The Night of Your Life

by Lydia Sharp

  As Lucy pushes herself up to sit, her image is distorted and jumpy, like a YouTube video with a slow internet connection. She doesn’t notice, which makes no sense, either. Sometimes I’m the only one who sees a glitch and sometimes I’m not, like when Lucy saw my black eye appear last night. Even the chaos is in chaos.

  “Look at that sunset,” she says, sobering, her voice all breathy with wonder. She scoots up next to me and lays her head on my shoulder, staring out at the pink-orange-purple horizon, and folds her legs at her side, covering them with the flowy skirt of her dress. I stretch an arm across her back, brace her bare shoulder, and hold her in snug. The smell of her shampoo floods my senses, and instinctively I melt. She relaxes against me, too, and we’re quiet for a while, just watching. Up here, on top of the world, the view is nothing short of magic.

  “What are we going to do?” Lucy says. The sun disappears and darkness comes quickly. “When I’m in Italy and you’re in Texas and we’re both busy with a new school and new friends and …” She pauses. “And we don’t have this anymore?”

  “If there was a way to keep us here with each other forever, Lucy, I’d do it right now.”

  Except … I already did. I just didn’t think it would really happen.

  I wish we could stay like this forever.

  My wish came true, but only for me. She doesn’t know she’s already stuck here with me on this same night over and over and over. Forever. Or until the glitches overtake reality and we all disappear, swallowed into the dark side of an eclipse.

  If it’s a chaos loop, you’re screwed, Lucy said. And if you’re screwed, we’re all screwed.

  The world is probably going to end and it’s all my fault. For wanting her to stay.

  I still want her to stay. Why is that so wrong?

  “We can’t keep our lives from moving forward in different directions,” she says. “And I don’t want to, anyway.”

  “What? You just said—”

  “I just said ‘what are we going to do?’ Not ‘we shouldn’t even go there.’ ”

  “Okay, I’m officially confused.” The first meteor flashes across the midnight-blue sky. “You’re contradicting yourself.”

  Lucy pulls away to go to the telescope, and the side of me she’d been up against mourns the loss of her warmth. A chill skates across me and I shudder.

  “That’s because I want both,” she says. “I want to stay here and I want to go. And I don’t know how to get both things that I want. The only way is to choose one and sacrifice the other. I’m not giving up Italy, so …” She places one eye against the telescope and turns a dial.

  “So you’re giving up me.”

  “Not you,” she clarifies. “Just the everyday closeness I have with you now.”

  “Italy is worth it?” That’s a jerk thing to ask and I shouldn’t have. But it’s out there now, hovering between us.

  “Italy is … a second chance for me, in a way.”

  “There are no second chances, though.” At least there weren’t until I got stuck with a limitless number of them. But what good have any of them done me?

  “Not a second chance, no, you’re right. Not doing the same thing again with a different outcome. More like a fresh start?” She turns another dial, then angles the scope upward a bit. Her bare, painted toes wiggle as she readjusts her position. But her nail polish is a metallic blue, instead of the dark red that matches her lipstick. Another glitch, and that one is just a random wrongness, no connection to anything else that happened. Everything is out of whack.

  She goes on, unaware anything is amiss, even though the stars on her dress are literally dancing before my eyes, swirling around like they’re caught in the pull of a black hole. “What I mean is I need to get away from my old life and start a new one. One where it doesn’t matter what my mother is doing that she shouldn’t or not doing that she should, because I’ll be far away from her and uninvolved either way. But that means I’ll be far away from the things and people I want to be involved with, too. Like you. And this. I don’t want to lose the good stuff, but I don’t see any other way to move forward from the bad stuff. We have to … split apart. Live our own separate lives. This would happen eventually, I knew that. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  The longer she talks the more dejected she sounds.

  Have I completely thwarted her plan for tonight? Bringing her here early has her focusing on different things, pushing her thoughts in a different direction. Toward hopelessness.

