The Night of Your Life

by Lydia Sharp

  Yeah, we definitely have to pick up Jenna.

  But to Lucy, I say, “You’re right, I forgot.”

  I pull into the nearest driveway and turn us around.

  “If you’ve lived this three times before, why did you forget? You should be running on autopilot.”

  Because this is me we’re talking about. I excel at forgetting things and/or screwing them up. But in my defense, “Every night, something slightly different has happened. I’ve never been to Jenna’s house. She got a ride from Autumn Mitchell the other nights, in a limo. You rode in it, too, the first night.”

  Lucy looks out the window at the passing trees. “Because you were running later than you thought you were? Like usual? Because you’re terrible at keeping track of time?”

  “Yes.” The problem wasn’t just me, but I’m not about to tell her all the sordid details. Instead I go with: “You know me too well.”

  “I do.” In my side vision, I see her turn away from the window. “You weren’t that late tonight, though.”

  I flick her a quick glance and a smile, then put my eyes back on the road. “I know how important punctuality is to you. It took me a few tries, but I figured out how to get here quick.”

  She reaches over and takes my right hand off the steering wheel, holds it tightly in hers. “There’s hope for us yet.”

  Maybe it was a slip, but I caught it. She said us.

  Jenna lives in the same upper-crust development that Melody does, even on the same street. It didn’t register the other night when I dropped Melody off, because Jenna’s address wasn’t on my mind. And I never thought of Jenna as upper-crust, to be honest. She’s so down-to-earth I always assumed she was on the same crust level as me and Lucy. Not lower-crust. We’re like in the middle of the middle-crust. We have everything we need, but not everything we want.

  Jenna and Melody and anyone else in this neighborhood could have whatever they want.

  Lucy insisted on waiting in the car, so I step up to the house—mansion?—alone and ring the doorbell, wondering why Jenna goes to Beaver Creek High, an average public school that no one outside of this county has ever heard of, when she could go to a place like Whitman Academy that’s won presidential awards for educational excellence, or whatever their claim to fame. She’s definitely smart enough to and apparently also rich enough.

  Some middle-aged guy answers the door in a crisp button-down shirt and trousers … with a crease. I’m suddenly very aware my tux is incomplete—no tie—because this has to be her dad, and what is he expecting from the person picking up his daughter tonight? Someone of the same crust, at least. Someone who wears a tux with a bow tie.

  Or someone British, like her ex-boyfriend, because Americans are good at assuming all Brits are refined. If only he knew the real Blair Bedford.

  “You must be JJ,” he says, extending a hand.

  The strength of my handshake reveals my plummeting confidence. “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. D is fine. No need for that ‘sir’ business.” His gaze drops to my hands as I release my weak grip, and he frowns. “Where’s the corsage?”

  “Oh, this was really last-minute. I didn’t have time to—”

  “It’s fine, JJ,” Jenna says, stepping up from behind him, her white dress sparkling with every step as her heels clack against the polished hardwood flooring. “Don’t let him scare you.”

  “Hey, I’m not scary.” Mr. D turns toward her with a smile and kisses her cheek. “You look beautiful, sweet pea. What time do you think you’ll be back?”

  Jenna looks to me for an answer, shocking me into a moment of silence. She made it pretty clear on night three she didn’t want anything other than a night of fun at prom. But then she kissed me on night four … Either way, there’s no after-prom for us. There’s no anything for us. And especially not tonight—I’m planning on bailing not long after we get there. Even if I wasn’t, there are no guarantees on anything. I’ve learned that much, at least.

  “Uh … I don’t know,” I stammer. “It depends. You never know what might happen.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr. D’s frown deepens and his brows draw together. He crosses his arms. I know a Dad Look when I see it. Not that different from a Mom Look. “Jenna said the two of you are friends, correct?”

  “Yes!” Jenna and I say in unison. “Bye, Daddy,” she adds, ushering me out the door. “Don’t wait up.”

