We take the elevator down to the first floor and I steer her toward the entrance. The wind outside blows our hair back, but we huddle close to each other on a cement bench next to a tall ashtray. It smells like fresh rain and stale cigarettes.
“I want to go back.” I don’t wait for her to answer; I just start running her through the plan I’ve been concocting since we left the bookstore. “I’ll go back to this morning. I’ll get Brooke and bring her to your meet, and then I’ll tell you what’s going to happen with your dad, okay? It’ll be fine.”
Anna shakes her head. “What about the side effects? Last time you ended up with twenty-two hours you could never account for. What if you try, and instead, we all get knocked back somewhere? Or what if we lose those hours and I don’t find my dad when I did? You can’t mess with this one, Bennett.”
I hear her, but that doesn’t stop me from running through the easier scenarios again. If we went back to the bookstore, I don’t know what would happen to Anna. If we went back to this morning at the race, I don’t know what would happen to Brooke.
“Stop,” she says, as if she can tell that I’m still trying to figure out a way to make it work. “Listen. You promised me you’d tell me if you ever lost control. But apparently I need to be the one to tell you.” Anna locks her eyes on mine. “You’re not in control. You cannot fix this.”
My stomach sinks. God, if she only knew how much I want to. That I’d do anything to fix it. But she’s right. I can’t. There’s too much at stake this time. I’m not in control anymore. Not unless I stick to the rules.
Anna presses her lips tightly together and runs her thumb along my cheek. “You aren’t supposed to change things, remember?” Then she rests her head on my shoulder. The two of us sit like that for a long time, listening to the sound of the automatic doors sliding open and snapping shut as people pass us on their way in and out of the building.
I tell her I’m sorry a few more times, and she tells me not to be. But I don’t tell her what I’m really thinking: If I hadn’t come here today, she would have driven home with her dad instead of Brooke and me. She would have had three hours in the car with him. Three hours to notice that something was wrong.
Those three hours should have been his, and I took them away.
Today, after we found her dad in the bookstore, we both went straight to one question:
As Justin and I leave the hospital, the wind slaps us hard in the face. We pull our coats tighter around us as we march, heads down, plowing toward the car. He climbs in first and unlocks my door for me.
“You okay to drive in this?”
His shoots me a look and turns the key in the ignition. “Yeah.”
And that’s the last thing he says for the next twenty miles. Every time I look over at him, he has this strange look on his face and his fingers are white-knuckled from gripping the steering wheel so hard. We’re traveling down Lake Shore Drive, at or just under the speed limit, but the wind packs a wallop. Each time it slams into the side of the car it feels like it’s about to wrap its fingers around this lightweight Honda Civic and hurl it straight into Lake Michigan.
I try to make small talk. “I didn’t know you had a car.”
“I got it over the summer.” He turns onto a side street. “It’s nice, but it’s light. When it starts snowing, I’m going to have to load the trunk with sandbags so I don’t skid.”
Now that we’re off Lake Shore and heading into the wind, the car feels a little less squirrelly. I see Justin’s shoulders relax slightly and his fingers uncurl. He takes one hand off the wheel and squeezes the back of his neck.
“I’ve known him since I was a little kid,” Justin says, his voice deeper than usual. “Our parents have played bridge together every other Saturday night for as long as I can remember.” He takes a deep breath. “He’s so
“I know,” I say. Of course, I don’t know. I’ve never heard any of this. But I have no idea what to tell him right now.
“This whole thing is just so weird…” Justin trails off as he takes another turn, and I resist the urge to say that I’m sure Mr. Greene will be okay, because I have no way of knowing this, and he may not be. The air in the car is thick with tension, and Justin keeps looking at me like it’s my turn to talk.
I haven’t known Mr. Greene very long. I don’t have years of collected stories that substantiate his impact on my life or anything. I just know that I like him, that he’s a nice person and a good dad, and that he doesn’t deserve to be hooked up to machines right now.
Justin blows a mouthful of air at the windshield. “They say he could be totally fine, and make a full recovery, but I can’t help but wonder.” When he pulls up to the stoplight, he turns to me. “I mean, I don’t know anything about strokes, but it seems pretty far-fetched that there wouldn’t be any damage to his brain. He had to have been out for at least…what did the doctor think? Twenty…twenty-five minutes?”
This is the part I can’t think about, let alone talk about. Anna and I were just down the street during those twenty minutes. What if there had been a parking space in front of the bookstore? What if we hadn’t stopped for coffee? What if I hadn’t come here today?
“I guess we’ll know more tomorrow when the test results are back.”
“I guess. But man, doesn’t it make you wish you had future sight or something? I mean, if we could just
As the light turns green, he looks away from me, shaking his head as if it’s a ridiculous thought.
The deadbolt clicks open with a loud
My feet drag across the hardwood floor and it takes far too much effort to lug myself up the stairs. My brain is working overtime, but my body can’t wait to fall into bed.
I head straight for the bathroom, where I splash cold water on my face and check out my reflection. My skin is pale and my eyes are bloodshot, lids half closed despite the cold jolt I just gave them. I flick off the light and head back to my room.
I should have insisted on staying with Anna at the hospital, even though the look on her mom’s face made it pretty clear that she didn’t want me there. For the hundredth time tonight, I picture Anna’s expression when she told me I couldn’t go back, and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by not even trying. Especially when I remember how Mr. Greene blinked at me.
But of all the things that happened tonight—of all the things that were said—Justin’s words are the ones haunting me and keeping me awake.
He said he wished he could see into the future, with absolutely no idea that
I can’t fight it anymore, so against my better judgment, I dig my heavy boots out from the back of the closet and step into them, and then I zip myself into my black parka and pull my wool cap low to my brow. I fill my backpack with bottled water and a wad of cash.
I’m not changing anything. I’m not manipulating the clock, and I’m not doing anything over. I’m observing, just like I’ve always done. This time, I’m not breaking the rules, and when it’s over, no one ever has to know what I did.
The doctor said it would take time and patience; that even if he made a full recovery, it would probably take a year or two. With her words in mind, I stand in the center of my room and close my eyes.
I visualize the yellow paint that’s chipping and peeling on the side of the Greenes’ house, and clear my head of everything but today’s date: November 15.
I pick a time I know he’ll be home: six thirty A.M.
And I choose a year in my past, but in Anna’s future: 1997.