  Lucy wants to move forward, and she can’t until we’re out of this loop. I’ve trapped her and she doesn’t even know it. I want her to have what she wants, but … I also want her. And she said she doesn’t want to lose us, either. She just thinks she doesn’t have a choice.

  I have to stop this. Maybe if I stop it, there’s still a chance we can work something out and be together. Maybe I can go to Italy, too—I never even considered that before, so I don’t know if it’s even an option. But I won’t know for sure until we’re out of this loop, and we can’t get out of this loop until I figure out how to stop it, and the only way to stop it is to reverse whatever started it. How did this whole thing start?

  “JJ?” she says with concern, still looking through the scope, then her voice lightens. “Did you fall asleep on me?”

  “No, I’m … thinking.”

  “Dangerous,” she teases.

  Another meteor flashes overhead. Has the answer been right in front of me this whole time? It isn’t logical, but I’m out of logical answers. Maybe it’s time to think more illogically about this, so far outside the box that the box isn’t even in the picture anymore. The night before prom, Lucy and I both wished on a star.

  Well, no, that’s wrong. My wish was on the moon.

  I wish we could stay like this forever.

  I try to recall more of what we said that night, and it comes back in fuzzy little jagged pieces. In my time, it was almost a week ago.

  Ice cream … the star game … soft, warm, cozy … you’re chaos personified …

  Did you see that? There’s another one!

  Lucy had first made a wish on a falling star. She wished that the time-travel device would work so she could go back and keep her mom from leaving their family. If the opposite of that came true—that it wouldn’t work—that would explain why Marty kept fritzing.

  And if her wish on a falling star came true, but opposite, and my wish on the moon came true, but more literally than I intended, then the only way to stop this loop is to reverse my wish—by wishing it again but this time on a falling star, knowing the opposite will come true.

  The answer hits me like a kick to the gut, and my chest stutters with erratic breaths.

  I have to wish us apart, permanently, and I have to really want that wish to come true.

  Never. That’s impossible. I look up at the sky and declare firmly, “I won’t do it.”

  “Won’t do what?” Lucy says.

  I turn my face toward her, and she’s looking right at me. She’s so beautiful. My moon … I’ll find another way. There has to be another way—

  The rocky ground beneath us suddenly rumbles like an earthquake, shaking so violently that the telescope rattles, bounces, and falls over. Lucy yelps in surprise and scuttles toward me.

  “What’s going on?” she says, clutching me.

  “I don’t know …” But that’s not entirely true. As the ground starts disappearing in chunks, replaced by holes that lead to who-knows-where, I understand it’s a glitch—the worst one yet; the world is crumbling apart—and I understand that any second now, a groundhog will appear. I scan the area, whipping my head around until …

  “There you are.”

  We stare at each other and the thing waves its little rodent hand at me as if it’s casually saying hello.

  “I can’t,” I shout. “Please. Don’t make me do this!”

  The ground under us disappears, and Lucy drops out of my arms, screaming my name. The cold bla
ck void consumes me. I can’t stop this from happening, so I just relax and let the universe have its way with me. Another repeat is coming, and it has to be the last one.

  My final second chance.

  My reflection comes into focus in my bedroom mirror. Then blinks out of focus. Then becomes clear again. What … ? It isn’t just the mirror. Everything in my room is glitching in and out. The world is unstable, falling apart, but I’m steadier now than I have been in days. Because I finally know what to do.

  I just don’t want to do it.

  Make a wish on a falling star and the opposite will come true. It did. I firmly believe that’s what happened. Lucy wished on a falling star that Marty would work, and the opposite came true. He fritzed and fritzed until he blew up. Then we wished on the moon.

  I wish we could stay like this forever.

  My wish came true, in a way. Which means so did Lucy’s. And I remember, she told me that already, on night three. Her wish on the moon was about prom night … about me. For her plan to succeed—and it did. Well, one time, at least.

  None of this is logical. It’s all I have left, though.

  I check my phone.

  Lucy: Where are you?

