Since he was focused on the phone, I watched him.
“Say what?” he said out loud without looking up from the phone. And then he looked at me and then back at the phone and then at me again. He tossed the phone to the side of the sofa, threw out his hands, and leaned forward. “So you’re from my future. This is for real.”
I nodded.
“And you’re like me. I felt you as I came down the stairs. I thought someone from the Guild was here, although they don’t come to the door. But you’re not from the Guild?”
“No, you called me a Shadow. You’re the only one who knows about me.”
“Seriously?”
“Pretty cool, huh?” Lex said, coming to join us. “We know you in a different time and place. In fact, we just left you back in Boulder, Colorado. You got shot—”
“I got shot in Boulder, Colorado?”
“No, no…you got shot in the olden days,” Lex said. “You went there to rescue A.J. It’s a long story. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you can’t skip chemistry because you’ll get caught, then you’ll get grounded, and then it all goes bad from there. Oh, and don’t show Devon how to play music on the roof.”
“This is bizarre,” he said.
“No duh,” Lex said, “how do you think we feel? We didn’t even know about Shadows and Oreon until you clued us in.”
“I told you about Oreon? I can’t believe…there’s no way—”
“Way. You found out that A.J. was a Shadow. You wanted her to fix your screw-up when you messed with your own timeline. Devon got paralyzed, and now he’s lying in a hospital in Boulder waiting for your parents to pull the plug. The Constantine in our timeline is on the balcony. It’s up to you to make sure he doesn’t have to jump. Think you can handle that?”
He nodded.
“It’s vital that you don’t skip chem,” I said. “That’s what started the chain of events that lead to the accident. It’s what you called a pivotal causal effect. That’s why we’re here, to change that.”
“You gonna behave yourself?” Lex asked. “It isn’t like we’re asking you to commit murder or win the Nobel Prize. You just have to avoid screwing up. Study tonight, take the test tomorrow, and then you get to go to the M83 concert. No harm, no foul. You have the tickets?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“We’re your friends, just seven months from now. How could we fake this? It’s you on the message, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but this is crazy. Besides, a Shadow—”
“Man-up,” she said. “We’ve had our reality stretched way more than this little scenario. It’s simple, really. You screwed up royally by messing with your own timeline. You were a baaad boy. Have you told Devon yet about playing music on the roof?”
“No—”
“Good,” she said. “Never, ever tell him about it. Never do it again. Did you forget the chem test tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Well helloooo! You’re the one that screwed up.”
“Got it,” he said, shaking his head and letting out a sigh. “So we’re friends…all of us? I’d love to talk a little, find out who you are; find out what happened in a little more detail. This getting-shot thing is a little alarming. So is the thing about my brother. You want a soda or something?”
“We have to get back,” I said quickly, before Lex could accept. “You don’t need to worry about the details as long as you do what he says in the message. My…our…the Constantine in our time is in bad shape. He’s counting on you.”
“I better give it one more run,” he said, cueing the phone, “make sure I got it all.”
Again he glanced over at me every few seconds. I tried to avoid his eyes, but I couldn’t keep them off him completely. He didn’t look at Lex much, just me. I didn’t know what that meant. I figured my Constantine told him about the olden days rescue, and he was trying to make sense of it. He ran his fingers through his hair and put the phone down on the coffee table.
“New Guy…umm Constantine…tick tock. We’ve had a long day. We need to bounce.” Lex had finally noticed my supreme discomfort. “This has been nice…old home week and all. But we have school tomorrow and you have a test to study for.”
“So, you live in Boulder, Colorado? You go to Boulder High?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“A.J. Jones and Alexandra Archer?”
“Right,” I said.
“Tick tock,” Lex said, getting up. “Chem test tomorrow, right?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Promise?” I asked.
He nodded. “You can count on it. You sure you have to leave? Because I—”
“You need to study,” Lex said. She walked over and opened the door. “We need to get back and deal with our own mess. But it’s been nice knowing you. Good luck on your test.” She walked out the door. I was a few yards behind her.