  Walking to the car, I tell her, “You look nice.” My voice sounds stiff, though, like I didn’t really mean what I said, and Jenna pauses, cocking her head slightly. I meant it, she’s as pretty as always, but …

  Can she feel it? Is it noticeable that I’m not interested in her the same way I was before? Now we’re just two people who know each other from school and can get along, offer genuine compliments, even help each other out if needed, but that’s it.

  “Thanks,” she says, shaking it off. “You, too.” Then she sees Lucy sitting in the front seat of my car and stops short. “I guess I’m sitting in the back?”

  “Is that okay? Lucy gets carsick if she’s not up front.”

  Jenna smiles big, overly cheerful. “Of course that’s okay!”

  That’s overcompensation. She’s already regretting this. If the night repeats again—and I’m doing everything to make sure it doesn’t—I won’t pick her up again. She can have the limo. I’ll just have to make sure she gets to prom first, or I get there second. Whichever.

  I open the rear passenger door and it takes her a minute to get settled inside, as if she’s forgotten how to sit. Once I’m inside, too, and turning the ignition, I pop a glance to the rearview mirror. Jenna’s looking around her like the walls of my car might eat her.

  “This is … cozy.” She nods and beams another super smile.

  “Would you have preferred something fancier? More spacious?” Lucy says, with what I call her “red flag” tone. She’s not angry yet, but all it will take is Jenna making one more veiled insult about something she holds dear. In this case, my car. Which she also considers her car. She goes on, “I heard Autumn Mitchell got a limo. I bet she’d be willing to pick you up. You have her number, right? Aren’t you guys friends kind of?”

  Oops … I forgot I told her about that.

  “Kind of, yeah,” Jenna says, her Barbie-like grin still plastered in place. “But we only know each other casually, like, we’re friends with the same people? We aren’t really that close. I wouldn’t want to impose. This is fine. It smells nice! Like Chanel. Is that what you wear, Lucy?”

  Melody’s perfume. It’s back. This is worse than the limo comment. I fumble with my seat belt a few times before clicking it into place.

  “No …” Lucy locks a hard stare onto me, the facial equivalent of her “red flag” tone, then turns her head to look at Jenna. “I don’t wear perfume. I thought that was yours.”

  Before Jenna can reply with the obvious question—if it’s not my perfume and it’s not Lucy’s, then who else was in here, JJ?—I throw the car into drive, tires squealing, and they both let out a little gasp as the sudden forward thrust presses them back into their seats. “Sorry,” I say. “My foot slipped.” Change the subject. “So, Jenna, I’ve been meaning to ask … why didn’t you go to Whitman Academy? Don’t they have a writing program there?”

  She takes the bait and starts word-vomiting a response.

  I’ve tuned her out, though, and press the gas pedal down farther when we hit an open stretch of road. The faster we get to prom, the faster Lucy and I can slip away from it and fix the original glitch that started this whole thing—our broken science project.

  “That was the worst chicken cordon bleu I’ve ever had,” Lucy says, and pushes her plate away.

  “It’s the only chicken cordon bleu you’ve ever had,” I remind her, and push my plate away, too, then down the last of my third cup of coffee. “And I knew it would be bad. You know what we should have done? Stopped at Taco Bell on the way here.”

  “Yes,
we should have.” Lucy laughs. “That sounds so much better. We don’t need this pretentious poultry. If this night repeats again, you have my permission to take me to Taco Bell.”

  The music has started up, covering our conversation with a deep, thumping beat, and Chaz and Marcos have left us already. Now that Lucy’s had some time to digest the idea of the time loop, she won’t stop talking about it. And this is good. I need the wheels in her head turning at top speed if we’re going to figure out how to stop it.

  “On the second night, I almost did take you to Taco Bell.” I think back. It was after we dropped off Melody and Lucy wasn’t cool with the idea of poaching. It was late. We were both really hungry. Then she said, I can be spontaneous, too.

