The Long Way Home
By Andrea Stark
Copyright 2011
Smashwords edition


Chapter One
So Long, Sweet Summer

I grew up twice, though my alter ego could dispute that number. The first time took twenty-eight years. The second took over my life.
Now, the casual passerby might see me here, crouched in a cluster of scrub oak trees, and think nothing of it. After all, children play hide and seek all the time. It’s not a strange event. Nor is it strange for adults to continue hiding long after the playful illusions of their childhoods have grown old and died.
A pedestrian could walk by me and smile to himself at my wide eyes peering through the brush. He’ll probably just look away and forget I’m here. But maybe, when the sun is out, and there’s the faint smell of hickory smoke in the air, maybe he’ll think of a time when he was a kid, perched in his parents’ cherry tree while his sister paced frantically below, muttering and unable to find him. He might stifle a giggle like he did then, like I am now. That’s the moment when we share an intimate connection, when his memory crosses my reality. It’s constantly happening. The lines that divide the past and present are illusions themselves.
Think about it. Future is just an abstraction that’s more accurately described as hope and expectation. The present is instantaneous, a fraction of a moment that slips into history before it is realized. So only the past remains, flickering in our heads as — what else could life be? A memory.
But maybe that doesn’t sound right. Maybe I need sort out these pieces of the past, so let me start over.
••••••
It all began with Terra — 28, single, living her life, as she put it, “in the 22nd grade.” After a while, she said, most people just stop counting. But she never did. She measured her life with coffee spoons, to paraphrase something she read once in high school but had since forgotten its origin. Day after day, she scooped another heaping mound of freeze-dried powder into her coffeemaker and savored the mundane moments — the hot liquid oozing down her throat, the way the air at 4 a.m. tasted crisp, even in July. She lived in a basement apartment on the outskirts of Pineview, Utah, as white bread a town as they come. And that was her business — white bread. She was a baker, rising every morning to prepare steaming carbohydrates for the morning masses filing by on their daily commute to the city. She didn’t mind the work. She even enjoyed the hours, rising to a world still locked in sleep. Those stolen pieces of time were hers alone, and she found comfort in being the only conscious person to see the broken rays of sunrise as they slowly streamed across her flour-dusted floor.
But lately her life had developed this beat, this unceasing rhythm that synchronized her every movement. She couldn’t get it out of her head, that drum line, pounding, pulsing, percolating beneath her life until she could scarcely function without it. “Why don’t you go to Europe?” Jamie asked her one Saturday as the afternoon sun blazed into a grungy diner. Jamie was Terra’s “BFF” circa fifth grade, her foundation. Jamie and Terra regularly met at the Pork’N Pancake for coffee and pie. Sometimes they made big plans for the future. Sometimes they talked about time and the way life stood still. Mostly, they just wanted to stare at the graying interior of a restaurant that would never fall victim to remodeling, ever, and remember a time when this place seemed brighter, bigger and more exciting.
••••••
 “Go to Europe,” Terra scoffed, stirring what must have been her eighth cup of coffee that day. “Oh right, wouldn’t that be sad.”
“Why?” Jamie asked.
“Europe on a whim. Europe all alone. That’s something 20-year-olds do when they’re fresh out of college and they need to discover themselves or have some grand adventure. It’s not something 28-year olds with dead-end jobs and no money anyway.”
“I bet they do, if they want to meet a brilliant, sexy Italian and get married.” Jamie tore open another sugar packet and sifted it into her coffee, more for her own amusement than for flavor enhancement.
“Are you implying that I should?” Terra laughed. Neither of them had ever been anywhere near an alter, and were already seasoned spinsters by their own cultural standards. Terra felt she had already worked her way though every single guy who had ever shown interest in her, and Jamie, well, Jaime didn’t date — at all. Terra had always respected her bold attempts at sexual independence.
“Ha ha,” Jamie said, fishing out another sugar packet. “It’s just this place. This town. It roped us in something hardcore, didn’t it? Everyone else got away, and we, well we ... Don’t you ever wonder what everyone else is doing with their lives?”
“Everyone else?”
“Yeah, you know, all those kids. We grew up here, we still live here, and we hardly ever see anyone we know. Don’t you ever wonder where everyone else went? Like Darrell. And Adam. Remember how we were all gonna go to Vegas and be showgirls and blackjack dealers? They went to college, and, well ... I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone from high school since high school.”
“Oh really,” Terra said, holding a glass of ice water to her head. “I didn’t realize that. See, last I checked, I still existed.”
Jamie laughed. “You know what I mean; I don’t mean you, you’re in the same boat I am. Don’t you wonder how everyone else fared?”
Terra did wonder, all the time, though she never wondered out loud. Even holed up in her one-bedroom apartment, she could still see the official road of her alma mater through the tiny slit of a window above her kitchen table; on her way to work she had to drive along the old strip she and Jamie used to cruise on their Saturday night searches for “hotties.” It was easy to face in the dark vacancy of 4 a.m.; however, the commute home always carried her alongside high school kids fanning out like an ink stain on the sterile streets of her neighborhood. She could hear stereos thumping even as she turned up her similar, but decidedly outdated music. At red lights she would find herself stealing glimpses into their battered cars, filled with more passengers than seats, teenagers screaming, chatting on cell phones, applying lip gloss. These images were stoically addicting; they made her feel in an instant ecstatic and alone.
“Maybe I think about it sometimes,” Terra said. “Not consciously.”
“Well, do you ever think about, oh, what was his name … T.J.?” Jamie said. “The kid with that funny ‘fro thing on his head? He had it, like something awful for you.”
“OK, let’s really not talk about him,” Terra grumbled. “I barely remember the guy, but what I do isn’t good.”
“Wasn’t he the guy that you spent all that time at the park with?” Jamie said. “You guys used to run around all the time together, then you’d come back and complain, oh man, you’d complain about him. It was funny, actually. You never think about that anymore?”
“Sentimentality is for saps,” Terra smiled, and scrunched up her nose as Jamie dumped another packet of sugar into her coffee. Jamie’s long, mousy-blond hair came perilously close to taking a dip in the brown sludge.
“This stuff is terrible,” Jamie said. “It always has been.”
“You can say that again,” Terra directed her empty cup at the waitress. She was a Maybell or an Edna; 75 years old if she were a day, and as much a part of the scenery as the plastic plants and clocks whose batteries where nearly always dead. After a decade working her same tired shift, she still didn’t call Terra and Jamie by name. “Still 5:15 I see,” Terra told the waitress as she approached with a cracked coffee pot. “Should I be worried? According to your clock I should be at work.”
“Um, do you want more coffee, dear?” the waitress garbled, and without an answer filled the mug with steaming liquid. “How bout you, sweetie?” she said to Jamie. She was entirely distracted, just like always, but Terra and Jamie never minded. The appreciated the unyielding anonymity of their ritual.
“No, I gotta be at work soon. My boss doesn’t like it when I have to get up and pee every 15 minutes,” she said. Jamie was a telemarketer, the longest standing of a dying breed, and worked by a more rigid time clock than most care to imagine. She survived, she said, because she was an incoming call operator. She only had to talk to the people who complain.
“Last night I didn’t show up until 9:03. One more of those, and I’m up to four write-ups.”
“And that’s so terrible, why?” Terra said.
“Unlike some people, I don’t have the luxury of being five minutes late. I’m a department manager now.” “So you must have, like, four people working right underneath you,” Terra said, sliding four fingers beneath one of her hands.
“You know I hate that,” Jamie said as Terra giggled into her coffee cup. “Your jokes aren’t even jokes. She slapped two dollars on the table and stood up. “I gotta go. Have a good night.”
“You too,” Terra said. She stood up and smiled politely at the waitress, who opened her mouth to speak but quickly stopped herself. Terra just nodded and got up to leave. Terra walked slower than usual toward her car. It was Saturday night, the loneliest night of them all. On Mondays it was OK for her to lie in bed all evening with a rented video blaring on her thirteen-inch TV screen. On Tuesdays she would do her laundry, or clean her apartment, so she could rent another movie on Wednesday, and thereby not have to do the same thing two nights in a row. Thursday had been preordained movie night, when her bakery coworkers would close up shop at 4 p.m. and head out for a matinee and dinner at the Olive Garden. On Fridays Jamie didn’t have to work; they usually found themselves drowning at one of the dance clubs in the faraway city, gyrating against the pounding noise they had long been indifferent to. But Saturdays, Saturdays Terra found herself pressed against the unbearable warmth of a summer night and the cold, unnamed dread that circled her apartment in a sleepless haze. “It is Saturdays that will drive me to drink,” she once told Jamie. “You should get a second job,” Jamie recommended.
••••••
“What do you dream about?” said the man on the singles line. Terra was sprawled in her bed watching Court TV reruns when the ad came up on TV — a scantily clad woman busting out of her top spoke in a deep, sultry voice and beckoned women to call free on Saturdays and talk to local singles. Terra reached for the remote and muttered something about no one being that pathetic, but then started to wonder what sort of women would be intrigued by such an advertisement, and in pondering that puzzle, became intrigued herself.
“Oh, you know, the usual,” Terra shifted her legs over the arms of a camp chair propped in the corner of the kitchen. She was still wearing the same clothes she woke up in that morning — black track shorts and a faded concert T-shirt she had held onto since the early days of grunge rock. Her long auburn-streaked hair draped over her face, still reeking of smoke and stale beer from the bar the night before. As she kicked back, she admired her legs, smooth and slightly chiseled from her daily kick-boxing sessions, which she attended religiously despite the fact she really didn’t have any particular person who even cared what she looked like and no discernible hobby to stay in shape for. Still, the quick shot of ego was a welcome relief.
“The usual things ordinary people dream about. Riches. Fame. A future.” 
“You know, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a fireman,” the voice said, slow and deep. “I wanted to save people’s lives.”
“Who doesn’t?” Terra said, mindlessly wrapping the phone’s cord around her fingers. “When I was growing up I wanted to be a cartoonist or an illustrator.”
“You mean, like Japanamation? The really sexy stuff?”
“Something like that,” she said, standing up to look through the blinds out her tiny window. The street outside was well lit for a change, but lifeless.
“Are you any good?” the voice asked.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “I’m not. When I was growing up, people would tell me I was good, but that’s only because I could draw. When I got older I realized I didn’t really have anything to draw, any original ideas. I would sit down to draw, and, nothing. Only smiley faces or cute little kittens came out. It was pathetic. So I picked up my high school diploma and resigned myself to life. Now I do … something else.”
“What do you do? Where do you work?”
“Um, I don’t know if I should tell you. You know, this whole phone sex thing. Oh, but I don’t expect you to tell me either. I could be a stalker or something.”
“This isn’t phone sex. This is just local singles, busy people who don’t have time to scour bars and clubs, you know,” the voice drawled, losing a touch of its deliberate sexiness.
“Oh, I have the time,” Terra said. “I’m just out of people.” She laughed. “Pretty much tried it all, if you know what I mean.”
“Really?” the voice said quietly. “That sounds exciting. You know, I’m not afraid to tell you where I live.”
“Obviously,” Terra said. “Yeah,” the voice continued. “I’m a real person. With a sweet car. And a real nice body. Would you like to see it?”
“You know what, I bet I’d love too, but I’m already bored,” Terra said. “I mean, I’m sure you’re a nice guy and all. This just isn’t a natural way to meet people. So, you know what, I’m just gonna go now.”
“But… wait,” the voice said. “I’m listening to you. You’re disappointed with your life. I understand. I know how it feels. I wanted to be a fireman and stuff.”
“Yeah, and good luck with that,” Terra said, and set the receiver down. What a dumb idea. She hit herself on the head, whipped her hair around, and hit herself harder. The sting felt good against her skin. “How could a faceless voice possibly know what to say, anyway?” she thought, and popped several allergy pills in her mouth. “Side effects, sweet side effects,” she said, and lazily crawled into bed.
The next morning, Terra’s day off, a rapid knock on her door jarred her out of bed around noon. “Check this out,” Jamie said as she pushed her way into Terra’s apartment. “Did you just get up? Jeez, girl, I’ve been to work and been to sleep already. What did you do all night?”
“Um, nothing, don’t ask. What do you have?”
“It’s an invitation… for our ten-year high school reunion,” Jamie said, holding out a flyer printed on obnoxious magenta-colored paper. “They’re actually having one! It’s not a joke or anything. Can you believe it? That it’s been this long?”
“Our 10 year reunion, wow,” Terra said. “In high school years that’s an eternity.”
“Really,” Jamie said. “Did you ever think you’d live this long to see it? Or, for that matter, live in the same town when it happened? I bet all sorts of people will fly in for it. People do that, you know. This is so cool! We’ll have a chance to see all those people we’ve lost touch with.”
“Those aren’t the kind of people who come,” Terra said. “The kind of people who come are the people who stay in touch, who keep their finger on the pulse, enough to know where to send you an invitation.”
“Maybe,” Jamie said. “Not hard when you live with your parents. Anyway, it’s a month from yesterday. We have to go! Oh man. I’ve got to lose ten pounds before then.”
“I don’t know,” Terra said, grabbing her only two bowls and a box of cereal from atop her fridge.
“Do you want some breakfast?”
“It’s lunchtime, Terra,” she said, shaking her head. “I still don’t see how you can wake up at 4 a.m. one day and sleep until noon the next. Anyway, what do you mean you don’t know? Why wouldn’t you want to go?”
“Aren’t those things usually for people who do stuff with their lives, who at least have one or two little snot-nosed punks to show off?” Terra said. She poured a large helping of fruity rings and stuffed a spoonful in her mouth before continuing. “I mean, do we really want to go to our dingy old gym and see how fat everyone has gotten? Or how many kids they have? Or how much more money they make than us?”
“Yes,” Jamie said, feigning a pouty smile. “Just think about it. I mean, your life really could be a lot worse. And you and I haven’t changed a bit. Everyone will recognize us. Maybe we’ll see Casey and finally tell him what a jackass he his. And Jared and Mike and Darrell will probably all show up together, and we’ll laugh about the time we told Ms. Wheeler we had a special math study period but went to McDonalds every day instead. And the class president, what was his name — Steven? Spencer? He always had the hugest crush on you, and made me swear not to tell because you were dating that twenty-four-year-old from Bagel Heaven during our senior year. Did I ever tell you about him? Oh yeah. Remember Jordan? I almost forgot about him. Don’t you want to see Jordan again?”
Jordan. Terra dropped the spoon into the still-overflowing cereal bowl and turned to face Jamie. The high-definition image of Jordan tore away from her most repressed memories, from the muddled images of Jamie’s ramblings, until Terra felt like he was hovering right behind Jamie, smiling with vague disinterest. He was in front of her at the Catherine Wheel concert, his thick brown hair more than a head over the rest of the crowd, looking back to her with those haunting blue eyes; she could see his smile as he moved to laugh, see those horrible stick figures scribbled in pen all over his jeans. He was sliding down the empty ice skating rink in his sneakers, shouting while he tripped into a half spin and landed right on his back. He was standing atop a boulder with his arms stretched toward the red-streaked sky, screaming ... something ... what was he screaming? He was turning to get back in the car on the day Terra understood she would never really know him. She could feel growing anticipation beneath a red light that never changed, feel the silence approaching, the pride, the welcomed disillusionment, all flooding mockingly back into her mind.
“I don’t really care if Jordan’s there or not,” Terra said. “I mean, I’m not even sure if we actually graduated together. I didn’t even see him after junior year, remember? Maybe just as a face in the hallway. It’s really … ancient history.”
She noticed her voice getting terse, angry. “And why do you care, anyway?”
“I don’t,” Jamie said. “And he did graduate with us, just in case you were curious. I think he did a lot of distance learning senior year. He was gone a lot, but I know you saw him. You used to watch him from the table at lunch. Look at you … you’re face still flushes when I mention his name.” Jamie laughed nervously. “So you don’t have to get mad at me about. I’m not the one with some sad, misplaced, unrequited crush or anything. I’m just excited to see people, that’s all.”
“So what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Terra felt a lump rising from her stomach. She was always such a mild-tempered person, but loneliness touched her weakest nerve. She felt like a submarine with a pressure leak. At the expense of keeping irreconcilable distance from her closest friend, Terra built a wall around the subject of Jordan and everything surrounding that fleeting period of her past. Jamie had crossed the one unspoken divide that kept their friendship comfortable and never controversial.
“Nothing,” Jamie said. “Nothing at all. You never talk about it. You didn’t then, and you don’t now, though it obviously bothers you. So, whatever. Let’s not talk about it.”
“Well, you seem to think it’s really important. And you act like you want to talk about it, so let’s talk about it.”
Terra found herself on the verge of shouting. “I mean, why do you keep mentioning all these people that don’t matter anymore?”
“They still matter,” Jamie yelled. “They’re a part of our lives. You can’t just shake them off like they never existed!”
“You know what, that’s your problem, Jamie,” Terra said. “You’re stuck on the past so much that you’ve built our entire friendship around it. Now you want to talk about someone from, like twelve years ago that I didn’t even speak to all of senior year, and you act like he’s some integral part of my life that I never got past. But it doesn’t matter, Jamie; it doesn’t matter. None of that high school crap matters worth anything, and most people by the time they’re twenty-eight have figured that out.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed, though she didn’t even attempt to fight back a trickle of tears. “Well, you obviously haven’t,” she said. “And you’re a moron if you can’t tell.”
With that she threw the reunion invitation on the floor and walked out the door, pounding the concrete stairwell with her palms as she left.
“Call me when you get a clue,” Terra yelled. Her head spun, probably from too much sleep, or from waking up to an unwelcome adrenaline rush. The sunlight outside blinded her; she reached out to slam the door and dropped her bowl of cereal in the process. Leaving the soggy florescent rings to petrify on the linoleum, she stumbled to her closet and removed a red three-ring binder she often turned to for comfort. She wrenched open the cover, partially stuck together by the adhesive force of aged plastic in the heat. She let the yellowed note pages fall open and breathed out as she focused in on a random page.
“May 16: Brett came to visit us during lunch yesterday. He is so funny. He doesn’t go to school anymore because his Missouri thing fell through. But I haven’t talked to him since and I wish he’d call. Just more meaningless stuff in my shallow life. Sarah made a cool hat out of flowers and grass today. Pretty funny.” 
Terra slammed the book shut.  They say only the truth hurts everyone. Lies are built to sooth no matter how unpleasant they seem. Jamie had touched on something Terra just couldn’t pinpoint, so she went where she always went to for answers — her own past. “Too early,” she said. She opened the journal slowly this time reaching in with her fingers to something a little later.
“July 18: I just spent the weekend at Jamie’s house because my parents left town and don’t trust me. It was basically pretty boring. We played with these cute kittens her sister found at the PNP, Paco and Chicken Nugget. In fact, the funnest thing we did was all the thrift store shopping we did. For about $20 I got five or six fashion rejects that would make my mom crap a brick if she saw me stoop to that level. Time to hide them in the back of my closet. My favorites are these sky blue corduroys and a worn-out Navy shirt from some guy named Thompson. He was a Sea-Bee, whatever that is. I love thrift stores.”
“Ug,” Terra said, looking down at her own cloths that hadn’t been changed for two days. She closed the book again and caressed the plastic covering. “What’s in here?” she muttered out loud. “What’s wrong with me?”
She held the book above her head and let the pages dangle from their brass binding. As she turned it over and set it down, a familiar page settled into view.
“April 11: Today I went hiking with Jordan and his group. We drove up the canyon till we got to The Big Rock. Then we walked down to the river and found some free passes to the bus and watched Dre pretend she was dead on the road after falling from the rock. We drove back and hung around 7-Eleven a bit and then we drove home. It’s strange to be somewhere when you feel like you’re not, be with someone when you feel like you’re not. Sometimes I think if Jordan and I met a few years from now, when we’re older and not in this place, this whole messed-up high school thing, then things would be a lot different.”
Terra turned the page to read about the day before, but felt a sudden urge to look away. She sat back against her bed and stared up at the dots in her hospital-like ceiling. Somewhere, lost in that pattern of purposeless holes, Jordan was standing on his rock by the river in the canyon. He was laughing with that stupid squeal he always used to let out when he was really excited and flailing his arms. Was he trying to impress his friends? Or get Terra’s attention? She felt the bleak weight of never knowing, of never asking, of always wondering. Those mistakes we make when we’re young, she thought. We can never take those back. They say time heals. It doesn’t. What’s the point in moving on?

