.

  “Nothing, I guess. No point looking for another job if we’re going to be leaving this life map.”

  They ate in silence for a few more minutes before Mara caught him looking at the door. “I’m surprised your brother hasn’t showed up yet,” Mara said. “Hasn’t it been ten hours since he raised enough money for the trip?”

  “More like seven,” Will said. “And who knows if he’ll leave right away. Earliest he could get here would be late tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

  Mara shifted in her seat on the couch. “Okay, don’t get mad at me for asking this, but what are we going to do if Chris does make it up here?”

  Will shrugged. “Who cares? We don’t answer to him.”

  Mara sighed. Will could tell by her expression that she was choosing her next words carefully, which made his stomach start to knot up. “How are you going to react if Chris does try to have an intervention with you? With us?”

  “I’m going to be annoyed and wonder how we came from the same parents. Nothing new there.”

  Mara rubbed her forehead. “What I mean is,” she said, “do you think it’s a sin for us to have a time wreck?”

  Will waited a beat before answering. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

  “I don’t. But you do. Maybe not the way your family does—”

  “Most people don’t believe in God the way my family does,” Will grumbled.

  Mara ignored his comment. “But do you think time wrecks are a sin? Because if you do—even a little bit—we don’t have to do this. We can call Nayana right now and say the whole thing’s off. I don’t want it on my hands that I pushed you in to doing something if you thought it was wrong.”

  Will’s cheeks burned. “That’s not fair,” he said. “If I say it bothers me, then I’m basically making you suffer because of my beliefs.”

  “But if it bothers you,” Mara said, “then I don’t want to do it.”

  She was serious. Will took in her measured gaze and felt guiltier by the minute.

  “What if it’s not exactly a belief?” Will asked. “What if I’m not sure there’s a God and even if there is, I’m not sure He’d object to a time wreck?”

  “Then I think you need to figure it out,” Mara said. She grimaced. “Sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant. Look. If you come to me and tell me that you just don’t feel right doing a time wreck because you honestly believe it’s wrong, then I wouldn’t even want to do it. It’d be a pain to live with the shoulder stuff and I’m basically going to have to find a new job and deal with all this”—she motioned to her phone—“but I’d do it in a heartbeat.” Will felt his stomach loosen.

  Then she continued. “But if we just get pressured out of doing this, I’m going to resent it.”

  His stomach knotted up again. “You’re going to resent me,” Will translated.

  Mara didn’t agree, but she didn’t disagree, either. “What you believe matters to me,” Mara said. “What your brother or your mother or their church or the whole country believes doesn’t so much.”

  “I’m not a pushover,” Will said. “And if it was your family threatening to pull an intervention because a time wreck ‘looks bad’ or ‘lacks character’ or whatever—which they might, by the way—you can’t tell me it wouldn’t bother you. Wouldn’t you stop and wonder whether all this was really worth it?”

  Mara looked like she’d been shocked into silence for a few minutes. “Touché,” she said, finally.

  Mara crossed the room and picked up her cell off the charger. Will pushed his empty plate aside and took out his phone too. The search results for their names were growing every time he hit “refresh.”

  He could see that Mara was reading something on her screen. Something bad, since her forehead was creased into a frown. “Hey,” Will said. “Don’t worry. This isn’t forever.”

  “What isn’t?” Mara said sharply, putting down her cell phone.

  “This. The stuff on the media and the people talking bad about us online. They’ll cool off. And if we get the time wreck, they won’t remember anything about this in the new life map. We’ll have a fresh start.”

  “Without each other,” Mara said. “Is that what you mean? If we don’t meet each other in the next life map, we won’t fall in love or get married—”

  “Whoa,” Will said. “That escalated quickly.”

  Mara leaned forward now, crossing her good arm over her bad one. “When we were at the psychiatrist’s appointments that day,” she began, “you came back to the waiting room and said there was nothing to it. Dr. Hendrix was easy to talk to.”

  “He was,” Will said.

  “But then when I went in there, Dr. Hendrix kept hammering on how there were no guarantees. You and I might not meet in the new life map. Was I prepared for that? Would I do a time wreck even if it meant we never met or fell in love?” Mara blinked hard, the way she did when she was trying not to cry. “Why was that conversation so easy for you? Why were you so willing to risk our marriage?”

  “I’m not,” Will said. “I’m not risking anything. We are going to meet in the next life map. No matter what.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure about.” Will crossed the room and sat next to her, moving her phone out of the way so he could hold both her hands. “You and me. All the other stuff can change or be rectified or whatever you want to call it, but we’re a sure thing.”

  Mara leaned in toward him then, resting her head on his chest. They fit together perfectly, just like they always had.

  “I never want to live without you,” Mara said.

  “You’ll never have to.”

  * * * * *

  Will drove as slowly as possible to work the next day. Naturally, on the day he really didn’t want to get there early, Beltway traffic was light and he pulled into the parking lot with ten minutes to spare.

  He wasn’t ready to face anyone. If he had enough sick days to call out for the next two weeks, he would have taken them. But what if the time wreck wasn’t approved? What would they do if neither he nor Mara had a job?

  Will was barely through the main entrance when he heard the principal’s voice.

  “Mr. Sterling,” Cliff said. On the outset, Will’s boss looked the same. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned a little too low and two gold chains around his neck. Cliff threw an arm around Will and whacked him—hard—on the back as he ushered him into his office. And closed the door.

  Cliff never closed the door to his office.

  “First off, I just want to say we’re all behind you, Will,” Cliff said. “I saw your name in the news and just really felt for you. You’re a good man. No one would blame you for taking action, if the rumors are true.”

  “I’m guessing we’re talking about timeline rectification,” Will said.

  Cliff’s laugh was long, loud, and fake. He gave Will a few more whacks on the back for good measure. “Always the comedian. Yes. Now, as I’m sure you know, new
s about our educators travels fast. So there have already been discussions about your, er, situation.”

  Should he admit it was true, or say it was a rumor? Both could help. Both could hurt. Will decided to wait and see if Cliff would keep talking. He did.

  “And of course, the school board this term is very conservative. Our school’s already under a microscope because of the bomb threat and the situation with the student a little over a week ago. It’s been a helluva time, Will. I know I can always count on you to keep your cool. I appreciate that about you.”

  Will smiled back, nodded slightly. But.

  “But it’s these parents, you know. There have already been a lot of complaints. If I’m being honest with you, there are already parents calling for your dismissal. Even rumors of timeline rectifications generate a lot of controversy. I was aware of this last night, and then this morning—just before you came in, in fact—the superintendent called me personally.”

  This wasn’t sounding good. Will had a chilling thought. What if the time wreck didn’t go through? Could he and Mara both be out of work?

  Out of work and looking for someone willing to employ social-pariah, would-be time wreckers.

  This wasn’t sounding good at all.

  Will looked into Cliff’s big, forced-empathetic eyes and nodded like he understood.

  “Now, I’m not asking you to tell me whether this is a rumor or whether it’s true that you and your wife are pursuing one of these timeline rectifications. That’s not my business. The superintendent wants to make sure we’re handling this, though, so he asked me to talk with you and come up with a solution that works for everybody.”

  Will swallowed. He was going to get fired. No, he wasn’t. He had tenure. That had to count for something. Could he call a union rep? Did the union even help teachers who wanted to be time wreckers? Or would they just get involved and muddy up the whole thing by trying to start legal proceedings?