“A.J., wait!” Constantine grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him. “A.J., look at me. Look at me just once.” He put both hands on my face and tipped it up gently.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t do it. This wasn’t my Constantine.
“Look at me,” he said, “please.”
I took a deep breath and then I caved. What the heck. Maybe he wasn’t my Constantine, but I wanted to see those incredible, blue eyes one more time. I opened my own eyes and looked up at him.
The was a second of stillness, and then it happened…just like the hallway at school. Just like that night in the tree. It was slow and sweet at first. Then it was dancing like the buzz from a high. Then, a sharp ache down my core, as if he’d plunged into the deepest recesses of my being and...
…and then it began to grow.
My knees buckled and I gasped. He caught me to keep me from falling. I felt his energy, my energy, swirling, mingling, and singing. Eyes locked on mine, he moved his face slowly towards mine. Softly, he touched my lips with the briefest of kisses. A shock whipped down my body, plunging deep in my core. I went limp in his arms, but he held me tightly against him. My own arms were dangling, and my feet no longer touched the ground.
And then he kissed me again, this time for real, this time deep, probing, and long. Every cell in my body tingled with life and I—
Something snapped and for a second I lost all control. I reached up, tangling my hands in his silky hair. I moaned softly…kissing him back. He swept an arm beneath my knees and picked me up. Then he slammed the door with his foot. He carried me across the room, still kissing me. He set me gently on the sofa, and he knelt beside me, taking my face in his hands. I was shaking and tears were streaming down my cheeks.
The doorbell rang.
“Who are you, A.J. Jones?” he asked tenderly. He wiped away my tears with his finger. He ignored the doorbell. “I’ve never felt anything like…I…”
I closed my eyes, struggling to stabilize. I needed a tree! This was wrong! This wasn’t my Constantine. My Constantine was leaving, and why was I teasing myself with something I couldn’t have?
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t mean—”
The doorbell rang again.
“I need to go,” I choked out. “I can’t do this!”
The doorbell screamed without stopping. Claire ran to open it and let Lex back in.
“The hell?” Lex yelled, eyeing me, disheveled on the sofa. She ran to me, shoved Constantine aside, and then she turned and glared at him. “What did you do?”
He threw up his hands and backed off. “I just—”
“Nnnothing,” I stammered softly, grasping for Lex’s arm. “He didn’t do anything. I just got disoriented. I’m okay now. Let’s go.”
She pulled me up and we scrambled out the door. I took one quick look back to see a very confused Constantine standing in the living room, running his hand through his hair. It was all I could do to keep from rushing back and throwing myself into his arms. Luckily, I had Lex dragging me away fr
om the house and down the hill to the tree. I collapsed against it, breathing heavily, trying to make sense of what just happened.
“WTF?” Lex asked, dropping down beside me. Sitting down, we were hidden from the windows by all the bushes and vines that blanketed the hillside.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, with a heavy sigh.
“Of course I want to know!” She looked at me as if I was crazy. “Have you met me? When did I ever not want to know?”
“I…I just need a minute,” I pleaded with her. “He kissed me. I’ll tell you when we get home. I can’t think about it now. I need to concentrate so I can get us back. Let me just sit here for a few seconds.”
“No problem. I’m in no hurry. I was just trying to get you out of there.” She pulled a phone out of her pocket. It was his.
“How’d—”
“Hey, it’s not like it was that Constantine’s phone. He has his. It will probably just disappear anyway.” She stuffed the earbuds in her pocket.
“You don’t have the code,” I said.
“I do so have the code,” she said, grinning mischievously. She called up the message and held the phone up so I could see.
What the heck. I figured at that point, it didn’t hurt—anything to take my mind off what just happened.
Constantine appeared on the screen. He looked like death warmed over but still beautiful. He was sitting in his dad’s car. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said, “well, you, really. You’re an Editor. You know the drill. You screwed up, Dude. You screwed up so bad; there isn’t even a word in the world of screwed-up-ness for how bad you screwed up. You’ve gotta fix this, Dude, or your future is toast.”