Chapter Two
Creepy Caring

The crushing light of late afternoon settled on her bed; Terra opened her eyes briefly and squinted at the stark shadows stretching across the room. She walked up to the eye-level window in her bedroom and gazed at her neighbor’s motor home, parked in its permanent home in their shared backyard. A sticky layer of sweat had emerged while she napped and settled uncomfortably between her thighs. She heard the faint drone of children talking outside, augmented by the smoky sweetness of a nearby barbecue; she winced at these moments that were unmistakably summer.
Lying back down on the bed, she propped the phone receiver between her head and the mattress and dialed. The voice on the answering machine was terse but friendly.
“Jamie, are you there?” Terra said to the echo. “Please pick up. Look, Jamie, I’m sorry. We should talk. How bout you meet me at the PNP before you go to work? Hope you can make it.”
Terra set down the phone and reached beneath the bed frame, where she stashed her red notebook the night before. Jamie could be right some of the time, and maybe it was time to break this thing out.
The Pork’N Pancake was surprisingly empty for a Sunday evening. The early bird seniors who always spread themselves thinly among the front tables were nowhere to be seen. The soft light of sunset worked its way along the faded carpet, casting the only hint of real color in a sea of pale brown and mint green.
The only other customers at the diner were a young couple with a small child, picking at a disheveled plate of cheese fries and not talking. Terra passed her regular table for a spot on the opposite end of the restaurant. Still, the same Edna or Gertrude walked up with an ancient order notepad, used so many times that most sheets contained scribbles on top of scribbles. It was completely illegible. The waitress rarely used it, and yet carried it everywhere.
“What can I get you?”
“Oh, nothing yet. I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who, dear?”
“My friend,” Terra said.
“Oh, I see,” she said. She didn’t move.
“So what is that you have there?”
“Oh, just something I’d like to show my friend,” Terra said. “Kind of like, a scrapbook. You know, reminisce about old times.”
A smile curled around the waitress’s lips. “Oh, well, dear, I don’t know if your friend is coming.”
“What do you mean?” Terra said. “Did she call here? What did she say?” “No, she didn’t call.” The old woman’s eyes looked eerily bright, like they were seeing clarity they hadn’t been able to decipher for years.
“I just meant that I don’t know if she’ll come.” She scribbled something on her pad. “Would you like to order now?” 
“No,” Terra said. “I’d prefer to wait. The woman set her pad down on the table, adjusted the apron clinging to her stooped shoulder and sat down. Terra eyed her suspiciously as she folded her arms atop the table.
“That’s your’s, isn’t it, that book?”
“Of course,” Terra said.
“Looks like a datebook more than a scrapbook,” she said. “Perhaps it’s a diary?”
“What does it matter?” Terra said, hoping the waitress would go away. She had always treated Terra and Jamie with such admirable indifference. Why all the pleasantries now? The old lady’s eyes settled on the red notebook with a look of hungry curiosity. Terra took it off the table at set it on her knees. This was the first time in ten years she had looked the waitress in the face. Her nametag, yellowed and cracked down the center, read, simply ‘Sam.’ Terra had never noticed.
“Um, Sam, um.” Terra paused again. “Do you want something?”
“Nothing in particular,” Sam brushed her hand against her hairnet. Her nails were immaculate, dark red, and as long as a tiger’s claws. “I’m just making small talk. Tell me, how old are you, dear?”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Terra said.
“Oh, well, you are about the age I thought you were,” she said, adjusting her hairnet around a perfectly hairsprayed helmet of silver hair. “So young. So naive still. How old do you think I am?”
Terra felt exasperation welling up inside, similar to the knot she felt tightening in her stomach before she uncorked the entire frustration of a decade on Jamie last night. “Well, how would I know?” Terra said. “You could be seventy. Maybe seventy-five?”
“I’m sixty-one,” Sam said. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, would ya? No, you kids always assume I’m so old. I’ve been worn down by the world, but that’s not how it really is, see? No, it’s stranger than that, really. My body is sixty-one, but really I’m much older, over hundred, so you might say I look young for my age.”
“Right,” Terra said. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for something that would make Sam go away. The young couple stood up and threw five dollars on the table before leaving. Sam ignored them. “I’m old, and the world has got to me,” Sam continued. “But tell me, dear. You’re still a young woman in this old, worn world. I’d like to ask you a question I ask myself every day. If you could go back, and do it again, would you?”
“What does that mean?” Terra asked.
“It’s a simple enough question,” Sam narrowed her eyes. Terra looked right into them and found it strange that she wore neither glasses nor contacts. “There’s got to be one thing in your life you want to do over. If you could go back, and start over from the beginning, or near to it, would you?”
“Well, yeah,” Terra said. “Wouldn’t anyone?”
“Now think about the question, honey,” Sam said, her voice becoming tense, almost nagging. “You are given a choice — do you backtrack to a point you already passed and start a new path, or do you keep walking in the direction you originally chose? There’s got to be a reason you chose this path, a reason to keep the time you already gained. Isn’t that right?”
“Well, obviously, I could make all the same choices. I could just eliminate the wrong ones. It would be great,” Terra tried to emphasize the last word as the intended end of the conversation. The knot in her gut was beginning to unwind. She felt like yelling again but couldn’t decide why.
“I see,” Sam smiled, wide enough that Terra could see a yellow glint in her teeth. “I’ve always thought that it’s not the choices we make, but the choices others make that really change our lives. Of course, we all have things we would do over. But remember, dear, it’s cold in the past. You can’t turn around and come back to this warm little spot in the future.
“Tell me something I don’t already know. Don’t look back. You can never look back. It was my dad’s favorite song.”
“No, sweetie,” Sam said, her lips curling around a sinister smile. “You can always look back. You can never look forward.”
Terra uttered a thin laugh, until she realized Sam wasn’t trying to make a joke.
“So, Terra, you choose to look back. I can tell by your demeanor, your expression, that you always have.”
Terra felt a jolt of agitation tear through her body. It wasn’t so much startled by the truth as terrified by a lie, though her raw emotions made it hard to tell the difference. She clutched the book in her lap, looking up at the broken clock. “So you do know my name?”
“Just tell me one thing, Terra,” Sam said, her clear eyes now unmistakably black. “Where do you start from?”
“I don’t know, um … Sam”,” Terra said, slowly scooting to the edge of the booth. “This was a good talk, but I think I should get going. I don’t think Jamie’s coming.”
Sam stood up. “Give me your book first.”
“What? Why?”
“Just give it to me. I need to see it.” Sam’s voice had never wavered so much. She sounded older than ever. She fixed her eyes right on Terra’s and reached out. “Now.”
“I’m not going to give you my journal,” Terra said.
“I just want to look at it,” Sam said. “Just for a second.”
“You know what, Sam? I don’t care. I don’t even want it. But I’m sure as hell am not gonna give it to you.”
Sam leaned forward. Her eyes pierced the still air and Terra didn’t jump away. Sam grabbed Terra’s arm with the cold fingers of the dead. And then there was nothing.
Terra’s mind went black, unrecoverable in the dark eternity of Sam’s eyes. I’ve tried to piece it together for posterity, though my version is as foggy as hers. Terra uttered those last words, and Sam simply moved ahead and reached for the tattered notebook that for so long meant everything to Terra. She just couldn’t let go. Terra pulled the book to her chest, jerking her body backwards with Sam’s fingers clasped around her arm. Sam fell forward and landed firmly on the floor between the table and Terra’s feet as Terra moved to run away. In a flash of surprising strength Sam lunged forward and grabbed Terra by the ankles, stopping her dead in a full sprint. Terra fell, face first into the ugly, stained carpet, inhaling an acrid cloud of dust that rose from the decades-neglected fibers. The book went flying, and as Terra rolled around she could see it twirling, pages falling free, a hand reaching out for it. It seemed to stay in the air several minutes, much longer than the laws of gravity would ever allow, spinning in a cloud of unsettled dust, until everything in the room started to go black. Sam held steadfastly to her leg, and Terra didn’t jerk it away. She just closed her eyes, though I’ll never know why. I never had a chance to ask her, because this is where my story begins.
Chapter Three
The Wrong Way

The first thing I remember is laying on the ground, cheeks planted on scratchy carpet that smelled of chicken fried steak and steamed peas, and I was wondering where the heat went.
The diner never had air conditioning as long as I can remember; the thick air of summer always drifted in, collecting moisture above the fryers and condensing into an almost unbearable humidity. But before I had even opened my eyes, I could feel a cool breeze creeping across my skin. It had the dirt-scented freshness one always associates with spring. When I sat up, the restaurant was filled with people, stocking the tables in a glittering array of faces and outfits. Kids, most of them, like the kind that always turn out after basketball games. The hum of chatter filled the room, but through the white noise I could detect giggles directed right at me.
One girl in a tight purple shirt and too-cute-for-words pigtails was particularly audible. “What’s the matter?” she laughed. “Have one too many at the park this afternoon?”
“Excuse me?” I winced, blinking quickly as a whirl of faces closed in on me. Confusion would be the easy road, but the truth was, my mind had never felt more clear, or full of questions. Where was that crazy woman? Where was that stupid book? How long had I been laying here? Why did these people just leave me here like an idiot? Pigtails just kept laughing at me. Kids at other tables stared at me like I had just emerged from a cocoon, but I knew what was happening.
“That crazy bitch attacked me!” I shouted. Pigtail’s companions, two boys sporting Goth makeup and dyed black hair, began laughing alongside her. They looked oddly familiar. “Oh my god,” she snickered again. “Have you been drinking? Because if you have, I’d like to say it’s about time. But your mom’s going to be so pissed.”
“What?” I said, bewildered. My mom never cared that I drank. It’s the early morning coffee laced with a triple espresso shot that she worried most about. I planted my hands on the floor and tried to pick myself up. The muted lights of the diner swirled around my head. The images surrounding me joined the spinning blur, but when I shook my head and closed my eyes, images of a strange struggle remained inexplicably clear.
“Well, Terra, I suggest you get yourself together,” she looked at me with an infuriating smirk that released a floodgate of uncomfortable associations. “Isn’t your curfew in, like, two minutes or something?”
Her friends laughed. With their contrasting makeup and shapeless cloths they looked like extras in a black and white B-rated horror film. “Hey guys, 1992 called — it wants its unoriginal counterculture movement back,” I snapped. They stopped laughing and joined the rest of the restaurant in staring at me like I was some kind of lunatic. I looked away and noticed the windows had gone dark. I looked at the broken clock, now ticking away. It read 10:30. I blinked again, my vision disturbingly sharp against the growing fog in my head. The time couldn’t be right. It was never right. But if it was, I that would mean I had been laying here for more than two hours.
Humiliated, I stood up and stumbled to the door, listening to the laughter grow in the background. Outside the sky was filled with stars. A stiff wind whipped my face and I nearly tripped over my feet. It was cold! When did it get cold? As I shivered I felt something slipping down my hip. I looked down at a torrent of brown khaki, burying my feet and practically falling off my hips. No wonder I couldn’t walk. I was swimming in a sea of pants. Someone was playing some kind of cruel joke on me!
I trembled until my legs stiffened, building on outrage or fear ... I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t go back in that diner and face them, so I darted around the corner to a pay phone. “Common, Jamie, pick up!” I muttered. The monotone ringing pounded in my ears. After what seemed like 20 rings, a curt woman answered. “Excuse me. Do you want something?”
“Yes. I was trying to reach the desk of Jaime Burton. Is she in?”
“I’m sorry, but you have the wrong number.”
“This isn’t TelCast?”
“Tel what? No. Goodbye.” I reached into the cavernous pockets of those khakis. Only one quarter and a wadded up five-dollar bill emerged. Someone had taken my wallet! I swallowed hard and marched back inside.
“I need to speak to Sam,” I stammered, and the snickering started up again. “I’m sorry,” said the man at the counter. “She’s off all week. Taking personal time. I didn’t know about it until just now, cause she didn’t work today. I just took her call, but I guess she’s going to her cousin’s wedding.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I saw her this afternoon. She stole my book. And my wallet. She was right over there.” I pointed to the table where pigtails and her scary friends were sitting, talking loudly and no longer paying any attention to me. “No, no,” he smiled, lowering his face until his chin touched his neck. “She hasn’t been here all day. I’m pretty sure she flew out Tuesday. At least, that’s she told me.”
“No one here has seen her since Tuesday?”
“It’s only Wednesday, but, yeah.” Now that man was laughing at me. His red scalp shimmered through a thin comb-over. I looked up at a flickering fluorescent light. Wednesday? I was beginning to feel delirious. This was no longer annoying, no longer infuriating. This was a really bad joke, and for the first time in a while I could feel true pangs of terror. “Please, sir, can you tell me how long I’ve been here?” I tried to lower my voice, but the restaurant had taken on an audible silence that seemed to echo across the walls. “Um, well, you came in about …”
Before I finished, a hand grabbed my shoulder. “Terra, what’s wrong with you? I go to the bathroom and you just take off?” a familiar voice said. I turned around. “Jamie!” I said, wrapping my arms around her before she lurched backward. “Oh, Oh, I’m so glad to see you! I’m so sorry about earlier. You’ll forgive me, right? I need your help. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Well, obviously,” she said. She had gotten a haircut since I last saw her. The short layers plastered to her scalp seemed familiar and yet somehow out of date. Her face was strange, too. It was flushed, with softer looking skin. And she was wearing glasses. That was odd. She hadn’t worn glasses in years.
“Did you go to the spa today or something?,” I asked. “You look ... good.”
“No, Terra, I went to school. Just like you.”
“What? When did you start school? You never told me. And you know I’m not in school. I mean, I never finished community college, but if you don’t go back for eight years you’re technically not enrolled anymore.”
I laughed, but she didn’t. “I don’t understand,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“Hey Jamie, tell your friend Narcotics Anonymous starts in an hour,” someone called out from the crowd. “Better lay off the crack!”
“Oh, blow it out your rear!” Jamie yelled back. “We’re fine!”
She turned to me and spoke in a whisper. “Terra, are you feeling okay? I think you might have landed on your head or something. Mark over there saw you fall. He told me after I couldn’t find you. He said you got this strange look in your eyes, then you got up and hit the floor. What’s up with you?”
“You were there?” I was starting to feel oddly pacified, like maybe Jamie had the inside scoop. “So you saw that crazy waitress push me?” “Um, no.” Jamie shook her head and grabbed me by my … coat? I was wearing a coat? The stiff black vinyl rustled as she pulled at my sleeve.
“Let’s just go home,” she said. Jamie led me around the back of a rusted-out 1985 Toyota Corolla and placed me in the passenger’s seat. “I thought you got rid of this thing years ago,” I laughed. “Did your car break down? Where did you get this heap?”
“Terra, you know this is my car. Why do you always make fun of it?” I kept waiting for Jamie’s face to light up and yell surprise, but nothing happened. The fog had set in.
“Jamie, please tell me what’s going on. Tell me where I got these pants.” Finally, Jamie laughed.
“God knows I don’t. You fashion sense never fails to amuse.”
My fashion sense? I haven’t had a distinct fashion sense, since, well, since I didn’t have any fashion sense at all. But the stranger everything seemed, the more it started to make sense. Reading that stupid journal, then that crazy old waitress, then hitting my head. I was lost in a bad allergy drug trip. I was in my bed, dreaming. That had to be it.
“So where are we going now?” I said.
“Well, Terra, remember we were going to sneak out tonight and go to Caddy’s. But now I’m just going to take you home and you’re going to get an ice pack from your mom and go to bed, okay?”
“Okay.” I smiled. It was a strange idea but sounded appealing just the same. I decided now was not a good time to be alone, or driving. We rolled through the dark town that seemed quiet empty, somehow. I watched the street signs stream past. The road names were familiar, but blank patches of farmland seemed out of place, I thought, in a part of town choked with suburban development. We passed the intersection of Market Street.
“Where did the Home Depot go?” I asked sleepily. “Did they tear it down?”
“The what?” 
I just responded with few incoherent syllables and placed my forehead against the cold glass. My head was pounding, and I was feeling so, so tired. I was half asleep by the time we pulled up to my front doorstep. I didn’t even notice those subtle differences that would later haunt me — the scrub bushes my parents had torn up years ago, the splintered wooden gate they replaced with a chain link fence, the mass of flowers they never bothered to plant anymore, my dad’s old largemouth bass mailbox gaping at me from the front of the driveway. The ghosts of the past were screaming at me, but I didn’t hear them. I was an innocent spectator on the beach of illusion, my dull eyes blind to the alien ships sailing in.
Jamie led me in the door. “Your mom must already be asleep,” she said. She went into the kitchen and filled up a sandwich bag with ice cubes. “Here, you I should get some sleep too.”
“Okay, but I’m going to pee first, so don’t follow me up to the bathroom or anything.” I said, stumbling up the stairs.
“No,” Jamie rolled her eyes. “I’m going now. If I’m lucky, I can still catch the last half of ladies’ night.”
“I can’t believe you still go out on Sundays,” I laughed. I used to think by this age we’d be going to bed at nine and stuff.” Jamie looked at me like I had just told her my shoes tasted like gummy worms.
“Right. Whatever,” she said, and walked away.
I stumbled up the stairs, still wading through my pants. I really don’t visit enough, I thought. When did my mom replace the hardwood with carpet? And, jeez, these railings look brand new. Signs, all blaring, neon signs, that I didn’t even see, all because they were so far away from reality. But as I cracked open the bathroom door, the creek of yellow linoleum closed in on the final sweet moments of my innocence. Because the mirror, well, you know what they say about mirrors.
“It’s a lie!” I thought as my mind raced toward the reflection. A cold sweat beaded across my forehead as the flickering light revealed a faintly freckled face. I peered in closer. Dark, mournful eyes were staring at me in horror; cracked lips that hadn’t seen lip-gloss since seventh grade dropped wide open, revealing a row of metal braces. Wispy blond hair streaked in some candy shade of blue fell in feathered layers over a glittering vinyl coat with pink tank top and silver clover charm necklace. I slowly raised a trembling hand and touched the tips of my fingers to those speckled round cheeks, watching the mirror do the same. Everything about my reflection recoiled, terrified, screaming at me from behind the toothpaste-smeared glass. I couldn’t help it. I screamed back.
••••••

This is the point where my mom came running into the bathroom, “Honey what’s wrong, what’s wrong? Why are you yelling?”
I couldn’t even piece my thoughts together enough to come up with a plausible lie so I blurted out the last thing I remembered. “Jamie and I had a fight,” I gasped.
“Oh, come on, dear, you know it’s not that big of a drama,” she whispered as she ushered me into my old room. “Nothing to get that worked up about. You girls will be friends again. You’ll always be friends.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I panted. “I don’t think this is the kind of thing that can be undone.”
“Nonsense,” my mom laughed. “You girls always think everything is the end of the world.”
“No, Mom,” I practically choked on my words, though I didn’t feel like crying. “This time, I think it may be the end of the world.” My mom just shook her head and put her arm around me.
“You’ll see. Things will look different in the morning. You can call her then. She probably won’t even remember why she’s mad.”
She led me to my room and held open the door. My fist still clutched the shrinking bag of ice, dripping through my numb fingers.
“Just get some sleep,” she said. “You’ve got school tomorrow.” I walked inside, wiping my sweat-drenched forehead with the bag of ice. Moonlight infiltrated the drawn blinds, wrapping silver beams around all those things I’d forgotten — the Madonna poster left over from fifth grade peaking through dozens of magazine cutouts and drawings on notepaper. Stickers plastered to the door and window; the floor was strewn with CD cases and clothing. The knot in my stomach forced its way up into my chest. I struggled to breath, fixating my gaze on a bulletin board of photos and handwritten affirmations.
“I Am What I Am,” I read it out loud. The fixtures of the room were chillingly fascinating, the way a foreign place is fascinating when you see a building that you somehow remember visiting before. The bed was covered with a brown comforter that smelled of strong dust and faint mildew. I remember when Terra dragged that thing up from the basement because she was always cold. I ran my hands along its stale veneer, letting the frayed ties of black yarn slip through my fingers. I walked through a pile of papers that coated one entire corner of the carpet. Cartoons. Beneath my feet were the pencil renditions of dancing cows, Disney characters, and popular holiday symbols turned evil. I could see this month was the Easter Bunny, with his mass of scribbled fur and fangs holding a bloody butcher knife. I picked up the piece of paper and laid it on the bed. “When is this?” I thought. “What am I seeing right now?”
The faces on the wall seemed to be mid-high school, after Terra’s miscalculated hippie phase but before that full-blown punk era. The pictures on the bulletin board showed pictures of Jamie in club clothes, poorly lit concert stages and a family vacation to New York City. I ran my hand through the few articles of clothing still hanging to the closet — T-shirts, skirts that appeared to be fashioned from pillow cases, shimmering satin tops and large cotton hoodies. And then I remembered the obvious key. I dropped to the floor and stretched my arm as far as it would reach beneath the bed, feeling the shaggy carpet brush across my arms. I ran my hand over cold plastic and grabbed my red book, my notebook, looking as fresh as if I had bought it the week before. I tore open the cover and flipped through the pages until they were blank. I slowly worked my way back to the last page of writing.
“April 10: Today was different than yesterday but not much. Jamie and Darrell and I went to the park to fly kites. I successfully got mine up in the air once, but there wasn’t much wind. So we left to try another park, but I just ended up getting the kite caught in a tree. Jamie and I threw rocks at it, but it was useless. Now I think we’re going to go to the PNP. I could use some really good ice cream. We might sneak out after we get home and head to Caddy’s, if my mom’s in bed before 11 like she wasn’t yesterday. My life has become a lot of junk but not much else. I need some basis. Some reason to live. Guess that’s too much to ask for.”
I don’t know why my heart dropped to my stomach. That trite, angst-flaunting journal entry was anything but a surprise. I remembered it before I even reached it. I was clear on what was happening before I even realized who I was. But that’s the way life progresses, isn’t it? Sometimes there’s nothing more shocking than the outcome you expected the most.
“It’s still a lie,” I whispered. “It’s still in my head. They’re right. I am on crack.”
I crawled into the dust-saturated bed and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, then forced my eyes to close. “Things will look different in the morning. Things will look different in the morning. It’s okay. Nothing to fear.”


