So, I bought a train ticket. Philadelphia to DC isn’t very far, and it was way cheaper than a plane ticket. I told myself it would be fun—arriving to college on a train, just like an old-fashioned character in a novel.
Mom snapped a photo of me standing outside the train with a ginormous fake smile on my face. I hugged her goodbye and stepped aboard. Wrestled my suitcase onto the luggage rack. Sat down and pulled out my phone, opening a new text to type out a message to Kai. But I couldn’t find the words. So instead I posted a photo to Instagram, trying to plaster over my misgivings with a string of cheerful emojis, before shoving the phone back into my coat pocket.
My eyes are blurry again. I stare at my phone screen, willing them to focus.
“Tegan?” Kai says. His voice sounds faraway. “Are you okay?”
“Look at this.” I shove my phone at him. “What do you see?”
“Um, your Instagram. Is the Wi-Fi still not working? I’ll go reset the router—”
I grab his sleeve. “No, Kai, wait. Look at my profile. What’s the last photo you see?”
He peers down at my phone. “You at graduation.”
My head is spinning. I close my eyes. I’m being pulled back into my dream from last night—more like a nightmare.
A gentle rocking motion. The mundane chatter of voices. Out the window, a blur of tree branches. The sensation of moving very fast. Speed building and building. Out of control. Suddenly, jerking sideways. Slamming into something hard. A sharp intake of breath. A scream lodged in a throat.
I wrench open my eyes, stifling a scream. My skin is clammy. I look down at my phone again. There I am, grinning in front of a train. I scroll down. Below the photo are dozens of comments from people saying how much they love me and how much they will miss me and what an amazing person I was. Was. Past tense.
This must be some sick joke. It has to be.
I open a new browser window to do a quick search: train from philadelphia to dc.
The screen floods with news stories from the past few days.
DEADLY TRAIN ACCIDENT IN VIRGINIA
Sixty-eight people were killed and hundreds wounded in a commuter train accident on the Northeast Corridor from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, on Monday. The train unaccountably derailed, and the first two cars careened into the mountainside, killing sixty-seven passengers along with the train conductor. Eight passengers remain missing.
Authorities have not announced the cause of the accident and are withholding further details pending further investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Vigils are being held for the victims in Philadelphia and Washington.
Kai rests his hand on my back. “Tegan? You’re freaking me out a little. Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet.”
I try to gulp in a lungful of air, but my breathing comes in shallow gasps. Pain radiates from my heart, down my arms and up my jaw.
The knowledge surges within me. I try to ignore it, but I can’t. My body remembers. My legs are shaking, and the hair rises on my arms.
I was on that train.
I was in that train accident.
“Tegan?”
Kai’s voice reaches me through a long, hollow tunnel. My vision blurs again, and then the world goes black.
Kai and I are driving down the highway. Instead of an arid desert, our surroundings are lush and green. Tucked into a cliff, I spot a small waterfall—a stream of water dissolving into mist. We turn off the highway onto a dirt road. After a few minutes, the dirt road ends, eaten up by grass and shrubs. Kai parks the Jeep, and we climb out, walking down a worn path toward the waterfall. Soon, the path opens up into a clearing. There is a small wooden house, painted a deep green with sky-blue trim. We hurry toward it. The house seems magical, like it grew up out of the land itself. We climb the creaky steps of the porch, and I reach out my hand to open the door …
My fingers grasp a warm, firm hand. It takes an enormous effort to lift open my eyelids. The room seems exceedingly bright. I have a pounding headache, and my mouth is dry.
“Tegan? Tegan, wake up,” Kai says, alarm in his voice.
Slowly, my eyes adjust, and the blurriness recedes. I’m lying on the couch in Kai’s family room. He’s crouched down beside me, holding my hand, wiping a cold washcloth across my forehead. Our eyes meet, and I smile weakly.
“Sorry about that,” I tell him. “I got really dizzy all of a sudden.”
