The Night of Your Life

by Lydia Sharp

“No such thing as luck,” I remind her.

  “Figure of speech,” she volleys back, like I knew she would.

  As we step in, I flip the light switch and the room wakes up. I peek at Mrs. Ruano’s desk, hoping in her haste to get to the weekend, she didn’t just forget to lock the door, but also left her gradebook lying around? Suddenly the idea that I might never know what grade she gave us on our project makes my stomach churn. Or that could be the nasty chicken cordon bleu, but either way, we worked hard on Marty. He’s a piece of trash, but still. He’s an A-worthy piece of trash. But her gradebook isn’t there, and the drawers of her desk are locked.

  Lucy sets Marty on our table in the back like it’s a workstation, then goes to the actual workstations along the walls and starts collecting tools. Her enthusiasm tugs a smile out of me, but the effort of that one little action exhausts me. Everything exhausts me right now—because I’m exhausted.

  I climb up onto the blacktop table next to ours, the one where Carson Spires sits on the days he decides to actually show up for class, and lie across the length of it with the front side of me down, then cross my arms and rest my chin on my folded hands, watching Lucy work.

  “When Marty fritzed,” she says, unscrewing the main panel, “what did you see exactly?”

  “Blue sparks. Just like when your hairpin fell in. Vibrations, too. I think.”

  “Hmm …” She pops the panel off. “First thing I guess is finding that bobby.”

  My eyelids droop, sleep threatening to pull me under. What if I fall asleep and wake up in the next repeat, though? What if I blow my chance for Lucy to help me fix this? I force myself to stay awake, force myself to talk, my brain scrambling for a topic that feels worth the effort. It takes only a moment to find one. “I’ve been thinking,” I start.

  “Dangerous,” she teases.

  “Funny.” I toss her a smirk, then continue. “When you made your first wish the other night—last night for you—the wish on the falling star, about going back to see your mom before she left your family so you could convince her to stay and you could have a second chance …”

  She keeps working, but her movements slow. “What about it?”

  My groggy thoughts bump against one another, trying to form a single coherent one. “On night three, we were talking on the bluffs, and you reminded me you didn’t really believe the wish would come true, anyway. So. If we can get Marty to stop glitching and fritzing and work the way he’s supposed to, do you want to give it a try? See if we can make your wish come true? Not as a granted wish, I mean, but through science?”

  Now she stops, staring down at the device, her hands frozen in place and her chest rising and dropping slightly faster than it was a minute ago. “Was that all I told you on the bluffs?”

  No. Not even close. You spilled three and a half years’ worth of secrets and then we shared a kiss I really wouldn’t mind experiencing again.

  “Was there something else you’d planned to tell me?” I ask innocently.

  Just say it. Just ask me and I’ll tell you YES all over again. But only if you say it.

  “Nothing, no.” She goes back to tinkering.

  I guess in this version we stay platonic friends, nothing else. And I need to remind myself that isn’t a bad thing. “So do you want to try?”

  “To go back in time and change the past?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe.” Her lip twibbles. “Do you?”

  “There are plenty of things about my past I wish happened differently, sure.” But that isn’t why I wanted Marty to work. It was for something weirdly reminiscent of what’s actually happening. To be able to go back in time, after Lucy moved to Italy, and spend a day with her whenever I wanted. So it would be like she never left.

  “But I don’t know,” I mumble through a yawn. “I think I’m better at winging my way through life. I’d probably just screw it up worse on the second try.”

  She nods, her smile cunning. “True.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I laugh, and it devolves into a monster yawn that pops my jaw and leaves me light-headed. My eyelids flutter. Then close. Then …

  “JJ?” Lucy’s voice breaks into a fuzzy dream I already can’t remember. She shakes my arm. “Hey … wake up.”

  I rub my eyes and sit up on the table, groaning at the ache in my neck, then blink a few times and run a hand through my hair. Lucy hands me my glasses, which must have fallen off. It’s too bright in here. My eyes take a minute to adjust. “How long was I asleep?”

  “Long enough for me to fix Marty.”