Chapter Four
Looking In On The Good Life

The “EUGH EUGH EUGH” was enough to not only wake me up, but also send me flying toward the paper-coated floor. I didn’t remember having an alarm that loud, but then again, I didn’t remember a lot of things. However, one thing was fresh on my mind.
I rolled around and looked out the window. Sunlight seeped in through broken blinds, hitting the cluttered carpet of a room that looked alarmingly the same as the one in my dream. I shot up and tore open the shades, praying, out loud, that I would see a broken-down RV and grass that hadn’t been watered since May. No such luck. An old Great Dane limped along the chainlink fence connecting two yards. A pair rusted swings my parents had torn out years before swayed in the breeze.
“OK,” I whispered, “So I’m at my parent’s house. Big deal. I stay here sometimes.” Just as I said that, I heard my brother, laughing. His voice cracked in the unmistakable strain of adolescent pitch. “So he has a cold,” I said, more loudly, “so what?” His laughter was muffled by my mom’s voice from behind the sticker-plastered door.
“Daughter, I heard your alarm. Are you up? Are you feeling any better this morning?”
“Much!” I squeaked. “I’ll be right out.”
“Don’t be too long!” she said. “You’re setting your alarm much too late. You’ve got to be at school in twenty minutes. And if I get another one of those tardy notes again, so help me.”
School? School? The word didn’t seem to even register in my vocabulary. Could she really mean … school? Like high school? The prospect was as giddily exciting as it was terrifying. I tore through the wilted mass of clothing on the floor until I came across a respectable staple — black T-shirt and jeans. “I can do this,” I muttered, at the same time wondering, “Why am I doing this?” as I shoved a leg into the baggy pants. 
Don’t focus on the way things are different,” I told myself. “Focus on the way things stay the same, and we’ll get through this.”
Terra’s image was still strong in my head, and I didn’t dare look in the mirror again. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and walked out the front door. Just as I expected, Jamie was waiting outside, hunched against the steering wheel of her car.
“Want some?” she asked, gesturing at a sixty-four-ounce Slurpee perched on her dashboard. “Breakfast, eh?” I laughed. Aren’t these what we always get for lunch? When we sneak out of fifth period?” Jamie scrunched her nose, and I suspected I probably described an idea similar to gummy worm shoes again.
“No, not usually,” she said. “I mean, not anymore. Are you feeling any better today? You still seem weird.”
“Yeah, I’m fine” I said. “I guess I feel a little weird. I mean, after falling at the PNP and stuff.”
 “That was strange,” Jamie said, and started the car. The hyper ska music of Buck ‘O Nine blasted through waves static in the speakers.
“Need to get those fixed,” I said. “Yeah, I know already,” Jamie said. “You don’t have to tell me a thousand times. I get the picture. I’m poor, okay?”
“Sorry. So, uh, how’s it going?” I asked.
“Fine. Whatever.” Jamie said grumpily. She looked at my forehead. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re not going to go all psychopath again today, are you?”
“No. I don’t think so.” I paused.
“Actually, I feel great. I was feeling pretty crappy, but now I have this excited feeling.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh, getting in your old Corolla. Drinking a grape Slurpee for breakfast. Going to school. It’s kind of fun, don’t you think?”
“Right,” Jamie winced. “So, how hard did you hit you head?” Her face was puffy and eyes caked in two or three day’s worth of eyeliner. I could tell she just got out of bed as well. Looking closer, she had this blank look about her; absolutely expressionless, even as she smiled, and I wondered — should I tell her? My head felt like it was swelling into my skull. If this is real, I thought, I have to tell somebody, and if it’s not, what does it matter? But since she couldn’t possibly believe me, what’s the point? I watched her flip vacantly through the CD changer, moving from frantic guitar music to new age and settling down on some horrible techno album. The thumping tore through her mangled speakers like a deranged cat struggling to get out of a paper bag, but she turned up the volume anyway.
“Right, Jamie,” I said, “about that. Would you believe me if I told you I have no idea where my first class is today? Do you know?”
“Really funny” Jamie said. Her expression didn’t change.
 “Okay, guess not,” I said. “Anyway, what else is on the agenda today?”
“Well, after we get through prison camp, nothing,” she said and paused. “Wait … isn’t today the day you’re going hiking with Jordan or something? That’s what you said yesterday.”
A fire alarm went off that only I could hear, surprising me even though I triggered it. My heart raced toward the source of the smoke, now settling in a thick fog over my head. I tried not to let it out. “Oh, huh, so today’s the day we’re going hiking.”
“Think so,” she said. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I can’t come. I’m taking the ACT on Saturday; now my mom’s telling me I have to study.”
I searched through the cloud for some memory about hiking with Jordan. When did we go hiking in the cold like this? I wondered. All I remember is springtime, and the big rock. I tried to let my thoughts slide backwards. It’s April, I thought, sometime after April 10. I remembered the last passage of journal I read before I encountered Sam. It was April 11, but it seemed so long ago. That was the first gasp of their final moments together, Jordan and Terra, although I couldn’t comprehend the two names in the same sentence anymore. That was their last hike. They barely spoke the whole time. And they didn’t talk at all after the beginning of May. My heart sank. If this was the moment I came back for, I thought, I’m already too late.
Jamie pulled in to the school to park, as far back as the lot would go before she found an open space. Stretching out toward me was Terra’s alma mater, Home of the Spartans, a squatty brick building that made her heart flutter every day on her way to work even as the decade wore its memories away. Today, in the early spring sunshine, it seemed to sparkle; painted in the vivid colors usually reserved for childhood and dreams. The parking lot was teeming with life: cars blasting 1990s rap as teenage children in baggy clothes shuffled around a maze of cars. The air tasted sharp and fresh, and I wondered about my senses. They were younger now, maybe more acute.
“‘Tis a beautiful day,” I sang out loud, and Jamie rolled her eyes. Several silent minutes went by before we reached the front door. Inside, I quickly became separated from Jamie in the flow of backpack-toting traffic. “See you at lunch?” Jamie called out, and was gone. Expressionless faces floated through the halls like flotsam in a torrential storm. Terra didn’t set foot in this building once she graduated, but everything had the same stale glow that colored all of my memories of her - the florescent lighting that turned everything a sick shade of green, scuffed yellow tile and lockers painted battleship gray.
As I absorbed the nostalgia, my mind crowded with images of Terra stumbling through these halls, clutching a mass of books in one arm, scanning the torrent for a friend to wave to. I walked past the hallway where Terra had her sophomore year locker. In the middle of the featureless row was a door smeared in faded ink. I pushed closer and laughed out loud. Spattered on the thick gray paint were the faded remnants of countless drawings, notes and comments. I ran my hand down the blue trickle where Jamie once sprayed hairspray because “hairspray takes everything off.” This was their sophomore chat room, I thought, an on-locker discussion that involved dozens of people at one time. Terra, still completely innocent at fifteen, wrote a cryptic note to her tenth-grade crush right across eye level, a note that she knew he would glance at and never know where it came from or even that it was meant for him. His name was Tyler. He had these striking green eyes, though that’s all I remembered about him.
What I did remember was her final note — in small red cursive beneath a tangle of meaningless statements — “Well, the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry anymore.” She circled it. The quote stood that way for weeks as friends wrote menial jokes and semi-obscene poems in a continuing spiral all around it. Then one day, out of the blue, in a deep blue ink and handwriting Terra never recognized, someone had circled to circle and drew a line to one of the few clear spots left, near the floor. “Cause when life looks like easy street there is danger at your door,” it said. The blue line was still there, although blurred. It slashed through the illegible smear that remained after the hours Terra spent scouring the door with a sponge while a hall monitor watched her every move. Terra had tried so hard to preserve that line. “It won’t come off,” she pleaded to her punishers. “I don’t even know who made it.” But slowly she worked, and slowly it faded back. Still, I couldn’t believe they never painted over it. I worked my way into the common area and scanned the office doors. They all looked the same.
“Is this the counseling office?” I asked the pink-skinned woman with frizzy gray hair. “No, next door,” she muttered.
 “Okay. Is that where I get my schedule? I need to get my schedule.” She looked up from a shuffle of papers and glared at me.
“Are you new here?” I swallowed. “Um, no. I just need to check on a few things.”
“You’re telling me you’ve gone here since September and you need your schedule now?” she lowered her wire-framed glasses and glared at me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Next door,” she muttered. Yes, some things never change. The freshmen girl at the counseling office desk scribbled my class list on a pink post-it and handed me a “Just Say No” brochure. Whether it was a subtle attempt at an insult or just protocol, I didn’t care. I was feeling near ecstatic at this point, nervous and anxious at the same time, like a kindergartner. I clutched the schedule and tried to remember my routine. I noticed the acrid aroma of lunch food, which reminded me of the bakery, and I rolled my head around, willing myself to focus as I walked to my first class.
Mr. Sims taught first period art; this class was almost a complete blank for me. Terra never learned a thing from him and always blamed that one class for all of her professional failures. Mr. Sims stood in front of a flipchart pad, clutching a watercolor brush in his gnarled knuckles when I slipped in the door.
“Good to see you today, Terra; did you bring your assignment? Please tell me you brought it today,” Mr. Sims said, waving the dripping brush right at me. A few chocolate-colored drops splattered onto my arm.
“Assignment? Um, of course. Well, actually, no, I think I might have forgotten it” I blurted as I attempted to brush the paint away and ended up with streaks of brown across my arm and fingers. I looked at him pleadingly. His thick black hair and beard made him seem almost cuddly. He couldn’t have been older than thirty, and it was funny to see someone my age standing in such a menacing position.
“I did it though,” I said. “I’ll bring it in tomorrow.” My homework, if it was actually done, was probably somewhere on the floor in my room. He’d understand. “Fine.” he said, “Since you obviously have nothing better to do, you can go to the AV and fetch a projector for me. Then you will go straight to the office. I warned you about missing any more of your homework. I don’t want to see you again without it.”
“Right,” I said. A few kids in the class snickered. I felt fine about being publicly berated and sent away. I was bound to hit a few snags like this. If it was a watercolor assignment, it was terrible anyway. Terra never did get the hang of painting — her finished pieces always looked like a toddler got a little overzealous with a paint-by-magic coloring book, with faint lines of actual objects buried beneath a smear of hasty water strokes. When it came to art — well, when it came to a lot of things — Terra relied her ability to erase.
I marched into the hall, searching the floor for vague memories of the location of the AV room. The doors seemed to form a hopeless maze. The hall seemed empty, but as I turned the corner, a cold hand reached out from behind me and grabbed my arm. The icy fingers sent chills of dread through my veins even before I turned to look.
“You!” I gasped into a mass of shoulder-length hair tangled into the early stages of dreadlocks, moving right for me. His arm had already snaked around my waist, binding me in am uncomfortable bear hug of garish flannel. His hot breath slipped down the back of my neck as I struggled to wedge free.
“T.J.” I sputtered. “What, I mean, what are you doing?”
“Hey, Terra, I got you this,” he smiled, reaching into his massive corduroy pockets to pull out a pink Teddy bear. He held it in front of my face as he pressed his torso into my back. Its beady eyes sparkled as if to say, “Hey — I’m back!” I clutched it in my fingers; it felt like a bag of ice. I could almost see its sappy intentions dripping through my fingers, running like cold blood down my arms.
“I was going to give it to you on the way to class, but I didn’t see you this morning,” he said. “Where were you?”
“Late,” I said, struggling to regain my physical space. “What are you doing? Why are you here?”
“Oh, this,” he said, removing a wooden hall pass from between his arms. “I’m just out on a bathroom break from homeroom. Pretty cool coincidence, huh?”
“Quite.” Even after all this time, every word I said to him formed a ring of ice around my tongue. T.J.! How could I look away? In my memories, he was always around, everywhere Terra went for nearly six months of her life. He lingered in a cloud around her, like bad cologne. Even his smell, that pungent mix of laundry soap and old man deodorant, could induce a wince from a decade away. And now he’s here, snaking his arms around my waist, smiling his toothy grin, never taking those brown eyes off of me, nudging my cheeks with that nappy dirty-blond mane of his, like a stray cat.
“T.J. I have to go,” I said. “I need to find the AV room.”
“I’ll go with you!” T.J. trailed beside me as I quickened my pace down the hall. My head twisted through flashbacks of one long summer together; wandering the streets of Pineview, spending hours rocking back and forth on the swings, arguing about anything Terra could think of to keep her mouth away from the poison that surrounded him. She gave him the coldest, most resentful shoulder she could muster, every time, and he always came back, like a homeless pet. That was the poison summer, the hottest summer on record, the summer of peering carefully outside to make sure he wasn’t perched below the windowsill, the summer of Jamie picking Terra up behind her house so he wouldn’t watch her leave, the summer of tearful confessions, of leaving the phone off the hook while her parents slept. The summer that had yet to come.
As I turned to face his piercing eyes, his final plea for understanding still echoed through a time-twisted hangover. “I’ve tried to do everything for you,” he once said to Terra. “I’ve tried to be as nice to you as anyone could possibly be. You’re really just someone who needs that kind of attention. That’s why you keep me around. You need that one person that cares so much. Even if that person is me.” Terra hated him for not hating her, the way she hated that vase of wilted, crusty flowers stashed behind the woodpile in her parents’ yard. He left them on her doorstep one afternoon in a random axe of kindness. She whisked them to the backyard before even taking the time to look at them, stashed them away, and made sure they never saw the light of day. But she didn’t throw them away. Hearing those words, the last words she ever let him say to her, she realized he understood her better than anyone could. And she hated him for it.
“No, T.J,” I said. “I’m just grabbing something for art class and then I’m gone.”
 “OK. Then how about fourth period? Do you want to go to 7-Eleven?”
“No. I can’t.” His crestfallen look threw me off. Weren’t we already fighting by this point in time? Or was it still too early? Were we still good friends? Was it already over? Should we even be speaking?
“I mean, I can’t today. Get back to me later, okay?” Still such a pushover.
“Great!” he said. “But can I walk with you to the AV room?”
“Whatever.”


