by Stacey Jay
Today, we’d made harvest cupcakes that were supposed to look like pumpkins. Being icing challenged and not really motivated to improve, my half dozen looked more like deflated basketballs than pumpkins. But who cared? The space-time continuum was probably on the verge of collapse. I had more important things to stress about than cupcakes.
I’d put some extra sprinkles on mine and called it quits.
Now I just had to survive another fifteen minutes of socializing before the bell rang without making a fool out of myself. Rachel was gone—she’d snagged a pass to go check on the state of the theater—so it shouldn’t have been as difficult as usual. But still, no matter how nice it was to fit in with Isaac’s crowd . . . I couldn’t help but shoot a longing look at my old table.
Antara and her twin sister, Anika, spent most of the period talking to each other in their weird twin language and cleaning the table obsessively, but they’d never made me feel this on edge. I kept ducking my head, hoping no one would notice my blond brows had been allowed to go free range all over my forehead. I’d never waxed a single part of me. “Live hairy and let live hairy” was my motto. I was the type of girl who considered winter an excellent excuse not to shave my legs. Who was I to judge Khaki?
I found myself twisting the chain of the locket around my finger until it cut off the circulation, a bad habit I’d gotten into ever since the night of my failed locket amputation.
“Great necklace! I love it.” Natalie leaned over and tapped the locket with her pencil, jolting me back into my body.
“Thanks. It was my grandmother’s.” My fingers brushed across the locket’s cool, smooth surface.
I’d started wearing it outside my clothes, a part of me hoping that other people seeing it might take away its power. At least enough to allow me to take it off and put it somewhere safe.
Stress about the fragility of time aside, I couldn’t deny the locket had made my life better—I had Isaac back, Mitch was my friend, Rachel was alive, and I was on my way to being a fully accepted and popularity-approved platinum. I didn’t want to get rid of the locket . . . I just wanted to know that I could take it off. If I wanted to.
“It’s gorgeous,” Natalie said, snagging another cupcake.
At this rate she wouldn’t have any cakes left to grade when Van Tassel finally made it to the back of the room. Not that it mattered. Everyone got an automatic A in this class. It was a big reason I’d taken it in the first place—aside from wanting to learn how to bake as well as my mom. I needed every A I could get this year if I hoped to get into whatever Division I college offered Isaac a scholarship.
“And it’s going to be perfect with your dress for the finale,” Melissa said, leaning in for a closer look.
“My dress for the finale?” I squeaked, praying I’d misheard her.
“Oh my God, you’re right,” Ally said. “It’s a different color, but with the same swirly things and everything.”
“But I’m running the lights,” I protested. “I can’t be in the finale.”
Natalie paused mid-cupcake lick and turned to me. “Sarah said she’d do the lights for you, remember? Because the sound is already programmed and all she has to do is hit play?”
“She did?” My heart did the seizure thing that had become horribly familiar lately.
“Yeah, silly. Remember, right after practice on Saturday?”
“Oh. Right.” I nodded, but I didn’t remember that conversation at all. Was that because I’d been distracted and freaked out by Rachel’s near death experience and not paying attention? Or was Natalie confused?
Or was reality tipping back and forth like kids on a teeter-totter, flickering like my grandfather’s picture?
“It’s an awesome dress,” Melissa assured me, mistaking my terror for fashion-related anxiety.
“Just a sec. Rachel made me take a picture of it to show Yin’s mom this afternoon,” Ally said, digging in her purse. “She wants to make sure your highlights won’t clash.” She punched a few buttons on her iPhone and pushed it across the table. “Here. Gorgeous, right?”
The burnt orange silk dress was a 1960s cocktail number with a flared skirt decorated with brown filigree embroidery. It was intricate, expensive looking, and a little ridiculous but probably one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It would certainly be the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn.
But Ally was right . . . the filigree pattern mimicked the swirls on the outside of the locket exactly. Perfectly. As if they had been made to go together.
