by Lydia Sharp
God. I sound like Melody. What if she was right all along? Time only exists in our heads. What if all of this is just in my head? If that’s the case, then this crude time-travel device won’t do anything to stop it. So I have to believe it’s real, and that Marty will work, because what’s the alternative? A whole lot of nothing.
Lucy inches closer, wrapping her arms around my torso and squeezing. “This is real,” she says, craning her neck to look up at me.
“How can you say that for sure?”
“Because I know I’m real. If I wasn’t, I couldn’t do this.” She pushes up on her toes and curls one hand behind my neck, and her lips meet mine.
For her, this is our first kiss. For me, it’s our second, and it came about in a completely different way, but it affects me just as strongly. Within seconds, I’m struggling to breathe evenly. I’m savoring the taste of her lipstick and getting drunk on the smell of her shampoo. I’m holding her tighter and tighter because, even smashed against each other, we aren’t close enough.
I could kiss her a million times and this feeling would never get old, this feeling like my whole body and mind have been shot like a rocket into the sweetest oblivion.
When she finally breaks away and we both gulp for air, she lays her head on my chest then says, “Mio cuore, mia anima, mia vita.” My heart, my soul, my life.
“Ti amo, Lucilla.” I love you. “I realize now … I think I’ve loved you for a long time. I just didn’t recognize that’s what it was until you … you made me see it.”
She looks up at me, and I think she’s going to kiss me again, but then her brows dart toward each other and form a deep wrinkle. “Your eye … You look like you just got punched.”
I touch my finger to it and wince. It’s swollen and tender, throbbing. “I did get punched—a couple of nights ago. It’s a glitch.”
“And it’s bleeding.” She kicks off her heels so she’s barefoot, bends over and picks up Marty, then trots onto the football field, shouting over her shoulder at me. “We’ve got to stop this. Now.”
I follow her across the grass that’s still soft from yesterday’s rain, and my phone chimes with a new text. I’m honest-to-God afraid to look at it after just getting my black eye glitch, but curiosity wins. It’s from Chaz. I tap it open and find a picture of me and Lucy on the dance floor at prom—my mouth open like I’m yodeling and Lucy’s head bent back the way she does when she’s belly-laughing. That was from tonight, but I don’t remember Chaz snapping a picture of us. Maybe he did and we didn’t notice? Or maybe he didn’t and it just appeared on its own …
Either way, this chaos loop is getting tangled out of control, and our best chance at preventing something catastrophic is in a fickle science project with improvised wiring.
A string of new texts from Chaz appears right after the picture.
Where are you? Prom’s almost over and I lost Lucy
Found her. GET HERE
She’s convinced you’re dead. Are you?
PICK UP YOUR PHONE
That was when Lucy passed out on night one. She isn’t with Chaz now; she’s with me and she’s fine. Just another glitch, but it still got my heart pounding, like post-traumatic stress that’s been triggered. I never want to see those texts again. If this works, I won’t have to.
Lucy sets Marty in the very center of the field, on the fifty-yard line, right over the beaver’s head painted in the grass. “All right,” she says. “You ready?”
I pocket my phone. “No.”
“Me neither.”
She flips the switch, and Marty whirs to life, then she grabs my hand and we take off running toward the goal posts like we’re going for a game-winning touchdown. Maybe if we run fast enough, we can fly right off the earth, ride a comet to the stars, and live the rest of our days on the moon, just the two of us.
Forty yards.
I glance at Lucy. She’s breathing hard but smiling, like a child running through a sprinkler in summer, her gaze focused straight ahead. She doesn’t see me see her.
Thirty yards.
I glance up, almost losing my balance and tripping. Meteors flash around us, several of them all falling at once, like dripping fireworks. It’s unreal. This can’t be real. I lift my free hand toward the sky, as if I could catch them in my palm.
Twenty yards.
A small, dark figure moves in my side vision, the side Lucy isn’t on. I whip my head toward it but see nothing in the shadow of the bleachers.
Ten yards.
Nothing has happened. Something should have happened by now.
Beaver Creek.
We reach the end zone and drop. Crouch and turn, waiting.
And waiting.
And wait—
KABOOM!
Marty … just went supernova. In a glorious explosion that shouldn’t have been possible—there was nothing inside him that could make such a magnificent fireball. Yet there it is. We stare at each other, her wide eyes and dropped jaw mimicking mine, then look back at the smoking remnants of our only hope.
That was our only hope.
“What now?” Lucy says.
“I don’t—” All rational thought disappears when a groundhog totters out onto the field.
“Is that a woodchuck? Oh no, it’s going toward the fire. Get away from that!” Lucy hops up and starts making noise, waving her arms and moving toward it, trying to get the thing to run off scared. But it doesn’t.
The groundhog looks right at me, then at the dwindling blue flames and growing billows of smoke, then back at me, and actually shakes its head. As if to say, Silly boy, did you really think that would work?
“Fine,” I say, throwing my hands up. “You win. Game over now. Please just stop.”
Lucy has drifted several yards away in her attempts to save the devil from its own hell, and then suddenly she leans over like she’s catching her breath after a hard run. We did run, but she was fine a minute ago.