Chapter Five
Second Damage

I sat in the empty counseling office for twenty minutes before I gave up and walked back out into the hall. First period was getting out, and again the masses were forming chaotic lines in the hall. Despite the curiosity burning in my head, I found myself frozen in character, fixating my eyes on the ground like I didn’t care who anyone was. These crowds were always faceless before. Why should the world any different now? 
Second period. Gym. My memories of this class also were vague at best, lost in a cloud of sweat and self-consciousness. I hoped this wasn’t the basketball clinic part of class, that humiliating moment the boys plowed me into the ground and stepped on my back in front of the entire sophomore track team. Standing at the doorway of the empty locker room, I had a feeling I knew exactly what I was in for. “But this shouldn’t matter to me anymore,” I told myself. “I’m much stronger now. I’m so much less self-involved. I no longer believe that everyone is always paying attention me.”
I grabbed a wad of gym cloths out of the lost and found. “Leave your gym cloths at home?” I turned to the olive-skinned figure standing behind me. Her brown eyes were wide and wet behind a curtain of mousy hair, and dozens of bangle bracelets dangled from her tiny wrists, making her whole stick figure look even more emaciated. Did I know this person? Surely I must. 
“Um, actually, I just forgot my locker combination,” I said. “Actually, I don’t know which one is my locker. Silly me.” 
She laughed, and a row of tiny teeth made her eyes look even bigger. “So I was going to tell you that you don’t have to wear those.” She pulled a pressed white T-shirt and tiny blue shorts out of a gym bag. “I have an extra set. I just washed them.” 
I flashed her a grin, though the mirror opposite us reflected a face that was more bewildered than pleased. “Thanks, but, um, I don’t think those are going to fit me.” I held them up to my waist. My thighs looked like tree trunks compared to hers. It’s funny how everyone remembers being thinner in high school. 
“Yeah, I guess not,” she smiled again. “I just flew in early this morning … from my vacation. Anyway, I did a huge load of laundry before I came to school, so I just got here.”
 “That’s great,” I said, now squinting at her. “Um... where were you again?” She looked up dreamily. “Detroit,” she laughed. “Imagine that. It was crazy getting back here. Oh, but, um … you seem a little bit early today.” 
“Yeah. I spent first period in detention,” I said. Her eyes. Those bracelets. Who is she?
“Oh.” She half-turned like she was about to leave, but then changed her mind. “What happened?” 
“I forgot to do my homework.” 
“Oh.” She stifled a giggle. “It’s been a rough day for you, hasen’t it?” 
“At least I didn’t wake up Detroit,” I said. I laughed out loud at my bad joke, but stopped immediately when I saw her gaze turn icy. 
“What do you mean by that?” she asked coldly. 
“Nothing, I was just saying,” I said, and paused to change to subject. “I like your bracelets.” She shot a look of confusion, but then her eyes lit up. “Oh, these. I’ve had these since fifth grade. They remind me of the good times, you know?” 
“If that’s what you call it,” I said. “So do you wear those in gym?” She shook her head.
“They make too much noise.” 
“Oh, oh yes, I bet they do.” Her whole face fell into the shadow of her hair. I searched her eyes and still nothing. Maybe this girl didn’t know me at all. After all, we were the only two people in the locker room. 
“So,” she blurted out. “Did you talk to T.J. this morning?” 
Oh. So she must know me then … and him. “Yep, sure did,” I couldn’t help but frown.
“So, what did he say?” “Nothing much.” “Oh. I see. Cause, you see, well, he told me he was going to talk to you this morning about going to prom with him because he hadn’t talked to you about it yet.” She smiled, but her terse words were already needling at my patience. “I spoke with him when I got back this morning. He really wants to go with you, but he’s worried you’ll say no, so he won’t ask.” 
Is that all? She sounded so formal for a gossiping girl. I laughed out loud again. 
“He really likes you, you know.” 
“Believe me, I know,” I said. 
“T.J. doesn’t think you do know.” 
“I know exactly how that kid feels about me.” I wanted to tell that girl everything about my future months with T.J. That wet look in her eyes, the way she came off as the friend of a friend of a friend, too friendly to have good intentions, told me she just might believe me, and leave me alone if she didn’t. “And you know what?” I smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I used to think it mattered a lot but it doesn’t. It’s all just very high school, and I’ve gotten past all that. Ten years down the road, he won’t even remember me, and I won’t have to remember a horrible summer where all I did was fight with him, you know?” 
“Why not just give him a chance, Terra? He’s a really great guy.” 
“Why do you care?” She gaped at me as though I just ripped her bracelets right off that stick of am arm. The melodrama was grating. “There are bigger problems in the world than high school drama.” I said. Though I was already aware that just being there, in that moment, didn’t give me a lot of ground to stand on. I was, after all, my own psychology experiment already gone awry. 
“Look. T.J. is a good friend to me and a great guy to you,” the girl said. “I don’t want to see you hurt him,” she spoke in a lowered voice. “I’m just trying to be your friend, Terra.”
“So then be my friend,” I said. “And — just curious — why all the concern?” 
“I’m just giving you a heads up. T.J. wants to ask you to that dance, but he’s really shy. So when he does, just say yes. Is that really so bad?”
 Just say yes — my life motto. In the heat of our discussion I didn’t even notice that the room had filled with girls, changing into track shorts and white T-shirts, adjusting makeup and bras in the mirror. I turned my eyes back to the floor. It seemed wrong to be in this situation with girls so young. Their conversation muffled the jingle as the girl with bangle bracelets walked away. 
Gym turned out to be as awkward as any non-athletic person remembers it being, and I was starting to realize why some memories become so vague. Time is merciful. I was perched as far away from the basket as the court would legally allow me when an orange ball came flying at my head. I woofed as it burrowed into my stomach, but was cut short by two charging boys. One smacked my arm with his elbow and the other grabbed the ball before it even had a chance to recuperate. A loud whistle blew. 
“Foul!” cried the coach. “And you, Terra! Get back in the game!” 
Co-ed gym is a cruel joke, like that sadistic English teacher I had in tenth grade that made the whole class act out Lord of the Flies, emphasizing realistic displays of violent rebellion. I wobbled across the court, my leg muscles burning against the effort, and I remembered what it was like to be young and invincible and completely out of shape. “Hustle!” a freakishly tall boy that I can only guess was on my team hissed at me. I looked down to make sure I was wearing the same blue mesh vest he sported on top of his T-shirt. 
“You know, in a few years I’m going to take up swimming and I’ll be able to clobber you in triathlons,” I muttered as the boy took off down the court. I wheezed after him, still back at half court when the ball came flying at me. I launched it back into the air with the flailing anxiety that transcends muscle strength. It made an honest effort through the air, landing dead center behind the basket and bouncing off the rim. The boy looked back at me and I could tell he was impressed. 
“You know, when nobody’s guarding you, you can dribble a little,” he said sarcastically after he landed the rebound and ran back toward the other side of the court. “Well, it’s been a while,” I panted as I ran behind him. “Sometimes you forget the rules.” 
“Are you telling me you don’t know how to play basketball?” he said, stopping as the whistle blew again. 
“Pretty much. I mean, I watched it a little on TV back when the Jazz got into the finals, but I never really picked up on the finer points. And this,” I said, waving my arm in the air. “How do they expect us to breath in this sweat box if a building? It smells like rubber boots that haven’t been changed all winter.” 
The boy laughed. “When were the Jazz in the finals?” 
I caught myself referring to the future and quickly tried to cover it up. “Um … back in the eighties, sometime?” He laughed again. “Well, I have practice right after school. But if you ever want to learn, stop by on a Thursday sometime, maybe today. You have a good arm there. I could show you a few things.” 
“Cool.” I found myself giggling. He was the kind of guy I wouldn’t have given the time of day in high school, the lumbering jock, Mr. Senior Class President with a loyal following of cheerleaders. I’m sure he would have felt repulsed by me had he seen me in that get-up I was sporting last night and not my gym cloths. A blue strand of air fell into my face and I hastily pushed it behind my ear. “So, what’s your name?” 
“Jason. And yours?” 
“Um, Terra,” I blurted out. Jason was the kind of guy future Terra was always trying to meet, the kind of boy that would start pre-law right out of high school and grow up to be a professor or a member of the city council. Terra patrolled bars for years looking for Jason, and I’m sure her high school version would not approve. “OK, great. I’ll see you then, Terra.” 
He grabbed a towel off the bench and headed for the boy’s locker room. I was still grinning when bangle bracelets stomped up from behind, minus the jolly jingle. “What was that about?” she half hissed, though she was smiling. She held her bare wrist to her pointy hips. “His name is Jason,” I said. “He’s in my gym class.” 
“I know who he is,” she said. “He’s like the captain of the basketball team isn’t he? What did he say to you?” 
“I think he’s going to show me how to play basketball, on the account that I’m terrible but could be good,” I said, shooting an imaginary ball into the air. “He seems nice.” 
“I guess,” she scrunched her nose. “I mean, it just seems strange, that’s all. It couldn’t be about that, you know. But why would he offer to teach you basketball? It’s not like he cares how his team does in gym class. There are definitely people worse then you out there.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But you can save me the high school caste system speech. I just made a friend, that’s all. If he objects to my punk rocking lifestyle, I’ll make the necessary changes, like I always do.” 
“You’re acting pretty weird, you know that, don’t you?” she said. 
“You might just say I have some perspective now,” I said. “I even know what you’re thinking. And don’t worry. I don’t care what T.J. thinks. At all. Tell him what you’d like.” 
“I won’t tell him,” she said. “But you should consider how he feels about you. I mean it.”
“Okay then.” Strange that Bangle Bracelets showed so much concern. Then again, high school life does tend to wrap itself around everyone else’s drama. Bangles probably secretly liked him too, but in her unrequited affection sought to connect him to someone else in order to deflect her own feelings, and maybe, in some strange way, show her benevolence by exposing him to the true me, who, in her eyes, was probably a raging bitch anyway. 
“That’s a little convoluted, don’t you think?” Jamie said at lunch when I revealed my T.J. theory to her. She didn’t know who Bangle Bracelets was either; through my long gym story I had been able to extract out of her that Bangles didn’t hang around us and wasn’t a very large presence in our school. No one around us knew who she was, either. I had managed to skirt through technology and physics classes without running into T.J., though the long lectures did give me some well-earned reflection time. 
I had been running through the past sixteen hours like they were a strange dream that I couldn’t wake up from, and now it was starting to seem like I might actually never wake up. I had experienced the range of emotions from terror to elation, and I was now staring down that long road of denial. In just sixteen short hours, twelve years of consciousness became the long dream, and the surreal shroud of a single day became my life. Instead of talking to Jamie about ten-year reunions and menial jobs, I was talking to her about high school crushes and mysterious acquaintances, and the ease of this transition was startling. 
“I just mean she’s got to have some kind of motive, right?” I said. Jamie just shook her head and took another sip of the Mountain Dew she’d been nursing. This was the era when Jamie and Terra would go days eating only sugar, our pseudo-vegetarian phase before carbohydrates become evil but while vegetables were still vile. I couldn’t get past the way her pupils floated behind glazed-over eyes, even as she looked directly at me. 
“You should try eating some solid food,” I said. 
“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?” 
“Nothing,” I said, pushing a plate of wilted iceberg lettuce toward her. What was easily a pint of ranch dressing had escaped from the drenched salad and formed a puddle on the table. Jamie rolled her eyes. 
“You call that food?” she laughed. “That, whatever you might try to call it, is exactly why they finally agreed to put vending machines in school. Hungry students were wasting away.”
“Maybe so, maybe so,” I said. “But really, this school could take some cost-effective measures and still make school lunch edible. This dressing for example. By applying a reasonable amount of ranch dressing rather than a half gallon, the money saved could go toward purchasing decent lettuce and maybe even a few carrots, and tah-dah! You turn a bad soup into a great salad.” 
Jamie laughed. “School lunch has to be bad,” she said. “It’s, like, the rules of high school. Another rule is that only dorks buy school lunch. What possessed you to get that today anyway?” 
“I was hungry,” I protested. “I don’t know. I only had a dollar in my pack.” 
“And that’s enough to get you two of these,” she shook her can at me and took another large swig. “Mmmmmmm. You forget what you’re missing.” 
“What I’m missing is the long fall from a sugar high. Not that I couldn’t use a long fall about now.” What I was really missing was the familiar faces I expected to see in the lunchroom. I hadn’t placed a single memory on the lunch scene yet,  and the assortment of strangers was thrusting me deeper into the twilight zone. Where were the skaters that filled the corner tables in a cloud of dreadlocks? Or the fancy bitches that always loomed near the doorway? Or the jocks who wore their football padding all day long? I grasped for images I could connect to the present, but all I found were stereotypes developed over years of teen movies and late night television. The pictures in my mind didn’t match at all with the blank faces that filled the cafeteria. I guess it’s true, what they say, when you get older. These damn kids all look the same. 
“Who you looking for?” Jamie asked. I had been caught mid-scan. 
“No one in particular,” I answered truthfully. Just then my peripheral vision locked on a scene that sent my stomach reeling. Before I could even see the figure’s face, my heart attempted to escape through my rib cage and came to a crashing halt against my chest. Everything about him emerged from my most hidden memories; a ghost bathed in shadows was beginning to take form. As I turned my head, his round forehead came into focus. His wispy brown hair shimmered like silk in the fluorescent lights, and he raised his hand to brush it away from his eyes the way I had seen him do a thousand times when I stole the tiniest glimpses of him. As the crowds between us moved away, I saw him flashing a grin full of endearingly crooked teeth. He was talking to someone I couldn’t see, laughing, standing a full head above the flowing crowd that somehow managed to disappear beneath him. My ego screamed at me for staring, but I couldn’t look away. This dream I spent so much time trying to ignore was reeling me in, and knowledge of its origins made the fight seem futile.
Even as Jordan turned his face toward me I only strained harder to see the whole picture — a worn-out Violent Femmes t-shirt clinging to his torso; jeans with enough holes in them to reveal patches of dark hair on his spindly legs; bushy eyebrows; pathetically cute peach fuzz goatee; wide metal rings in his ear lobes. Several seconds passed before I realized his shadowy blue eyes were locked directly on mine. 
I whipped my head around in time to feel a slow shudder settle in my muscles. “What’s wrong with me?” I muttered, and Jaime overheard. 
“Good Lord!” she laughed. “Could you have made that any more obvious? I mean, you’re not the queen of subtle, but jeez!” She held her hand to her mouth. “Oh, oh. I think he’s coming over here.” 
“I can’t believe he’s here now,” I panted. “Talk about timing!” I looked down at my shoes. Blue sneakers. Jeans — stonewashed, not ripped, but not mom pants either. My thighs looked huge; maybe if I lifted my knees a little they’d straighten out. The lights made my hands look green, and I realized for the first time I was wearing an assortment of strange rings. How have I changed? I wondered. How am I different? I can’t be too different. But was I different enough that he might notice? 
When I looked up, Jordan was easing next to Jamie on the bench. I watched him with the shameless fascination one would watch a celebrity who just randomly sauntered into the same restaurant they just happened to be eating in — a moment of synchronism when an experience created behind the safe curtain of magazines and movie screens becomes startlingly real. Jordan’s eyes locked on mine like he knew who I was. I tried to wrap my fingers around the cold weight that was replacing the sensation in my hands, but all I could focus on was the burning in my cheeks and his wide-eyed self-assurance that left me motionless. 
“Terra, what’s up?” he said; his voice seemed to echo over the white noise circulating in the room. He brushed strands of sun-bleached hair from his face. 
“Nothing much. How are you?” I almost whimpered. Self-consciousness screamed at me again, and tried to straighten up. “How’s, um, school?” 
“You know how it goes,” he smiled again, and tilted his head toward his shoulder. “Hey, are you still going with us tonight? I think we’re going to head up West Canyon if you want to come.” He turned to Jamie. “You can come too, if you want. It’s going to be awesome.”
Jamie smiled. “I can’t. But I think Terra’s free,” she said in a singsong way that made me cringe. 
“That’s great,” he said. “Come over around four or so. Bring anyone.” 
He pretended to look at his watch. “Well, chemistry calls. See ya’ll later, Earth Girl and Jamestown.” With that he got up and turned back toward the corner he came from. Nothing to say, no reason to stay. I buried my face in my hands. 
“Still such an idiot,” I muttered. 
Jamie, who had taken a large gulp from her lunch can just as Jordan stood up, snorted so loud she almost shot soda out her nose. “That was … the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” she said as she gasped for breath. “You couldn’t have acted any more retarded. But, I mean, really? You and Jordan? How come you never told me you liked him so much? And here I thought you were going to take that weird girl’s advice on that stupid boy that’s always following you around.” 
“I don’t. I mean, I can’t. I mean, I won’t,” my train of thought was crumbling. “I mean, it’s just, like, this stupid hormonal teenage thing, right? That’s got to be what it is.” I looked over my shoulder and scanned the crowd for Jordan’s vanished figure. This had to be a dream, I thought. I’ll never make it out alive the second time around. 
“Whatever you say,” Jamie said. “Listen, I have to hit biology early. See you after school. And take an aspirin for that bump on your head or something, or else Jordan will think you’re a total spaz.”
Chapter Six
Full Tilt

Seventh period. Math. I settled down in the desk next to Darrell, an old acquaintance that Jamie and I knew from Art Club. I instantly recognized his huge teeth with a nose to match, and took immeasurable comfort from that horsy face. 
“Hey Terra, you and James going to the park again?” he said, brushing his stringy hair back as he looked up from a novel the width of a New York City phonebook. 
“Um, no,” I said. “I’ve got some plans to go hiking tonight. How have you been lately?”
“Good, since you saw me yesterday,” he said. “And what’s up with you? James tells me you got injured last night. What’s up with that?” 
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I fell at the PNP, for what that’s worth. I’m not actually injured. I’m just not myself today.” 
“What for?” 
“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “I guess it’s kinda like this, Darrell. Say you woke up tomorrow and you were, like, seven years old again, but you remembered being a teenager, like, you still had the same mind. How would you feel? What would you do?” 
“That would be awesome!” he said, putting his book down. “I’d be so much smarter than the other kids. I’d skip out on school and spend all of my time playing rather than learning to read and useless stuff like that.” 
“You mean, you wouldn’t try to do you life over? You wouldn’t be worried that something would change and you’d never be able to reverse it?” 
“Well, if you really had the chance to do things over, then I guess you wouldn’t want the outcome to be the same,” he said. “There would be so much you wouldn’t remember, that when things turned out differently for you, you wouldn’t even notice.” 
I smiled. He was right about that. Darrell leaned toward me. “Does that have something to do with that head injury? Are you, like, getting short-term amnesia?” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Nothing like that!” I laughed, jumping back. 
“Very well,” he said in a geeky robot voice. “But someday you will have only the Borg to answer to.” 
Just then, the math teacher walked in, the epitome of a math teacher stereotype — wild white hair and a narrow tie, pants cut short enough to reveal mismatched brown socks. I couldn’t remember his name — only the day he told Terra and her class about his side job shooting cattle for private owners too timid to put a barrel to ol’ Bessie’s head. He would show up at their house with a shotgun and a plastic apron, pat the cow lovingly on the head and plant a single bullet right between the eyes. Then, spattered in glistening blood, he would step over the lifeless carcass, walk up to the timid owner’s doorstep, hand him a slaughterhouse home-pickup number and wait patiently for two fifty-dollar bills. 
“I do my killing in the morning,” he had told the class in the same monotone voice he used to explain irrational numbers. “Before the kids get up. These modern-day farm families. They think they’re tough, but they always cry.” Everyone laughed, but Terra never listened to him as well after that. It wasn’t fear, exactly, of the idea her math teacher was a cold-blooded cow killer. Still, the casual overtone disturbed her. It was the beginning of her grim realization that many lives experience the death of passion long before they ever die.
“Limits,” the teacher gasped. He threw a loaded duffel bag on his desk and half-sprinted to the chalkboard. He began scribbling graphs on the surface. “Today we’re going to discuss limits.” I pictured him standing over the class with a shotgun in his hand as he slaughtered elaborate equations with illegible chalk lines. “These graphs map out the progression on an infinite series,” he said, “broken down by the notion of a limit.” He continued drawing wild curves. I pushed the dead cows in the back of my mind and desperately scanned my textbook. 
“OK, class, he cried out, what is the limit? Terra?” He looked right at me. My stomach sank into my depleted carcass. This was math, now. How was I to remember concepts Terra barely paid attention to a decade ago? I searched his face for answers. The lines on the board curved downward, never quite reaching the bottom. If a cow carcass were lying in a field, it would slowly break down until nothing was left, and yet, everything would still be there, the molecules, the atoms, seeping into the soil, drifting into the air and becoming infinitely smaller. Even as the family choked down the grilled remains of Bessie’s bounty, the process of birth and decay would continue because infinity has no limit. 
The words tumbled off of my tongue before I realized I was speaking. “It doesn’t exist,” I whispered. “What was that?” “The limit doesn’t exist.” 
“That’s right,” he smiled. “This equation will become infinitely small, but never reach zero. Therefore, it has no limit.” He brushed his wild hair back and continued scribbling on the board. I slumped back and breathed a loud sigh. 
“Nice save,” Darrell whispered. “Guesser. You didn’t know that. I could tell.” 
“Maybe not,” I said, “but I could see it.” 
“Sure,” he said. “But are you ready for the test tomorrow?” Test? Tomorrow? I imagined the math teacher turning to me with his blood-splattered apron. In a sharp streak of anxiety I realized time was already decaying. 
••••••