Maybe, once I put the dress on tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be able to take it off either. Maybe I’d spend the rest of my life wandering around in a cocktail dress, wearing a locket no one could remember giving me, raving to myself about what things “used to be like” before I’d traveled through time. I’d probably end up in a homeless shelter with a bad bedbug infestation, smelling like I was brought up in a barn.
“You okay, Katie?” Natalie asked, big blue eyes concerned, though she continued licking orange icing off her cupcake.
“Just need to run to the bathroom. Girl time. Be right back.” I stood and hurried to the front of the room, grabbing the oversized pink key that served as the girls’ bathroom pass for Van Tassel’s room, silently berating myself for giving too much information.
Why did I have to say that? Who even called their period their “girl time” anymore? Dorks like me, that’s who. It was only a matter of time before Ally and Natalie and Mel figured out I wasn’t funny or cool but the same awkward doofus I’d been before. If I wasn’t so messed up about the locket, the stress of waiting to be dork-scovered would probably have driven me off the deep end anyway.
Out in the hall, the air was a little cooler, quiet, more breathable. Only a couple of people wandered from their classrooms to the bathroom and back. For the first time all day, the anxiety that had been my best buddy since Saturday faded a bit.
There were only three more days to go until the do over was over and I would once again be living in a time I’d never lived before. Surely that would make a difference. Right now, two different versions of reality were existing side by side, layered on top of each other like phyllo dough, and that could be causing weird things to happen—or at least that’s what I’d come to believe after several hours of late night Googling. Come Saturday night, all of that would change. Life would return to normal . . . or the slightly altered version of normal my time travel had helped create, anyway.
I just had to make it through until then. Just a few more days and—
“Ow!” I slammed into someone, driving my bathroom pass into my gut.
“Watch it!”
“Sorry.” I blushed and backed away from the boy I’d just collided with. Apparently I couldn’t think and walk a clear path to the bathroom at the same time. “I wasn’t paying—”
“Katie?” the boy asked, shuffling a little closer, bringing a pungent, tangy aroma with him. He smelled . . . strange, and his long, frizzy red hair brought back a wave of longing for the old boys-must-have-shorn-locks dress code. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much.” I gazed up into the boy’s face, still unable to place him despite the familiar voice. Only after he blinked, drawing my attention to the freckles across the bridge of his nose, did his identity slide into place. I should have known. There was only one other redhead at our school, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t stared into those gray eyes in confusion often enough. Theo had been my math tutor for over a year, ever since my pre-ACT test had showed a marked failure in my ability to comprehend mathematical concepts. “Theo! Hey! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. Guess I’ve been smoking too much crack again,” I joked, nearly swallowing my own tongue when he squinted at me like I’d just farted on his shoe.
Guess we didn’t make crack jokes in this life. Stupid, Katie. Stupid!
“Sorry?”
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “It’s nothing, just a bad joke.”
“Right,” he said, running a hand
through his matted hair. He must have been growing it for years. In the world I remembered, Theo had a buzz cut and an almost military-like attention to personal hygiene. “I just wanted to make sure you got my note.”
“Um . . . no, I didn’t.” At least I didn’t remember getting any note. That didn’t mean he hadn’t sent one.
“Oh, well . . . I’m not going to be able to tutor you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I wrinkled my nose as another wave of Theo odor wafted toward me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he smelled . . . weed-ish. But Theo didn’t drink caffeine or eat sugar, and certainly didn’t smoke up. I’d never even seen him consume food. I’d assumed he was so brilliant he’d learned to keep his body running on cranial electricity or something. “Well, we can reschedule if—”
“No, I can’t reschedule.” He shifted on his feet, obviously uncomfortable. “I’m not going to be able to tutor you at all. My mom wants me to spend more time on my own work.”