  Me: Leaving now

  Leaving …

  My hand holding the bow tie clenches into a fist. How am I supposed to wish us apart? And truly want that wish to come true? How am I supposed to want Lucy to leave me, when that’s the thing I’ve been dreading since she told me her dream of going to Italy will be a reality?

  But now I know more about why she wants to go. It isn’t because of the great school, or to meet her extended Italian family, or even to taste the authentic food. Or rather, it isn’t only about those things. She needs to start over. She needs a new life. She needs to move on.

  Without me.

  “Knock, knock,” Mom says on the other side of my door. “Are you decent?”

  “Come in.” I fasten my bow tie. With a few flicks of my fingers, I’m done. Perfect.

  Mom’s reflection steps toward me in the mirror, and everything happens the same way. Shayla runs in for a quick dance. Mama insists on a Vogue photo shoot. They don’t seem to notice things are blinking in and out all around them, not even the glitches on their own faces. If I’m wrong, if this doesn’t work, this is probably the last time I’ll ever see them. The world can’t possibly survive like this into another repeat. I squeeze my parents tight, kiss the tops of their heads. “I love you both.”

  “You’d better get going,” Mama says. “You know how Lucy is.”

  “Yeah. I know how she is. She’s perfect.”

  My parents exchange a look, then Mama ushers me out into the hall. “All right, time to go. Have fun.”

  “But not too much fun,” Mom adds.

  “I know, I know.” I spout off all the going-out rules as I practically tumble downstairs. My feet feel too big and my bones feel too light. Uncoordinated and awkward. My whole body is an odd mix of despair and hope, volleying back and forth, unable to grasp just one and go with it. I think I know what I’m doing now, but didn’t I think that on the previous nights, too? Wasn’t I so sure I had it?

  And none of it worked.

  What if I don’t have it this time, either? What if I only think I do?

  Even if I’m right, what if I can’t do what I think I need to?

  In the car, with my seat belt buckled and the engine running, I call AAA about Melody’s about-to-be-broken-down car, then send a text to Jenna to let her know I’m running late and she might want to hitch a ride with Autumn Mitchell in the limo she rented. Knowing everything Jenna’s going to face later tonight, making sure she gets the luxury ride she wants and deserves is the least I can do.

  Jenna: Okie dokie. See you later!

  Me: See you later

  With a smile, I turn off my phone and stash it in the glove box. No distractions while driving. But also, after I pick up Lucy, I won’t need my phone the rest of the night, however long this one lasts.

  The road is glitching so bad I almost veer off into a ditch, more than once. Going down Dead Man’s Curve is especially harrowing, but somehow I make it through in one piece. Melody is already there, and so is the tow truck. I don’t have a reason to stop this time, but I stop anyway. One last goodbye.

  “Everything okay here?” I say through the window.

  “We’ve got it handled, young man, but thank you for asking,” the service woman says, then goes back to her truck to get it ready to hitch Melody’s Bug.

  The forest behind Melody is a blur of tree trunks and new green leaves, some of them not fully formed yet, blinking in and out of existence. She stares at me, her brow wrinkled, like she’s trying to figure me out. Like there’s something familiar about me.

  “Something wrong with your gas pedal?” she says finally.

  “No, um.” I start to ease off the brake, then immediately push it down again. “I hope the rest of your night goes better.”

  “Thanks,” she says warily. Because I’m a stranger. “You can go now. I don’t need your help. Really.”

  “I know you don’t.” I ease off the brake again, pulling away. “You never did.”

  Melody will be fine without me, and so will Jenna. I know that for sure. Lucy will be, too. She’s strong—a lot stronger than I am. It isn’t her I’m worried about if we split.

  It’s me.

  Lucy has always held me together and kept my chaos in control. She isn’t perfect, I know that, but we are perfect together. We are a well-oiled machine made of broken parts. Without her … I’m just broken.

  The world is broken tonight. I’m not sure I’ll be able to save it, or me, or any of us.

