Time After Time (24 page)

The sun is barely peeking over the horizon when I arrive at the Northwestern University track. Unlike all the times I was here before, there’s just a light dusting of snow on the metal benches, and when I take my hand to brush it clean, it flutters into the wind, flying away in all directions.

I see Anna right away. She’s down on the track, speeding around the curves, her legs reaching out in long strides, her arms pumping hard by her sides. I don’t know what she’s listening to on her Discman but I can see her lips moving and that makes me smile.

She comes around the bend to the long edge of the track, facing me, but her eyes are fixed on the ground like she’s lost in thought. I don’t move, but something must get her attention, because just as she’s about to turn the next bend, she steals a glance into the bleachers.

She spots me, but it takes a few seconds for it to register. She slows her pace to jog and stops at the base of the stairs, squinting up at me like it’s totally possible that her mind is playing tricks on her. I lift my hand and wave.

Anna bolts up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but when she reaches the fourth row, she stops and doesn’t come any closer. I can tell from the look on her face I should stay where I am.

“What are you doing here?” She takes her headphones off and wraps them around the back of her neck, never taking her eyes off me. “I thought you were coming for Christmas. That’s still four days away.” Her voice sounds wobbly and not at all like hers.

“So did I. But…this couldn’t wait.”

Anna looks around the track, then back at me. She presses her lips into a thin line. “What couldn’t wait?”

“I owe you a massive apology.” I brush the snow off the bench next to me. “Do you want to sit down?”

She walks toward me but stops short. Hugging her arms to her chest, she looks down at the icy bench and shakes her head no.

“I just wanted to say how sorry I am about that day…at the hospital…I was so…I don’t know why I got so angry.”

She sighs. “I wish you’d let me explain,” she says quietly.

It’s clear from the determined look on her face that she has something important to tell me, so even though I don’t think she owes me an explanation at all, I sit quietly and let her speak.

“I didn’t mean to push you so hard to do things over. I was never trying to get you to change your rules or change…anything about who you are. That’s the last thing I’d ever want.” She plays with her fingernails as she shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “I guess I’m just…fascinated. Not just by what you can do, but by…” She looks out toward the track and covers her face with her hand. “Wow. I thought I had a few more days to get this speech down. This really isn’t coming out the way I thought it would.”

It feels strange to be this close and not touch her. I lean forward onto my thighs and smile at her. “I think it’s coming out fine.” She slides her hand down but keeps her mouth covered. Still, I can tell from her eyes that she’s smiling too.

“Go on.… You were saying something about being fascinated.” I scoot a little closer to her, but she keeps her feet planted in the snow and starts fidgeting with her headphone wires, wrapping and unwrapping the cord around her finger.

And suddenly, she stops moving and looks straight at me. “I’m in love with everything about you.”

Her words make me suck in my breath, and when I look into her eyes, I see something I haven’t noticed in a while—this look of pure understanding that reminds me why I told her my secret in the first place. That sense of wonder, how she looked at me like she couldn’t know me well enough.

I can’t take the distance any longer. I scoot over on the bench and the snow collects on my jeans. “Come here.” I pull her closer, parting my legs so she can stand in between them, and she rests her forearms on my shoulders and looks down at me.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard to do things over again. I mean, I’m glad Emma’s okay and I’ll always be grateful to you for making that happen, but…it was wrong of me to force you to do it.”

“You weren’t wrong and you certainly didn’t force me to do anything.” My fingers settle on her hips. “I was as curious as you were, and I knew what I was doing. I
never
should have blamed you. I was just angry.”

“At me?” she asks.

“No. At myself.”

I grip her hips a little bit tighter and let my head fall forward until it rests against her stomach. “You know what I’ve been thinking lately?”

“Hmm?” Her fingers find my hair and I close my eyes. I’ve missed the way she touches me.

“I wish I could fly.”

Her stomach rises when she laughs. “You want to fly now too?”