The air of Thursday afternoon was warmer, but still held a soft chill around me as I walked toward Jordan’s house. This was once a simple corridor; a neighborhood street lined with the manicured front yards I played on as a child and the cracked sidewalks I crossed over on my way to school. I stopped at the curb where I broke my arm once attempting to pop a wheelie on my Schwinn bicycle. I knelt down to run my palms over the rough concrete. I wanted to remember what this street felt like before a year of painful associations, before I ever drove past those darkened windows on my way home from another outing marked by confusion and distance, feeling an ominous sense of longing against the vacancy of the night”
“There’s too much that remained,” I whispered. “Too much that stayed the same.” I stood up and faced the house across the street. Jordan’s old Buick sat in the driveway, still sporting zebra car seats and a faded set of flame decals. There was a time that I willed that car to disappear from that parking spot forever, and there was the surprising loss I felt when it finally did. Whatever happened to Jordan after senior year, Terra never really knew. One day, in a fit of desperation, she submitted his name to an online private investigation site. All they sent back was an excerpt from a newspaper article printed in a small liberal college newspaper in California two years after they graduated from high school. He was described as a lead in a local production of “Hamlet” and quoted as saying, “Some of us were born to act, because we never learned how to be ourselves.” That was all that remained of his traceable legacy five years later. So Terra had to assume Jordan went where most adults’ dreams go — just like a dead cow left to rot, they never really disappear. They just take on new forms. 
I sucked in a lung full of the crisp air and marched toward the house. “Did Jamie come with you?” said a tall, freckle-faced kid who answered the door. Must be one of Jordan’s friends, I thought. He didn’t look familiar. 
“She didn’t come. I just walked up here by myself.” 
He looked disappointed. “Huh. OK. We were hoping maybe she did so she could drive. This other chick showed up and we’re not sure there’s enough room in the car for everyone.” 
A faint jingle punctuated by the rhythmic stomp of heavy boots rounded the corner. With hair tied back in a tight ponytail, she lifted her gaunt face and raised her bangle bracelet-encrusted arms toward me. 
“Terra, good you made it!” Bangle Braclets said, wrapping me in a metallic hug. “What are you doing here?” I practically hiccupped. “Oh, Jordan invited me,” she said. “Ran into him right after lunch.” 
“So you know Jordan, um, too?” My head was starting to spin. I felt a vague collision of two worlds separated by great amounts of space. Exactly how stretched out can one person be? I thought. 
“Of course, silly. Glad you could make it.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Did T.J. come with you?”
“No,” the word oozed out like black mud. “Is he coming?” “Guess not.” She lowered her eyebrows and continued staring out the open door. Just then Jordan bounded down the stairs. “Terra, you’re here! You’ve met Ant, before, haven’t you?” 
“Aunt? Aunt who?” I watched from Jordan jump over the banister wearing a pair of black cargo pants and tight army green T-shirt, through which I could see the outline of his strong, sinewy body — an image that burned in my memory long after his face faded from clarity. I felt the panicked urgency to run away and didn’t want Jordan to see my face before I did, so I quickly looked away. 
“Just Ant,” Bangle Bracelets smiled. “We’ve had gym together for ages, but we didn’t really connect until yesterday.” 
Yesterday? So we were two strangers. But I couldn’t help but wonder what happened yesterday that could have led us to this strange place. And why did I have no memory of her from this point on? 
“I never thanked you for offering to lend me some gym cloths,” I said. “So, thanks.” 
“No problem. I forget mine so much that it’s why I have two sets. And we have so many mutual friends, so it just makes sense.” 
“Well, I thought you said it was because you were friends with …” I caught myself and stopped mid-sentence. Jordan laughed and put his arm around Ant’s waist just as she backed away from me. 
“This is great,” he said. Another boy and girl came down the stairs. The boy slumped over the banister as the girl walked up to Jordan and tried to ply her way between him and Ant. She looked as annoyed as I felt. 
“So, are we going now?” the girl said. I recognized her as Dre, one of Jordan’s best friends, and the boy was probably her brother, though I couldn’t remember his name. I spent nearly every weekend with the three of them one intoxicating February, for the only month that Jordan and I could have ever been classified as a “couple,” though probably by my definition alone. By the time April came, we barely spoke anymore. I never had the courage to ask him why, but I do remember the last gasp efforts I put forth to win him back, this hike included. Even then I just wrote it off as high school puppy love gone sour. It wasn’t until a few years later that I started mulling over the empty space between the lines that filled my journal, and truly began to wonder what really happened.
Dre shot me a tight smile lined with black lipstick, and I could tell she was surprised to see me. “Oh, hey, Terra, what’s up?” She glared at me through a mountain of eye makeup. Her face was whitewashed in pale makeup, and her hair stuck out like a nest of straw dyed black and miles of silver jewelry dangled from her neck down a long, flowing black dress. Her brother also was decked out in black an equal amount of eye makeup sans white facepaint. The goth twins. Terra always thought of them as individualistic anarchists, someone she could aspire to be. I, on the other hand, felt I had been drawn away from the bright-eyed cynicism of youth long enough to see the prototype they really stood for. Victims of a bland stereotype in the name of anti-conformity. 
“Hi, Dre. You’re looking well.” 
“What the hell does that mean, Miss Manners?” she laughed through a mock-sneer.
“Nothing,” I murmured. 
“So it’s been a while,” she continued. “Where ya been?” 
I turned to Jordan, looking as innocent as ever. Dre probably knew the answer to that question, or at least I’d always assumed she did. I wanted so badly to ask her myself. Why don’t you just tell me? I thought. Why did Jordan stop inviting Terra to these after-school hang-outs? Why did he stop speaking to her? Why did he suddenly invite her to this random hike without another word of what had been on his mind of the past month? My head was still spinning, though more slowly now, and I felt there was a measure of importance in staying put and acting normal. Still, there were those nagging questions that no one ever gets to ask twice. And if I was going to, I would need to ask before they pushed me back into my silent corner. 
“Same as where I always am,” I said. “But I don’t hear much from you guys these days.” I turned to Jordan. “What keeps you so busy?” A flash of confusion spread across his face, but it was quickly masked by an irritatingly sincere smile. 
“Well, you know,” he said nervously. 
“No, I don’t know,” I held my ground. The spinning had stopped completely. I was standing outside myself now. “You haven’t called much, but you invited me here today. Why?” 
Jordan’s jaw loosened and his smile fell into an open grin. Flight mode was returning but there was no turning back now. The fact that we had never defined our relationship was only a minor technicality, but there are roles in the high school sociality that you just don’t toy with, and I was the one standing on a tight rope of tension between everyone in the room.
“Well, Terra, I thought you liked hiking, don’t you?” he trailed off. Ant, standing behind Jordan, coyly wrapped her arms around his torso. He reached back and ruffled her hair. 
“I like hiking, Jordan,” she giggled as she and I exchanged glares. “Oh, yeah, speaking of, we should get going, don’t you think? Don’t you think, Terra?” 
“Sure, why not?” I deflated again. “Let the madness begin.” 
Six of us crammed into the Buick with red vinyl interior and no back seat belts. Ant had slithered her way next to Jordan in the front seat. I wedged into the back seat with Dre, her brother and the boy at the door. Dre’s large body smashed my face into the door’s glass. She seemed to not notice my labored gasps for air as she ran her fingers through the blue streaks in my hair. “These are great,” she said, “only blonds can get away with shit like this.” Pressed helplessly against the cold window, an unsettled rush of blood pushed through my veins and chilled my limbs. Synapses shot lightening pricks of anticipation into my brain as the April sun crawled toward the horizon. There was something new and undiscovered about the sky, something in the cool air and gold-framed clouds that was both familiar and far away, that created both silence and amplification in the same instant, that reeked of the mundane while bathing itself in beauty. 
In that second, lost in a pale blue sky peppered by scarlet streaks of sunlight, I remembered a time when a new day was truly new, when the novelty of an undiscovered world sold dreams that extended beyond the horizon. Anything, virtually anything could happen to us, and we knew it, and for that we felt fear — followed by desire. 
“I am, I am, I am, I am, I said,” Dre sang over the acidic punk music on the stereo, and Jordan turned it up. The crumpled sound blared through windows that were fogging up, and Dre started throwing her black mane all over the back seat in a mock mosh pit. The dry strands whipped me in the face as I strained my neck to over in disgust. Her brother reached over the swirling mess to tap my head. “Rock it,” he yelled.
Dre stopped head banging and screamed out, “I love the Dead Puppies! They are like, so underrated.” 
“Tell me about it,” the boy at the door yelled over the increasing volume. “Remember last month at Caddy’s? Throwin’ around the stage? I thought I was going to vomit I was so mashed. That pit was awesome.” 
“Yeah,” Dre screamed, turning completely away from me. “Like when Josh got that black eye from that guy’s boot. And I was like, I love you Jeremy, love you! And he looked from stage right at me. I mean, I don’t think he heard me or nothing, but, I swear to God, he looked right at me.” 
“Kiss me, Jeremy, kiss me!” Dre’s brother flailed his arms out and knocked both Dre and me in the face. He whirled around. “Remember that Terra, you were like, ‘Jeremy, I love you more than she does!’” 
“Was I there?” I said innocently. I couldn’t remember, but assumed they were mocking me for not being at such a cool show. 
“Of course,” Dre’s brother said through a sneer. “Or were you too wrapped up in lover drummer boy to remember?” 
“Guess so,” I replied. I didn’t dig too hard for the memory. As the car rolled eastward, I decided that some things are probably best left suppressed. At the mouth of the canyon Jordan pulled off the road and jumped out of his car. Ant followed closely behind him. To either side of us, a narrow meadow spanned about 300 yards before jutting up sheer granite cliffs. A picnic table sat below a large boulder in plain sight of the road. There wasn’t more than a few square yards of open space in which to walk. But to teenagers, this is hiking.
“Hey, look at me, I’m Grover!” Jordan cried out after arriving at the picnic table, holding his arms in ape-like stance. “Near … Far! Near … Far!” He ran back and forth, flailing his arms all over the place. The boy whose name I didn’t remember ran toward him, and in his best gruff garbled voice, yelled, “A round donut with one bite out of it looks like a C, but is not as good as cookie.” Dre jumped on top of the hood and yelled out “La! La! La! Linolieum!” I felt a giggle climbing from my gut, but I just stood behind the open car in awe.
The boys began scaling the bolder while Ant stood right below them in mock hysterics. “Oh, I declare, do be careful up there!” she said in a horrible southern accent. “Oh, woe is me, I have no idea what I shall do if he doesn’t come back from the war!” 
“Never fear, my lady!” Dre’s brother called out. “I shall bring you all the riches of Arabia” With that he grabbed the final hold and hoisted his legs onto the jagged top, about twenty feet above the ground. The other boys followed and Jordan stood at the edge, spreading out his arms. “King of the world, Ma!” he yelled, and everyone laughed. The cars on the highway streamed past, ignoring us completely, but we perceived them as an unyielding audience to our crazy creative adventures. Jordan’s eyes sparkled in the setting sun and his wiry torso wavered below his outstretched arms. 
“Behold, sunset!” He yelled. I walked to the table and plopped down in a forgotten world where individuals can still create their own joy. Ant sat down next to me. “So, did you give any more thought to going to the dance with T.J.?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said. “To be honest with you, Ant, I don’t think I will. I’d really like to make amends with Jordan.”
 “Amends? For what?” “Oh, I don’t know. He’s just … really … distant. It’s been a pretty slow time for us. But I think we’d be good friends, though, if we could get through it.” 
“Oh I see,” she said, and smiled so wide that her stretched lips revealed every single one of her tiny teeth. “It’s going to be weird, though,” I said. “I’m I really different person now, I mean, than I was in February. But I think that’s a good thing,” I stifled a laugh and trailed off. 
“So what are you saying?” Ant asked. “You know, Jordan and I are kind of a thing.”
“What?” I felt my lungs instantly deflate. How could I not know this, not remember this?
“I know you guys used to hang a lot in February, but he told me you never actually went out. And now that you’re with T.J., I mean, I had no idea.” 
“I’m not with T.J.” I said through the ring of ice that was building in my mouth. My tongue was numb and useless, and I was speechless. Everything suddenly became such a waste. 
“Anyway,” she said. “I’m sorry. I mean, if I had any idea. You know.” She flashed me another grin and got up from the table. “Jordan, oh Jordan,” she yelled, mustering up her southern accent. “Do be careful coming down from there!” 
An hour later, back in the safety of my room, I reached under the bed and tore open my red notebook. It was still filled with all the familiar pages and drawings I could easily recognize, but completely blank wherever I needed it the most. “April 8 … went to school. April 9 … boring day. April 10 … hanging out.” The pages of February were colorful, nostalgic and useless. The pages of March were mournful and too dramatic to draw any real conclusions. The pages that continued to the end of the book, the sleek, shiny white pages were completely blank, and, I was starting to realize, were going to stay that way. 
“I’m not going back,” I choked, curling my body over my dusty mattress. “I’m really here. I’m really not going back.” The plastered chaos of Terra’s room was spinning in and out of my mind. This is my world, now. This is my future. I turned to face a large poster of Jerry Garcia that I had purchased while the lead singer of the Grateful Dead was still alive. “What am I going to do now?” I gasped to his somber face swathed in white frantic hair. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” 
I tore open the notebook. “April 11,” I scribbled. “This is a new beginning for me, and you may not find me writing again. I have been sent to this old place for the reason I had assumed was to accomplish a relationship I know I cannot. So what am I to do now? Go back to school? Be sixteen-year-old Terra? It can’t be her. I’m only doomed to follow in her footsteps. She was already here. She wrote in this book, on this page. I’ve read her words. I’ve even written them. She knew what was going on and somehow she kept it from me all this time. Now all that is left is me. And since the timing seems completely random, I can only wonder now what it is I was sent here to do.” I stopped writing, and turned to the poster again. “What it is she brought me here to do,” I whispered. Sam’s gnarled words echoed in the fading memory of my former world. “You can’t turn around and come back.”

Chapter Seven
I Am What I Am

Shrouded in the already-blazing morning sunlight, Jamie threw a lukewarm can of Dr. Pepper in my lap as I got in the car. “Take long enough?” she said, squinting in my general direction. “Your breakfast is getting warm.” 
“Thanks,” I said, cracking open the soda for good measure. “Sorry.” 
“No prob. I’m not the one who has Mr. Sims for first.” 
“True enough.” I grimaced at the thought of getting detention again. “So how did the studying go?” 
“Bad.” She shook her head and took a big swig of her own soda can. “I swear I’m just going to show up on Saturday and fill in all C’s. I saw on this after-school special on PBS that you could pass doing that.” 
“What kind of after -school special was that?” 
“I don’t know. One about not cheating, I think,” she said. We drove beneath the shadow of a freeway underpass and she looked at me again. Her eyes opened a little wider. “You look different today.” 
“Thought I’d try something different.” I ran my hands along the sleek, stiff configuration of hair I spent an hour coaxing to the back of my head this morning, with blue streaks neatly folded behind a geyser of curls. I slathered my face in enough of my mom’s makeup to mask the constellation of freckles, and topped it all off with a slim black skirt and gray silk top that I spent the better part of last night searching for. I grinned in the rear view mirror and ran my finger across my teeth in search of beige lipstick residue. I had never looked more adult in my life. 
“What’s the occasion?” Jamie asked. 
“No particular reason. Just trying something… new. Don’t you ever get sick of yourself?”
“Not enough to go all funeral chic on a school day, and a Friday at that!” Jamie laughed. “Now don’t get your crappy lipstick all over my Dr. Pepper.” 
“Hey … you gave that to me.” I mock pouted. 
“Seriously, what are you trying to pull?” “Nothing, nothing,” I said. “Maybe just rock a few boats.” 
“Whatever floats yours.” Jamie bee-lined away from me as soon as we parked. I rounded the baseball diamond to sneak in to the back doorway of the art department. Just as I expected, T.J. stood by the classroom doorway, with his mop of a head cocked way too far to the right to sincerely say “Just in the neighborhood again.” 
“Whatever, T.J.,” I said. “Look, I can’t be late today.” 
“So who died?” 
“My sense of humor.” 
“No, I’m just saying, you look good. What are you doing tonight?” he asked. 
“Not sure,” I said. “I think I might have plans, though.”
 “Are you sure?” he said. “Cause my friend Ty is working the night shift tonight at the multiplex. I think he could sneak us into the late show, and he’d probably even give us one of those garbage bags of popcorn they always end up with.” “Mmmmm,” I said. “A garbage bag full of stale popcorn. Sounds delicious.” 
“So it’s a date, then?” 
“Um, well, I don’t know,” I said. “My friend Jordan might be free tonight, and …” 
T.J. was hardly fazed. “Great,” he said. “We’ll make it a crowd. If it’s not a date, though, you’re buying the soda.” 
“Look,” I said, holding out the rolled up sheet of poster board I had to fish from a pile of crumpled papers in my room. “I gotta go. I’m prepared today, so I won’t be back out.”
“OK, but I’m coming back for fourth.” 
“You do that,” I grumbled as he sauntered down that hall. I had seen that stride before; that pose of triumph for arrogance he didn’t own. I remembered a party that happened early in the poison summer — a graduation party, thrown by a senior from a different school that T.J. knew. I remember Terra standing alone in a crowd of strangers, mercifully barred from conversation by rap music playing at full volume. She was comfortable that way, an outsider hidden by white noise. No one else spoke to her and no one danced. Everyone just stood still the way time did in that moment. The walls vibrated with each thump from the stereo. They were covered in blacklight posters of human silhouettes twisted in various poses. Terra was holding a ceramic mug sculpted at a forty-five-degree angle that said “Wyoming” in big block letters. Later that night she be alone in a bedroom with T.J. and would tell him that she didn’t think she could hang out with him anymore, and he would shatter that mug against the wall of a stranger’s house. 
But just a couple hours before that happened, I remembered T.J. approached Terra holding a giant vat of the purple punch, spiked with a bottle of vodka that everyone saw go in. T.J. held it up to Terra and mouthed the words “thirsty?” She shook her head and his face twisted into an obnoxious grin. In cold horror Terra watched as T.J. hoisted the bowl over his head and dumped gallons of carpet-staining liquid over his open mouth. A shower of purple poured onto his face, down his shirt and washed over the floor as the crowd roared, breaking through the safety shield of pounding music. T.J., dripping liquid that reeked of rotten grapes, turned back into the clapping, laughing mass of strangers and sauntered away. Confused and humiliated, Terra clutched that mug in both hands and bolted to the nearest bedroom. The end of the beginning. 
Mr. Sims smiled as I handed him my roll of artwork, which I took as a welcome sign that I had grabbed the right assignment. He waited until after I sat down to bark at me. 
“Terra! We sit in our assigned seats.” 
“Oh.” I looked around, embarrassed. Then I heard a faint, “Terra! Over here!” The voice was followed by the metallic wave of bracelets that could only belong to one person. “Hello, Ant,” I said beneath a deep breath. “So I guess we have art together too.” 
“Actually, I’m just an aide,” she said. “So I’m only here this week. But, funny that you shouldn’t see me until today.” 
“Guess I just wasn’t paying attention. So did you guys have fun after I left?” 
“Oh, we didn’t do too much,” she said, batting her long eyelashes. “Hung around Jordan’s house. After about an hour Dre, Jackson and Jeff left and Jordan and I finally got some alone time. By the way, you look nice today. Going to a wedding?” 
“Actually,” I said, “I’m just trying to make a good impression. You know Jason, don’t you? From gym?” 
“Really. Don’t you think your trying just a touch too hard?” The way her voice squeaked as she inflected the word ‘touch’ gave me an irresistible urge to strangle her. How can one girl be everywhere in my past and have no role in my memories? I couldn’t connect the puzzle.
“Well, I didn’t have time to get the blue out of my hair, if that’s what you mean.” I shot her a saccharine smile. She knew as well as I did that I wasn’t dressed any differently than the popular girls we saw basking in the main hallway every morning. The fact that I wasn’t dressed in Terra’s signature I-bought-this-at-a-thrift-store-and-dressed-in-the-dark clothing seemed to throw Ant off.
“Well, I just mean that first it was T.J., and then Jordan, and now this guy Jason,” she said sweetly. “I’m just wondering, Terra, I mean, how desperate are you? You can’t have, like, every guy.” 
“Shut up, Ant,” I hissed. “Nobody buys this ‘friends’ thing any more.”
 “Oh, you don’t have to be such a crank,” Ant cooed. “Really, and you don’t have to be such a bitch, either. I’m just trying to help.” “Computer Design,” Mr. Sims barked as he turned on an overhead projector, “is the future of illustration. Ten years down the road, paints and pastels will be a thing of the past. So, since this school is too cheap to buy some computers for the class, I’m going to show you how to begin conceptualizing an idea on screen. Once you get to college, this is all you’re going to use.” I flipped through the sketchpad I found buried in my backpack. Pen and ink sketches of buffaloes, haunted houses, barren trees, dancing bears, reggae turtles, goblins and guitars filled the pages in a mysterious stream of consciousness. She never could get her thoughts together, I thought, and glared one last time at Ant before turning my back on her. I saw Mr. Sims looking right at me, and I raised my eyebrows at him with the inflection of irony only I could detect. If only Mr. Sims could actually see ten years down the road. The real stuff, the esoteric stuff slathered in oil and acrylic by pretentious bastards and posted on white walls, is still the only art people really care about. Terra, Terra the bright-eyed, punk rocking artistic type thought she had a big future in illustration, until she held up black and white scribblings of the deepest portions of her soul and the world said ‘so what?’ 
“I hope you’re listening, Terra,” Mr. Sims growled. 
“Oh, I am,” I said. “Believe me, I am.” 
After class, I sped out of the room and ducked into the bathroom in an attempt to avoid Ant. Surely I’d run into her later. But I have to go to gym, I thought, if I’m really going to turn things around today. Now, the real reason I got all dressed up (at least I told myself at the time) was not to impress the hot jock. No, I wasn’t ready to stoop to that kind of shallowness just yet. I dressed differently, I decided, to see the world through different eyes. Not my eyes. Not Terra’s eyes. New eyes. Still, I did just ‘happen’ to bump into Jason before I slipped into the locker room, perched against the brick wall in full gym attire. 
“Oh, hey, Terra,” he said. “Didn’t see you at practice yesterday.”
 “Oh,” I said. “Sorry about that. I had some stuff I had to do.” 
“OK then. Maybe next week,” he said, turning around.
 Old Terra would have let it go at that. So I stepped in. “Well, I don’t have much on the agenda today,” I said. “What are you up to tonight?” 
“Wrestling,” he said, reaching down to pull a stock up his toned leg. “But tonight, I actually don’t have much going.” 
“That’s cool,” I said. My heart was pounding. What do I initiate? Caddy’s? He probably never goes there. Dinner? Too formal. Or movies? Too lame. As I groped for a suggestion, the strangest idea settled in my mind. 
“Want to go to Lava Hot Springs? A few of us were thinking of going up there tonight. I’m not sure who’s going but it would be great if you could come.” 
“All the way up in Idaho?” 
“Um, yeah,” I said. 
“Sure,” he smiled, with a surprised look on his face.” Sounds like an adventure.”
“Really?” I stepped back. So much for pulling that one out of thin air. “Well, great then. Why don’t you give me your number, and I’ll call you before we go. Say around four or five?” 
“Sounds good.” He pulled a pen out of a nearby locker and grabbed my hand. “I’ll see you then.” 
“Ok, great,” I almost gasped. “Well, better go get dressed. Basketball again today?” “You know it.” 

“You want to do what?” Jamie yelled, when lunch finally rolled around again. T.J. had trailed me all the way from fourth period. I could tell he was inching for an invitation, but I didn’t care. Let him come, I told myself. He’s only a shadow to me. 
“I met this new guy, Jason, and, well, it slipped out Jamie. Don’t you think it would be fun to drive up to Idaho?” I flashed her my politician grin. Future Jamie and Terra were always making weekend road trips to various resort towns, but I recalled our situation being just a little different at this point in time. 
“I can’t go up there tonight, Terra,” she scowled. “I have a test to take first thing tomorrow. You know that.” 
“Damn,” I said. “I forgot.” 
“I bet my mom would lend me the T-bird,” T.J. said. “I think it would be cool. So who’s this Jason guy?” 
“If I’m lucky, a future plastic surgeon,” I said, burrowing my resentment as deep as I could into his widening eyes. “I mean, go if you want, T.J., but understand that this is kind of a date thing.” 
Jamie looked at me, as stunned as T.J. was. “Who’s Jason?” 
“Oh, um,” I stammered. “This guy in gym. I mean, he’s in my gym class. He’s teaching me how to play basketball.” 
T.J. was trying to cover up a look of hurt with a lopsided smile. Jamie just gaped. “Jason? Jason Albright? The basketball captain? That Jason? Jesus. No wonder you didn’t tell me before.” Her voice was rising. “Is that what this whole fancy bitch thing is about? What is up with you, Terra? Why are you being such a fancy bitch?” 
T.J. just sat there with his crooked teeth jutting out of that stupid-looking smile. He looked complacent next to Jamie, who was positively livid. “Look, Terra, I can’t chauffeur you around tonight. Oh, and I have to stay late for a study group, so you’d better get a ride home from school.” She picked up her can of Mountain Dew and stood up. “Anyway, I have to go. Maybe I’ll catch you on Saturday. Let me know how the double date goes,” she said, sneering at T.J. 
As she left I switched my hateful stare to T.J., bracing for the same from him. Instead, he just widened the force of his smile. “Whatever, Terra, I still thing it would be cool.” 
“You really want to drive me and Jason to Idaho?” 
“Why not?” T.J. said. “What time do you want to go?” 
“Um, five,” I stammered. Pathetic. I was still so pathetic. 
“OK. I’ll pick you up. And that Jason guy, too, if you really want. Whatever.” A loud bell echoed in the cafeteria, and without looking at me he stood up and walked away. Finally alone again, and feeling like electromagnets were forced together inside my skull, I finally said aloud, “What just happened?” The prospect of a night alone with T.J. and a boy I barely knew filled my head with waking nightmares. I tried inviting anyone whose name I could remember to go with us to the hot springs, just to offset the inevitable awkwardness. Darrell had a “Star Trek” marathon. The boy sitting behind him was going to a dance across town. I realized I had crossed a line when one girl who I remembered as “Veronica,” though that was all I remembered, smiled at me and said “I’d rather die.” 
I slumped into math clutching the giant textbook I hadn’t even bothered to crack last night. “This thing’s going to be multiple choice, right?” I said to Darrell after the teacher turned around to rearrange a fray of papers stacked up beneath the chalkboard. “Doubt it, Terra,” he said, grinning. “This is calculus, remember? They want you to show your work. Plus, it’s a proven fact that students do worse on multiple-choice tests than short answer tests. Studies have been done, you know.” 
“It’s just that I heard this thing about filling in all the C’s.” 
“Don’t think you’re going to pass? Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Sure, you never do your homework.” He motioned at my textbook, with the perfectly pointed corners and pages as stiff as the day it rolled off the assembly line. “But you always manage to pull through the tests. Don’t worry so much.” 
“Right,” I said. The math teacher embraced a large stack of papers and turned around.
“As soon as I distribute the tests, you will have fifty minutes to complete them,” he barked. He glided through the aisles, gracefully placing his masterpiece on each desk. The packet seemed a half-inch thick, held together by one tiny staple clinging to last page for dear life. Just like me. 
I scanned the first page. There were more letters and unidentifiable symbols on the page than numbers. This isn’t math! I thought. Math is adding up how much Mr. Butler owes me for four dozen rolls at fifty-nine cents each. I stared at the graphs drawn in the left margin. This is more like art, I thought. I scanned the room and tried to focus on somebody … anybody’s test. Everyone in the class was hunched over their desk in the same manner that drunks hug a toilet in a bar. I looked back at my paper and wondered what I could possibly upchuck onto its indecipherable pages. There is no way, I thought, that Terra ever in her life knew the answer to this question. I should just get up and walk out now. But something was holding me back — the same force that held me to conversing with T.J. and staring longingly at Jordan from a safe distance, maybe. I was walking through a world I could see was transparent, with words I had written in pencil, and I didn’t have an eraser. 
The math teacher sat complacently at his table, but his eyes alone moved quickly around the room with intense scrutiny. I could feel his gaze burning holes in my lowered forehead and I scarcely dared to move. Maybe I can fake it, I thought, and scanned the questions more closely. They all asked for points on a graph, using equations to map them out. It really just boiled down to simple math stacked upon simple math, but I didn’t have those building blocks. What were the equations? I crossed my legs and scrunched up my face, searching the past for any sign of the formulas I needed, but nothing was there. As I opened my eyes, my peripheral vision caught a strange pattern drawn in black ink on the bottom of my shoe. That definitely didn’t seem intentional. I glanced up, casually readjusted my legs, and looked down again. There, carefully etched into the beige rubber, were dozens of formulas and equations. It couldn’t be, I thought. But … it was. I gasped out loud and quickly covered up the sound with a false cough. Sometime before my arrival, Terra had carefully portioned the tiny little symbols into different compartments for each question of the test. She must have spent hours drawing this, hours she probably could have been studying, I thought. That dirty little cheater! But I wasn’t in a position to complain. One more quick glance up revealed that the math teacher wasn’t too concerned about my fascination with my feet, so I set to work, relearning Calculus from the bottom of my shoe.
Chapter Eight
Out in the Cold
 
