He shrugged, and my arms dropped from his neck, flopping down to my sides. “I don’t have to do anything,” he said, his jaw tense. “I’m telling you that I’m going to visit my grandparents that weekend. You’ll just have to have a fun time at the dance without me.”
I sniffed, unable to believe this was happening. I’d been imagining the night of the Halloween Dance for weeks—it was supposed to be the first time I told Drew I loved him. Now he wasn’t even going to be there. “I’m supposed to have a fun time without you.” I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“I think I should go,” he said, grabbing his backpack from where he’d put it at the foot of my bed when he first came into my room.
“Yeah.” I reached up to wipe away the single tear that had started to fall down my cheek. Not that Drew noticed—or cared. “I think you should.”
I sat on my bed as I watched him leave, feeling rejected and confused. It sucked that he wouldn’t be able to come to the Halloween Dance, but even worse was how after he saw how upset I was about it, he left without trying to make me feel better. I wiped away another tear, leaving behind a smudge of mascara on my hand. What was so wrong with me that Drew didn’t even want to try making this better? It wouldn’t have taken much, just a promise of something special to make up for the lost night of the dance, but all he did was leave. I didn’t get it.
I lifted my cell phone off my nightstand and went to our latest text messages. The last one was sent from him about twenty minutes ago, saying he was at my house and about to come in. Not like that lasted long. I stared at the phone, wishing there was something I could do to fix this.
Way to leave without caring how I feel about this, I wrote. I read it over and deleted it. But while the writing was gone, the curser continued to blink, like it was waiting for me to type up something brilliant that would make Drew apologize for treating me so terribly.
I love you, I typed in its place. I looked at that for a few more seconds, but deleted it as well. I didn’t want the first time I told Drew I loved him to be via text message. Still, I couldn’t leave things like this. Maybe he would apologize later, but I doubted it. It was up to me to make things okay between us.
I’m sorry, I wrote, my thumbs flying furiously over the keyboard. You’re right that you should visit your grandparents instead of going to the dance. I was being stupid making such a big deal about it. Of course I’ll still have fun. Cya in school tomorrow <3
I pressed send.
DELETED CHAPTER FROM TIMELESS
Lizzie telling Keelie about being reincarnated
This chapter was in the advanced copy of Timeless I gave to reviewers, but I removed it before publishing the final version. It slowed the pacing of the book, and I decided not to have Lizzie tell Keelie about being reincarnated. So this scene never happened in the story, but if Lizzie were to tell Keelie everything, here is how it would go down! This chapter would have occurred after Lizzie’s mom agreed to go to England.
With all of this unbelievable stuff going on in my life, it was hard to remember that I was supposed to be a typical sixteen year old high school junior. Ever since the beginning of the school year when I saw Drew for the first time, my entire life had changed. But for everyone else who hadn’t recently discovered that they were reincarnated from Regency Era, England, and that their best friend accidentally cast a curse to kill them so they now had to travel back to the past to fix things, life was still normal.
I reminded myself of that when Keelie texted me later that night saying she thought Jeremy was interested in her, and how she wanted to make sure that was okay with me since we broke up recently.
Seeing that text made me realize something: Keelie was a kind, considerate person, and I truly wanted to be her friend. Throughout the years I grew comfortable with the friendship I had with Chelsea, but it had faults, especially after everything that had happened within the past few months. I had been afraid to tell Chelsea about my feelings for Drew, since she had announced her interest in him first. Luckily, Drew and I had the reincarnation-bond between us, which eventually brought us together again, but if circumstances had been normal, what would have happened? Would Chelsea have gotten the guy, and I would have been shafted because I was afraid to say something to my best friend since I didn’t want her to be angry with me? And if I did tell her, I knew Chelsea well enough to suspect that she would have claimed that she noticed him first, so I should let her be happy and focus on mending my broken relationship with Jeremy.
But maybe I wasn’t being fair to Chelsea. She might have done that before discovering the past lives that bound us together, but perhaps things had changed with her now. I wanted to believe that people could change, and that my friendship with Chelsea could return to normal.
At the same time, I had to branch out and get closer to other people—people like Keelie, who wanted to be friends with me. She cared enough about being friends to make sure it was okay with me that Jeremy was interested in her, even though I had no claim on him anymore. She also left Shannon’s party early to help me, even though we didn’t know each other well. On the car ride back to my house, I’d skimmed over what had happened between myself, Drew, Chelsea, and Jeremy, because I wanted to keep the reincarnation stuff secret from Keelie.