  Just like that, I’m alert. “You fixed him?”

  “Yeah, it was easy once I got the bobby out and uncrossed the wires, then replaced the—” She presses her lips together and looks down, like she’s embarrassed for getting into the details. Or maybe she remembered we might be short on time. “I mean, I can’t know for sure it’ll work.”

  I hop down off the table, glancing at the clock on the wall. It’s after ten. Prom is almost over, but if we’re still in the science lab with Marty, then we’re still on night five. Nothing reset. “You think it’s safe to test him now?”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe, but I think we should try. Before it gets any later. I didn’t want to wake you up, though, you were so tired …”

  “I’m glad you did. It would have been a waste to get this far only to sleep my way into the next repeat. And no offense, Lucy, but I don’t want to have to convince you about this all over again. Once was hard enough.”

  Her mouth twists. “Well, you might still have to.”

  “If that picture of us doesn’t glitch into the next night, I don’t know how I will.”

  “Just be patient with me,” she says. “I know I can be … difficult.”

  “We both can. It’s kind of our thing.” I offer a smile like it’s an olive branch.

  She takes it, offers an apologetic smile of her own, then picks up Marty, and we head out the door. In the quiet hallway, sounds of prom echo faintly past us, drifting like ghosts. Thumping beats, pops of laughter and cheers, all the stuff I’m missing that I can’t remember why it mattered so much. I expected this to be one night of fun. The night of fun. The night of my life. But no matter how amazing it might have been, it would only be here for a few hours, then gone forever. Time never stops, even when it’s stuck in a loop.

  A strange sense of grief washes over me as we pass our lockers, which will belong to other students in the new school year, an endless cycle of beginnings and endings within these walls, and I’m not sure what exactly I’m mourning. My prom? My childhood? The planned night Lucy and I were supposed to have and never will?

  Is what we got instead better, though? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know anymore. Every night has been a clash of expectations and surprises, a mix of good and bad.

  My chest tenses and my gut flutters with nerves. I’m either going to fix everything now or fail more spectacularly than ever before. That’s how the universe seems to be operating lately. One extreme or the other; nothing on the spectrum in between.

  We push out the main entrance of Beaver Creek High, into the cool night air and the darkened parking lot, heading toward the football field. It’s the only space wide open enough to safely test Marty. There’s nothing explosive inside, but going by our history with him, Lucy isn’t entirely confident he won’t explode.

  I’m inclined to think he very likely won’t, that the sparks were just from the metal hairpin reacting to the electrical charge. The chances of an explosion, even a small one, are slim to none. But this is a classic case of Lucy being Lucy. Overly cautious and overprepared, always.

  Weaving through the parking lot full of cars, I catch a flash of sparkling white in my side vision, then whip my head toward it.

  Jenna.

  Strike that. Jenna and Blair.

  They’re standing beside his behemoth truck, Jenna with her brows furrowed and arms crossed, Blair’s jacket draped over her shoulders and a fake tiara on
her head. His cheek is still red from Jenna’s smack, and he gestures as he talks, his face almost contorted like he’s in pain. Pleading? This is the talk I prevented them from having on several nights. And maybe the talk they did have on night one, before Lucy’s crash. Before I found Blair consoling Jenna at the hospital.

  I’ll never know if it was Jenna’s worry over Lucy that brought them back together that night or the fact that they talked and worked it out. Or both. I should have taken Jenna’s advice from the start—sometimes the solution to your problem is to take yourself out of the equation.

  Jenna and Blair are not part of my equation. Or vice versa. I should have never been involved.

  I don’t realize I’ve stopped to stare until Lucy turns ahead of me, raising her voice to cover the distance between us. “Hey, what’s the holdup?” She still doesn’t see them. But they definitely heard her.

  Jenna and Blair turn toward us slowly. Blair’s face goes from supplicating to aggravated in less than half a second.

  “JJ.” Jenna flashes a tight grin. “Hi. Uh. What are you doing out here?”

  In a brilliant stroke of genius, I say, “Nothing. What are you doing out here?”