“JJ? I can’t—” She sucks in air, loudly and distorted, like her lungs just stopped working.
Because they probably did, for no reason at all. Lucy’s glitching.
Panic seizes me, gauging how large the gap is between us. I can’t lose her again. What if I don’t get her back next time? Or ever? I can’t lose her.
“Hang on!” I shout, jumping to my feet and sprinting toward her.
Lucy swivels to face me, her expression riddled with confusion, clutching her chest, and then she drops to her knees.
How am I going to get her back after this?
I still don’t know, but I have to try. “I’m coming!”
Absolute terror fills her eyes. She outstretches one arm, reaching for me as I run closer, her other hand planted in the grass for support. Her fingertips brush mine and I squeeze.
But I squeeze nothing but air. See nothing but black. Hear nothing but my ragged breaths and pounding heart. Feel nothing but cold emptiness, inside and out.
The blinding white behind my eyes doesn’t faze me this time, though it takes a second to regain my balance after running, then floating, to now standing still. I stare at my reflection in my bedroom mirror, still breathing hard, my limbs still buzzing with adrenaline, Lucy’s name caught in my throat. The unfastened bow tie hangs loose in my hand. The black eye is gone. My contacts are in, no glasses. No taco stain on my shirt.
Everything reset, but something feels off. Something isn’t happening that should be.
As soon as I think it, my memory fills in the gap. No blue sparks in my side vision.
Marty should be fritzing, but he isn’t there. At all. His explosion on night five made him unable to reset on night six, tonight. Six nights of this … not even a week and I’m spent.
How many more repeats? Infinite? If this is immortality, I don’t want it. Let me just die.
But Lucy …
I check the texts on my phone. Everything from prom night has been wiped, except:
Lucy: Where are you?
Me: Leav
ing soon
I don’t know what to do anymore. I just want this to end.
“Knock, knock,” Mom says on the other side of my door. “Are you decent?”
“Yes, come in.” I fasten my bow tie as Mom enters the room and her reflection approaches mine in the mirror.
“You’re a pro at that,” she says. “I thought I might have to help you with it.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
“Good! You look so sharp.” Her blue-gray eyes study me from beneath her side-swept bangs. “You feeling all right?”
No. “Yes. Why?”
“I don’t know, you seem … too somber for prom night. Like you’re going to a funeral. Is everything okay between you and Lucy?”
Not at all. “Everything’s great. Why would you think it has to do with Lucy?”
She doesn’t get a chance to reply, because Shayla comes blazing into the room. “Look at you all fancy!” she squeals, and this sad sort of choked laugh escapes me. I love my baby sister so much, and I haven’t seen her enough. I miss this little human tornado. “Dance with me, JJ.”
She grabs my hands and starts doing her jump-skip-fairy-sprite-forest-dance thing, humming the song she probably just made up, while I stand in place, twirling her around me a few times, then sweep her up into my arms, and she begs me to toss her onto my bed. I do as I’m told, and this is way more fun than going to prom.
This is also going to make me late.
Unless … I don’t go to prom this time.
As soon as the thought hits me, I’ve decided that’s what I need to do tonight. Or rather, not do. And I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner. I can avoid every mess that happens at prom by just avoiding prom altogether.
“Can I wear a tux to my prom, too?” Shayla is saying as she drags herself—and my blankets—across my bed. “But a pink one? With roses embroidered on the sleeves? And sequined high heels? And a giant rose corsage on my wrist?”
“Of course you can,” Mama says, entering the room. It’s been a few nights since this happened, but I remember it and I’m ready. “You can do whatever you want, baby girl.” Shayla jumps off the bed, shouts in victory, then runs off down the hall and thunders down the stairs.
As expected, Mama whips out her phone. “Can I get a few pictures before you leave?”
“Yes!” I say excitedly, shocking both my parents into wide-eyed looks. “Take all the pictures you want.” I immediately strike a pose, and she laughs and gets to work.
“Look at him, Danni, our little boy is all grown up.” Mom’s voice cracks like she’s about to cry. She thinks I’m all grown up? Yeah, right. Would a mature adult get himself trapped in a time loop on prom night? A chaos loop, at that.
Chaos personified.
“Mom, I’m still your little boy tonight. Come ’ere.” I pull her up against me and we take a picture together. Then she takes the phone from Mama and I get one with her. Then we all cram our faces into a selfie, and since I’m holding the phone this time, I tap a bunny ears filter onto all of us. Too bad these pictures won’t last beyond tonight. We look ridiculous. I love it.
“You’d better get going now,” Mama says, taking the phone from me. “Don’t keep Lucy waiting. You know how she is.”
“Yeah, I know how she is.” She is the person I need right now.
“Remember the rules,” Mom says.
“I remember. No drugs, alcohol, speeding, getting anyone pregnant, or being a juvenile delinquent.” When Mom crosses her arms, I add, “And have fun.”
Shock flits across her face, but only for a moment before it goes stern again. “Not too much fun …”
“Be safe, JJ,” Mama adds.
“I will. Promise. And I won’t be out all night.” Because who knows how long this one will be?