Now that I saw the possibility of a real friendship with her, was it fair to keep so much secret? Could a true friendship be formed when one person wasn’t being honest with the other?
It wasn’t difficult to figure out the answer to that question.
It’s fine with me, I replied to Keelie’s text. What are you up to tomorrow?
I should be working on a paper for class, but I’m up for distractions! she said.
Which is why five minutes later, we had plans to get ice cream the next day.
I couldn’t believe I was planning on telling Keelie everything. But if I wanted to be friends with her—true friends—I had to start the friendship off right.
* * *
The next morning, I wasn’t as confident about my decision as I had been last night. There was a high probability that Keelie would think I’d gone nuts, which was the same reason I hadn’t told my mom the full story. But unlike my mom, Keelie wasn’t a psychiatrist, so hopefully she wouldn’t psychoanalyze everything I said.
Even though she wouldn’t try diagnosing me with a mental disorder, there was the possibility she would think the story was crazy.
Hopefully Keelie had an open mind.
We ordered our ice cream and sat down at a booth in the corner—as far away from other people that I could find. I didn’t want others eavesdropping in on this conversation.
“Are you sure you’re okay with Jeremy asking me out?” Keelie asked. “If you’re not, I understand. You can tell me.”
“I’m sure,” I said, meaning it. “Even though we broke up recently, it had been coming for a while. And remember, I’m the one who broke up with him, so if he said he’s ready to move on, he means it.”
She spooned some ice cream into her mouth. “What did happen between you two?” she asked. “If there’s a reason why I should stay away, you would tell me, right?”
“He’s basically a good person, but we grew apart,” I said. “We had different interests. I was focusing on school since junior year is important for college applications, and doing more with my art. He didn’t understand why I wasn’t as interested in sports as he was.”
“You did look bored at the soccer game,” Keelie said with a laugh.
“Because I was!” I said.
“It’s that bad for you to watch?”
“Yep.” I nodded. “I don’t see the point of watching people kick a ball back and forth on a field. I find it boring. No offense to people who like it,” I added, since Keelie liked watching soccer. “It’s just not my thing.”
“I can sort of get that,” Keelie said. “I’ve never thought about why I like watching sports; it’s just something I enjoy. I guess it’s because I like the unknown … ha
ving no idea who’s going to win, and hoping that sitting there cheering will encourage our team and help bring them to victory. It’s also the competition that I like—how passion can trump logic. You never know how a game is going to end. It’s fun.”
“I never thought of it that way,” I said. I wasn’t going to turn into a sports fanatic now, but it was interesting to hear someone’s point of view that was different from mine. Chelsea only liked going to the games to socialize, and Jeremy wasn’t well-spoken enough to voice his opinion like Keelie just did. “It sounds like something Jeremy would think.”
“So you think the two of us will be good together?”
“I could definitely see it working,” I said. “You’re a much better fit for him than I ever was.”
“I’m glad you said that,” she said with relief. “I didn’t want to make things awkward for you if I started hanging out with him more.”
“It’s totally not awkward,” I assured her. “I would be happy for both of you—really.”
“Anyway, how are things with Drew?” Keelie asked. “When I drove you home from Shannon’s party, it sounded like everything was a disaster and you wanted nothing more to do with him. I’m taking from seeing the two of you around school that you’re together now?”
“We are,” I said, although I didn’t know how to continue from there. How was I supposed to tell her that Drew and I loved each other in a past life, but we never had the opportunity to be together, and now we were reincarnated so we could have a real chance in this life?
I felt ready last night, but now I had no idea where to begin.
“Is everything okay?” Keelie asked. “You just got really quiet.”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “It’s just that the night of Shannon’s party, when I told you everything that happened with me, Drew, Chelsea, and Jeremy, I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“Oh?” Keelie raised an eyebrow.
“This is going to sound strange,” I warned her. “But do you believe in reincarnation?”
“That’s random,” she said. I had a feeling she was stalling because the question was so unexpected that she had no idea how to reply. “It’s one of those things that would be cool if it were real, but I never thought of it as an actual possibility.”
“So you don’t believe in it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Why? Do you?”
“Well, I didn’t believe in it … until I met Drew.”
She looked at me in disbelief. “And since you met Drew, you believe in reincarnation?”
I nodded, my cheeks turning red. This was more humiliating than I had anticipated.
She leaned forward, and I hoped she was at least intrigued. “Do you think you and Drew … knew each other in a past life?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I know so.”
And the story spilled from there.
* * *
“You believe me?” I asked after I finished telling the story. The only part I kept to myself was how Genevieve was Shannon’s aunt. Chelsea had promised Shannon no one would find out, and I didn’t want to break that confidence.