  “None of your business,” Blair says, not angrily but with a terse edge, like he just wants me to go away. And I can’t be annoyed with his brush-off, because that much I understand. This really is none of my business. Nothing about their relationship has ever been any of my business.

  “Actually, never mind, I can see what you’re, uh, doing,” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to see it, but I did. I’m … sorry for interrupting.” And I’m very confused. Why would she consider taking him back? Or even listening to him right now?

  Whatever. Why do I still care? Jenna can do what she wants, and apparently she is.

  I turn away from them and head toward Lucy. But then Jenna says, “Wait,” and her heels clack across the asphalt. When I turn again, she’s right by me.

  “What, Jenna?” I don’t mean to sound so clipped, but she’s got me stumped. I feel like I don’t even know her anymore. Did I ever?

  “I just want to explain,” she says in a hushed whisper. Blair is a few feet from us on one side, and Lucy is a few feet from us on another side. I guess she doesn’t want either one of them to hear this. “I know this probably looks bad, after everything we talked about yesterday, and everything that happened tonight, and with the crowning and … well, I’m sure you saw. But then he—he talked to me, the way he used to. He apologized. He said he couldn’t stand to see me hurt anymore because of him. He told me the real reason he pushed me away, and it wasn’t right, I know that, and I’m not getting back together with him. But I don’t want the last things we ever said or did to each other to be …” She sighs sharply. “He’s not a bad person, JJ. He just didn’t know what to do, and he made the wrong choice. Don’t we all sometimes?”

  I nod. Who am I to say someone doesn’t deserve kindness after making a huge mistake? Isn’t that basically the definition of my relationship with Lucy? One epic failure to the next, for years. And she’s still putting up with me.

  Until she didn’t, said she couldn’t anymore.

  That’s way in the past now, a past that doesn’t really exist, a slate wiped clean by this loop. Except it’s still in my memory, even if no one else remembers, stuck there like smoke, the acrid scent clinging to everything on me. My clothes, my hair, my nostrils. Every breath I take, it’s all I can smell. I’m no good for you, JJ. We’re no good for each other.

  I shake it off. Just for a moment.

  “He doesn’t deserve you, Jenna,” I tell her honestly. “But I hope everything works out, for your sake.”

  “Thank you.” She smiles and then walks back to Blair, says something to him I can’t hear. He opens his truck door for her and helps her up into the passenger seat. As I catch up to Lucy, I hear the engine rumble and then get quieter and quieter until it disappears.

  “What was that all about?” Lucy says, heading for the football field again.

  Instead of answering her, I ask, “Why are we friends?”

  That stops her just short of the entrance to the field. She looks up at me in the dark, the moonlight reflecting in her big brown eyes. “What kind of a question is that all the sudden?”

  “I just … I don’t know what you see in me. What makes me worth all the stress I cause?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “What stress? You think you stress me out? Where is this coming from?”

  “On the first version of tonight, you told me we stress each other out too much. You said—”

  “Stop, JJ. Whatever I said, I was wrong. I was probably just … mad, or something. We both know my temper isn’t the best sometimes.”

  I shoot her an “oh, really?” look.

  “Okay, more than sometimes. But that isn’t the point. Listen to me.” She sets Marty down on the ground and takes my face in her hands, tilting my head downward, forcing me to look right into her eyes. “You don’t stress me out. You’re an outlet for my stress. You help me channel it away, even when it’s at its worst.”

  “I know.” What she’s saying is logical, but based on other things she’s said, on other versions of tonight—from other versions of herself—it makes no sense.

  “Do you, though?” she presses. “Do you really understand how much that means to me?”

  “Yes. I do. Lucy, you told me.” My chest heaves as I try to take in a full breath, but I feel like I’m one lung short. “You told me everything.”

  She blinks rapidly, my response throwing her off, her expression turning uncertain. “What are you … talking about?”

  “I mean you told me everything you’d been holding back. You told me why you stopped dating people after Macy Morris dumped you. You told me you’ve wanted to be with me, as something other than friends, since we met at that party. You told me you planned out this whole prom night so we could be together, from picking out that dress to having our own private after-prom under the stars and everything in between.”