  Sure she can. That’s why she planned out what would happen on prom night a year ahead of time.

  “So why didn’t you?” She takes a sip of water.

  We ate at someone else’s prom, someone you might never meet again. I got punched. You almost died. “The night stopped,” I say instead. “I jumped to the next repeat.”

  She thinks on this. “Same time every night?”

  Huh. Now I’m the one taking a moment to think. “No, actually. See? This is why I need you to help me. I hadn’t realized until now it was a different time each night.”

  “It isn’t a set loop, then. If there’s no order to it, it’s a chaos loop. And if it’s a chaos loop, you’re screwed. And if you’re screwed, we’re all screwed. You won’t be able to predict everything that happens from one repeat to the next.”

  “Yeah. I’m already seeing that.”

  “Something really bad could happen and you wouldn’t be able to stop it, because you won’t know it’s coming.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m trying to prevent.” Among other things, like having to watch our relationship ping-pong between friends and not-friends and something-other-than-friends.

  “If someone died one of these nights, do you think they would come back to life when it resets?” Her jaw drops a little. “Has that already happened? Did someone—”

  “No,” I assure her. Although I don’t know for sure if she got hit by that car on night two and came back okay the next night, or if the loop reset right before impact.

  I force my thoughts onto what I do know. “There are also these weird glitches that keep popping up.”

  “Glitches?” Lucy straightens and leans closer to me. “Like déjà vu in The Matrix?”

  “Kind of, yes. Little repeats that jump from one night to the next, while everything else resets.” I let out a yawn so wide my eyes water. This coffee isn’t strong enough to fight four sleepless nights. “So like, on night one, for example, I had worn my contacts, and by the end of the night, my eyes were burning, right? And then—”

  “That always happens,” she interrupts. “I don’t know why you bother wearing them. Anyway, what happened with this glitch?”

  “Wait, wait, back up a sec. Lucy, I wear contacts on special occasions because you told me I look better without my glasses. Am I wrong for wanting to look good?”

  “No. I …” She leans back in her chair and focuses on her hands in her lap. “I didn’t know what I’d said had that effect on you.”

  “You’re my best friend. I value your opinion more than anyone’s.”

  She looks up at me. “But you made yourself endure physical discomfort because of an opinion I should have just kept to myself. I don’t even remember why I said it, because I think you look good with glasses, too. You always—” She clamps her mouth shut.

  “I always what?” Bring out the worst in her? Make her say stuff she doesn’t mean?

  “You always look good, JJ. That’s what I should have said.”

  This shouldn’t shock me into silence, after all she told me on night three, but it does, and I just stare back at her, still processing the fact that she really does like me like that.

  Twibble.

  It’s not time for this yet. We’ll get there eventually. Be patient.

  I look around for something to help me change the subject, get us back to talking about the time loop, and I catch Jenna stepping off the dance floor as the music slows. This time, instead of with me, she danced with Trevor Pickett on the most recent fast song, one of her friends from the school paper staff. He maneuvers his wheelchair up to his girlfriend for the slow song, and my gaze follows Jenna all the way to the drink buffet, where her friends crowd around her. On the other night, they kept glancing at me, but tonight they have no reason to, because I haven’t done a thing with Jenna since we got here, good or bad. And she doesn’t seem to care either way.

  “What’s going on with you and her?” Lucy says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  Sigh. “Absolutely nothing. I thought I needed to help her get through tonight, but she’s fine. She’s been fine every night”—almost—“no matter what happens.”

  Lucy nods. “That’s very typical of you.”

  “What is?”

  “You have good intentions. You just don’t always know how to use them. It’s not a problem, though, not for me anyway.”

  We’re too opposite. And it only creates problems.

  My head spins. This is definitely a chaos loop—and Lucy’s part of the chaos. Every night, she has been something different. Always herself, but a different version of herself. She’s usually predictable, but ever since this loop started, she’s done nothing but surprise me.