Lex nudged me, pressing pause. “See, he’s laying it out for himself. We have nothing to worry about. He’ll fix it. I just needed to make sure.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You’re just nosey.”
She grinned and pressed play again.
“You have a chem test tomorrow. Yeah, forgot, didn’t you? Too busy thinking about taking…okay, I can’t remember her name…that chick from English—yeah her—to the concert. Right, I know what you’re thinking. I’m you, remember? Well, you blew it, Dude. You didn’t study for the test and decided to skip because it counts for twenty-five percent of your grade.
“Bad move. Mom caught me, you, us…whatever. We got grounded. Well, you haven’t done it yet. I guess I got grounded. So don’t make the same mistake. Cause here’s what happened. I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just jumped back and changed it. Yeah, I know, Prime Dictate and all. Well, you talked yourself out of that one. You convinced yourself…myself, that it was just a tiny edit of our timeline. I was wrong, big time. I was so frickin wrong.” Constantine choked up at that point.
I felt my eyes fill up with tears. Lex put her arm around me, and we leaned back against the tree. Constantine put the phone down for few seconds. In the silence, we could hear him taking short, gasping breaths. But we kept watching. We couldn’t stop at that point.
When he picked the phone back up, his red eyes looked intently into the camera. “This is serious, Dude. You have to believe me and do exactly what I tell you. If you don’t, then Devon falls off the roof and is paralyzed, never to walk again. And it will be your fault. Believe me. You don’t want that. We moved to Colorado because of his wheelchair and the sun. Yeah, you lose your redwood, and I can’t even begin to tell you how bad that turns out. Mom and Dad go off the deep end. In my world right now, they’re sitting by Devon’s hospital bed, waiting till dark to pull the frickin plug.”
He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes, and let out a long, ragged breath.
“There’s no hope. He’s brain dead. He didn’t do well being paralyzed. He lost football. You know how that would be. He didn’t have anything else. His girlfriend, she dumped him in a hot minute. Mom, my God, Mom’s two steps short of a cliff-dive. The doctors loaded her up on tranqs and all kinds of shit, just to keep her from jumping. And Devon, he downed every frickin pill in the house. The rest is history. But it’s bad, Dude, it’s incredibly, overwhelmingly bad. And you need to fix it.
“You need forethought. Yeah, you scoff, but that word’s become really important. I’m telling you, all you gotta do is not skip chem. Take the test. Go to the concert. Don’t tell Devon about roof rocking. In fact, give that up altogether. And never, under any circumstances, mess with your own timeline. It’s not worth it. Who knows what the consequences could be. Besides, the Guild will catch you and block your signature, leaving you screwed for the rest of your miserable, little life.
“And those stupid boots Devon has that make him taller? Trash those boots, Dude. Trash those frickin boots.” He shoved his hair out of his eyes.
“One more thing, see that girl…no, not the blonde, dumb-ass, the other one. The one with the energy, yeah, the one with the amber eyes. You felt her when she came in, didn’t you? Yeah, she’s a Shadow. You found her in Boulder. She’s the reason you’re not going to have to live the nightmare I just laid out. But there’s more about her. I know I’m laying a lot on you, Dude. But it can’t be helped. You need to know—we’re in love with that girl.”
I gasped and grabbed on to Lex’s arm.
She pressed pause, looked at me, and grinned, “See, I told you he liked you!”
I grabbed the phone from her and pressed play.
“She’s…she’s frickin incredible. She’s tough and she’s smart. She’s not like anyone you’ve ever met or will ever meet again. She’s the one. Don’t give me shit. I know how that sounds—doesn’t matter. I’d take a bullet for that chick. Ha, you can’t even begin to know. I—”
He shut his eyes and bent his head down, holding his chest with his other hand, breathing in and out slowly. Then he opened his eyes back up and looked straight into the camera. “I don’t have time to spell it out. But she means more to me than anything or anyone in my whole life. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Her dad’s name is Samuel Jones. They have a house on Mapleton Avenue.” He paused and took a deep breath.