  Her eyes close, her face pinches, and she turns away. Drops her hands from me.

  “But I don’t get it,” I say. “Because on the first night, you—” What are you doing, JJ?

  Her eyes snap open, and she locks them onto me, razor sharp. “I what?”

  I’ve said this much. I might as well keep going. “You ended our friendship. I screwed up bad that night and you said that’s it, no more chances. You said you needed time and distance from me, possibly forever. You said we’re no good for each other. It was you then, the same as it’s you now. So why was I worth forgiving for all those years and then suddenly not? Why was I ever worth forgiving at all?”

  “JJ, I don’t know why I did what I did before.” The crushed tone of her voice cracks my heart wide open. “All I know is I wouldn’t do that right now. I can’t even imagine doing it.”

  I want to believe her, but, “You still haven’t told me why. Why wouldn’t you now?”

  “I …” She bites her trembling lip and releases a shaky breath. “It’s just a feeling. There’s no logic to it whatsoever. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Can you try? Please,” I whisper.

  Her hands fidget before she clenches them tight and then opens them again, shaking them out. “When I’m with you, everything is light, even if it’s heavy. When I’m with you, my own darkness isn’t scary. When I’m with you, I don’t feel flawed, even though I am. Very, very flawed. And it’s really hard for me to say that out loud, to admit that I make a lot of mistakes, when I demand perfection from myself and everyone around me. But when I’m with you, I feel … flawless.”

  The crack in my heart starts to stitch itself back up. “Even when we argue?”

  “Even when we argue.” She laughs softly. “I told you it wasn’t logical. But you know …” Her expression turns dour. “I’ve wondered the same thing. My temper, my perfectionism, my tendency to argue—those are the top three rea
sons people break up with me. So why are you still friends with me, with everything I put you through? The nitpicking, the unrealistic expectations, the constant worry. How can you stand me?”

  For a moment I just stare at her, absorb the way she looks in this moment, with the breeze ruffling her galaxy dress, making the stars on it flicker in waves. And her hair cascading over her shoulders in loose dark curls that gleam red in the moonlight. The way her deep brown eyes shine briefly when a meteor flashes across the sky. We’re missing the Eta Aquarids tonight, but we’re gaining something much more magical.

  The truth.

  And some of it is ugly. But she’s been completely honest with me, so I owe her the same.

  “Lucy …” I step closer to her, rest my hands on her shoulders, then let them fall slowly down her bare arms. By the time I reach her hands, goose bumps have prickled across her exposed skin and she shivers. I remove my jacket and give it to her, without a word. She takes it and puts it on, without a word. “Here’s the thing. You do stress me out, because I worry about you all the time. But I worry because I care, and I care because …” I hesitate, then let out a nervous laugh. “It isn’t logical.”

  “That seems to be the theme of the night, so go ahead. Just tell me.”

  “Okay.” Deep breath in. Out. Again. “When I try to imagine a world without you in it, I can’t. When I try to remember my life before I met you, it’s like it didn’t exist. I didn’t exist, and so when I met you, it was like … um … when a star forms. Things came together at just the right time in just the right way, to create something from nothing. Lucy, my … my biggest fear? Is losing you. Then a few nights ago, my worst nightmare came true. I lost you—not because you were taken away from me. But because you chose to push me away. And almost every night since, I’ve lost you again, just in different ways. I don’t know how to stop this from happening over and over and over.”

  Lucy squeezes my hands and I notice they’re trembling. “Why would I … Why was I so upset at you?”

  “The why isn’t important now.” Not important enough to upset her all over again. “Ever since then, I’ve been stuck in this time loop that shouldn’t be possible, and I’m starting to wonder if any of it is even real. That maybe my brain is tricking me into believing we’ll be together in this loop forever, reliving a night where we always start out as friends, because it’s trying to protect me from the truth—that I don’t actually have you as a friend anymore. So it’s made up this imaginary place for me to exist, because I don’t actually exist without you.”