Laid 2 Rest Two Halves of a Whole (4 page)

Standing right in front of our old high school, I found a much younger version of Maya patiently waiting for me. I pulled over to the curb and she hopped right in, oblivious to the fact that I was an alien in my own body.

“Someone’s having a good day. I think you’re actually glowing,” she said with a huge grin plastered on her face.

“That still remains to be seen.”

“Uh oh, did you guys have a fight?”

“Not trying to brag or anything, but I just screwed his brains out. A couple of times in fact! I really missed him.”

“Missed him? What’s it been, like two whole days since the last time you guys did it?”

I almost messed up and said more like nineteen years, but I caught myself just in a nick of time. I had to be careful. Very, very careful not to scare her off. In fact, I needed her to stop me from falling into the deep end myself. To keep me sane so I didn’t become anymore frazzled than what I was already.

“Do you have to go home right away or can we go somewhere and talk for a little while first?”

One of her eyebrows shot straight up. “
Good grief,
this is serious, isn’t it?”

“Girl, you have no idea.”

I headed down gravity hill, straight for the mushroom tower, remembering the way perfectly which literally amazed me since I’m directionally challenged. It wasn’t really a mushroom or a tower at all for that matter. It was more like a huge round wooden platform set in the middle of a canyon. We had stumbled across it years ago solely by accident. This is where we went whenever we had something major to talk about and didn’t want to be overheard by extra-large ears. Anything discussed at the mushroom tower stayed at the mushroom tower. That was an unspoken rule of ours. I hope that the same rules will apply to this conversation as well, but what choice do I have really. I have to trust her and even though trust right now is a hard thing for me to give someone… I have to do it.

I had no other alternative.

We sat side-by-side with our feet dangling over the edge. The view was beautiful from here. The air even seemed cleaner and with all the smog in L.A., that was really saying something.

I’m not sure how long we sat in silence, but she never pushed me… not once. She waited patiently until I was ready to begin. This was a quality that I did not possess and in all honestly, I really envied her sometimes for it.

Looking over at her from time to time, taking in small glimpses of my fifteen year old best bud’s appearance, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen the older version of her since my dad’s funeral. It had been ten months since that horrible day. Being back here in a time when my dad was still alive and well was a little unnerving and had reopened a lot of wounds that had just barely begun to close.

Concentrate Jasmine…
focus
, I commanded myself, unsure if I had the strength in me to handle seeing my dad right now anyways. The memory of him lying cold and still in his casket haunted me everyday.

Let me handle this little hiccup first. Deal with one thing at a time... figure out what exactly was happening to me and why I’m still here in dreamland.

Maya had long, individual braids with white beads on the ends of her jet-black hair. Her face soft and round, not yet hardened by the struggles of having two good for nothing baby daddies in her life. She turned and met my eyes when I asked, “Do you know how old I am?”

“You’re definitely not old enough to start losing your memory.” She smiled, not taking my question seriously.

“If I tell you something, will you hear me out…? I mean really truly believe what I’m saying to you, no matter how insane or impossible it might sound. I’m not sure how to say this or even how to begin so I’m just going to be direct and get straight to the point, okay?”

She simply nodded back in mutual understanding.

Inhaling a deep breath first, I swallowed the tennis ball lodged in my throat and began. “I may look sixteen at the moment, but I’m really thirty-five. I’m from the future, Maya. From what I’ve been able to gather so far, I’ve somehow managed to go back in time and entered this younger version of myself. I woke up last night in Jay’s arms, in my old body and I don’t have any clue on why or how that is even
possible
.

At first, I thought I was just dreaming. Maybe I still am… I don’t know! Dreams don’t usually last this long, do they? I’m scared and I need you to help me figure this out. Please help me. You’re my girl and I’m not sure if this is real or not or how I’m supposed to even get back home... maybe I’m trapped here. What if I went to sleep Maya and never woke up?” I finished with a big sigh then waited for the crazy speech to start.

However, she didn’t even crack a smile. God bless her. I think I could actually see the wheels spinning in her head as she processed what I just confided in her.

“Okay, so if this isn’t some kind of sick joke and you’re not high on drugs, then I’m going to need some kind of proof you’re really from the future and not just pulling my leg before we go any farther,” she demanded, surprising me.

“Ask me something then... anything. Do you want to know the names of your daughters? Of my
Goddaughters?
”

Her eyes teared up instantly as she covered her mouth with her hand, sucking in air between her teeth. “Daughters?” she said so low, I was barely able to hear her.

“Two,” I said holding up twin fingers.

“No! No, don’t tell me their names. It’s enough just knowing that I will have two kids. That I’m going to be a mom someday. We’re friends still then?”

She was afraid to jinx herself and that was probably super smart on her part if this wasn’t a dream. In the movies, bad things always happened to those who tampered with time. You could end up changing your whole future if you were not extremely careful.

“We used to be a lot closer before I moved to New Mexico in 2004,” I replied, semi-paranoid about what damage I might have unintentionally caused to my present already.

“What the hell is in New Mexico? 2004. Well, I guess I’m not surprised that you got out of California finally, but New Mexico…2004. This is unbelievable… unreal.”

“Who you telling? How do you think I feel? I’m the one it’s happening to, but New Mexico really isn’t that bad, I’m still trying to persuade you to leave the hood and move there with me,” I teased lightly.

“What year is it there now?”

“2009.”

“Well, it sure is a relief to know that we’re both still alive and kicking, I guess.”

