by Gwen Cole
He nods slowly, uncertain. “Maybe that’s it. You seem happy, though.”
“Am I not allowed to feel happy?”
He raises an eyebrow and turns away.
Oddly, I feel the same way.
After changing the clutch fluid and replacing the air filter, I hear a car pull up the driveway and glance outside. The growing clouds are taking over the morning sky, bringing the smell of rain with them.
Harper pulls up in the old Rabbit and I turn around, still not ready to see her.
I am, but I’m not. My heart is racing too fast for me to decide.
“Is it weird seeing her in that car?” I ask, trying to act somewhat normal.
Uncle Jasper’s arm is halfway in the engine, oil stains up to his elbow. “I’m getting used to it. It was strange at first, for sure.” He brings his arm out and wipes his hands with a rag. It doesn’t improve anything. “Why, is she back finally?”
I nod. “Where did she go?”
He gives me discreet smile. “I needed something in town.”
A door slams outside, too hard. Harper comes into the barn carrying a McDonald’s bag with her lips pressed thin. “You didn’t tell me the nearest McDonald’s is twenty minutes away,” she says, throwing Uncle Jasper the bag. He smiles and digs out his food. “It’s safe to say that’s the last time I’ll be going there.”
Uncle Jasper shrugs, grinning. “Fair enough. I was lucky to get away with it once.”
After taking a bite of his breakfast sandwich, he starts working on the engine again with one hand, pulling the old spark plugs out with a socket wrench with the other.
I glance at Harper and she meets my eyes. I pretend to be distracted by something on the floor.
“You look good,” she says.
My head snaps around. “What?”
“I mean, you look like you finally got some sleep or something.” Harper tries smiling, her eyes not meeting mine for long.
“I did actually.” I don’t know what else to say, so I ask, “How did you sleep last night?”
“Good.”
I nod.
An odd silence passes over us.
“Looks like it’s going to rain,” I say.
“Yeah.”
More silence.
When I look back at Uncle Jasper, he’s staring at us, slowly chewing his food while his mind turns over. “Are you both coming down with something?” He glances at Harper. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, of course I am.” She flips her keys over in her hands. “I’m gonna go back inside.”
She starts walking away but I stop her, barely able to speak. “Harper?”
“Yeah?” She stops, half turned back.
“Um. I’m going into the city tonight, to meet up with Miles. Some band is playing, or something. But … do you want come?”
She’s barely able to keep her gaze on me for long. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or bad sign. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll pick you up at six?”
Harper nods again and disappears into the house.
I force my gaze away. Only to find Uncle Jasper is still staring at me. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?” he asks.
I laugh once and grab my keys off the old couch. “Nothing is wrong. Do you need any more help? I gotta get home to do some errands before tonight.”
His answer is slow coming. “No, that’s fine. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”
After I get back into my car and head home, I can’t stop smiling.
Not even when it starts to rain.
24.
Harper
The moment I walk into the house, the phone rings, but I have no reason to answer it. Uncle Jasper doesn’t even bother unless he expects Kale to call. Leaving my keys on the table and kicking off my shoes, I start upstairs when the answering machine picks up. I pause for the sake of curiosity.
After the beep, a voice comes through the machine I never thought I would hear. Not now, and probably never again.
“Harper? It’s me.” Mom doesn’t sound the same as she did when she left. Maybe leaving everything behind and starting a new life does that to someone.
I grip the wooden banister as she continues, my knees weak. “Could you call me when you get this? I tried your cell phone, but you didn’t answer. I—” Mom pauses, because she doesn’t want to say anything more in case Uncle Jasper hears this before me. “I just want to talk with you. Call me back.”
She hangs up.
I never knew something so small could ruin my entire day before it even began. I can’t let her do this to me again. I won’t let her do this to me again. I walk back down the steps and over to the table where the phone sits, silent now that she has dug her way into my life once again. The red light flashes a number one, over and over again. I press delete and almost feel like it never happened. She’s still there, though, lingering in the back of my mind, but it’s easier to push her away now.
My phone sits upstairs on the bed and I know I’ll find a missed call from her. But I’ll delete that, too, and see if she cares to call again.
My hand still hovers over the phone when Uncle Jasper walks in. I step away from the table and head for the stairs again.
“Did someone call?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t leave a message.” I shrug, finding it easier and easier to push her from my mind.
“It was probably some sales person,” he says. “I rarely get calls from anyone else.”
I laugh and shake my head, starting back up the stairs.
“Hey, wait a minute.” I look down at him from over the banister. He’s got his thinking face on again, the same one I saw in the barn a few minutes ago. “Did something happen between you and Kale?”
“Why would you say that?” Admitting something like that to Uncle Jasper would be as hard as admitting to Dad if he was still alive. It’s just not something that can be done easily. I can’t say, “Yeah, we kissed and we’re both pretending it never happened.” Yeah, right.