“No,” I clarify. “Not in addition to, instead of.”

“Why would you want to fly?”

I keep my eyes focused on the ground as my thumbs trace slow circles at her waist. “No one ever said, ‘You really shouldn’t fly’ or ‘Think of all the problems you could cause if you could fly,’ right? You cruise around, check out the view, and come back down. Great power, none of the responsibility.”

“I have a feeling you’d be bored just flying around all the time.” I’m still looking down at our feet, but I can hear the smile in her voice.

“Maybe. But I also wouldn’t have to worry about inadvertently changing the past. Or accidentally bumping into another
me
and sending the younger one back where he belongs.”

She combs her fingers through my hair again. “You liked it, didn’t you?” she asks. “The do-overs.”

I pull my head away so I can see her face, and her hands settle on my shoulders again. They feel good there too. She takes another small step closer.

“Yeah…I did. I liked what you said about second chances. For a while there, it almost felt like I was supposed to do it, you know? It felt…almost…right.” I shake my head. “I’d do it again. I’d go back for Emma and those kids. If I could have helped your dad, I would have.”

Anna lifts my chin up and forces me to look at her. “You did help.”

I don’t say anything.

“Is he the real reason you don’t think you should come back here anymore?”

I nod, even though he’s only part of it. “I don’t think this is right.”

“For you or for me?”

“For everyone.” I try to block out the vision of her in the driveway ten years from now, looking up at a guy who isn’t me but makes her smile the same way I do. “But, I guess, especially for you.”

She lets out a heavy sigh. “You seem to think you’re somehow responsible for my future.” I start to respond but she puts her finger to my lips. “Listen to me. Please, don’t say anything. You are not responsible for my future, Bennett.”

Sure I am. It would be totally different if I’d never come here.

“It’s mine.”

Yes, and you deserve a simpler one.

“And I want you in it.”

You shouldn’t even
know
me.

She looks over my shoulder, staring into the distance. “I don’t know what you saw when you went forward, and I have a feeling you’re never going to tell me. And that’s fine.” Now she looks right into my eyes. “Stop coming here if you think it’s wrong for you, or for, I don’t know, the space-time continuum or something, but don’t stop because of me. From the beginning, you’ve made this all about how you were affecting
my
future. But I’m affecting yours, too. This time it’s
your
choice. What do
you
want?”

I say the first thing that pops into my head. “You.”

Her eyes light up. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“But it’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not.”

She brushes my hair off my forehead and plants a kiss there. “I want you to be part of my life. When you weren’t in it, I went to great lengths to get you back. So here we are.” She spreads her arms out to her sides and looks around the track. “But who’s to say what happens next? Maybe a year from now, we’ll both be off at college and we won’t want this anymore. Or after five years of this, we’ll get tired of all the distance or the uncertainty…you’ll get tired of zapping back and forth, or I’ll get tired of waiting for you, or maybe the whole thing will become too much to handle. But right now, we both want to be together. Don’t you think we should be?”

I stare at her. “I told you, it’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is.” She runs her thumb across my cheek. “In fact, let’s make it even simpler. I don’t need a calendar. I don’t care if you’re here for big events or how long you stay each time. I just need to know that you’re coming back.”

I reach up for one of her curls and wrap it around my finger, thinking about how easy this all seemed back at the beginning of the school year. I remember that day we sat on my bed, surrounded by my new posters in a room that was starting to feel a lot like home, and built a schedule. God, how cocky I was, thinking I had it all figured out and that nothing would stand in the way of us being together as long as that’s what both of us wanted.

“Will you think about it?” she asks.

I look away from her and nod.

“Don’t do that,” Anna says.

“What?”

“I can always tell when you’re lying. You don’t look at me.”

I lock my eyes on hers. “I’ll think about it,” I say. And I will.

But I know I won’t change my mind.

