“Chrys, the future changed,” she says, grabbing my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I pull away from her, backing into the door. “What are you talking about?”
“Adrien,” she says. “I saw his whole life, Chrys! He was supposed to leave the camp when he turned eighteen to move to France to study baking and…” She covers her mouth, hyperventilating.
“So you can see the future,” I say.
“Yes, I can see the future!” she shouts. “Is that all you’re getting from this, Chrys? This is wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen! But yesterday… his future—everyone’s future—just… shifted.” She jabs herself in the chest several times. “It’s all my fault. It must be.”
“No, Valeria, it’s not your fault—”
“I’m the only one who can change the future like that, Chrys! The future doesn’t just shift. It’s set in stone. Unless someone interrupts the flow. Someone who knows, who knows what’s going to happen. And yesterday, I told you… something I shouldn’t have, and now everything’s going to shit!”
I think back to yesterday, confused.
“Are you talking about the game yesterday?” I say. “When you told me Elise was talking in my head?”
Her eyes open wider. “Yes! I don’t know why I said that, but I shouldn’t have. It shifted your whole future. You weren’t supposed to find out until later. Oh my god. I’m such an idiot.” She sinks to the floor, covering her face with her hands. “And now Adrien’s dead because of me.”
I sit on the floor in front of her. “Look, Valeria. I get that you changed my future or whatever, but that probably has nothing to do with Adrien. It was just a tiny thing, what you told me. I doubt it affected much.”
“You don’t even know,” she says, her voice shaking. “It’s so different now. Everything is. I’m so sorry.”
“How is it different now?”
“If I tell you that then it’ll just change again, for the worse. It always changes for the worse. Always. Always. Always. People think they want to know the future, but they don’t. Because that knowledge, that expectation—it changes everything. It changes how you act and what you say. Even if you’re trying to get the same outcome. Because instead of doing what you’d naturally do, you start doing the things you think you should do. And that changes the outcome. The only time I’ve ever seen the future shift like this is when I get involved. When I blab about something I shouldn’t have.”
“Okay, you don’t have to tell me the future or anything,” I say. “But still, I don’t think this is entirely your fault. And even if… maybe what you said did lead to this, it’s not like you did it on purpose. It was an accident.”
“It must be nice, Chrys. Being in control of your gift. I wish I had something even close to that. Sure, I didn’t do it on purpose. But what’s the point of seeing the future like this? I can’t control the future. All I can do is just see it. If I try to change anything and use my gift in any way, it just makes everything worse.”
She looks up at me, tears streaming from her face.
“Certainly that’s…” I don’t quite know what to say or how to cheer her up. “I mean, maybe there is a way to use your gift to make the future better, but you just haven’t figured out how yet.”
She shakes her head. “Chrys, no matter how good my intentions are, it just makes everything worse. Trust me, I know.”
“But maybe—”
“Listen to me. I’m going to tell you something, so just listen, okay?”
I nod.
She sighs and wipes the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “God,” she mutters, “I’ve never told anyone this before…”
She covers her face with her hands and takes a deep breath. When she exhales, she puts her hands down on her lap.
“When I learned how to talk as a kid…” she says, “I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop telling everyone their futures, trying to change all the bad things I saw. My parents… I saw how they would die. It was decades from then, after they had two more kids—two boys. But then I told them, and the future shifted. Instead of dying decades from then, it changed to just one decade.
“So I told them that. And it shifted again. Closer. So I kept telling them how the future changed and every time I told them their deaths got closer. They died the next day, Chrys. My mom was supposed to die from cancer at age 68, and my dad a few years later from a heart attack. But instead they burned to death, trapped in a car, in their thirties.
“And you know what’s funny? They didn’t even believe me. They hardly even listened. But just me saying it out loud changed everything. And can you imagine how much I changed everyone’s futures just because of that? I mean, two people—my brothers—who were supposed to be in this world and have futures of their own were never even born because of me. The whole future had to change to erase them and my parents…”
Her shoulders droop further. “After my parents died, I didn’t speak for a long time. I only started talking again after I came here a couple years ago. So, sure, maybe there is a way to change the future for the better, but do you really think it’s worth trying to find out how? I could ruin everything.”
I nod. “Okay, I get that. I mean, maybe all of us are able to do more with our gifts, but we don’t want to hurt people so we don’t bother trying to see exactly what we’re capable of…”
“Like maybe you can kill people with your thoughts instead of having to touch them,” she says.
My eyes open wide. “That would be a nightmare. I’d have to avoid thinking about anyone too.