We laughed and hugged each other. Then after answering a million more questions, I think she was starting to actually believe me. She really had an open-mind. I don’t think I would have been so understanding if circumstances were reversed.

“What were you doing right before you time traveled?”

“
Time traveled
… I didn’t think of it like that. I really wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. I remember washing my face to get ready for bed when I…” gasping with a hand over my heart, my eyes grew round as something just occurred to me all of a sudden.

“When you what?” she demanded. “Tell me, don’t shutdown on me now!”

“I remembered something Jay had said to me a long time ago and then I woke up naked in his arms.”

Did I cause all of this to happen then? Did I will myself here somehow?

“I see… It sounds to me like Jayden is the key to why you’re here. That was simple... mystery solved girlfriend,” Maya said, answering my unasked questions.

“How can he be though… he’s not even alive anym… Oh my God. I’m sixteen today. Today’s June 14, 1990. NO!” I stammered, trying to standup with no success as buried past events suddenly came flooding back to the forefront of my mind.

How could I be SO STUPID?

I had been so blinded that I wasn’t thinking straight, so I failed to acknowledge the significance of today’s date. Today was going to be one of the worst days of my young life, the day that set my downward spiral in motion. Today was the day that I would lose a huge chunk of myself forever.

“What’s wrong?” she said, shaking me so hard, I felt my teeth shift.

I could feel my eyes glaze over, as I recalled tonight’s life-shattering event. This cannot be happening. I can’t be here. I can’t go thru this again. I just can’t. With hot tears streaming down my face, I whispered, “Jay dies today.”

“WHAT! What do you mean he dies? How? Jazz, you were just with him. Tell me right now what’s supposed to happen today!” She wailed with horror written all over her face.

“It was all my fault… he was rushing because I wanted him to take me to the movies tonight, but he had to stop and pick up my birthday present first before the jewelry store closed. A car came out of nowhere and plowed right into him. It was so dark outside that the driver never saw him crossing the street.

He never showed to pick me up that night. I didn’t even find out until the next day, I called over there a billion times to see what was keeping him. I called all night, but no one answered.

I was mad at first… for being stood up, but then the worry began to set in. It wasn’t until the following afternoon that someone finally answered the phone and told me what had happened to him.”

Minutes in silence passed before she squared her jaw and said, “Do you want to know what I think? Hear me out on this before you say anything. I think you’re here,
right now
for a reason, today of all days. I think you came back to save him. To stop the accident from ever happening. You just left him, right. It’s only a little after 4:00 pm so you still have a couple of hours before it remotely gets dark. Maybe this is something that you’re supposed to correct. What if he wasn’t supposed to die today? And you’re here right now to prevent it.”

Wonder spread across my face at the possibility of it. I knew by her voice that she was dead serious.

Could what she was saying really be true?

This wasn’t a dream after all. This is real… very, very real.

I made up my mind up quickly, consequences be damned and snapped to attention, confident in what I was about to do next. “That’s it girl. You’re a freakin’ genius! I knew there was a reason that you were my best bud all these years. I could kiss you… I have to save him. Me. Oh man, Maya, we have to go. I have to find him now… right now. Before it’s too late.”

CHAPTER TWO

T
EN MINUTES LATER,
M
AYA WAS
delivered safely to her home in Pacoima. Doubling back, I headed straight for Jay’s apartment only a few short blocks away.

Please be here;
oh, please be here,
I kept repeating to myself as I knocked on his front door. Only seconds ticked by, but it felt as if hours had passed by the time the door finally cracked opened.

“Just couldn’t stay away, huh?” Jay teased about my sudden unexpected appearance.

Deliriously happy to see that he was in fact still breathing, I literally leapt into his arms, knocking him off-balance as we both fell crashing to the carpet.

“I’m so sorry,” I said laughing and crying at the same time. “You don’t mind if I come in, do you?”

He helped me up before shutting the door behind us without questioning why I was there. We had just parted ways less than two hours ago, but it was clear that he already missed me. “Are you hungry? I just had a pizza delivered,” he confessed, rubbing his stomach. “I sure did work up one hell of an appetite this afternoon!”

“Me too, I’m starving,” I replied back shyly as my cheeks grew warm. Leaning down, Jay cupped my face and kissed me before he left to fix us a plate.

Wow, he sure is affectionate
.

Simple actions like that were long gone in my marriage.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, staring around the living room that I never imagined in a million years that I would ever find myself back in.

“Vegas. I have the whole place to myself this weekend, remember?”

Not really,
but that wasn’t important.

“You have no parental supervision!”

Times certainly have changed. Nowadays, parents barely let their kids go outside and play, let alone, leave them to party in Las Vegas for an entire weekend. I guess I was on my own since no one else was here to help me with my plan to save him.

“My aunt is supposed to check on me in the morning,” he yelled back from the kitchen.

His aunt. She had been the person who had to tell me the heartbreaking news. I can still remember the unbearable sadness in her voice as she tried to explain the accident to me.

Shake it off girl,
I chastised myself. If all goes well tonight then that particular conversation will never happen. I have a real chance to right a horrible wrong.
So please God
, do not allow me to screw this up completely.

He sat down in the middle of the couch, while I sat on the floor between his long legs and enjoyed our warm gooey pepperoni with extra cheese pizza. I hid my face as much as possible from him so that he wouldn’t become suspicious that something was bothering me. He was a pro at reading my face or part psychic when it came to me,
take your pick
.