TIme After Time

The guy is nowhere to be seen, but I have a perfect view of Anna as she stands in the center of the kitchen, her parents buzzing happily around her. God, she looks incredible. Her hair is long again, and tonight it’s pulled back in a clip at the nape of her neck. I can’t stop staring.

She’s fluttering around the kitchen like she used to, breaking off pieces of bread and dipping her finger into sauces and closing her eyes as the tastes fill her mouth. She turns and says something to her dad, and he starts cracking up.

Suddenly, Anna pivots toward the window and looks right at me. I duck down quickly, out of sight, and everything’s quiet for a moment except the sound of my heartbeat, which I’m pretty sure they can hear from inside. I wait for a full minute to pass before I look through the corner of the window again.

Anna’s now sitting on the bar stool with her back to me. Mrs. Greene sets a drink on the counter in front of her and I watch Anna bring the glass to her lips.

He’s back. The guy she brought home with her returns to the kitchen and walks straight to the refrigerator. Anna’s blocking my view of him and I adjust my position, trying to get a better look, but I accidentally tap the windowpane. Anna spins in her seat and I flatten my back against the side of the house.

“I saw it again, Dad.” She’s far away and muffled, but I can make out her words, and her voice grows louder, clearer, as she cups her hand to the window and speaks. “There’s something out there, I swear.”

My heart is pounding hard against my rib cage and it takes every ounce of control to remain silent and motionless. She’s right there. I want to say something. I want to stand up and look at her face and see how she reacts. There must be something I can say that will make her come outside, put her hands in mine, and let me take her away to a warmer place so we can sit in sand and talk. I need to know who this guy is and what he’s doing in her house and why she’s looking at him like that. I need to know what happened to us and how we stop it.

I hear her dad’s voice, low and clear. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I swear, I keep seeing something move out there.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says. “Stay here. I’ll go outside and check it out.”

I spin in place looking for somewhere to hide, but there’s nowhere to go. I hear the front door open and slam closed, followed by soft footsteps on the wooden porch.

I panic and close my eyes.

When I open them, I’m back in my room at Maggie’s. I’m sitting on my bed with my head pounding and my stomach sinking, knowing that Mr. Greene found all my footprints, and wondering what happened when he did.

32

The hospital is busier today. I step out of the elevator and into the waiting room, and it takes a full minute for me to spot Anna. I finally see her, sitting in a chair against the far wall, her mom on one side and Justin on the other, holding her hand. Emma is sitting next to him, arms folded across her chest and staring up at the ceiling.

There isn’t anywhere for me to sit, but I walk over to them anyway. As soon as I arrive, Justin stands up. “Hey.” He gestures toward the seat. “Take mine. I was just leaving anyway.” Anna stands up next to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders, and Justin hugs her tightly, eyes closed as he rubs her back. “Call me later, okay? Or even better, come by the store. I’ll be there late.”

Anna kisses him on the cheek.

“Mrs. Greene?” I hear the voice behind me, and when I turn around I find the doctor from yesterday standing there. “You and your daughter can see him, but let’s keep this visit short.”

Anna grabs my hand as she walks past and gives it a squeeze. She and her mom follow the doctor out of the room and I flop down next to Emma. I let my head fall back against the wall. “How’s he doing today?”

“Better, it seems. He regained consciousness in the middle of the night. The test results are promising, but he doesn’t have any function on his right side.” I picture Mr. Greene using his teeth to open a bag of coffee beans. Emma rubs her forehead with her fingertips. “But they think he’ll make a full recovery, eventually.”

This is good news, but Emma’s lower lips quivers and I can tell she’s fighting back tears. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

“Me?” She takes a deep breath and brushes her fingers across her cheeks. “I should be asking you that question, Shaggy. You look like hell.”

I thought I looked pretty good considering everything I’ve been through in the last fifteen hours, but then I bring my hands to my face and feel the thick stubble and realize I’m still wearing the same clothes I was wearing yesterday. “I’m okay,” I lie.

She takes a deep breath and sits up straight in her chair, looking around the crowded waiting room like she’s taking in the ugly furniture and the stacks of magazines piled up on the end tables for the first time. “This is so weird. I’ve never been in a hospital before. Have you?”

I picture Anna and me sitting in a different waiting room in a different hospital—one closer to Chicago and the scene of Emma and Justin’s car accident—but similarly ugly and equally devoid of anything even remotely cheerful. “Yeah, I’ve been in a few.”

“It’s so strange… I have this feeling, you know, like I must have been inside a hospital at least once, aside from being born in one, but I don’t think I ever have. No one in my family has ever been sick and I’ve never broken a bone or anything… Knock wood,” she says, bringing her knuckles to the chair’s wooden arm. Then she shudders. “This place gives me the creeps.”

I never saw Emma after the accident, but Anna told me everything. It’s impossible to look at her right now without picturing her in that sterile hospital room, scratched up and stitched together on the outside, broken and still bleeding out on the inside. Emma will never know what I did for her and I’ll never want her to.

Emma’s eyes dart around the room again and she leans in close. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

She comes in even closer, resting her forearms on my chair. “Do you think Justin has a thing for Anna?”

“Anna?” I don’t mean it to come out in such a “my Anna” tone of voice, but I think it does. “No. I mean, they’re friends. They’ve known each other all their lives. Anna thinks of him like a brother.”

“Oh, yeah…of course. I’m not talking about Anna’s feelings for him—it’s all you in that department—I’m just referring to his feelings for her.” She looks around the waiting room. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have even mentioned anything. I’ve just been curious about your opinion and we’re here, just the two of us, stuck in this crappy hospital.” She taps her bright pink painted fingernails on her jeans. “It was just the way he hugged her a few minutes ago looked a little bit ‘more than friends.’” She says the last part with air quotes. “That, you know, combined with the whole near-kiss thing…”

My head falls to the side and I look at her. “What ‘near-kiss thing’?”

Her eyebrows furrow as she chooses her words more carefully now. “You know. After you left town last spring.” She must be able to tell from the look on my face that I’m hearing this for the first time, because she covers her mouth with her hand and pulls away from me fast. “Anna told me you knew. She made it seem like it was no big deal.”

She never told me. And it might not have been a big deal. If this conversation were happening yesterday, I might have just laughed it off, but coming in on the heels of what I saw last night, I might be feeling a little too raw for this.

“Justin got a little bit drunk at my birthday party, and I might have been taking advantage of the situation, because I finally decided to come right out and ask him how he felt about her, you know? Just to see what he’d say.” I’m not sure I want to hear this, but she keeps talking and I don’t stop her. “At first he swore they were just friends, but then he told me that after you left last spring, they were hanging out at the record store together one day and they almost kissed.” She shrugs, as if that will make it seem like she isn’t bothered by the whole incident,