“But . . . you already got into your dream school.” Theo had applied to a bunch of nuclear-physics programs, and this was the week he found out he’d been accepted into MIT. I’d been certain about that a second ago, but the blank look in his eyes made me second-guess myself. Did I have my weeks mixed up? Or maybe college-acceptance letters went out at a different time in this new reality? Crap! I should know better than to assume anything at this point!
“What are you talking about?” he asked, a wary, hurt note in his voice that made me feel compelled to tell the truth. The last thing I wanted was Theo to think I was making fun of him.
“Um . . . MIT,” I said. “I thought I heard that you got in.”
Theo snorted, a shocked sound. “With my attendance record, I’ll be lucky to get into Brantley Hills community college, even if I spend the rest of the year studying to bring my grades up.”
“No way,” I said, the hopelessness in his tone making me want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he went back to being the brilliant, condescending nerd on high I’d always known. “You can get in somewhere great. You’re the smartest person I know.”
“You sound like my mom.” He rolled his eyes. “She thinks I’m some sort of genius.”
“You are a genius. You’re a math prodigy and know more big words than I’ve ever read.” Acid burned at the back of my throat. I swallowed the bitter taste, wishing I’d brought my backpack. I’d started keeping antacids in my makeup bag. You never knew when a bout of time-travel angst was going to hit. “You were the tri-state mathlete of the year.”
“In ninth grade. I haven’t done those competitions in years, Katie.”
“Oh . . . oh.” No, this couldn’t be happening! Theo couldn’t be someone completely different in this world. He just couldn’t. “I—I forgot.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.” He turned to glance over his shoulder, looking for an escape route. “I don’t even care if I go to college.”
“Don’t say that! You’re too smart to—”
“Listen, I’ve got to go or I’m going to get it from Mr. Dillingham.” He backed away, lifting one long, thin hand in the air. “See you around, okay?”
I stammered wordlessly for a second before forcing my mouth to form the expected response. “Okay.” But it wasn’t okay.
Theo hadn’t gotten into MIT! Theo wasn’t even going to go to college. His big, huge, beautiful brain was going to go to waste and he’d probably grow up to be one of those frustrated geniuses who blew things up instead of a talented physicist unraveling the secrets of nuclear power. And it was all my fault.
The knowledge made my head spin and my skin break out in a cold sweat. I burst through the heavy door to the bathroom and rushed into the last stall, kneeling on the tile, assuming the position just in case my stomach decided to put on a repeat performance of last Monday’s barf fest.
“Please. Please.” I leaned my forehead on the toilet lid, too dizzy to care about public-bathroom filth.
Theo’s life was ruined. Was that because I’d gone back in time the first time or the second time? And was there any way to undo it? Or would undoing Theo’s misery simply pass the misery buck on to someone else? Was this my punishment for messing with fate?
I shivered and clenched my jaw, fighting the wave of nausea that threatened to overtake me. I wasn’t going to be sick. I wasn’t going to—
“No way, of course I didn’t.” It was Sarah’s voice. Sarah was in the bathroom! She would make me feel better. Or at least do me a super-favor and go get my backpack and antacids from Van Tassel’s room. “I wouldn’t tell.”
I was about to call out to her when another girl spoke up. “Actually, you would. The normal you would, anyway. What about the whole ‘tell the truth even if it hurts someone’ thing?” Whoever her friend was, they sounded tight, probably tighter than me and Sarah. I was kind of glad they were staying by the sinks, away from the stalls. I suddenly didn’t want Sarah to know I was here.
Sarah sighed. “I know. Believe me, it’s bothering me, but this is for the best. Katie and Isaac are really happy together.”
Oh, no. No. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could do the same with my ears. I didn’t want to hear Sarah’s bathroom confession. I couldn’t deal with having my suspicions confirmed right now. I needed Sarah to be my friend, not the girl who helped my boyfriend cheat on me.