“That’s so evil,” Darrell said as we walked out of class. “Having a huge test the last period of the day.” 
“Tell me about it,” I said. “So how did you do?” 
“Well, there’s a slight possibility I could have done worse,” I said. “I guess we’ll see.” 
“At least you didn’t write in all C’s,” he said. 
“Wait … you were looking at my test!” I exclaimed, and poked him in the ribs. He laughed. “Hey, gotta go,” he said. “We’re meeting after school for a Magic tournament.” 
“A what?” He already had disappeared into a different hallway, leaving me standing alone in the empty cafeteria. For the crowds that conjure here before school, it sure does clear out quickly after the final bell, I thought. I swung my backpack onto a table and slumped over the chair, wondering how I was going to get home. Jamie wasn’t around the rescue me today. My back was turned when I heard the familiar jingle that sent shivers through my limbs. I didn’t look around. 
“Waiting for Jamie?” I heard Jordan’s voice, and I turned to see him and Ant standing beside me, each holding one end of a large curtain. 
“She’s, um, studying,” I grumbled. “What’s up with the rug?” 
“Oh, this is for drama,” Ant said. “New project. We’re creating a set for King Lear.”
“Her idea,” Jordan said. “We were just going to paint a backdrop, but Ant was like, ‘let’s make it authentic.’ So we’re just going for minimalist props and no lighting.” 
“That’s great, really,” I said. “So,” Ant said as she draped the curtain over Jordan’s head. He giggled and flailed around like a cat trapped in a grocery sack while Ant sat down next to me. 
“T.J. tells me you guys are going to Lava Hot Springs tonight. Interesting idea. I must say, I didn’t see it coming.” 
“Yeah, Terra, it sounds fun,” Jordan said. “I love that place. You can go in the hot springs and it really stings your eyes, and you can go to the pool and jump off that platform.” 
“Oh, do you guys want to come?” I looked at Jordan hopefully, though I honestly couldn’t tell what answer I was rooting for. 
“That would be great!” Ant said. “Jordan, what do you say?” 
“Sure, why not?”
 “We’re leaving at five,” I said. “Meet at my house. T.J.’s driving.” 
••••••
I took the long way home from school, breathing in the sweet scent of sagebrush soaked in rain. Afternoon showers pockmarked the sandy field. I looked up to the clouds peeling slowly away from the blazing sky. 
“Gonna be a clear night,” I said. I hopped a familiar backyard fence, though I had no idea where to go once I reached the other side. I stood at the center of a cul-de-sac shuffling my backpack around my shoulders when a familiar brown 70s-era Ford sped down the intersecting road. A load screech came a split second later, followed by the disheartening whoosh of a car in reverse. It stopped at the corner. 
“Terra? Is that you?” a voice called out from inside the cab. I rolled my eyes privately and walked to the car, still running, with T.J. hanging out the passenger’s side window. “Terra,” he said, “I was just out your house. Your mom told me you weren’t home from school yet.”
“Couldn’t find a ride,” I said with a little too much exasperation. 
“I could give you a ride.” “T.J., I’m like two blocks from my house,” I lied. I had no idea where I was. 
“Not that close. Here, get in.” I launched my pack in the open back seat window and grabbed the handle. T.J. slithered back into the driver’s seat. “Hey, Terra,” he said as the car started to inch forward again. “You want to get some dinner before we head out to Lava?” “Um, ok, fine,” I growled. We didn’t say another word all the way to the PNP. T.J. stopped just short of the restaurant and scanned the parking lot before pulling in. 
“What are you doing?” I asked. 
“Oh, nothing, just seeing who’s here.” 
“Why, worried we’ll run into someone else who’s going to Idaho tonight? Jason perhaps?” 
“Of course not,” T.J. grumbled. “I barely know the guy.” 
“Then why would you volunteer to drive us all two hours north? If I recall, I never outright invited you.” 
“Terra!” T.J. yelled, in a volume that made me jump back against the door handle. “Why are you being such a bitch of the sudden?” 
“Uh, well, what?” I stammered and shook my head. The question caught me completely off guard. 
“I mean, like three days ago, you were fine, when we were hanging out at Taco Bell. It’s like all of the sudden you hate me,” he yelled, his eyes lit up by a startling glare. “What happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, T.J.” I said, folding my arms to prepare for the pouting I was going to have to do to get out of this fight. “I don’t remember.” 
“Three days ago?” “Seriously? Listen, Terra,” he said, forcing his voice down several decibels. “I like you. You know that. If you don’t like me back, just say so.” 
“Well…” I stammered. I looked into his fiery eyes and saw the reflection of a complete stranger in the passenger’s seat staring right back at me. The image was so eerily similar to one day in the summer, July or August, anyway, the real heat of summer, when T.J. and Terra took a walk to the park because T.J. wanted to “talk.” He meant to tell her another convoluted theory of his, and she meant to demand he stop waiting for her in a car parked a half block away from her house at all hours of the night and day. But instead of talking they just sprawled in the grass, several feet apart from each other, and watched clouds crawl through blank blue sky, and they said nothing. The bright, brilliant sun beat down on their faces, and it was the most peace Terra ever felt with that boy. That was, until he turned to her with those strange eyes, that intense flame that seemed to put a voice to everything he had ever wanted to say to her, and Terra had to look away. 
“Look at me,” he said to Terra then. She ignored him. “Look at me,” he repeated, so softly, so peacefully, that she had to look, and when she did, she knew what it was like to see to world stop spinning on its axis, to see a building collapse, to see the utter devastation of the horizon engulfed in flames, to see all that in somebody’s eyes.
 I shook my head back and forth, stalling, stalling, searching for those words I needed to say to get rid of T.J. It’s still April, I thought. That hasn’t happened yet! It’s still early! I can still end this! I have to end this! 
“Well?” he whispered. 
“Well, T.J., we just met, right?” 
“It’s been five or six weeks,” he said. “You ought to know how you feel by now.” 
“Well, T.J., I do like you,” I said. “I just don’t think I like you in the way you like me, right?” 
“Do you hate me?” he said, as serious as the day he asked Terra to look at him beneath the featureless August sky. 
“Um…” My thoughts reeled. How did I really feel about this boy? It would be easy to get ride of him at this point. I just needed to tell him that I hated him with the fire of a thousand suns. I reeled back. It would be simple to say, but it wasn’t exactly the truth. It couldn’t be. What had T.J. ever done to Terra, anyway? What had he ever been but devoted and caring? What made me feel this way? 
“No, T.J., of course not,” I said. “I mean, actually, honestly, I don’t know.” 
“You don’t know?” 
“I mean I don’t remember.” 
“What does that mean?” 
“It just means, T.J., that you make me completely crazy. I don’t know why.” I turned toward the window. The words sank into my throat. I thought for a second I might start to cry, but the comforting neon sign of the PNP brought me back to the surface. T.J. looked momentarily devastated. I watched his reflection in the glass carefully for the moment I would have to yank open the car door and start running. Then the fire in his eyes started to fade. 
“The might be a good thing, right?” he said. “I mean, that’s what relationships are built on, right? You can’t grow with somebody else if you’re exactly alike.” 
I shot back around. “See, T.J., that’s what made me crazy. That’s what made me treat you so awful. You’re so failingly optimistic about you and me. You always had such crazy theories. But you never were there for anyone but yourself. You know, there is such a thing as blowing your wad at all the wrong moments.” 
T.J. laughed. “Terra, that’s disgusting.” 
“Yeah, well, it’s never a pleasant experience for the one on the other end.” The moment felt awkward so I reached out to place my hand on his shoulder. “See T.J., you just need to be a little less creepy in your annoying-little-neighbor-kid-turned-stalker way. Then maybe we could be friends, right?” T.J. eyes, now muted and dull, opened wide. I pulled my hand from his shoulder and cocked my head to one side. He smiled and closed his eyes. I felt satisfied until he suddenly buried his face in mine, nappy hair brushing past my neck, nose pushing into my cheekbone as he planted a huge, sloppy, tongue-wagging kiss in my mouth. I choked and pushed backward. 
“T.J.,” I gasped. “What are you doing? You never kissed me!” 
He leaned forward again with this dopey smile that infuriated me even more. “Right. And it was about time.” 
“No,” I said. “I mean, in like five months and hundreds of pseudo-dates you never kissed me, not even once. Why now?” 
“Terra, you look beautiful right now. A bit weird, sure,” he said, reaching out to curl his fingers through the ringlets in my hair as I pushed my back against the door. “But beautiful. I couldn’t help myself. You make me crazy, too, you know.” 
“I am,” I began as he motioned to move in for more. I placed both hands on his chest. “T.J., listen to me! I am in love with someone else.” 
“Who?” he hardly sounded fazed. “That jock Jason? He doesn’t even really like you Terra. He’s always dating someone for a week and then dumping them.” 
“Not even him,” I said. “Someone else. In fact, I don’t even know if I’m still in love with him or ever was, but it’s all I’ve got.” I slid T.J.’s hand back and gazed at me with an innocent puppy-dog face. 
“We all have things in our past.” 
“You have no idea.” 
“You’re such a puzzle,” he said. “A mystery.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin again, relaxing his mouth in a expression that made me cringe.
 “T.J., you gotta listen to me. We can’t go through another horrible unrequited love kind of a poison summer again. I won’t do it. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to me.” 
“Half the time I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he smiled. “But you listen to me. That’s why you’re so fun to hang around. Don’t we have fun together?” 
“Maybe.” I scrunched my eyebrows together. I didn’t remember it that way. 
“Well, fine,” he laughed. “So let’s just have fun together. Tonight we’ll take a trip with your crazy friends, and I’ll help you forget all about this one guy who obviously doesn’t know what he’s missing.” 
“What? You don’t even care?” 
“Well, not really,” he said. “I mean, if he wanted to be with you, he would, right?” I looked away. “Right.” He held up his watch. “Dang! It’s 4:30. We probably don’t have time to eat.” 
“No,” I said. “Guess not. But do you mind if I run inside real quick? I want to talk to someone.” 
“Who?”
 “This crazy waitress. I want to see if she’s back. She might know something … about this situation I’m having.” 
T.J. flushed a little. “Um, do you mean Samantha?” 
“You know her?” 
“Yeah. And, um, she’s not in there. She’s been out of town for a couple of days.” 
“That’s what they told me,” I sighed. “I don’t think she really can help me, but, well, I don’t know.” 
“What’s wrong?”
 I looked at him and shook my head. “It’s such a long story I can’t even begin to tell you right now.”
“Tell you what — if she comes back, I’ll tell you, he said. “How do you know her?” 
“How do you?” 
T.J. looked at his watch again. “Yeah, we really should go,” he said, and started the ignition. “Hey,” he said, “It’s April 12th.” 
“So?” 
“Day the Titanic sunk.” 
“No, I think that happened on the 13th,” I said. 
“Oh,” he said. “Tomorrow, then.” 
“Yeah. Just wait until tomorrow.”
Chapter Nine
King of the Fountain