“You fainted. Scared the crap out of me, T. Has that ever happened to you before? We should go back to the clinic and see Aunt Sarah—”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” I’m definitely not fine. My mind zooms back to the picture on my Instagram and the article about the train accident and my all-too-real nightmare. I try to push away the dread eating up my insides. But a persistent little voice in the back of my mind keeps insisting, That was you. You were on that train.
“It’s just hunger,” I tell Kai. “Sometimes I get light-headed when I go too long without eating.”
Kai hurries into the kitchen and microwaves the pancakes, then brings me a plate stacked high along with a huge glass of juice.
I force down bite after bite, despite the knot in my gut. “Wow, these are delicious,” I say, smiling at him, even though I feel like throwing up. Kai keeps looking at me like I’m an extremely fragile glass vase and he’s afraid I’m going to shatter. After we finish eating, I insist on helping him wash and dry the dishes.
As I rub the towel over the grooves of a plate, panic begins to overtake me again. My thoughts are a whirled mess. I can’t pretend that everything is normal. I need to confide in Kai. Maybe he can help me figure out what is going on.
“Kai,” I say softly. My voice is croaky. “I need to tell you something.”
He hands me a couple of dripping forks. “What is it?”
“I lied to you. I didn’t come here to surprise you.”
He laughs. “What are you talking about?”
I reach for his hand. “I’m so sorry, Kai. I lied to you. I still don’t remember what happened or how I got here.”
Kai’s forehead crinkles in concern. “Wait, what? But I thought … then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Tegan, that’s—that’s ridiculous. You’ve been acting so normal this whole time. Haven’t you been, like, freaked out?”
“I forced myself not to think about it. I kept believing it was only a matter of time before all my memory flooded back.”
“But it hasn’t come back?”
“No. The last thing I remember is graduation.”
Kai steps back, away from me. “So why did you make up that whole story, about coming here to surprise me?”
I squeeze his hand. “I was hoping so desperately that it was the truth. I just wanted … I just wanted to enjoy being here in Hawaii with you. It seemed best to pretend that everything was normal.”
Kai sighs and pulls away from me. He runs a hand over his face. The silence lengthens between us; with every second ticking away, the distance between us lengthens too. Is this going to be another big argument? What if he wants me to leave? What will I do then? I yearn to fill this silence with words, with excuses and explanations and promises, but I bite my lip and make myself be still. Finally, Kai looks at me.
“I guess I understand,” he says. “I’m glad you told me the truth now. What I’m worried about is your memory. That’s not normal, T. Let’s go back to the clinic, and maybe they can run more tests or something—”
“Wait, Kai. There’s more.” I gaze directly into his deep-brown eyes. “This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to hear me out, okay?”
“Okay … ”
I hand him my phone, pulled up to the news article. His eyes dart back and forth across the screen as he reads. When he finishes, he looks at me in confusion. “I don’t get it. What does this train accident have to do with you?”
I take a deep breath. “I think I was on that train.”
He laughs. “What?”
“I think I was in that accident.”
“Tegan, are you trying to mess with me? You couldn’t have been on that train. You’re here with me.”
“I know, but—just look.” I pull up my Instagram account to show him, but the photo of me in front of the train has disappeared. Now the last photo features me, in my grad cap and gown, hugging my mom.
Maybe I should feel relieved. Instead, I am mostly frustrated, because I need Kai to see what I see—what I saw. The photo was there. I swear it was. I can’t shake this eerie feeling washing over me in waves. My body remembers boarding that train.
I click on the graduation photo and swipe right. The screen fills with a matching photo of me with my dad. The wind is blowing my tassel into his face.
I remember taking these photos. I remember that day.
And I remember another day too. Misty glimmers of half-veiled memory.
The sensation of moving very fast. Speed building and building. Out of control. Suddenly, jerking sideways. Slamming into something hard. A sharp intake of breath. A scream lodged in a throat. My last thought was a wish: that I could see Kai’s face one more time.