“Because you both are acting like—” He looks away, shaking his head. “You know what, I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business anyway.”
“You don’t mind me going with him tonight, do you?” I ask. “I probably should’ve asked first.”
“When it comes to Kale, you don’t have to ask me anything.”
Uncle Jasper walks into the kitchen and I hear the pattering of rain outside. I find my phone where I left it and delete the new missed call from Mom.
At this point, the kiss between me and Kale is a welcome distraction. Aunt Holly would be the only person I could talk to, but just thinking about her makes my throat close up.
I almost decide to text Libby, but what happened between us feels like it should stay there. What we have is … well, I don’t know what we have.
But either way, six o’clock feels so far away.
25.
Kale
I don’t go downstairs until it’s time to leave.
It’s been oddly quiet all day. Something that makes me uncomfortable.
Bryce has been in his room, and the television is on low downstairs. The rain outside darkened the day early, and I stand in front of my mirror with the desk lamp glowing dimly behind me.
I don’t look any different from earlier this morning. Except now I have a clean T-shirt on. One that’s void of oil stains or holes. I look for the cut over my eyebrow, but it’s hidden beneath my hair.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s not here.
I put on my baseball cap and head downstairs. Dad sits on the couch. Not even glancing once at me. He’s different tonight.
I’m halfway to the door, but unable to go any farther without saying something. “Dad?”
“What do you want, Kale?” His voice comes out tired. Worn out, like he’s already giving up on me. Maybe he has. He takes a drink from his beer—something he stopped doing a long time ago.
“I’m going into the ci
ty tonight with Harper. I wanted to let you know I’ll probably be back pretty late.”
I don’t even know why I’m telling him this. I haven’t told him where I’m going for years.
He glances from the television to look at me, no expression at all. “All right,” he says. “Be safe.”
I can only stand there and stare.
Something isn’t right. He’s watching a basketball game, and Mom told me he used to have a gambling problem over sports. It started small then got too big too fast. He promised to stop after Bryce was born.
“Still standing there?” he asks. But it doesn’t come out angry or annoyed, just curious.
“No. Sorry. I’ll see you later.”
I step out into the wet evening and close the door. Something heavy is on his mind tonight, and I should be thankful it doesn’t have to do with me. Maybe it’s because I’m still here, and he’s waiting for me to leave.
Ignoring whatever my thoughts are whispering to me, I duck my head into the rain and get in my car. Harper is waiting for me and we have to meet up with Miles and Grace.
I start up my car and pray I’ll be able to stay through the night.
I picked up Harper a half hour ago and I don’t know how to start a conversation. I had to stop for gas before getting on the highway using the money Uncle Jasper slipped me when she wasn’t looking—somehow he always knows when I need it. I ran inside the store to get us a few car snacks, remembering how much she used to like Twizzlers, and received a smiling thanks in return. Now she stares out the window as the dark night settles in. The lights of the city are in the distance. The white lines of road blink by beneath the headlights.
When I glance at her again, she catches my eye. “What is it?” she asks.
I shake my head and mumble, “Nothing.”
More silence passes between us.
Harper messes with the radio for a little while, but finds nothing good and turns it off. “So where is this place we’re going?”
“It’s somewhere downtown. I wrote the address down before I left.” I dig two fingers down into my pocket and pull out the piece of crumpled paper. I hand it to her and she silently reads it.
“I haven’t been to a show in a long time,” she says. “I hope they’re good.”
I shrug one shoulder. “I’ve never been to a show, so I don’t have high expectations.”
“Never?” Harper laughs and shakes her head. “That’s hard to believe.”
“I don’t get out much,” I say. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not.”
“But you also get out more than anyone,” she points out.
“It sounds like the making of a riddle.”
Harper laughs again, and I wish I could make her laugh more often. It feels like I’ve accomplished something when she laughs, even if it’s something small and unimportant.
When we pass through the city limits, I follow the signs for downtown. I can feel her eyes on me every few minutes. It’s not helping calm my heart.
She breaks the silence with, “Can I ask you something about that?”
“Yeah,” I glance over. “Of course.”
“You only mentioned places you’ve been to in the past,” she says. “So, does that mean that you don’t travel to the future at all?”
Whenever I start thinking of the future, it’s this uncertain blackness that scares me.
It scares me so much I try not to think of it.
I put on a smile and say, “Nope, it’s just the past.”
“Why do you think that is? Since you have the ability to time travel, don’t you think you could go backward and forward?”
“Well, it’s simple, really. I can’t travel to the future because it hasn’t happened yet.” I smile again when she gives me a confused look. “It’s not as complicated as you think it might be.”
The exit comes up and I pull off the freeway. The rain stops. The windshield wipers shriek in protest until I turn them off.
“But what about all those theories about different paradoxes and alternate timelines?” she asks. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll mess up the present with something you do in the past?”
