Time Between Us (15 page)

By the time I’ve reached the top of the ridge for the ninth time, my forearms are shaking. I take a deep breath, pull myself up onto the shelf, and kick my leg up onto the surface. I push myself into a standing position and look around at treetops that go on for miles, interrupted only by the bright blue lake in the middle. I smile down at him, awestruck and victorious.

“Stay there,” he shouts from the ground as he throws his backpack over his shoulders and free-climbs the rock face in half the time it took me to climb it using the rope. He dusts himself off at the top.

“Hungry?” He sits down, unzips the pack, and removes a bunch of plastic bags and four bottles of Gatorade. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like. Turkey and Swiss or roast beef and Cheddar?”

“Gatorade.” I reach forward, parched, and thrilled to see the bright yellow bottles, and I open the lid and gulp. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Bennett do the same, and when he’s finished, he reclines against a tall rock and closes his eyes.

The sun is high now, and even though it’s still cool outside, the surface of the rock is warm. It really is the perfect day for this, and I sit down next to him and reach for the turkey and Swiss. I’m suddenly famished, and I guess he must be too, because even though we stop and smile at each other a few times, neither us of us speaks as we polish off our sandwiches.

“So,” I finally say. “Rock climbing.”

“Good date?”

“Unexpected.”

“Disappointed?”

I look around again at the painting-like scene. “No way.” A trip to Wisconsin may not do much to expand my midwestern clump of pins, but at least, I think, as I look around the forest with the sunlight gleaming through the branches and the rock formations piercing the sky, unlike Ko Tao, I can always come back here when he’s gone. When I’m missing him, like I already know I will be.

I’ve been thinking about it all night, now that I know everything. He’s from a time seventeen years from now. He can travel anywhere in the world just by thinking about it. He lost his sister, and when he finds her, he’ll have to leave 1995 and return to 2012. And apparently, all of this means something important to me, but I can’t figure out what. But he’s here now, and he wants to be with me. And even though the first part makes me feel a little bit queasy, the last part leaves me smiling to myself. I look at him.

Bennett pats the surface of the rock in front of him, and I scoot over and settle in, rest my elbows on his knees, and let my head fall forward. A groan escapes my mouth as he squeezes my shoulders. My muscles are ridiculously sore.

“So, how did you get into rock climbing?” I have a million questions for him, but this one is the easiest to ask.

He presses his thumbs into the base of my neck, and I breathe into the pressure until I feel the muscles release. “There’s a little coastal town in Southern Thailand called Krabi.” I can’t see his face, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “Railay Beach is known for its rock formations, but I didn’t know that until I ran into some backpackers who told me about it. They took me on my first climb, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

His hands move with a slow, coordinated rhythm up my back until they reach my shoulders again. I open my eyes just in time to see him reach forward, grab a piece of my hair, and twist it around his finger. Then he unrolls it, gives it a gentle pull, and lets go, and I feel the curls spring back into place. “How does your hair do this?”

“What? Look like a mess of miniature Slinkys?” He’s so close I can feel his breath on the back of my neck, and I grimace at the thought that my hair must smell more like sweat than vanilla-scented shampoo.

“I’ve been sitting behind you in Spanish for the last month, wishing I could to do this.” He pulls down on another bunch of curls and laughs when they bounce right back where they belong. “How about you? How you did start running?”

I turn my head so I can see his face, and he lets the curls fall from his grasp. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

“What?”

“I thought I’d get to ask all the questions today. You told me to keep them coming.” I lean back into his chest and rest my head on his shoulder. My head rises and falls with the gentle rhythm of his breath, and when he softly brushes my hair off my forehead, I let out a sigh and sink further into him. “Besides, you’re far more interesting than I am.”

“That’s not true.” I feel him start to play with my hair again.

“Fine,” I say, “we’ll take turns. One for one. But ten bucks says you’re going to run out of questions first.” I lift my hand in his direction and he shakes it.

“Deal,” he says.

“And I’m going first.” I smile up at him. “What do you miss most about home?”

He doesn’t skip a beat. “My cell phone.”

“Come on, I’m serious.” I wait for him to laugh, but he doesn’t. “Seriously? You miss a phone?”

“What did you think I would say?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was expecting you to say your family.”

“Families seem pretty much the same. You haven’t seen a twenty-first-century cell phone.”

“What’s so special about your phone?”

“Lots of things. But I can’t tell you about them.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” I say as I let out a little laugh. “What good are you if you can’t tell me about the future?”

“I’m good for lots of things,” he says as his fingers leave my hair, settle behind my ear for a moment, and then slide their way down to my collarbone. I close my eyes and try to match my breathing to his as he traces. “Besides, I’ve got to leave you some surprises. You do like surprises, don’t you?”

“I’d better. You’re certainly full of them.” I inhale deeply and try to concentrate on my questions. “So what are you saying, I’ll never see the future? Never see where you really live?”

He softly makes the sound of a game-show buzzer. “That’s another question. It’s my turn.”

“Come on.…”

“Hey, you’re the one who made the deal. One for one,” he says. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Where were you when you heard about Kurt Cobain’s suicide?”

“Hmmm. Wow.” It’s been a while, but I remember the day well. “That was almost exactly a year ago. I went to Emma’s after school, and we were up in her room listening to the radio, and the DJ announced that he shot himself. So we pulled out every Nirvana CD she had and listened to them back to back.”

His fingers linger on my shoulder for a moment, then slide down my arm.

“That week was weird,” I continue. “People were crying, like…really crying, like they knew him or something. I didn’t get that so much. Anyway, the whole thing was really sad.” He’s running his thumb back and forth against the back of my hand and when I look down I realize that I’m doing the same thing to his. “Where were you?”

