No Regrets (3 page)

I ripped the page out of the notebook, folded it up, and stuck it in my underwear drawer. I was too tired to think anymore, and I wanted to hold onto the good feeling that I had finally got an idea that might make everything better.

I got ready for bed, keeping my mind focused on that hotel room. A treat to think about once I was in bed. Pajamas, hair, parents. I turned on my music and turned off the light. Then I lay in bed, going through stuff on my phone that I had missed.

Lots of messages from Tanaya—she must have been bored.

Why you miss practice?

What?!
I had just completely spaced it. Been so busy thinking that I'd just automatically gone home. What was wrong with me?

She'd also asked again about prom and sent me a picture (again) of the guy she thought I should ask.

You don't wanna miss out on this!

I put the phone under my pillow. I wanted to think about Marquis. Not just in the past, now, but how, if things went right, I could see him soon. I tried to remember how it felt to have his arms around me. What he smelled like. How his skin felt.

See, it had been, like, eight months since I'd seen or talked to Marquis, and in that picture Tanaya sent, I still barely noticed how cute that other guy was. It must be true love, right?

I wanted to get in that hotel room in my mind, but my thoughts kept going other places. How was I going to change anything? I'd have to talk to Marquis somehow and get him to tell mein-the-past that he wanted to stay together. But how could I do that? What if he didn't want that? What if he was with someone else right now?

I cussed and kicked around in my bed, trying to stop the pictures of Marquis with some other girl. My cousin hadn't told me that she'd heard about him being with anyone else, but she was in Chicago. Anything could be happening where he was.

Stop making yourself crazy
, I told myself.

What if I messed it up and made Marquis mad? So he didn't want to talk to me? Right now, I thought things were probably cool. Like, if I did text him, he would probably say hey back to me. I just didn't see the point of that if there wasn't anything to say. Like, I changed my mind, I'm coming tomorrow. If you've been getting with some other girl, you better get rid of her. Riiiiight.

But maybe it would be better just to talk to myself-in-the-past and get her to do things differently. Not even say no, but say how much she wanted to be with him and here's how they could make it happen.

Except … Marquis had never gotten the school thing with me. He dropped out his senior year when he got his eighteen money. “What do I need school for?” he said. And he'd been doing fine since then. So I didn't know what I could have said that would have made him get why I was saying no, just until I graduated at least.

Maybe I should have told him he could come live here. He seemed pretty into the reservation. But he didn't really know the other side of himself, the black side. Last summer was only the second time he'd been to Chicago to visit his dad and hang out with his cousin and get to know other people in his family.

I mean, he didn't even know a lot of black history, but I did. I could teach him the history of our people. He could come here and see what it was like to live with an African American family and hang out with my friends … I tried to think where he could sleep, besides with me. I didn't think my dad … Maybe the basement could be fixed up? He could pay some rent, and that could help out.

Or he could get an apartment here, and after my parents get used to him, I could move in. I wasn't sure how much money he had. I knew his eighteen money had been a lot, but I wasn't sure how much he got each year.

I had now so seriously worn myself out, I finally fell asleep.

“Little change of plans,” the guy said, standing at the front of a classroom. He was even wearing that dumb tie Mr. Washington has, the one with the trumpets and junk. “Why am I wearing this, by the way?” he asked, flapping the tie at me.

I shrugged. “You look like Mr. Washington, and that's his tie. And my dreams always start in school. What can I say? It's dumb.”

The guy snorted. “I don't look anything like that guy, and I'm no band teacher.” He sat down heavily in the teacher's roll-y chair. “Hey, Layla, sorry to do this to you, but—”

“What?” I said.

“Well, it wasn't my decision, although the more I thought about it—”

“What?? Spit it out!”

“You can't change anything.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“In the past or future. Except by what you do in the present—that changes the future, of course … I think …” He looked confused and embarrassed.

“So you're saying … that everything's set? Like, it can't be changed, ever?”

“Mmm, well, I don't think so. Like I said, I'm not exactly clear on the whole idea of fate or ‘it's all meant to be' or whatever. Not the kind of thing they tell me. But it's just going to make a big mess if you go in the past and try to change stuff. You'd come back and everything would be all different and you'd be confused—”

Now I was so mad. “But wait, what the—! I've just spent, like, forever figuring out how I'm going to use this and change stuff and fix everything! And now you say I can't!”