As I skitter down the stairs, my phone chimes with a new text.
Lucy: On your way yet?
Me: Yes I’ll be there in twenty. Ish
Lucy: Twenty?!
Me: Have to make another stop first
Lucy: SIGH
Me:
While I’ve got my phone out, I text Jenna and suggest she get a ride from Autumn Mitchell, because I won’t be making it to prom after all. I start to type something came up but then remember that’s exactly what Blair told her in their text conversation she showed me on Friday. So I go with—
Me: I’m sorry things didn’t work out as planned
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
Jenna: No worries. Hope you’re ok. Talk Monday?
If Monday ever comes?
Me: Yeah. Talk Monday
On my way out to my car, I call the tow and arrange for them to take care of Melody. That’s it. Done. I’m taking the rest of the night off. Just me and Lucy and no prom. If I feel like going to prom again tomorrow night, I will, but for now, I need a break.
And I need my best friend.
But first, I need Taco Bell.
“Why does it smell like Taco Bell in here?” Lucy says, buckling her seat belt in my car.
I pull a paper bag from the back seat with the bell logo on it, just long enough to show her, then put it back. “Our dinner.”
“We’re supposed to have dinner at prom.”
“We’re not doing our ‘supposed to’ tonight. We tried that, multiple times, and it didn’t work out so well.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown a third arm. “What are you saying?”
I put the car in gear and start backing down her driveway. “I’m saying let’s skip prom and go straight to the bluffs. Just you and me. The whole night. We can eat Taco Bell and watch the sunset, then watch the stars come out and fall down all around us. We can just be … us. This night will be the night of our life, no one else’s, done our way.”
“You want to skip prom.” She shakes her head. “You’ve been looking forward to prom for years! For as long as I’ve known you!”
“I don’t care about prom anymore,” I tell her. “Prom is like any other school dance we’ve been to. Right? I’m more excited about what happens after. So let’s just get to the after part.”
She goes quiet. I can practically hear the wheels spinning in her head as she recalculates her plan for the night.
When I turn onto her road the opposite way I would if we were going to school, she doesn’t try to stop me. That was easy. But then I remember, she thinks I still have to pick up—
“What about Jenna?” she says.
“Jenna’s fine.” She’ll be fine without me, just like Melody. She has always been fine without me. “She knows I’m not going. I didn’t tell her why, though. That’s our secret.”
Twibble. “And Marcos and Chaz?”
“Tell them what we’re doing instead of prom and I guarantee you they won’t have a problem with it. Go ahead. Text one of them. Doesn’t matter who, they’ll both say the same.”
She’s quiet again as she pulls out her phone and starts tapping the screen. She knows I’m right; she just doesn’t know why.
“Well?” I ask when she’s done.
“Chaz said have fun and we can all get together tomorrow. They’ll fill us in on anything we missed that’s worth talking about.” She doesn’t sound surprised. More like, pensive.
I flick another glance at her and then my eyes are right back on the road. There’s an intersection ahead. One way takes us to Whip’s Ledge. The other, nowhere. Straight ahead goes to prom. “Any more arguments?”
“No.” She sighs. “But there will be if you didn’t get me a chicken burrito supreme.”
“You really think I would forget your favorite item on the menu?” I say through a grin, and take the turn toward Whip’s Ledge.
A few minutes later, we pass a tow truck driving in the opposite direction, away from the Frost Center for Fine Entertaining. There’s no one in the passenger seat, but in the rearview mirror, I see a cream-colored Beetle with a black convertible top is hitched to the back of the tow, getting smaller and smaller as
it’s pulled away.
Melody really did make it to her prom like I hoped. But she’ll never know the guy who helped get her there, night after night, was once her friend. As far as she’s concerned, I don’t exist, and she’s fine without me.
And I have to be okay with that.
“Are you okay?” Lucy says through a snorting laugh, not even trying to hide how hilarious she finds my pain. And by pain I mean spilling the last bite of my taco onto my white shirt. I tried futilely to catch the drip before it landed, resulting in dropping what was left of the taco in my hand onto my pants.
“I’m fine.” I wipe at it with a napkin, which just spreads it into a colorful blob. “My tux, on the other hand …”
“Rented?”
“Unfortunately. Extra charge to remove stains.”
She busts up laughing again, snorting loudly with every breath. “I’m sorry.”
“You sound like it,” I say with a laugh of my own starting.
“JJ, that always happens when you wear white! You should know better. Maybe it’s time you invested in a bib. Do they make them in adult size?” The visual of this, I assume, sets her off into a belly laugh so hard she tips over until she’s lying on the blanket beneath us, completely on her side. Her shoulders are shaking and her mouth is open so wide her eyes have squinted shut.
“This isn’t even that funny.” I’m lying. I’m laughing with her. “You’re just drunk on processed chicken and cheap guac.”
“At least it’s all in my stomach where it belongs!” she squeals.
This is the Lucy I love. Skipping prom just to be with her was the best idea of my life.
If I could have this version of tonight over and over again forever, I would take it. But there’s no guarantee something bad won’t still happen—tonight or any other night after this—just because it’s been good so far. And the glitches … they’re getting progressively worse.