As the highway broke free of suburbia, I watched sagebrush creep toward the fences and farmland. I fixed my gaze on the horizon, the way Terra used to when she was trying to contain the floods of emotion that rushed from the gates of the great unknown. Sometimes she felt the safest looking into eternity rather than focusing on the dull moments; and here, strapped to the bucket seat of T.J.’s T-bird, with its haze of stale cigarette smoke and body heat, I was happy to think of nothing but the desert and the way it was green for the millisecond that is springtime.
 “North on 84?” T.J. droned. 
“No,” I said. “Stay on 15.” 
“You sure?” I looked over. 
“Of course,” I said. “I’ve been up here like a dozen times.” 
T.J. laughed. “When? When have you been up here before? Who have you been there with?” 
I smirked at him. I could play this game. “Well, there was that one time during my short stint in college with my Lit professor. Boy, was he grabby. And there was the reporter from the Gazette who passed out in the pool after three bottles of red wine. Oh, and I just about forgot the hippy that I met while Jamie and I were slumming it up in Pocatello. We snuck in after midnight, crawled into one of the springs and ate about a pound of shrooms. When I woke up six hours later we were laying in the bushes stark naked and slathered in mud, and two policemen had guns pointed at our heads.” 
Jordan laughed. Ant choked. Jason let out this little chuckle that indicated he wasn’t fully comfortable with the subject. 
“Fine,” T.J. said. “Whatever you say. I’ll take 15.” He swiped at the radio until metal hardcore of the eastern German variety started crackling through the speakers. From the rear view mirror I could see Jason peering out of the window. The look on his face resembled someone who was just told he did, in fact, need six teeth extracted immediately, and I’m sorry but we just ran out of Novocain. 
“Jason, I was just joking,” I said. “I’ve never even been to college, right?” 
He smiled slightly and turned his head. “Yeah, I know. It was funny.” He wasn’t the only one in the car who didn’t actually think so. 
“Right,” Ant said. “So God knows you’ve never been slutting it up at a family fun center.” 
“Well, Ant, I guess you’d know, since you seem to know so much about me.”
 The rear view mirror reflected alarm. “So tell me, tell me more. I’m dying to hear about my sordid life.” 
“Rarrrr,” Jordan meowed. “Do we need to sound the cat fight alarm?” 
“Whatever,” I said. T.J. strained to straighten the scowl on his face and Jason turned his face to the desert. Unbroken by occasional whispers and giggles from Ant and Jordan, this continued for more than an hour. The sun had already set behind us as we turned east toward the resort town. Since the pool was closed, we headed to the edge of town where several natural hot springs have been fenced up and paved for the enjoyment of the general public. Jordan grabbed Jason’s shoulder and began talking candidly about women in the NBA. Ant and I trudged into the locker room. She walked into one of the bathroom stalls as I sat down on a bench and began undressing. For two days I had been unable to look at myself directly in the mirror. My legs were smooth and more golden than I remembered. My right knee was missing the jagged scar I obtained in a ski accident three years ago. Chipped blue polish made my toenails look battered and my feet were plastered with fading marker drawings — homemade tattoos, I suppose. I resided in someone else’s body entirely. These tattoos have long since faded away, the polish ground down, the skin cells sloughed off, the hair brittle and broken away. I thought of Biology 101 in community college. My skinny professor didn’t waste any time drawing that secret line between rotting organic matter and the beautiful dream of divine existence. 
“The body’s cells replace themselves every even years,” he said. “At the end of seven years, even your bone cells have replicated and died. Even your brain cells have replicated and died.” And yet you go on, Terra had thought. Your memories go on. How is it possible?
“Are you decent?” Ant yelled from the stall. “What do you care?” I called back. “We’re both adults.” The door swung open. I was still in my underwear and T-shirt. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said in her most saccharine voice. “What do you mean what do I mean?” I spat back. For the first time since I met her she had removed her bracelets, which revealed her bony wrists pressed against her hips. She sat down next to me. “So we’re adults,” she said. “So let’s talk about this like adults.” 
“About what?” 
“About you and T.J. And this whole thing.” 
“Not this again.” I stood up quickly and tore off my T-shirt. “I have to go swimming or something.” 
“I mean, I just thought you’d feel differently about him, given the current situation. If you really hate him, just tell me.” 
I looked into her eyes. “Oh, I really hate him.” 
“But how?” There was a hint of desperation in her voice. “Listen,” I said. “I told him today. He doesn’t even care. I tried be his friend but he kept following me around like a lost puppy dog. Hasn’t that boy ever heard of restraint? Of playing hard to get?” 
“Oh, he’s much to mature for those games,” Ant said haughtily. 
“Let’s get off this subject,” I said. “What about you and Jordan?” Jordan’s voice came tearing into the locker room. “Common girls, time to go for a dip in these wonderful hot pots we drove for hours just to soak in! Place closes in like an hour.” 
“Jordan!” Ant screeched. “This place is for women only!” 
“So what,” he laughed. “No one else is here.” He rounded the corner where we sat together and shot us an exaggerated crestfallen look. “I was hoping you two would be naked in here together.” 
“Oh, get a life,” I laughed. 
“Nekkid!” Jordan yelled as he ran from the room. “Two nekkid girls in there, saw it with my own eyes.” 
Ant and I stood up together. “Are you swimming in that?” Ant asked, grabbing the corner of a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt I had rescued from the floor of my room. “Well, I couldn’t find my swimming suit, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “You’re so hopeless,” she said. 
The boys were all sitting in the farthest of three medium-sized pools by the time we came out. Jordan waved his arm and motioned for us to come over. “This one’s the hottest!” he shouted. 
“Yeah,” T.J. added, “I think we’ll only be able to stay in here for a minute.” 
“Nice shirt,” Jason said as I approached the edge. “Thanks,” I said. My face flushed. “It was all I could find.” 
“No, I mean, I like that band,” he said. “They’re pretty cool.” 
“I went to this awesome concert of there’s once,” I said. “So cool. There were about three thousand people all rushing the stage and Zach threw his mic into the crowd.” 
“When did they come to Utah?” Jordan looked up, confused. 
“Oh wait, never mind. I was just a little mixed up.” 
“Huh?” Jason said. 
“This September,” I said. “The concert this September. When they do come, be sure to get tickets. It’s going to be a great show.” 
“Ha ha, and how would you know that?” Ant said. “Hey guys, how’s the water?” 
“Well, get in already,” Jordan said. “They’re fed by like thermodynamic energy deep in the earth’s core so they’re only going to be hot for a few thousand more years. Better get in while the getting’s good.” 
I climbed into the pool between Jason and T.J. as Ant nuzzled up against Jordan. “Your hair looks really good like that,” she told him. 
“What?” he laughed. “It’s just all wet.” 
“Yeah, and slicked back,” Ant giggled and massaged his head. “It looks really good.”
“So,” Jason said. “I’ve never been here before. Is this water all natural?”
 “Well it was,” Jordan said, “until they paved over the hot springs with concrete and filled them with chlorine. The only difference between this and my parent’s hot tub is a significantly lower heating bill.” 
“So why drive two hours to get here?” T.J. asked, looking directly at me. 
“Well,” Jordan continued, “legend has it that there are some magical hot springs on the other side of this canyon, hidden behind a mountain, that only a few even know about. Miners used to travel from the coal mines to seek them out. They say those springs contain the secrets of youth; that once you go in with a pure heart and soul, you can be young forever.” 
“Like a fountain of youth?” Jason asked, sounding bored. 
“Yeah,” Jordan lowered his voice into a haunting whisper. “Like in that movie, Forever Young.” 
“I thought a guy got frozen in that movie, and that’s why he didn’t get old,” T.J. said.
“And he got old at the end anyway,” Jason piped in. 
“Anyway,” Jordan said. “That’s why we’re here. These luscious waters are just a temptation to distract people from the greater pursuit.” 
“We’re going to go looking for the fountain of youth,” I blurted. 
“Why not?” Ant said. “I’m already flush from all this heat anyway. It must be like 110 degrees in here.” 
“Pretty close,” Jordan said, lifting himself out of the water. “So who’s in?” 
“Um, I think I’m going to go check out that place across the street,” Jason said. “That diner. I’m feeling hungry for some pancakes. You want to come, Terra?” I looked at Jason, harboring a bland look on his face with his mouth curled in exasperation like a society snob charitably hobnobbing with the community’s poor folks. I felt instantly bad for dragging him all they way up here, but my feelings didn’t extend beyond that. Let the man eat his pancakes. 
“Well, Jason, if there is a fountain of youth, or even just another hot spring up there, I’d kinda like to see it,” I said. 
“Let the hunt begin!” Jordan yelled, striking his best George-Washington-on-the-Delaware-River pose on the pool before dashing to a beach chair where he stashed a pair of plastic flip-flops. He turned to Jason. “We won’t be long.” 
Jason nodded, but his face had twisted into a scowl. I didn’t look back as I followed three teenagers, all of us dripping wet and half naked, toward the dark shadow of the woods. The sun had long since dipped below the western horizon, but a thin strip of twilight held onto the sky just above our heads. The air tore at our wet skin, but we ran faster still, letting neither the freezing wind nor burning leg muscles slow us from our directionless pursuit. I inhaled great gulps of smoky air that tasted like fire in my lungs — a taste I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was a taste of freedom. Jordan led our pack in an ecstatic hunt, darting around pinion trees like a deer in retreat, and we followed like the herd, deeper into the forest maze until we could no longer see the lights of the town nor hear the drone of generators from the campground. He lunged down a steep knoll, sending an avalanche of gravel racing toward the shadows. I looked back and thought about the possibility of being lost. 
“Are…we…there…yet?” T.J. panted. 
“Stop!” Jordan yelled, braking to a dead halt halfway down the hill. Ant, who had followed to closely behind, slid right into him. They both tumbled down the embankment several feet before Jordan rolled into a leafless bush. 
“Ow!” he yelled, but was already laughing. He pulled twigs from his hair as he stood up.
“I said stop.” T.J. leaned forward, gasping for air. “Do…you even…know…where we…are?” he asked. 
“Sure,” Jordan said. “Shhh, listen.” I took another gulp of the fire air and stopped breathing. I still heard nothing.
 “Hear that?” 
“Hear what?” T.J. asked.
 “That.” As our grunts and gasps subsided I could here a faint roar augmented by a louder trickle. 
“That’s the river,” Jordan said. “And there’s a stream nearby. They say the magic pool forms where a stream collides with a river.” 
“There’s gotta be a hundred streams going into this thing,” T.J. said, exasperated. “Plus, we’re only like a quarter mile from town. Don’t you think if there was a fountain of youth right here, a lot of people would have found it by now?” 
“Shhh,” Jordan hissed. “Only those pure of mind and spirit can find it. You’ll ruin everything.” 
“Are you serious?” T.J. said as he rolled his head back. 
“Maybe.” Jordan flashed us his most animated look of mischief and mystery. “There’s no telling what secret these deep woods contain.” He swung around and held out his hands with fingers curled in a classic ghost-story gesture to indicate his version of mystical and sinister forces. “Miners have walked into these woods and gone mad looking for this thing which locals no longer speak of. If we find this fountain we will live forever, and if not, we will die trying. We are walking a thin line here, my friends, a very thin line.” I looked over at Ant and noticed she was shouldering a backpack very nervously.
 “Hey Ant, are you scared?” I whispered sarcastically. She glared at me. 
“Shh!” Jordan whispered. “That means you, Terra.” His face returned to character. “I will brave this dark and loathsome wood alone.” He tiptoed toward the sound of the trickling water. “If I do not return, tell my mother I left a half-empty carton of milk underneath my dresser. Oh, and tell Dre that she cannot have my CD collection. I want them sold and all of the proceeds donated to the Dead Kennedy’s reunion fund. Terra … you can have the carton of milk.” I laughed. T.J. stared solemnly in my direction and Ant tried to disguise a look of utter bewilderment. I rolled my eyes. 
“Could you two be any less fun,” I said, and started to move toward Jordan. 
“Where are you going?” Ant hissed. “He’s going to get you lost down there.” 
“Oh, why? To find the legendary fountain of youth, of course” I said. “If I do not return, uh, sell my CDs and donated the proceeds to Jamie’s Dr. Pepper fund. Tell her to avoid any misguided diet Mountain Dew phases she may be tempted to go through. Buy yourself a Slurpee.” 
“Um, I’ll go with you,” T.J. said. 
“Stay here,” Ant hissed at T.J. as he moved around her. “It’s really dark in here and the river’s really close. You could fall in.” 
“Yes, mom,” I said haughtily. Jordan had already disappeared from sight. The moon filtered through tiny spring buds clinging to the aspen trees above our heads, casting streaks of light on the loamy ground. I shuffled over the mat of decaying autumn leaves with T.J. close in tow. “Where did Jordan go?” I asked. 
“I don’t see him,” T.J. said. 
“Terra! T.J.!” Ant whispered loudly, “Where are you going?” When we didn’t answer she crashed through several bushes to run toward us. She made enough noise that I was certain to see Jordan the drama king sprinting toward us, waving in panic to be quiet. But he didn’t come. 
“Ant,” T.J. said, “Your boyfriend — he’s missing.” For the first time since we entered to woods, Ant smiled. “Oh, honey,” she said. “He’s not my boyfriend. I mean, we just met yesterday.” I whirled around. “Yesterday? You mean the rock? The hiking? You two just met?” I had spent two watching Jordan and Ant cuddle against each other. I had two days to get used to that very idea and I still felt devastated about it. In these couple days I had seen him show Ant more affection than I remembered in the entire time we dated — one to six months, depending on how widely one was willing to define the term ‘dating.’ Still, it was becoming painfully obvious that the breakdown of Jordan’s and my relationship wasn’t about him. It really was about me. 
“Well, yes,” Ant smiled. “You know about these flashfire flings, Terra. It doesn’t take long to get time going.” 
“Or put them out,” I said. 
“Yeah, Terra,” T.J. said, turning to me with that so-goofy-it’s-infuriating smile. “True relationships are built over the long term.” 
“That’s right,” Ant said. “That’s why I plan to slow things down with Jordan. We really could be something. He’s so sexy, and well, I think he as a thing for, you know, more petite girls.” 
“Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the day,” I said. 
“You two don’t have to fight all the time you know,” T.J. said, motioning his chin toward the empty woods. 
“Oh, I know, but Terra here just insists on making her life difficult,” Ant said. “You know T.J., if you weren’t already taken …” Suddenly a large bush in front of us started to rustle. “Oh, that’s just Jordan,” I said. “Trying to scare us. Hey Jordan, you can come out now!” The bush stopped moving and a dark figure darted from behind and bolted for the river making “ooooo” sounds. 
“Jordan, you little tease,” Ant cried, giggling. We both ran toward the sound, skirting a steep bank that dropped five feet down to the roaring river. The dark figure wound through the trees and headed back up the hill, stopping at the base of the twisted skeleton of an old box elder tree. As we caught up to him, Jordan stood below it with his arms raised above his head. “Behold!” he yelled! “I have found it.” 
“Jordan,” I smirked. “You said the fountain was at a point where the stream met the river.” “I know I said that,” Jordan said, “but it wasn’t there. You know these old tales. They’re purposely crafted to deceive us. No, this is it. This is the fountain of youth.”
 “I don’t see any water,” T.J. said. “That’s because it’s buried deep within!” Jordan yelled. He looked completely silly standing there in nothing more than tight boxer shorts and sandals, holding over his chest the invisible cloak we could all picture him wearing. Jordan knows what it’s like to feel awake and alive, I thought. T.J. and Ant are his age, and they’ve already forgotten. 
“Jordan, I do declare,” Ant stammered, searching for her bad southern accent. 
“Hey Scarlett,” I said. “Can’t you do anyone else? Cause you can’t do the South.” 
T.J. snuck behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing the wet folds of my T-shirt against my bare midriff. Jordan put his arm down and looked genuinely surprised. “Ow, T.J. that’s cold,” I said and jerked away. 
“Sorry,” he said, “I was just trying …” 
“Trying to what?” I snapped. 
“OK, OK, folks, that’s enough, here,” Jordan said. “I’m detecting some bad energy here. We’ll never uncover the hidden fountain with you two around. I’m afraid, Terra and T.J., that you’ll have to make your way back to concrete hot spring of Lava. You just don’t possess the pure mind and spirit to uncover the secrets of youth. No, you’ll have to go back.” 
“You … you want us to leave?” I said. Jordan raised his arm to his chest again, still holding his invisible royal cape. “Yes, I think that would be best.” 
“Come on, Terra, this is stupid anyway,” T.J. said. 
“But, Jordan,” I said. “We’re just joking, too. We’re just having fun. You want me to leave?” 
Jordan cocked his head in mock indignation. “You believe this to be a joke?” he said.
“Just go back,” Ant said. “We’ll meet up with you guys.” 
“Yeah,” T.J. said, grabbing my hand. “Those hot springs were better anyway. Plus, don’t we have make sure your little friend Jason’s OK?” 
“You know what, T.J., I don’t need this,” I erupted. “Not from you,” I pointed at Ant, “and especially not from you! T.J., I don’t know what schemes you’re harboring in the greasy little brain of yours, but I can tell you right now that this IS NEVER GOING TO WORK. Please try to get that through your head. Either that or just pull up to my house with an AK-47 and get it over with. Either way, I don’t care. Just please leave me alone, cause I can’t deal with you anymore.” 
T.J. shuddered and dropped my hand. In the moonlight’s contrast his eyes seemed to grow twice their size as he stared at me, only me, unfailing in his gaze, not saying a word. I wish I could call his look bewilderment, but it was so much more. It was the look of absolute, complete confusion — the look of a little boy beneath a Christmas tree, surrounded in mountains of candy and presents — told he could not open any of them because Santa Claus never did and never will exist, therefore, neither do the presents. Excruciating seconds passed as I looked, guilt-stricken, deeper into T.J.’s befuddled face. In the aftermath, Jordan dropped his arm and his king of the fountain act and had sunk into the safe shadows of the tree. T.J. stood stoically, and until he reacted, I felt I was equally paralyzed. Ant, the only one to shake free of the congealing teenage angst, swooped up from behind and forcefully grabbed my arm. 
“Come with me,” she hissed in a tone so serious even T.J. snapped out of his lovelorn coma. 
“Uh, Terra?” he stammered. 
“Terra and I will be right back,” Ant growled. “We have to talk.”


Chapter Ten
Into the Waves

With T.J. and Jordan out of sight, Ant continued to pull me through across stark shadows cut by the moon. I attempted to jerk my arm free as we tramped through small bushes toward the sound of rushing water. “Terra, we have to talk, now,” she said. 
“Let go of me,” I yelled. “What do you want?” 
She tightened her grip. I had no idea such narrow arms could be so strong. “Only to talk,” she said, her eyes sinister. “Come with me. We have to get out of earshot.” 
“Is it true you just met Jordan yesterday?” I said. “And all of the sudden you guys are exclusive?” 
“Some questions you just have to ask,” Ant said. “Others need to wait.” She swung her backpack over her shoulder as it repeatedly slipped down her arm. 
“What’s in there?” I asked. 
“Nothing,” she said. We stopped on the edge of the river almost overflowing its bank. Barren willow trees clung to the eroding shoreline, their exposed roots twisted around clumps of sand. Water churned down the jet-black river’s center like white marble veins. In fear, I locked my legs, stopping dead. She turned to reveal a fuming, hateful face I scarcely recognized. 
“Ant, I don’t know you,” I said. “I don’t know what you want. You’re scaring me.”
“Forget that Terra, I need you to do something for me,” she said, stepping away from the river. “It might sound crazy and maybe a little sacrificial to you at first, but in time I think you’ll come to really appreciate my efforts. Maybe even thank me someday.” 
“If this has anything to do with T.J., Ant, anything at all, I won’t do it,” I said. “ I can’t do it.” 
“You’re so useless,” Ant hissed. “You won’t even listen to me. You won’t listen to anyone but that convoluted book of yours.” A grove of evergreens blocked the moonlight, and I could see only her eyes, surrounded by dark shadows. In the shrouded light her face seemed to wither in front of me. 
“What are you talking about?” I said. 
“I’m talking about you!” She looked down at herself, her own body, which seemed to be expanding somehow. As I shook my head in disbelief, Ant reached out and shoved my chest, forcing me back a few steps. I felt cold water rush over my ankles and swung my arms wildly to recapture my balance. 
“‘Hey!” I screamed. “What the … what do you think you’re doing?” I panted as I flailed violently at the empty air surrounding me. “What do you want?” 
“Ant? Terra? Are you down there?” A soft voice approached us. Jordan’s face emerged from the bushes. “Oh, no,” Ant said. She whirled around and started sprinting down the riverbank. “Ant!” I called after her. I lunged forward to regain connection to the shoreline when I felt the swift current sweep beneath my feet. “Jordan!” I screamed, feeling a sudden sensation of weightlessness lift my body. “Help!” 
“Terr…!” 
The scream cut abruptly into silence as my head plunged into the river. A surge of cold panic engulfed my chest as my legs and arms churned helplessly with the current. I attempted to reach beyond the icy water when my flailing body collided with the river bottom, tearing the flesh of my shoulder and arm with searing warmth. Spinning free of gravity and light, my senses could only detect the metallic taste of blood and a deafening silence as the water drug me further into black. In subdued panic I thought, “This is it. I’m not coming back up.” My shock faded to a dry sort of warmth, and I thought of Jamie, and Jordan, and T.J. as I caught glimpse of moonlight dancing just above the surface. I reached up again but my back wrenched downward, the rush of water forcing me to shut my eyes. “Goodbye, again.” I thought, when suddenly I brushed against a reef of lava rock. 
A searing pain grabbed my hip. I opened my mouth to scream and a solid wall of water crammed down my throat. Every muscle in my body heaved involuntarily as painful convulsions struggled to keep my mind awake and alert against the enticement of eternal peace and silence. With one last gasp of life I remember my face rising above the surface, eyes bolting open to a blurry image of Sam — frizzy hair, yellow teeth and all — pulling on my arm. Consciousness was the last thing to let go.
••••••
A decade must have passed in that blackness. Violent coughing tore at my lungs as I convulsed free of a dream about silence and sleep. My eyes opened to phantom evergreen branches rustling in the wind, framing the star-dotted sky. The elation of finding myself alive was quickly muted by the pain encompassing most of my body. My entire respiratory system was engulfed in flames, every breath was labored and audible. I turned to get off the ground, but my body was paralyzed by uncontrollable shivers. The river was roaring in my ears again, enough to assure me of its safe distance. For the first time since I fell into the river, I felt terrified. 
“Oh, you’re awake.” A rhaspy voice moved toward me. “Swallowed a little water there, I see. I hoped we’d have a chance to talk before you went into the river, but you have horrible balance. I guess you’re probably wondering now why I brought you all the way here.”
“Huh?” my voice wheezed. I felt sticky warmth against my face and legs that I quickly realized was drying blood. I raised my head slightly, enough to see a gaping wound across my thigh. The Rage Against the Machine T-shirt I wore to the hot springs had been ripped free of my body and I was sprawled on my side across the cold ground, barefoot, in the bloodstained remnants of my underwear. I tried again to shift my shoulders and legs. Nothing felt broken, but my muscles refused to move. 
“Why I brought you here, all this way, just to kill you,” the voice resumed a familiar singsong tone. It moved right above me so I could see its squat shadow, so vaguely familiar that I had no idea how the recognition set in. But I felt a renewed rush of fear stung by relief, not because of her blunt threat, but because she wasn’t who she seemed to be. 
“Ant?” I coughed. “What the hell? What are you … talking about?” I jolted into another coughing fit and rolled over on my back. A distorted Ant towered over me. In the dim light I could see dark circles beneath her eyes and the definitive shadow of jowls hanging from her face. She looked thirty years older in that moment, frowning deeply, moving her much-plumper body toward me. “You’re hurt now,” she said. “Calm down a little bit. We’ll talk first.” 
“What the hell … Ant?” I said. “Who…. are you?” Ant held her hands up to her face. As my vision cleared I could see the backs her thick fingers marred by deep creases. “Damn it, Terra, you did make it so hard to maintain the illusion,” She turned her wrist a few times and knelt down. “It doesn’t matter now. You see me for what I am.” 
“I don’t … understand,” I said, my breathing becoming more labored. 
“Don’t play that game with me, you mangled little bitch,” Ant hissed. “I heard you say my name. You know who I am. We don’t have much time here. So we’ll talk now.” I squinted. She looked so … familiar. 
“So, like I said,” she continued, “you’re probably wondering why I brought you here. Yeah, you’re wondering how I did it, but I bet the bigger question you’re asking yourself is why.” 
“Why?” 
“Yes, why. Truth is, you brought us both here, but I did most of the work. I’m the one with the power, don’t you forget that.” She took a small step back into the shadows. “Strange time you picked, dear. I thought it had to mean something to you and T.J., but obviously you haven’t gotten past old prejudices quite yet.” 
“Why? Why?” I coughed the words out. The question made no sense to me, and yet would not stop running through my head. 
“Well, that’s complicated, really. Don’t quite understand it myself, and I’ve been at it upwards of thirty years.” I shook against the numbness in my body. My head throbbed and my gaze drifted to the dancing branches above my head. The air surrounding me was clouding up considerably, but I noticed stars still sparkling in the sky beyond the trees. I opened and closed my eyes rapidly until clear images penetrated the fog in my head. 
“Jordan. T.J., where are they?” I cried. “Gone for help, I suppose,” Ant said. “They think we’ve both gone down the river. And I intend to keep it that way.” 
“Why? Why?” 
“Because this just isn’t working,” Ant said and breathed a loud sigh. She sounded so old. She did sound tired. I almost laughed, but continued to focus on maintaining consciousness. “I’ve tried everything, and I mean everything, and this was my last resort. Terra, you were my last resort. All this time, you were the reason. I can’t believe it took me so many years to figure it out.” 
“The reason? For what?” 
“For what? For what?” Ant raised her voice to a desperate whisper. “For his darkness. For his unknowable depression. For T.J.’s death!” 
I coughed loudly. “I’m sure you didn’t even notice it, by the time it happened, even though you were only a few blocks away at the time, at that horrible little bakery you worked at,” she continued. “After all, you two were, by then, already three years beyond your graduation, beyond the last time you spoke or saw each other. I just hoped maybe you’d at least see it in the paper, at least ask yourself why. But I guess you never did.” She moved in closer and placed her cold fingers next to the burning gash on my hip. “Does this hurt much?” she said as I winced in pain. She smiled. “I spent so many wasted years peeling back the layers of time to try to find a reason, to try and change the past, but nothing worked. I was so fixated on that one point in time that I could never move beyond it, so I just continued to move through it. The scenario always played out the same, and I would find T.J., white and unconscious, hugging a toaster at the bottom of the bathtub, or hanging from an oak tree. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to move on, I really was. Then, I found you.” 
“Me? What … could I?” 
“Yes, you,” Ant snapped. “I overheard you one day, you and that mousy little friend of yours talking about a point in time you’re still intimately connected to — a point I could never reach. I went home and stayed up all night obsessing about ways to steal your moment. Then, I thought harder about the things you so nonchalantly said to your friend. It dawned on me who you were, that you could be, and in fact were the one responsible. It could have been so easy. I went to see if there was more.” 
“How… how,” I stammered, still struggling for every breath. 
“I have my ways,” she smiled. 
“T.J.’s not the only one that can be, how do you put it … a stalker? You are, my dear, a very heavy sleeper.” 
“But?” 
She began pacing, her silhouette not like her at all. The hot pain was beginning to move away from me. Everything felt so numb. “But I couldn’t change him all those times when I really tried and I can’t change you now,” she said. “Just like I said. You can never look forward, only backward. The future does not exist until we create it. Only the past can be re-created in our memories. So, I have to do the right thing, the effective thing. I’m going to obliterate you now so you can’t do your damage.” 
The pain, the fog, Ant’s slumped figure withering before my eyes — everything was becoming so distant. 
“You pulled me from the river,” my hoarse voice said. I stifled a few more weak coughs.
“Yes. Yes I did,” she said. “I jumped in the river to save you. Damn near went under myself. Good thing for these trees. Jordan didn’t see us come out.” 
“Why?” I stammered. “If you want... to kill me, why... would you do... that?” 
“I thought I’d give you a second chance,” Ant said. “Let you know exactly what’s happening so you can make the right decision this time.” 
“So, this is real,” I said. “You really … know about me …” 
“What? Know what? I don’t know anything about you,” she spat. “I had no idea T.J.’s depression stemmed from you. You were a meaningless high school fling. I never even met you, you know. All I ever knew was he loved someone who didn’t love him in return. He never even made a big fuss about it, so how could I trace you when he finally broke down? How could I ever know that beautiful boy’s darkness descended into a moment years earlier, while he was lying in the grass, waiting for you to say something … anything … and you never did.” I tried to sit up, but the pain in my hip slammed me back to the cold ground.
“How… how could you know about that? It hasn’t even happened yet.” 
“I know about a lot of things now. Thanks to this.” She held up a red spiral-bound notebook. 
“That’s mine,” I yelled. “It can’t be, but … Where did you … get that? How is it … possible?” 
“Oh, honey, I’ve learned to do a lot of things lo these past years. I brought you all the way back here. Hauling this just goes with the trip.” She began arbitrarily flipping through the pages. “But it’s amazing how you can’t change time, even given the chance, isn’t it? Everything I learned from this book, it’s all happening before my eyes.” I squinted at her face, shrouded in the shadow of night. She smiled with glinting, yellow teeth. Her hair was stringy and wet. She wore only a swimsuit and as my shaking subsided slightly I realized she was shivering herself. She tore a page out of the journal and mopped up a stream of blood running down my legs with it. I instinctually jerked away but only succeeded in rolling over on my back. She hovered above me with the bloody notepaper like a cat dangling the dismembered wing over a hunted bird. Just then thin drape of clouds broke free from the moon, casting a dim glow on her face. 
“You!” I coughed. “You! Sam? But I thought … you were Ant.” 
“I am Ant, you stupid girl,” she hissed, her wrinkled face now illuminated in moonlight. She flashed a saccharine smile and did a little curtsy. “We are, dear, the same person, couldn’t you tell?” 
I shook my throbbing head. “That isn’t possible.” 
“Oh? And I guess you can explain to me exactly how you got here, physically here, in this time you could say happened twelve years ago?” 
“I hoped … I was crazy,” I said. “But I knew it had something to do with you. You … wanted me here.” 
“Congratulations,” Sam said. “You earn a cookie.” 
“But Ant … how could … you be two people at once?” 
“Ant was what people called me when I was a teenager,” she said. “T.J. never knew that, and luckily, he didn’t recognize me either. These are the perils of living in a memory — it blurs the lines of physical realities and illusions. With your help, or should I say your delusion, it was easy to bring the image of Ant to this time. I remember her, and she comes to me. But,” she held her hand to her face, “it couldn’t hold as you began to learn the truth. So now you see me as I am, right here, right now. And you know who I’ll be in twelve years. But do you know who I am?” 
“T.J.?” I squeaked. 
“T.J. is my son.” 
“No … it’s not possible.” 
“It is possible!” Sam screamed. “You’ve witnessed it. You’ve seen it happen. What more proof can you even demand?” 
“How did you do it? How did you do it?” I cried. Sam stood up and smiled passively. “I don’t know how this all started,” she said. “One day, I was living my life. And the next day, my son was dead and all I had left were memories. Haunting memories. I couldn’t help but think about only that; I thought about the past and the present. I realized I never had anything but memories. So I pursued them. Anyone would, really, if they had the understanding I do. But I have this power, this gift if you will, to undo layers of time. I travel through memories. All this,” she said, waving her hand around, “I believe this is yours.”
“This is all … just a memory?” 
“In a way, yes,” Sam said. “These are pieces of your realities suspended in space.”
 “I don’t... understand,” I wheezed. “How did … how did Ant?” 
“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “That was the illusion. They’re hard to conjure. Even harder to maintain. You see me as I see myself. I exist in this piece of time as a woman in her late 40s. But I was able to suspend that, for a short time, anyway, using your teenage dreams and delusions to conjure up my own. Now you must see me for what I am. And I think you’re beginning to learn, just as I have learned, that beyond all the matter that forms this earth, memories are the one entity in life that move freely. 
“So what … then? Nothing is real? People? Love?
 “Oh, those are real,” Sam said darkly. “And, to my benefit, just as easily manipulated.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question!” 
“I’m not here to answer questions,” she spat. “So what do you want?” 
“I want you to undo the events of this coming summer,” she said, holding up my red notebook. “Decide now that it’s never going to happen. You’re going to be eighteen in just over a year. You still have time to make amends for all of the terrible thing you’ve done. I want you to begin planning your life with T.J. Go to the prom with him. Give him those best years he never had.” 
“I… I,” I sputtered. “And what if I don’t.” Sam pulled a large lava rock from the ground and held it above my head. “If you refuse. There’s no saying what the river can do to you. I won’t waste any more time with you, you can trust me on this one.” 
“So you’ll kill me.” I mustered a laugh. “If you do, how exactly will that help T.J.?” 
“He’ll find this,” she held up my journal, “with a few pages taken out, and one added.” She smiled. “And he’ll see that the last thing you ever said was how much you actually loved him.” 
“But I’ll be dead!” I struggled to finally sit up. I leaned heavily on my wrists as Sam balanced the rock between two hands. 
“And that could make all the difference,” she said. 
“It’s still early. I don’t think he’s to that place in his darkness where he’ll kill himself for you … yet.” 
“So tell me why you did it,” I said. “Why now?” 
“What do you mean?” 
“I mean, you have this power to transcend time. Why not just go back and ensure I was never born? No mistakes in nonexistence, right?” 
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t have the power to go back that far. I must have tangible memories to move. I don’t have anything from that part of the past. And even if I did, I’ve found there has to be a certain level of belief, of dedication, to travel there. There needs to be meaning.” 
“But Ant?” 
“Was only a shadow. I couldn’t keep her here any more than I could save T.J. when I really needed to.” 
“So you did go back and try to stop him.” 
“Of course. Every chance I got. I’d go back and watch him like a hawk. I’d take him to clinics and on vacations far away, and he always found a way to end it abruptly. Then I’d have to live with the grief, all over again, for years sometimes, until this came back to me again.” She held up a ripped envelope, yellowed and curling at the edges. “I never know when or how I’m going to find it, but it’s always the same version of itself.” She cradled it in her hands. “He never gave me enough time.” 
“What is…?” 
“It’s the suicide note, from T.J., hidden from me, obviously. Sometimes buried in the yard. Sometimes mailed to relatives. Always the same illegible scribbles. Only when I discover it can I go back and try again. I found this one just a few days before I met you, can you believe it, sewn into a suit that he stashed deep in my basement. It’s almost like he knew. By then I had almost considered letting it go. I was dying. I needed to move away. I was ready to move away. Then you showed up in my diner with your book and ruined everything. 
“What does it say?” “The usual cryptic stuff I could never decipher. Scribbles upon scribbles. Passages I don’t understand. Always written on the same date, just a day before he goes through with the, well, ending. That’s as far back as I’ve ever been. Until you came along, that is.” 
“So if he doesn’t say so, in his letter, then you don’t know his suicide is my fault,” I said.
“You hated him for loving you. You opened the door to his depression, which ultimately leads to suicide, either emotional or physical. I always knew there must have been a particular evil, heartless person at the beginning of the spiral. I just never knew who you were, til now.” She whirled around, looking older than I had ever seen her. All those benign cups of coffee and meaningless plates of pancakes, maple syrup and ham sandwiches had masked a pain I never noticed. How long had she been at this? Could this really be happening? Were we both insane? All of the questions in my head did nothing but increase the black on black contrast in the empty space surrounding us. An airy calm was filling my blood, which felt cold and distant in my veins. A sudden jerk on my arms jolted me back to the world, screaming in pain.
Chapter Eleven
Consider the Obvious