Physically, I’m here in San Francisco. But all morning I’ve been mentally absent, my thoughts constantly wandering to Christmas 1995. Ever since I saw Anna at the track, I’ve been trying to bring myself to go back there, but I just couldn’t. Now that it’s Christmas here, the whole thing feels unavoidable.

Dad reaches under the tree and makes a big production of reading the tag on the last gift. “To Brooke from Bennett,” he says, tossing it high in the air.

Brooke catches it with both hands and shakes it hard for clues. She’s already grinning as she rips off the paper, but a huge smile spreads across her face when she peeks inside. “No way.” She looks up at me and starts pulling out each of the ten “vintage” concert tees, one at a time. In case my parents are getting suspicious as they watch her, I describe how I found them online, but when Brooke looks at me, I shoot her a wink.

She hugs the
Incubus 2007 World Tour
T-shirt to her chest. “I love them,” she says. “Thank you.”

Mom tries to pass me this plate of sticky-looking pastries for the third time, and once again, I hold my hand up to block them. She tips her chin down and gives me her concerned parent look. I haven’t eaten much over the last few days and Mom’s starting to notice, so I grab the plainest-looking thing on the plate.

“Well, I think that’s everything,” Dad says, taking one last look around the base of the tree. He stands up, straightens his back, and transfers the fluffy ball on his Santa hat from one shoulder to the other like it’s a mortarboard tassel. “Christmas gift exchange 2012, officially complete,” he says with his hands on his hips. Brooke tosses a wrapping paper ball at him and it bounces off his forehead.

“I’m going to go buy some music,” I say, holding up my new iTunes gift card as evidence, and Brooke gives me a knowing look. She’s already agreed to cover for me if she needs to, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.

I start gathering up my gifts as Mom heads for the kitchen with a handful of plates and Dad follows her carrying a trash bag filled with used wrapping paper. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brooke staring at me from the other side of the couch. As soon as I have everything, I head for the staircase. I’m at the first step when I hear her say my name, but I shake my head and keep climbing without turning around. What’s the point? She’ll just try to talk me out of this again.

When I’m showered and dressed, I dig around in the back of my closet, feeling for my backpack, and do one last round of inventory. There are water bottles, coffee shots, and Red Bulls; Kleenex and a spare T-shirt, just in case; and down on the bottom, Anna’s photo album. I pull it out and thumb through it, feeling sick when I think about giving it back to her. But I can’t keep it here.

I stuff the album back inside and toss the pack over my shoulders. There’s no reason to stall any longer, so I picture the side of Anna’s house, where the yellow paint is peeling and flaking off, and I close my eyes. But before I can leave, they spring open again.

And there it is, this ridiculously stupid thought. Not only is it stupid, it’s also risky and more than a little bit pathetic. But this is my last trip for who knows how long, and I haven’t been able to stop wondering about the guy she was with that night. And knowing who he is might give me some peace. I could use a little peace.

I squeeze my lids tight and before I can talk myself out of it, I open them to a view of a house painted gray with white trim.

After a quick look around to be sure I’m alone, I peer through the kitchen window. Inside, Mrs. Greene is in the exact spot, wearing the exact same thing, making the same meal she was making last time I showed up here in 2005 and shouldn’t have.

I’ll stay five minutes. Ten tops. Just long enough to catch a glimpse of him.

I check the driveway and find it covered in a layer of snow but otherwise empty. When I return to the window, Anna’s mom is still standing at the stove, and I watch as Mr. Greene sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek, and she smiles and squirms away, swatting his hand with her wooden spoon. He laughs and kisses her again. Then he walks over to the sink and looks out the window that faces the street, like he’s waiting for someone to arrive.

She should be here any second now. I listen to the sounds of the neighborhood, but there’s nothing. It’s totally silent.

“You need something to do.” Unlike last time, the window is open a crack and I can hear everything the two of them are saying. Mrs. Greene walks to the drawer by the refrigerator and removes some silverware. “Here,” she says, handing it to him. “Set the table. My goodness, you’re like a little kid.”