  “Look at those two,” Lucy says, and I follow her gaze to Chaz and Marcos making out on the dance floor. “They’re so in love they’re completely oblivious to the rest of the world.”

  I remember this.

  “Not as oblivious as they seem. Keep watching.” I lean closer to her so I can keep my voice down. “Carson Spires and Mia Howard are going to pass them soon and make faces at them. Then Blair Bedford and Farah Justice are going to pass and Farah’s going to say something we won’t be able to hear. Then Chaz and Marcos both flip her off.”

  Lucy laughs but keeps watching. It all plays out exactly how I said it would.

  “Why are you the only one who remembers everything?” she says.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because Marty was right next to me in my room when he fritzed?”

  “Yeah …” Lucy nods slowly. “That has to be it.” She doesn’t sound convinced, though. “We should go work on it now.”

  “Hang on, this is when—”

  Our song starts playing. I stand and offer my hand to Lucy, but she won’t take it. She’s never refused this song before, not once in the last three and a half years. Last night this song even prompted her to search for me. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “What if we run out of time? We don’t know when this version of tonight will stop.”

  “One dance, Lucy. Then we can go save the world. Promise.”

  Still, she protests. “You already had this dance, why do you need it again?”

  A million reasons, but I settle on: “It’s not just for me. It’s for you, for both of us. This is our song, and we will dance to it at our prom every time we’re here together. I’ll make sure you get this dance every night for the rest of my life if I have to, if this loop goes on that long, and it’ll be the best part of our prom every time.”

  Her cheeks redden. “Fine, be that way.” She takes my hand and we step out, then settle into each other on the dance floor, surrounded by swirling colors and blending sounds. It’s different this time. She’s distant, not holding me as closely or watching me as intently. She’s got too many other things on her mind.

  We can’t end this dance the same way as before, with her so overwhelmed she has to get away. So instead of just swaying with her to the music and enjoying the feel of her—definitely doing that, but also—I talk. A lot. I talk all the way through the song to keep her thoughts off everything she’s worrying about.

  It’s not just empty talk, though, not for us. I tell her jokes she’s heard a hundred times before but that I know she’ll lau
gh at. That’s how we started, strangers at a party freshman year, making a comment about this song and then talking all night about stuff that only we understood, telling jokes that only we found funny.

  “Are you cold?” I say. “We could go sit in the corner, it’s always ninety degrees.”

  She rolls her eyes, but I count it a win. If she was truly annoyed, she’d do worse.

  And when the jokes have run dry, I sing along to our song in the whiniest lovesick voice I can muster. Now, when it ends, she’s smiling big and throwing her head back with her throaty, snorting belly laugh that I love.

  It worked. I have to remember this for next time, if there is a next time.

  There’d better not be a next time.

  Lucy tugs me off the dance floor, still smiling. “We’re going now. You promised.”

  “Okay, okay, let me just send Marcos a text so he and Chaz don’t wonder where we are.” I pull out my cell phone as we’re walking and bring up my contact list. Right under Marcos’s name is Melody’s.

  Another glitch. I didn’t meet her, let alone get her phone number tonight. But it’s an opportunity to make sure she’s okay that I can’t pass up.

  Me: Do you have a sec to talk?

  Please answer please answer please answer please—

  Melody: Who is this?

  Relief floods me so strongly I get light-headed and my knees weaken. We reach our table and I steady myself against a chair. Melody is okay. Jenna is okay. Lucy is okay. We’re all okay.

  Me: Sorry wrong number

  “All set?” Lucy says. Her eyes are shining and her lips don’t twibble. She’s got a vibrant energy about her, determined to solve this impossible thing, whatever it takes.

  “Yes, everything is perfect.” It’s the perfect night to end on.

  “Perfect,” Lucy says, opening the door to our physics classroom. “It isn’t locked. Luck must be on your side tonight.”