“I think so,” she said. “There’s no reason for you to make this up, and I don’t think you would have told me if you didn’t believe it. Also, it would have been too coincidental for you, Drew, and Chelsea to remember the same things without talking with each other about it first. So it’s the only explanation that makes sense. It’s a lot to take in, though.”
“It was like that for me at first, too,” I said. “Sometimes there are still days when I wake up and wonder if this has actually happened, or if it’s been one long dream.”
“I suppose I can believe the past life stuff,” she said. “That you and Drew are soul mates and were reincarnated to be together. It’s romantic. But the rest of it, with the spells and the time travel—that’s where it gets hard for me to believe.”
“Understandable,” I said. It seemed like she thought I was loony for believing that time travel might be possible, but she was being nice in not making me feel bad about it. “I look at it like this. If it’s possible, then I’ll go to England, visit a time that I never thought I could, and make it so Chelsea’s spell has no effect on this life. If the spell didn’t do anything and we can’t go back in time, then at least I’ll have gone to England with Drew, and have had an incredible Christmas.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back,” Keelie said.
“I will,” I promised.
Hopefully when I returned, I would have only good things to share.
CHARACTER EXTRAS: LIZZIE DAVENPORT
Lizzie’s Character Biography
I wrote every character biography that appears in this guide before I drafted Remembrance, to give myself a basic idea of the history and personality of the characters. These character biographies were starting points, since the characters evolved as I wrote.
Full Name: Elizabeth Claire Davenport
Nickname: Lizzie, Liz
Birthday: May 16, 1994
Place of Birth: Pembrooke, NH
Residence: Pembrooke, NH
Occupation: Student
Family: Emily Davenport (mother) -- psychiatrist. George Davenport (father) - divorced since she was in preschool. He cheated on her mother after she was born, not wanting to have to deal with the difficulty of a new baby. They divorced when Lizzie was 4, and he moved to Pennsylvania to work as a money manager at a large firm. He married a woman at the firm, and Lizzie stays with him over the summer, although they don't talk much during the year.
Loves: Drawing. Reading. Piano. Drew. Swings. European History.
Hates: Watching sports. When people think she's stupid in French class. Rap music. Being dragged places. Being told what to do. People who are over-bubbly (fake).
Fears: Jeremy not returning to the way he was before he became obnoxious. Heights. Car accidents. Always being thought of as Jeremy's girlfriends and people not liking her for her.
Education: Junior in high school.
Views on Love/Death: Has always believed in soul mates, and has always known deep down that Jeremy wasn't hers. Believes people are reincarnated after they die.
Favorite Place in the World: The lake with Drew. The swing set at school.
Least Favorite Place in the World: LA. She went there once with her family and hated it. People were too obsessed with themselves.
Hobbies: Drawing. Piano. She used to ice skate until 9th grade when she hurt her ankle and was told to stop skating intensely or risk permanent injury.
Reputation: Sort of quiet. Being Jeremy's girlfriend. (She doesn't like that one).
General Viewpoints of Importance: Doing well in school. Learning through reading and learning about herself through drawing.
What makes the character tick: People judging her without reason.
What makes the character likable: Cares about not hurting people's feelings. Is nice, but for the most part doesn't let people walk over her.
What makes the character detestable: The way in which she goes about getting together with Drew. Hurting Chelsea and Jeremy (even though she didn't do it in a mean way).
Favorite ice cream flavor: Vanilla—“There is nothing plain about you. You are a colorful risk taker who relies more on intuition than logic. Emotionally expressive and idealistic, you tend to set high goals and push yourself to meet and exceed them. You are most romantically compatible with those who prefer rocky road.”
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Blonde, curly.
Body Type: Skinny.
Age: 16
Apparent Age: 16
Skin Tone: Pale to slightly tanned.
Physical activities: (sports, etc.): Not a big fan.
This or That with Lizzie
Here is a collection of “This or That” questions I’ve answered from Lizzie’s point of view for interviews.
Winter or Summer?
Summer. I don’
t like the cold weather in the winter.
In or Out?
I’m guessing this means inside or outside? I’m definitely an indoors girl.
Dresses or Pants?
I usually wear jeans, but I like wearing a dress when I’m going somewhere nice, as long as it’s not too cold outside.
Brother or Sister?
I’m an only child, but I’ve always wanted a younger sister. It would be nice to have someone to teach how to draw and recommend my favorite books to.
Black or White?
White. It’s also one of my favorite colors to wear.
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