TIme After Time

driveway, smiling up at this guy who isn’t me, and I feel the blood coursing hot through my veins.

“See, I get to have this tiny little taste of all these incredible things but I don’t get to keep any of them. I get to meet you and be part of your life, and I get to know your family and your friends, but I don’t get to hold on to any of it. I can’t stay here. This isn’t my home. And every time I have go to back, it kills me. Every. Single. Time. And it always will.”

“Bennett…” Anna steps back onto the sidewalk and pushes me away from the edge.

“No, wait. It gets even better.” I let out a sarcastic laugh and bring my hand to my chest. “I finally find something that makes me feel good about this thing I can do. I figure out how to save people’s lives. I get to give a few deserving people a second chance. And that feels really incredible for, like, twenty minutes…right up until the second it starts beating the shit out of me.”

I let out another laugh. “Oh wait, and here’s the best part. The more good things I do, the more I lose the one thing I promised you I wouldn’t lose—control. It’s like this infinite, totally screwed up loop,” I say, spinning my finger in the air.

Anna takes a deep breath and presses her lips tightly together. She’s crying even harder now, which should make me feel horrible but for some reason doesn’t.

“Check it out,” I say, bringing my hand to my chest. “I don’t get to have what I want. Not ever. Because the one thing I want is a normal life. I don’t want to be special and different, I just want to wake up and go to school and do homework and ride my skateboard in the park with my friends. I want my dad to be proud of me because I got an A on some stupid paper, not because I saved some kids’ lives. I want to stare out a window and think about how cool it would be to be able to travel back in time, but I don’t want to actually be able to do it. And I want to be in love with a girl I can see every day, not every three weeks.”

I’ve been gesturing wildly with my hands but now that I’m done ranting, I don’t know what to do with them. I run my fingers through my hair.

“I have to go. I’m sorry.” I head back toward the coffee shop, but before I can reach the door, I feel Anna’s grasp, tight on my arm.

“Bennett, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean—”

“What? Didn’t mean to talk me into all of this?” The words just slip out, even though I know they’re not true, and I turn around in time to see her face fall. That should be enough to stop me from talking, but it isn’t. “If you hadn’t made me help Emma, I never would have known what I could do. I could have spent the rest of my life going to concerts and climbing rocks in exotic locations, never caring that I was being selfish with my ability, because you know what, it’s mine. Not yours. Not my dad’s. Mine.” I slap my chest.

“I know that…I never meant…”

“I structured my life around a set of rules, and then I broke them for you. And for what? So I could be a better person?” I huff in exasperation. “How is my life better because a stranger never broke his leg and five people are alive who probably shouldn’t be?”

“What you did was really good. And if you were a normal person, we never would have met.”

“Yeah…well I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

She pulls away and looks at me. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

As hard as it is to do, I nod.

Tears are streaming down her face and I can’t look at her. I need to get away from here.

“I need to think, Anna. You need to think.”

“I don’t need to think.”

“Well you should, because this is crazy.” I remember the words Mr. Greene said to me at the meet the other day. This is ridiculous. Do you really think you can keep this up? “Come on, what were we thinking? We can’t do this forever.”

She wipes her face dry and stares at me.

“I’m going to go back to my real life for a while, okay? I’ll come back at Christmas,” I say, as if this will make it better. “Your dad’s going to be okay,” I say, as if this justifies my leaving.

She finds her voice, but it’s low and quiet and I have to strain to hear her. “Please stay.”

Before she can say another word, I take two steps back until I feel the corner of the building behind me, and without even caring who might be watching, I close my eyes and disappear.

December 2012

33

San Francisco, California

I spent the whole drive over here psyching myself up for my performance, but once I walked through Megan’s front door it all sort of clicked on its own. It could have been the loud music or the underlying buzz of conversation that carried from one packed room to the next, but whatever it was, I was grateful. I stood in the entryway, looked around, and sucked in the intoxicating scent of holiday cheer and out-of-town parents. I reminded myself that I didn’t have to genuinely enjoy being at this party; I just had to play the part.

Now I’m all smiles and backslaps, quick one-liners and snappy comebacks, acting so out of character of late that when Sam sees me, he shoots me this Who the hell are you right now look. I may suck as a superhero, but as it turns out, I’m a fairly decent actor.

“You’re certainly chipper tonight.” Of all people, I would have expected Brooke to see through me, but she must not, because I can hear the bitterness in her voice.

“I am,” I lie. “And I’m going to stay in a good mood because it’s Christmas vacation and you’re home from school and I’m surrounded by good friends and I’m tired of feeling like shit.” I smile and take a sip of my drink. “I’m done. From here on out, I’m living in the moment.” I raise my glass in the air, toasting no one in particular.

“You were pretty upset last night.” I look around at the guys to be sure no one overheard her, but I realize it’s impossible. I can barely hear her over the music.

I lean in close. “Well then, last night marked the end of my wallowing.”

Brooke looks at me and slowly shakes her head. After my parents and I picked her up from the airport last night, the two of us sat in my room talking for a long time. Then I made the mistake of showing her Anna’s photo album. We got about halfway through when I had to leave the room, and while she was flipping through pages, I was in the bathroom trying not to hurl. I returned with my eyes burning and my cheeks feeling hot, took the photo book out of her grasp, and smashed it back in the drawer. She never got to see the last picture.

“No offense,” Brooke says as she taps away on her phone, “but I’m not sure how much longer I can stand this high school party. Kathryn just texted me to see if I wanted to do something, but—” She looks up at me and stops talking.

“But?”

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head. “I guess I just thought you might need me around tonight, but you seem to be doing just fine, so…” She trails off, looking around the room. “I’m going to go outside and call her. See what’s up.”

Brooke walks away and I spot Sam and Lindsey hanging out by the fireplace. I’m just about to head over there when the room goes dark.

“Merry Christmas,” a voice whispers in my ear. I pull a pair of hands away from my face and turn around. Megan’s standing there wearing a red dress and a big grin. She pops one hip.

“It’s about time you made it to one of my parties.” She holds her arms out wide, palms up, and looks around the room. “See, now aren’t you sorry you didn’t get to one of these earlier?”