“She lives in a tree house. It’s so amazing. You have to see it to believe it. I gave her up. I know, stupid, but it was the only choice. It’s screwed up here. Not just the family but also the situation with A.J. She has a boyfriend, a kid named Ipod. Yeah, weird name, huh? But he’s an okay guy. I gotta hand him that. She’s with him now. So I’m releasing this timeline because I just can’t take the pain of losing her. Not after all we’ve gone through. So when I integrate, I’ll be a blank slate.
“After you graduate, track her down and find out if things have changed with this guy. Maybe she’ll outgrow him. And if she has, then whatever it takes, get to know her. Because you’ll never find anyone like her if you live forever. I guarantee it will be worth it. Do it, Dude!
“No matter what happens when she gives you this message, you can’t make any more contact with her until after 6:00 the evening of next May 10th or you’ll risk messing up the timeline. Trust me; you don’t want to do that. And don’t go narking to the Guild either. This is just between you and me.
“Oh, and one more thing. Do me a favor. You’ll laugh. I never…I never even kissed her. Don’t give me shit. You have no frickin clue. She’s not like all the other girls you’ve been wasting time with all these years. She’s worth a million of them. Anyway, kiss her for me, okay? The timeline has probably already diverged meaning this me is toast. Since I live on in you, I want this one memory. So make it a good one. You won’t be sorry.
“Anyway, I know this is a lot to take. But you know about timelines, and you know I’m serious as hell. I’m counting on you, Dude. I’ll see you soon…or I guess that’s be you.”
With that the screen went blank.
In English, we read this turn-of-the-century story about a man and woman who were deeply in love. They were dirt poor and each had only one treasured possession. The guy had a watch, and the woman had beautiful, long hair. Christmas came and they desperately wanted to buy ea
ch other a present. Long story short—the guy sold his watch to buy the woman bling for her hair. While he was out doing that, the woman sold her hair to buy a chain for his watch.
It really moved me when the teacher read it aloud in class. I’d thought it so romantic at the time, how they gave up everything they had for the one they loved, not knowing that the other was doing the same thing. But having just heard Constantine’s message, I thought of the story, and it didn’t seem romantic at all. It just seemed sad and incredibly unfortunate.
“He loves me,” I whispered. “Well, did.”
“Looks like,” Lex said. She shut off the phone. “I’m so, so sorry, A.J. I mean, not sorry he loves you, just sorry he’s going to forget.” She put her arm around me. I dropped my head against her shoulder.
“The times we had together,” I said, “they’re gone now, for him.”
“That so sucks,” she said.” Her good mood evaporated as the irony of my loss hit her. “Maybe you can go back and do it over again. Tell him how you feel before you come here to fix his problem. You know, do a rewrite of the rewrite.”
“I could screw things up even more. I could do what he did and accidentally hurt someone.”
“I guess…”
“Why did he think I was with Ipod?”
“No clue. In hindsight, there were signs of it. He acted strange sometimes. I just thought he was worried about his family and blew it off. He wasn’t real eager to bring Ipod back. I mean, not that he didn’t want to rescue him. He just didn’t seem happy about it. But it never occurred to me that he thought you and Ipod were a thing.”
We sat there, mostly in silence, offering a comment every so often. We watched the dry, dead leaves blowing in the wind—a surreal dance, fitting our melancholy mood. Lex gathered a pile of redwood needles at her feet and toyed with them listlessly. I just sat there, drained.
“Kind of sweet though like that story with the watch,” she said finally.
“I was just thinking about that.”
“Yeah, because he loved you, he brought Ipod back to make you happy, knowing he couldn’t have you himself. You tried to be strong, so he wouldn’t know you were hurting; so he thought you didn’t love him, and he gave up this timeline. You let him dump his memories, so he didn’t have to hurt, when what he was hurting from, was losing you. Now his memories are gone, and you find out he loved you after all. Sadder than the watch story.”
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