He rubbed his face. “Well, you can still time travel. I don't think I'll be giving anyone this gift again, but since we've started—”

“But what's the point if I can't change anything?!”

He shrugged. “I did try to warn you. And I tried to get you to tell me more so I could help. It seemed so important to you, though. You'll figure it out. Want to tell me about your problems now, while we've got the time?”

“No,” I said coldly.

“All right, then. See you later,” he said and walked out of the room.

I woke up mad. Who did that guy think he was, trying to change the rules on me? Not that I had the perfect plan yet, but I was getting there. I checked the time. Fifteen minutes before I needed to get up for school. The worst time to wake up. I threw a pillow on the floor.

I tried to remember exactly what my plan was. I remembered the hotel room. I could call Marquis and ask him to come visit. Would he come so far just for a booty call? Is that what I wanted? Maybe we could start with that and then see where things went. Maybe it would be easier to talk about the future in person.

All fall and winter I had been going crazy about this. Did I do the right thing? Should I call him? But as it got closer to summer, I relaxed a little. I realized I was hoping the next summer could just be a repeat of last summer with a better ending.

I could play it cool, like I had tried to move on, but I still liked him. But I was also still standing firm on needing to finish school. He could find out just how much he couldn't live without me. And together we'd come up with a plan. I wouldn't have to come straight out and ask him and risk him telling me no. If I had more time with him, I thought I could figure out what he might say yes to.

And this time we'd be smart and get us some real privacy. Lying in bed together, talking. “You should come home with
me
for this year. Come learn about my life.” That might be the way to say it.

My alarm went off, and I dragged myself out of bed.

As I got dressed, I realized that I didn't know if Marquis was coming back to Chicago this summer. He could go anytime he wanted since he wasn't in school. And I didn't know if my mom was planning to go.

Should I text him and ask if he would come? Would that be weird? I thought I'd rather just see him there and have it be natural, so I wouldn't seem desperate. Or like I regretted saying no.

“Can I have the car today?” I asked my mom in the kitchen.

“Talk to your father,” she said, wrapping stuff up for her lunch.

I looked at my dad. He was sitting in his bathrobe, drinking coffee.

“I can wait until you get home to do my stuff,” he said. This meant he was going back to bed as soon as my mom and I left. “When you going to be back? Don't you have practice?”

I stared at him. Already I'd forgotten about track practice again. I just wanted to get through the school day so I could have time to plan and then do some time traveling. It was weird because after Tanaya made me try out for cross-country in the fall, running had become so important to me. But right now I couldn't care less.

Maybe I could skip practice again. I wondered how many practices I could miss before I got kicked off the track team.

“Hello, Layla?” my dad said.

I shrugged. “I don't know—I'm not sure if there's practice today.”

My dad gave me a weird look. My dad kept track of my sports stuff. He used to coach whatever I was doing when I was little. He told me once he had wanted to be a college basketball coach. Too bad about that.

“Gotta go,” I said, grabbing a piece of toast off my dad's plate. In the car I thought about texting Tanaya, but she'd just want me to pick Cherry up, too. And she'd want to talk about track and prom. I decided to skip it.

As I drove to school, I got a great idea. I could go to next summer and see if Marquis was in Chicago. Then I wouldn't have to ask him to come. Of course, I thought as I drummed on the steering wheel with my music, since I could only go where future-me was, I would have to be in Chicago, too, but I was pretty sure that would happen one way or another.

I looked around for cops and then pulled out my phone. My mom would still be on the bus.

“Hello?” She sounded tired.

“Mom, can we go to Chicago this summer again?”

“What you calling me about that now for?”

“Just thinking about it. Can we?”

She sighed. “I thought we might go for the Fourth or Labor Day.”

“That's all?”

“I don't know if I want to take a lot of time off for it.”

“Can I go for longer again? Maybe right after school's out, and you can bring me back?”

“How you getting there? I haven't heard about anyone going.”

“I could take the bus.”

“You got money for that?”

“If I get a ticket now it's cheaper.”

She sighed again. “Well, we can see. I can ask if anyone's going in June. And we gotta talk to Grandma. But why we talking about this now? I thought you were doing OK here.”

“It's OK, I just wanted to know. Bye, Mama—have a good day.”

I knew if I waited for my mom to try to set up a ride for me, it might never happen. I pulled into the parking lot at school and looked at the time. I was early. Perfect. I walked fast to the school library and looked up the Megabus online. I screamed when I saw that tickets were only five dollars to Chicago.