“Leave me alone, I’m excited.” He walks into the dining room and he’s out of my sight for a good minute or two. He returns empty-handed.

“Did you get the glasses, too?” she asks.

“Not yet, but I will.” He pulls four water glasses down from one of the upper cabinets, and returns for four wineglasses. “Don’t you think it’s fundamentally wrong to have to take a plane to visit your family?”

Anna’s mom laughs loudly. “Yeah, you should have thought about that when you hung a map of the world on her wall and gave her a box of pins to mark all the places she’d go.” He shrugs and carries the glasses to the table, and I watch Mrs. Greene stir whatever she’s got in the stockpot. “You should have known she’d never stay put,” she says, more to herself than to him.

I picture the map that hung on Anna’s wall, briefly wonder if it’s still there, and before I know it I’m closing my eyes and opening them in her bedroom. Her room is dark and I have to blink a few times as my eyes adjust, but then I spin slowly in place, taking everything in.

The dimensions are the same, but nothing else is. Anna’s shelves are gone, and with them, the trophies and CDs they held back in 1995. There are no more race photos or numbers, and no more travel guides peppering the surfaces of her furniture. The map is gone and so is the box of pins. All the things that mattered in Anna’s sixteen-year-old life aren’t important in her twenty-six-year-old one, at least not in this house.

The bed has been moved to a different wall and it’s covered with a different bedspread. I slowly walk over to it and sit down, running my hand across the surface, wondering if they share this room when they visit. He probably doesn’t have to sleep on the couch like I did. I bet he gets to linger here with her in the morning, not sneak out before the sun comes up. Do they unpack their clothes and hang them side by side in the closet? Does Mr. Greene pour him coffee in the morning?

Coming to this room was a bad idea.

I stand up and close my eyes, returning to my spot under the kitchen window. I wonder why it’s taking so long for them to get here.

As soon as I open them, I hear tires slowly crunching their way through the snow, so I peek around the corner and then creep over to the tree, just like I did last time.

The headlights are still a few houses away, but Mr. Greene must have heard the car too, because the front door suddenly opens and he steps out onto the porch. He heads down the front stairs and waits at the edge of the driveway, fidgeting with the buttons on his sport coat.

My pulse is racing as the front of the car comes around the hedge and two streams of light illuminate the snow-covered lawn.

I think I yell.

I feel my stomach knot up tight and my head feels like it’s going to explode. My eyes are burning, and without even thinking about it, I squeeze them shut. And when I finally peel them open, I’m standing right where I was when I left—smack in the middle of my bedroom in San Francisco.

I stumble over to the bed and sit down. I’m shaking and sweating, but when I look around and realize what just happened, I start laughing loudly and uncontrollably. It makes the headache a hell of a lot worse, but I can’t seem to stop.

I’m back.

I’m shaking and sweating and laughing and…back.

I stand up, touching my face, my legs. I stomp the Evanston snow off my feet and watch it collect on my San Francisco carpet. I turn a three-sixty in place.

I’m back.

I was
knocked
back.

And there’s only one reason that would happen.

Anna is part of my future and I’m part of hers. And that’s all I needed to know, even if there are a million big and little things that could go wrong between now and then.

My backpack lands on the bed with a bounce, and I rip open the zipper, down a bottle of water as quickly as I can, and then dig to the bottom. When I find Anna’s photo album, I toss it on top of my bedspread where Mom or Dad could easily find it if they happen to come in while I’m gone. There’s no reason to hide it because Anna won’t be a secret here anymore. I’ll keep most of the promises I made to my parents—no more sneaking around, no more lies—but that “no more traveling” one isn’t going to stick after all.

The Doubleshot makes me grimace as I gulp it down and I chase it with another bottle of water. I return to the center of the room and shake out my arms. My legs still feel wobbly as I close my eyes.