I try again. “I know it sounds crazy … but I swear I was in that train accident. There was a picture on my Instagram of me standing in front of a train. That train. Monday morning, Philadelphia to DC. I was on my way to Georgetown for the summer.”
Kai taps his knuckles against the countertop. “Like you were planning to do, before you changed your mind and came here?”
“Exactly. I had this really vivid dream last night—although maybe it wasn’t a dream; maybe it was a memory—of getting on that train to Georgetown and pulling out my phone to text you. But I didn’t know what to say because we were still locked in that stupid fight, so instead I posted a photo on Instagram with a caption about how excited I was for college.”
Kai looks down at his phone. “But what happened to the photo? It’s not on your Instagram now.”
“I know. It was there, but then it … disappeared.” The words sound ridiculous as they leave my mouth.
Kai places a hand on my forehead, as if to check for a fever. “T, I’m seriously concerned right now. You can’t remember how you got here. You’re seeing things. You fainted—don’t try to act like you were just hungry. What else is going on with you? I want to get it all out in the open. Tell me everything.”
I swallow. “Okay … well … remember my scars?”
“The one on your arm, from when you fell in the lava tubes?”
“Yep, and I had another scar from a fifth-grade basketball accident.” I thrust my wrist at him and step my leg up onto a chair, to show him my knee. “They’re both gone. See?”
Kai leans close, studying my smooth skin. “That’s really weird,” he murmurs, turning my arm over and back in the light. His fingertips delicately brush my arm. “I remember your scar so clearly, from when you showed it to me. But that was three years ago. Scars fade, right?”
“Not like this. Not overnight.” I pull the V-neck of my sleep shirt farther down. “And I have this strange tattoo.”
Kai’s eyes widen. “Wait—what tattoo? You don’t have a tattoo.”
“I do now. I don’t remember getting it. But look.” I show him the hourglass etched over my heart.
Kai runs his fingers over it. “Wow. I never expected you to get a tattoo. It’s cool, though. I like it. What does it mean?”
“I have no idea.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“And,” I continue, “the creepy part is that it’s changing.”
“What?”
I look down at my chest. “See the amount of sand in the top half of the hourglass? How much would you say is there?”
“It’s about equal. Half in the bottom, half in the top.”
“Exactly. But when I first noticed the tattoo, on Monday, there was way more sand in the top than in the bottom. Don’t give me that look—I’m serious. It’s like the tattoo is a message from the universe. My time is running out.”
“Message from the universe? T, do you even hear yourself? You’re the most logical person I know. You never talk all woo-woo like this.”
“Maybe because I’ve never died before.” I say it as a joke, but as soon as the words leave my lips, my chest constricts, and my whole body turns ice-cold.
I died. I died in that train accident.
“That’s not funny, Tegan,” Kai says.
I grab my phone and do another internet search. It doesn’t take long to find a memorial tribute to all the accident victims. I quickly scan through the list of names. And there—right in the middle—my eyes lock onto the familiar combination of letters. My stomach heaves with the knowledge I somehow already knew.
TEGAN ROSSI
The edges of my vision begin to blur again, and I wonder vaguely if I might faint. I grip Kai’s arm tightly to steady myself and hand him the phone. I watch him read the list of names.
“Tegan,” he breathes. “Oh my god, Tegan.” When he looks at me, there are tears in his eyes.
Those tears rocket up my fear to an entirely new level. Never have I seen Kai cry.
“But how is this possible?” he says. “This can’t be possible. You can’t have been on that train. You’re here. There must be some mistake.”
I lean my head against his shoulder, trying to focus on steadying my breathing. In and out. In and out.
“Maybe you got off the train at the last minute, and you flew here instead. You changed your mind. I’m sure that’s what happened, T. You decided to come visit me instead.” Kai’s voice has taken on a manic edge. His tear-filled eyes are wild. “We need to contact them and tell them that you’re okay. You’re not dead. You’re here, and you’re fine … ”
In and out. In and out.