I feel him shrug. “That was in 1994,” he says, and for a moment, I don’t get it. But then I do.

“Wow.” I stop rubbing his hand. “Okay, that’s kind of creepy.”

“Sorry.”

“And I can’t believe I wasted a question.”

He brushes my hair to one side and kisses the back of my neck. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll give you that one,” he says with a whispery breath near the back of my ear. I squirm a little.

“Stop it. You’re making me forget my questions.”

“Good. I want that ten-spot,” he kisses my neck again and I lose my train of thought entirely. “You wanted to know if I’d take you into your own future.”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“I can’t. Well, technically, I guess I could, but I’ve never done anything like that before and I have no idea what would happen if I did.”

“Why? Are you afraid I don’t exist in 2012 or something?”

“No, that’s definitely not what I’m worried about. But I can only travel back and forth within the time I’ve already lived, and you just haven’t lived beyond this moment yet. I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go, but never before or after this exact date.”

“Really?”

He rests his chin in the crook of my neck and nods. I guess I can live with that. I’ve never needed to leave this date or time, only this place.

“Besides you can’t know what happens in your future. That would take all the fun out of it.” He kisses my shoulder. “So, tell me about Emma.”

“Emma?”

“Yeah. Tell me about her. How did you two become friends?”

I feel the corners of my mouth turn up at the memory. “I met her my first day at Westlake.” I look at Bennett and he raises an eyebrow, asking for more.

I let out a little laugh. “Mom wanted me to make a good impression, so she made me wear the jumper.” I grimace and shudder as I picture the uniform. “We used to have this ugly plaid dress that was one of the approved options but no one
ever
wore. And she made me put on
tights
and wear this lace ribbon as a headband. It was, like a hundred and six degrees outside, and all day long, all I wanted to do was change into shorts and a T-shirt. I was hot and itchy and my hair was out to here.” I hold my hands up to the side of my head, and he laughs. “But then this girl bounced right up to me after sixth period—all cheekbones and braces—and asked if I wanted to hang out with her after school. And even though I really wanted to go home and change, I said yes. And that was just kind of it. Emma has been my best friend ever since.”

When I look back at Bennett I can’t help picturing the place I’ll be tomorrow, sitting in the coffeehouse and telling Emma every single thing about this day. I’m definitely winning for best date.

“Tell me about your family,” I say, officially changing the subject back to him.

He lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s not much to tell. My mom’s a little…difficult to talk to. If I ask her about something that happened in the news, the conversation eventually leads to doctors. If I ask her about the weather, the conversation eventually leads to doctors. I don’t ever ask her about scientific advancements, because that immediately leads to doctors. She thinks I’m broken. She just wants a normal kid.”

I pull his arms tight around my waist and start tracing his palm with my fingertip. His hands are dry after climbing, and the lines are filled with dirty chalk dust.

“Now Dad thinks I’m some kind of magical creature. After he discovered what I could do, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He spent the first year researching all the catastrophes that took place between 1995 and the present day, and created this massive document that listed each event—and every smaller event leading up to it—so I could go back and prevent it.”

“Did you?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think I should change things that happen just because I
can
. You’ve heard of the butterfly effect, right? One small change can have a massive impact on something else. I don’t even think I could manage that massive a do-over.” He’s quiet for a while, and I lean into his chest and listen to the silence. “Eventually, he found a way to use my gift for another kind of good.
His
good.”

I keep tracing the lines in his palm, because that seems to keep him talking.

“We didn’t have much money when Brooke and I were little. I mean, we had a decent apartment and everything, but my mom was a bit spoiled, I guess, growing up here in Maggie’s monstrosity of a house. And Dad hated his job—he worked in a bank downtown; I don’t even know what he did—but he was always in a bad mood, and the two of them always fought.

“Then Dad had his big idea. He went back to his research, this time focusing on companies and the positive trajectory of their stock.”

“What?” I stop tracing and turn to look at him. “You didn’t.”

“I did. I’d travel back to each date he listed, a week or so before a major company event, and when I arrived I’d send my dad a letter with a stock tip. He’d buy. The stock would skyrocket. I’d go back and send him another message to tell him when to sell. And Dad had a new job.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Not technically. Insider trading laws say you can’t buy or sell based on nonpublic information. The information we used was always public.”

I give him an incredulous look.

“Okay, it’s definitely sketchy. But hey, it’s kept them off my back…until recently, at least. Brooke and I got to travel and see all the live music we wanted. Mom got the fancy life she expected, and Dad got to feel like he gave it to her. Everyone’s happy, no one’s getting hurt.”

“I take it your dad made some good money.”

“Well, the economy has had its ups and lots of downs, but if you know exactly where to invest—”

“You could make a lot?” I guess.

“Sure. Millions, even.”

“Millions?”

“Well, we didn’t mean to.”

“Oh, sure,” I say with a laugh. “As long as you didn’t mean to.” He’s an accidental time traveler
and
an accidental millionaire. “So, how do you have access to this money?”

“That’s another question.”

“I know.”

He shakes his head but smiles as he gives in to me. “Cash. For this particular trip, lots of it, minted pre-1995, and hidden in my room at Maggie’s.”

“And Brooke?

“Backpack. Loaded with cash.” He pulls his hand out of mine and grabs my chin so I have to face him. Then he kisses my nose. “That’s it, I’m cutting you off now. My turn.”

As much as I’ve loved reclining against him, I’m tired of twisting my neck to see his face. I sit cross-legged and spin around in place, scoot in closer, and rest my knees on his legs.