“True,” the other girl said. There was a spraying sound and the air bloomed with melon and flowers. My stomach gurgled in protest. Whoever invented fruity body sprays should be drowned in rotten-apple cores. “But even if you stay quiet, don’t you think Rachel’s going to say something sooner or later?”
Oh . . . crap. Rachel. Rachel Pruitt, Isaac’s perfect platinum counterpart, the queen bee who should have been homecoming royalty last year. Who would have been homecoming queen if she’d been dating Isaac instead of an older guy, who might have decided she wanted a high school boyfriend after all.
I’d been such an idiot.
“I don’t think so,” Sarah said. “If she were going to tell Katie, she would have done it the other day at the fashion-show rehearsal. As hard as it is to believe, I think even Pruitt realizes Katie and Isaac have something special.”
Riiight. And snakes felt sorry for the rodents they devoured whole.
“So everything’s going to be fine,” Sarah said. “Isaac’s still crazy about Katie. He’s planning to drop an obscene amount of cash on her birthday present, apparently. I mean, if Hunter is to be believed.”
“Which he is. He’s totally trustworthy. And hot.”
“Ew!” Sarah laughed and I thought I heard a little fist connect with the other girl’s body. “That’s my brother! And he’s a freshman!”
“I don’t care.” The girl giggled, a high-pitched sound that clashed with the squeak of the bathroom door as it opened and she and Sarah headed back into the hall. “He’s still . . .”
I missed the end of her sentence, but it didn’t really matter. I didn’t care if she thought Hunter was hot. I had much bigger things to worry about.
I should have known Sarah wouldn’t try to snag my boyfriend. I should have been smarter, but I was as stupid as Rachel had assumed when she’d set my brain down the path to suspecting Sarah in the first place. Sarah was just trying to avoid being the bearer of bad news.
I’d been so dumb.
But that didn’t mean I had to keep being dumb. Nothing had happened between Rachel and Isaac yet, nothing that would constitute actual “cheating.” If Isaac had cheated with Rachel, he wouldn’t be acting so normal around me. I knew him well enough to be almost one hundred percent sure about that. He had a guilty conscience and wasn’t a man skank, no matter how much he liked to flirt.
No, nothing had happened yet. But something was brewing between Isaac and Rachel, something Rachel was keeping quiet about for now. Probably because she wanted to keep seducing Isaac without any interference from girlfriend number one.
I took a deep breath. G
irlfriend number one. I’d always assumed I’d be girlfriend number only. The first, the last, the one Isaac stayed with forever. It’s what we’d promised each other. It was what I’d held on to when I suffered good Catholic girl guilt about having sex before marriage, when I stressed about our relationship not flowing as smoothly as I’d like . . . when I was tempted by other options . . .
And now, the boy I’d counted on might have let me down.
The bell rang, but I stayed on the floor, too afraid to get up and rejoin the living, too afraid of all the new and horrible things waiting out in the big, uncertain world.
Chapter Thirteen
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 7:54 P.M.
They should tear that thing down,” Isaac growled, in a foul mood for reasons of his own. His blond hair stood up from his forehead in jagged wisps that fit perfectly with his brown and black leather jacket, giving him a bad-boy look that was . . . unusual. He seemed harder tonight, more grown up. Maybe it was the snarl on his face that eerily resembled his dad’s when Mr. Tayte was in angry mode. “It makes the city look stupid.” He shook his head in disgust and turned away from the Parthenon.
Most casual tourists have no clue, but Nashville, Tennessee, is home to a historically accurate, exact reproduction of the Parthenon from Athens, Greece—what it would have looked like before it fell into ruins, anyway. It’s the centerpiece of Centennial Park and serves as our city’s art museum. In the foyer stands a two-story replica of an ancient statue of Athena that’s just plain scary.
When I was six, it made me cry. I’d thought it was the giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk” and was going to crush my bones to make its bread. The memory made me sigh. What I wouldn’t give to be that little girl again, to be back in a time when turning to my dad and having him pick me up solved everything.