Then I remembered I'd need a credit card to buy one. Dang. I'd have to take one from my dad's wallet. They probably wouldn't even notice a five dollar charge, and I'd pay them back, anyway.

I sat back and thought hard. Now I was sure I'd be in Chicago in June and at least until the Fourth of July. Maybe even until Labor Day. I wondered if I needed to buy the ticket first to make sure it was really, for-sure happening before I went to the future to see if Marquis was there. If I had gone to the future before I looked up the ticket, would future-me have been in Chicago anyway? Or maybe I had just changed the future by talking about it with my mom and checking on the ticket.

I had to admit, the magic genie guy, or whatever he was, was right that this stuff was complicated. It was like I couldn't ever try to plan anything or think about it for more than a few minutes without my head feeling all dizzy.

I looked at the time. Five minutes before the first bell. I wanted so badly to know if Marquis would be there. I didn't want to sit through a whole school day wondering.

I looked around. The librarian was here somewhere, but I couldn't see her. But more people might be around when I came back. I needed more privacy. Bathroom again? But then I saw the little study room that groups and tutors used. I went in and closed the door.

“Future. June 28, 8:00 p.m.” I was thinking that even if Marquis wasn't in Chicago when I got there, he might come after he heard I was there. And last summer we were together almost every night.

It felt like crap just like the other times. I stumbled and put my hand down on a bed. The guest room at my grandma's. I saw my junk everywhere, and I could hear voices.

I tiptoed out into the hall. People were in the kitchen. I suddenly realized I had no plan. Crap! I listened. Grandma and me—it sounded like we were playing cards. Double crap. What was I doing at Grandma's when I should have been out?

I leaned on the wall and bit my nails. I couldn't go in there and ask myself. I'd probably give Grandma a heart attack. And last time future me wouldn't tell me anything anyway. I could wait to see if she left the kitchen. But I didn't have much time …

I tiptoed back to the bedroom. I kicked some clothes lying on the floor. Then I grabbed them and smelled them. Was that Marquis' cologne? I sniffed them really hard and grabbed more to smell. Maybe—I couldn't tell for sure.

I tried to think what else would tell me. I went through the pockets. I found a receipt from the day before for a Snapple from a gas station by his cousin's. I was holding it so tight and my hands were sweating so much that it was ripping. That must mean something. Would I be over there or hanging with his cousin if Marquis wasn't here?

I opened drawers, trying to be quiet. I wished I kept a diary or something stupid like that. Just clothes. I sat on the bed. If I had something to hide, like condoms, where would I put them? I looked around for my purse. Then I saw the cord of my charger peeking out from behind the dresser where the only outlet was. I almost yelled. I had taken two steps over toward it when, ugh, I was back in the library.

I fell down into a chair, shaking. I bent over, fighting not to puke.

“Why'd you do that?!” I said. “I need to look at that phone!”

Oh God, I felt so bad. But no one was going to stop me.

I stood up slowly, holding onto the chair. “Future, June 28, 8:10 p.m.,” I said as I bumped my heels together.

This time I did puke. Right on Grandma's rug. I hoped they hadn't heard me. As soon as I was done, I crawled over to the dresser and found the phone on the charger. I almost cried, I was so relieved. Finally I could check for texts from Marquis. I turned it on.

My screen was locked, and it wanted a password.

I couldn't believe it. Why would she do that to me? If she was in the future, didn't she know that this had already happened so she could be sure NOT to put a password on my phone? Or would the future be different now that I had come here? Like, when I really went to Chicago this summer, I would remember this happening and so I'd do things different. So maybe this future I was visiting was the future
now,
but when it actually was the future, it would be different.

I puked again. Trying to think about this crap seriously hurt my brain so much it made me sick. I hoped they'd think it was Grandma's dog that made this mess.

I kept punching in different numbers. My birthday. My mom's. Dad's. Our address. I didn't know Marquis's birthday. Finally I just sat, holding the phone. Maybe future-me already knew things were fine and she just didn't care about making things easy for me now. Or she was so busy with Marquis, she forgot. Maybe she was spending time with Grandma now because she was going to spend the night with Marquis later.

A tear dripped down my face. I just wanted to know now so I could know if I was supposed to do something to make things OK, or if I could just let it ride and things would work out.

I heard footsteps and tried to stand up, but then it was time to go.