  At Lucy’s house, my talk with Signore Bellini feels more final than it did on the previous nights.

  “Papà, hurry up, we need to go!” Lucy shouts from the living room.

  Her dad sighs. “Lucilla not so patient sometimes.”

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “She’s not the one who has to be. I am.”

  He raises his bushy brows, nodding as if he’s impressed. I can’t even take credit for that, though. I learned it from him. I’m sure he has more to teach me, too. This better not be the last time we ever see each other. But even as I think it, his kind features blur and jump from another glitch. The walls move in and out like they’re sighing, taking their dying breaths. Signore Bellini pulls me into a tight hug and it’s a struggle not to let tears fall.

  “Grazie, Papà.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything,” I say. “But especially for bringing Lucy into my life.”

  “Prego.” He pats me hard on the back a couple of times, then releases me. “Now, muoversi, before she come in here and drag you out.”

  I flash a grin, then quickly sober when Lucy steps into the hall, turning both our heads in her direction. The stars on that dress shift like they’re alive. Like swarming bugs. The whole world and everyone in it has become one big glitch. “Ready now?” she says.

  “Ready.”

  We step out to my car. We get in. Buckle up. Lucy smiles because she doesn’t know what I’ve been through—what we’ve been through—over and over already. She doesn’t know I know everything she hasn’t told me yet. She doesn’t know that I love her … have always loved her, will love her still when this is over, whatever happens.

  She was right—she is rarely wrong—and I should have put my faith in that, even when it meant losing her. No matter how hard I tried to prevent it, this was going to happen eventually.

  It’s something that’s been true for a while. I just didn’t want to believe it.

  The sun is sinking, about to relinquish the final hours of this day to the moon, to the night, for the seventh time in a row. For years, I looked forward to prom, knowing I’d have only one shot at making it the best night of my life. I’ve had a week of best nights of my life now. I should be ready. I said I’m ready.

  But I’m not ready for this at all.
r />   By the time we pull into the Beaver Creek High parking lot, I’m on the verge of a breakdown. I try to keep myself in check, keep my breathing even and my jaw relaxed, so Lucy doesn’t pick up on it and get upset. But everything that’s happened over the past week comes tumbling down on me, and I can’t hold myself up under the weight of it. I park us way in the back, by the football field, even though there are plenty of open spots closer to the building because we’re not late. I need a moment away from people, just me and Lucy.

  A limo pulls up by the front entrance, and Jenna and Autumn and her friends get out of it, then they all snap pictures of one another with their phones before disappearing inside. More cars pull in and people get out, no one in any hurry.

  The sun hasn’t set yet. Prom hasn’t officially started. We’re here early. Normally, Lucy would be elated by this—on another version of tonight, she was—but now her silence says otherwise.

  I can’t even look at her; I’m too ashamed. She might never live past this day. Never graduate. Never go to Italy. Never do all the things she plans to do with her life—she has so many plans, always a plan for everything, at least ten steps ahead. And her fool of a best friend took it all away with one selfish wish.

  “JJ,” she says, “you’re … not okay.” She takes the car keys from me, drops them into the console between us, and then holds my hand with both of hers. “What’s going on?”

  “I messed up. Worse than I ever have before.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I can’t explain.” I shake my head. My lips tremble. I try to keep it in check and my jaw aches with the effort. “It doesn’t make sense. I just … I’m so afraid I’m gonna lose you tonight.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She tugs my hand toward her. “Come ’ere.”

  Slowly, I lean over, farther and farther until my head is resting on Lucy’s shoulder, our hands still held together between us. Without a word, she reaches her other hand up and holds it against my head, cradling it, pressing it even tighter against her. She tunnels her fingers through my hair and lightly strokes my scalp. We’ve been here before, at different times with different problems over the years. My best friend knows exactly what to do. Some of my tension releases in a long exhale, and when I breathe in again, all I can smell is her shampoo. Not one trace of Melody’s perfume in here.