“You really need to stop thinking like this is Doctor Who or Back to the Future,” I say. “Time travel is the simplest thing to understand if you take a moment and really think about it.” When I pull up to a stop light, I turn to her. “What’s the definition of past?”
“I feel like I’m in school.”
“Just humor me.”
She sighs. “The past is history. Time that has already happened.”
“And what about future?”
“Time that hasn’t happened yet.”
“Exactly.” I give her another smile as an answer.
The light turns green and I start looking for the street we need. Harper is still mulling over what I said. I haven’t been downtown much, but Libby always swears I have a GPS in my head, which is usually helpful when I only glance a map before going somewhere I’ve never been.
“So,” she starts again, “when you go to the past, you don’t mess anything up? I feel like I’m missing something.”
I find a parking space a block away from the address and cut the engine. I don’t think I’ve ever explained this to anyone before.
It’s oddly easy.
“Like you said, the past is history,” I tell her. “So, when I go back in time, everything I do has already happened. And if I try to change something, it won’t matter because it has already happened. Does that make sense? Let’s say at some point in the past I—I don’t know, meet one of the presidents. I haven’t yet, but if I’m going to, I’m going to.”
“Because you already have.”
“Yes.”
“So the past is actually your future,” she says.
I smile a little. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
She stares out the windshield, her eyes bright against the city lights. “You’re right. It is almost too simple.”
“I think people like to overcomplicate things.”
“Or maybe they’ve never met a real time-traveler.” Harper smiles, looking over. “I don’t think I’ll be able to watch another movie on the subject again. Have you ever met anyone else who could do what you do?”
“No, but I’ve always wondered. Maybe I have and just didn’t know it. It’s not like I have a sign on my back saying what I am.” I glance down the street, my stomach full of excitement and nerves. I couldn’t even eat dinner earlier. “We should get in there. Miles will break up with me if I don’t show.”
“What?”
I shake my head and open the door. “Nothing. Come on.” The weather is still on the warm side, enough to leave my sweatshirt in the car. Puddles of water dampen the sidewalks, but we walk side by side toward the old theater, which has been turned into a venue.
A guy stands outside, taking money from everyone trying to get indoors before the rain starts back up. Harper pulls out a couple ten-dollar bills before I have the chance to stop her.
“You don’t have to do that.”
She hands the guy some money and says, “I already have. What are you going to do now? Go back in time and stop me?”
I glance at the guy, but he’s already taking money from the people behind us. “Could you say it any louder? I don’t think the people behind us heard you.”
I open the door and Harper walks past me. “And if they did hear me?” she asks. “Do you really think they would take it seriously?”
“Maybe.” Even I’m not convincing myself. Or course they wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I go around announcing it to the world.
I follow in after her.
The smell of cigarette smoke and sweat clogs the air inside, causing my fingers to itch for one. The lighting is dim and hazy. Most of it comes from the spotlights on the stage, lighting up the tops of people’s heads. The place is packed. It’s noisy and loud, even though the band isn’t on stage yet.
I ask, “Do you see Miles an
ywhere?”
“No. I’m gonna go find the bathroom. If I don’t come back within five minutes—”
“Assume you’re dead and go on without you?”
“It’s too risky to come after me.” Harper shakes her head in mock sadness and walks away. I watch her disappear through the crowd and adjust my ball cap.
I feel out of place here. Something I should be used to.
I wade deeper into the moving mass. Some people brush by like I don’t exist. Others look then forget they ever saw me.
I skim faces, trying to find Miles or Grace. Hoping I won’t see anyone else from school.
The stage slowly comes closer. After going a little ways more, I see Miles with Grace at his side, talking to a guy with dark hair and glasses.
I start toward him. When he inclines his head to the side to talk to Grace, his eyes catch sight of me. He flashes a grin. “I almost didn’t think you’d show.”
“I almost didn’t either.”
He engulfs me in a hug—even though I just saw him a couple days ago—receiving a few stares in our direction because he still hasn’t let go. “I was hoping you’d come so I wouldn’t have to break up with you,” he says, his chin still on my shoulder.
I smile at Grace while she rolls her eyes. This is the Miles we know and love.
“Where’s Harper?” she asks. “You’d better have brought her, or I’m going to punch you in the face—”
“—Please don’t, I brought her.” I pat Miles on the back. “All right buddy, you can let go now.”
“Sorry,” he says, not sounding it at all. He steps away and motions to the guy behind me. “This is Blake. He’s the lead singer. Blake, this is Kale.”
I shake the guy’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. I didn’t know Miles was that—ah, fond of you.”
“Almost embarrassingly so,” I say.
Grace says, “For the both of us.”
“Hey now,” Miles warns me. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be friendless and at home.”
“Where I’d probably be better off.”
Whereas I can hold in my smile, Miles can’t.
Blake clears his throat once and says, “I’ve got to get ready, but I’ll see you guys after the show.”