“We need to call your parents. There’s been some mix-up. There must have been another Tegan Rossi on that train … ”
I clench my fists so my fingernails dig sharply into my palms. The pain is proof that I am here, in this moment, alive. “I’ve tried calling them, Kai. I’ve called them and called them. The phone just rings endlessly.”
“I’m going to try,” he says, pulling his own phone out of his pocket. I recite the numbers for him, seeds of hope sprouting in my chest as he holds the phone to his ear and waits … and waits … and waits. My hope withers. He tries calling my mom, and then my dad, and then he tries my mom again. He waits a long time before hanging up.
“It can’t be true, T,” he says softly. The crazed fire in his eyes has dimmed. “You came to visit me. You came to visit, just like you promised.”
I bury my face in his T-shirt and mumble the words against his chest. “Am I dead? Is this … Heaven?”
Kai strokes my hair quietly for a few moments. Then he says, “No. That’s not possible. If this is Heaven, wouldn’t that mean I’m dead too? But I still have my memory. I still have my scars. I’m not dead. And Theo, and Paulo, and my parents and Aunt Sarah, and everyone else we’ve run into? We’re not all dead. We can’t be. So no. You’re not dead either.”
I tilt my head back and look up at him. “I want this to be real. I want this to be real so badly.”
“This is real.” He squeezes me against him. Solid. Safe. “We’re here, together, right now in this moment. What could be more real than this?”
Kai wants to take me back to the clinic, but I resist. Whatever answers I’m searching for, they are not at the clinic. I am certain of that.
“Well,” Kai says, crossing his arms. “Then what do you want to do? You can’t brush this off, T. This is a big deal. This problem is not going to solve itself.”
“I know.” I keep compulsively checking my phone, refreshing Instagram over and over, but the photo of me on the train is gone. I’m starting to doubt myself. Did I imagine it?
I thought that once I regained my memory, all my problems would be solved. I never fathomed that fragments of my memory returning would make me more confused than ever.
Closing my eyes to center myself, I breathe in and out, in and out. Suddenly, I recall the vision I had earlier this morning, when I fainted. I describe it to Kai, attempting to capture the details before they fade away. The lush landscape … the waterfall flowing down a cliff … the little wooden house, painted green with sky-blue trim.
“Wait,” Kai says. “Where did you see this house?”
“In my dream—er, vision—or whatever it was when I passed out.”
“That’s so weird. I guess I must have shown you my painting. I didn’t think I showed it to anyone. It wasn’t my best work. I ended up painting over it. I could never capture the house quite right.”
I jump up from my seat. “No, you never showed me that painting. So you’re saying it’s a real place? The little green house with blue trim, at the base of a waterfall?”
“Yeah, it’s my grandpa’s house,” Kai says. “Or, it was his house. He passed away last year.”
“Oh no—I remember when it happened. I’m so sorry, Kai. I know you were close.”
Kai traces the grout between tiles on the kitchen counter. “We were. Thanks. You would have loved him.” He looks up at me and shakes his head, as if shaking off a memory. “Anyway, I haven’t been back there since he died.”
“Is anyone living there now?” I ask.
“No, the house is empty. My parents keep talking about fixing it up and selling it, but they haven’t done anything yet.”
“Can you take me there?”
Kai scrunches up his nose. “To my grandpa’s house? Why? We have more pressing issues to deal with. I really think we should go back to the clinic—”
“No, Kai, listen. I had a vision about your grandpa’s house. It must be a sign from the universe. Maybe the house has answers. We need to go there.”
“I never thought I would hear Tegan Rossi talking about the universe like this.” One corner of his mouth lifts in a half smile. “Okay, T. But promise me this: if we don’t find any answers there, then we head back to the clinic and get you checked out again.”
The Best Week That Never Happened Page 11