The phantom branches danced above my head, and I could hear pebbles grinding beneath my back. Sam was dragging me back toward the river. “So tell me now, Terra, will you do it? You don’t have much time. Will you love him in the ways he loves you?” 
“I… I can’t” I coughed, struggling against the gravel, unable to break free. 
“Oh, I realize you’re incapable. Two days with you was enough to see you’re entirely unable to feel anything with the intensity he does. I’m not even asking you to try. I am…” she put her withered hand over my mouth. “I am asking you to pretend. Just so he, and you, can live.” She held the back of my head in the river, her thick fingers wrapped around my neck. I could feel the churning water tugging at thick mats in my hair, pulling strands free from the congealed mixture of mud and blood. 
“It’s not … up … to me,” I sputtered. 
“It has to be,” she cried. “I’ve tried everything. Everything else! I won’t let it happen again. This time we’ve come too far.” 
“So you’d rather him live in a complete lie?” Just as I said it, my entire face plunged into the frigid water. Sam had her hand on my chin, holding my head down against the sharp rocks lining the shoreline. I tried to wrench away but my muscles wavered like gelatin. She grabbed my hair with her other hand and pulled me out of the water. “Yes, you evil little girl. That’s what I want!” Her voice cut out at that last word and she buried her head in her shoulders, heaving large, gulping sobs. Above the roaring river I could hear a faint rustle in the bushes, and a voice — a distant voice, moving closer. 
“Terra! Terra! Are you down there?” I recognized the nappy hair silhouette rushing toward the river. “T.J.!” I screamed. Sam spun around. “Mom?” T.J. said, stopping dead in his tracks ten feet away. “Mom … what are you doing here? What are you doing?” 
“Please, T.J., not now. This doesn’t concern you,” Sam said, her voice now soft and tired.
“Yes it does!” I wheezed. “T.J., help! Your mom’s gone mad.” 
T.J. stared at us in a blank stupor, not moving or breathing. I lifted my head out of the water. “Don’t you see what she’s doing here? She’s got my head in a river, for god’s sake! Help!” 
“Mom, I don’t understand,” T.J. stammered. “What are you doing here?” Sam released my neck stood up. I slithered backward away from the river, feeling the rocks tear more skin away from my knees and hands. I clenched my teeth against the pain and stopped. 
“Now, darling, no reason to be alarmed,” Sam cooed. “I was only trying to help out.”
“Help?” 
“Yes, yes. You see, Terra, here, fell into the water,” she said as she turned to glare at me, nodding slowly. “I was just pulling her out.” 
“Terra? Terra, you look awful,” T.J. said. I strained my neck enough to see his face, to plead for help with my eyes. I realized I was nearly naked and lowered my head in quiet shame. “Well, yes, dear, the lava rocks will do that to a person,” Sam said. “The river is full of rocks. She was just lucky I was here. With that spring runoff, she’d probably come out somewhere just short of the Pacific.” 
“I she OK?” T.J. asked, his voice trembling. 
“Of course, dear, she’ll be fine. Ha! Look, she’s breathing, isn’t she? A little blood, I guess. Probably could use a Band-Aid. Some disinfectant. Why don’t you run and grab some?” I choked. River water still burned in my lungs, but my shivering was disappearing into cold fear. 
“Mom, I still don’t understand,” T.J. said. “This whole … where we are. I mean, why are you here?” 
“You took the car,” Sam said. “I, uh, came after you. I worry about you.” 
I strained my neck again for eye contact with T.J. “She’s lying,” I mouthed. “Lying!” T.J. brushed around his mom and knelt down, placing a hand on my forehead. “Mom, she’s probably hypothermic. We have to get her to a hospital.”
 “Um, of course, honey. Why don’t you run up and get the car, and I’ll carry her up,” Sam said. “Wait, I’ll help you.” 
“Oh no, you need to bring the car around. Need to have it ready when I get to the road.” “No really, the car’s just right up at the top of that trail. It’s not more than a few hundred feet. Here,” T.J. grabbed my legs. My open flesh burned with the sudden pressure and I screamed in pain. 
“See, dear, she probably has a broken bone. Maybe even a crushed vertebrae or worse. We mustn’t move her. Why don’t you run up and call 911? Have them bring an ambulance,” Sam said. 
“Um, OK,” T.J. said as he stood up. 
“No, T.J. don’t go!” I yelled, snapped into a action by a rush of adrenaline. “She’ll kill me! She will!” 
“She’s delusional,” Sam said. “A little too cold. Now go. Go!”
 “T.J., don’t leave me!” I screamed, not even believing my own desperate words. T.J. turned around and began running up the trail. Sam, sensing increased movement, grabbed the ankle of my injured leg. “Are you trying to tell me that thing loves me unconditionally?” I hissed, but ceased my struggle. “He just abandoned me!” 
“He’s 16,” Sam laughed. “He still takes orders from me. Now, though, we don’t have much time, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you another moment to mull over it.” 
“He’ll hate you for killing me!” I yelled. “He won’t have to know.” Sam smiled and motioned toward the branches above us. “We’re so close to the water. All those large rocks at the river bottom. It will be, what do you say, the perfect accident.” 
“You’re nuts, you’re crazy,” I yelled. “You have all of the time in the world, and you waste it away, working at a diner and trying to save your son from some unstoppable fate. And you can’t even change the past! You’re …” 
“Incapable, yes, I know,” Sam hissed. “Helpless? Yes. A slave to time? Just like everyone. So tell me now Terra, what is your answer?” She pushed my head by the hair back into the water. I fought free and gasped for air, shaking my head violently. She grabbed a large rock with one hand and wrapped her other fist around a willow tree branch overhead, pulling my neck further across the river surface. “Mustn’t get blood on the shore,” she said. 
“I. I won’t,” I whispered. “I won’t. T.J.  … isn’t mine.”
 “Fine,” she said, with a startling air of indifference. My peripheral vision saw the rock, still clenched in her fist, swinging toward my face. I clenched my eyes shut, bracing for the blow. A loud snap broke above me, and instantly a heavy force pushed my face beneath the water. The weight plowed the back of my skull into the riverbed before breaking away. The water rushed violently over my upper body, pinning my arms and neck to the bottom. Still, I could feel my backside still planted firmly on land, and realized I couldn’t be more than a foot beneath the surface. I squirmed against the force of the river vacuuming me into its bowels when I felt a quick yank on my feet. My head broke free of the water and I saw a silhouette dragging me toward land. 
“Jordan?” I wheezed. Jordan was standing over me, still holding tightly to my feet, and wearing only swim trunks. His feet were bare and bleeding, the color drained from his face. In the moonlight it glowed bloodless white. “Who was that?” he panted. “What happened to you?” I turned around to see T.J. sprinting down the riverbank, several dozen yards away and disappearing. He screamed hysterically something that sounded like “Mom! Mom!” Directly above my head I saw the willow branch that only moments before had been Sam’s lifeline, snapped clean from the tree. 
“That was the... crazy waitress... from the Pork... ‘N Pancake,” I sputtered between coughs. “Did she fall in? Did you see what happened?” 
“I think T.J. went after her,” Jordan said quietly. “She looked like she was trying to hit you on the head with a rock. I didn’t quite see exactly what happened, but T.J. and I were coming down and he saw you two and screamed. She turned and the branch broke and she fell into the water. She went right over the top of you. I thought you both went in.” 
We could still hear T.J. screaming. “Oh God,” I said. “That was T.J.’s mom.” 
“Really? How could she be? I mean, what was she doing here?” Jordan said. “Trying to kill me,” I said matter-of-factly. Hot, labored breaths boiled in my lungs. There was no room left for lies. 
“Really?”
 “Yes, really,” I said. 
“But why?” 
“Who knows?” I sighed. “She’s gone now. That’s all I care about.” 
“How did you … what happened?” Jordan’s voice amplified as he looked at the blood running down my leg. 
“Sam … I mean Ant pushed me into the river. Up above there a little ways, right after we left you guys. Didn’t you see it?” I said. 
“Ant? What? I mean, I didn’t see you go in, really,” he said, grabbing handfuls of dried leaves from the ground to stop the bleeding. “By the time I got there your hands were above the water, reaching out, but I couldn’t see you anymore, and you were being swept down the river. I ran for help. I told T.J. and he went back to look for you. You ended up really far downstream; she probably had no idea. And Ant, we haven’t seen Ant since … well … what do you mean she pushed you in? I thought T.J.’s mom was the one trying to kill you.” 
“Now that,” I forced a smile, “is a really long story.”
 “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.” Jordan placed his hands beneath my arms and lifted me from the shoreline. “Does that hurt?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think anything is broken.” 
“There are some guys waiting at the road,” Jordan said. “One of them owns a local restaurant. I think they called for an ambulance and the police a minute ago. They said the closest hospital is about forty miles away. North of here.”
 “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” I said. 
“Yeah, Terra, I think you do. That cut looks really deep. I’m going to help you up there. Then I gotta go find T.J. I hope he didn’t jump into the river.” 
“And Jason?” I asked. Jordan smiled. “Oh, yeah, him. He left after we ran into the woods. Met up with a couple of other people from our town, I think. The guys at the restaurant said he caught a ride home.”
 “Figures,” I laughed as Jordan began dragging me up the hill, completely unaware that my heels were still dragging against sharp rocks. Jordan’s arms squeezed my collarbone as he grunted and stumbled backward toward the road. His grasp was so warm and assuring. I motioned for my legs to move, but they didn’t. I just peacefully floated over the rocks and brush, as weightless as I felt in the water. Consciousness was the last thing to let go.
Chapter Twelve
Burn So Bright

I woke up to a pattern of dots speckling the white ceiling. It reminded me of Terra’s old apartment, the one that seemed to exist in that long ago, far away land I no longer occupied. My body was both numb and warm, soaked in sweat from a distant dream, paralyzed by a summerlike heat and the weight of a nap that lasted far beyond the state of rest. In that moment I caught a wave of simultaneous relief and dread as I realized I could be back — back to Terra’s body — back to a time when none of it ever happened. I comforted myself with illusions that it had all been a bad dream and I would open my eyes and be peacefully alone. 
A quiet rumble echoed through the room — a swamp cooler, maybe. I willed my head to turn to the side. The illusion dissipated quickly when I saw large metal bars lining the bed and an array of medical gadgets. A humidifier rumbled thoughtlessly beside an empty hospital bed next to mine. 
“The perfect ending to the perfect day,” I mumbled quietly. 
“Oh, you’re awake,” I heard Jordan say. He stood up and walked next to my bed, smiling sadly and running his hand through knots in his hair. I noticed he was wearing a different T-shirt, tight red cotton worn so thin I could see small cuts on his shoulders and chest. The screen-printed emblem on the front said “Bonneville Bees.” I couldn’t take my eyes off it, for fear I would look down and find myself naked and torn apart. 
“Jordan … I,” I started. 
“You’re alive. You’ll be fine.” 
“I will?” Doctor said mostly just cuts and bruises. He put about twenty stitches into that big gash on your thigh. He said you lost some blood, swallowed some water, and had been in the beginning stages of hypothermia, but you’ll make a full recovery.” I looked down shamefully. I was wearing a soft white nightgown I also didn’t recognize. My legs were clean now, but my arms were criss-crossed by cuts. I turned back to Jordan. 
“And T.J.?” I said. Jordan frowned. 
“T.J.’s mom didn’t make it. They found her body about three miles downstream. He’s at the police station right now. He’s not doing too well.” 
“Oh, I see” I said. 
“We still can’t find Ant. Do you think you might know where she went?” I shook my head. Jordan looked down. “The police told me this is the highest water they’ve seen in years. Usually that river is just a trickle, but there was a lot of snow last winter, then it warmed up real quick.” He looked up again. “Your mom’s on her way up. We’re in Pocatello right now, that’s about two hours from Pineview, so it might be another hour or so.” 
“That’s good,” I said. “I mean that she’s coming. Not that she’ll be another hour.” “Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s best if we’re not alone together right now.” 
“What do you mean by that?” 
“It feels a little strange right now, don’t you think? With Ant missing?” 
I shook my head again. “What’s weird, Jordan? What are you talking about?”
 “Terra, I mean, I guess what I mean to say is that I’m sorry for blowing you off like I did. I noticed that you seemed a little jealous when Ant was around and I thought you might think that there’s … more … to us. I mean, to you and me.” 
I breathed out. “But there’s not,” I said. “Is there?” 
“It’s just that you’ve seemed so different these past couple of weeks, especially these past couple of days. At first things were cool. We were having fun. And then … I don’t know. I mean, you’ve never even taken the time to tell me who you really are.” 
“What? What does that mean?” 
“Terra. You don’t even talk to me. Not really.” My lungs felt like they were full of water all over again. “Of course I did … do,” I said. 
Jordan shook his head. “Not really. We’re friends, right? We’re supposed to be friends. I feel like we have all this, oh, I don’t know … stillness … between us. You’re always trying to act so distant around me.” 
“But, I was a teenager,” I said. “It’s how I’m supposed to act.” 
“I don’t even know what that means,” he said. “Why can’t you just let things be what they are? Life is about having a good time. But I think it’s also search for meaning. You don’t seem to want to do either.” 
I raised my head to protest and became entangled in a coughing fit. “I … do … too” I choked. “I …” 
Jordan smiled. “I’m sorry. Here you are all injured from an attempted murder and I’m trying to pick a fight with you.” He stood up. “I’ll go get the nurse. Maybe I can get her to give you another shot of painkillers.” 
“Jordan, wait,” I said. “Don’t go. I just have to ask you. I’ve always wanted to ask you.” He turned. “What?” 
“Maybe I seem useless to you now. But that time … in your car. Remember, in February? When we went to the Doors cover show? And afterward, when we waited at the red light? Did you ever … love … me?” I saw his eyes close. He turned away quickly and moved for the door. 
“Jordan, wait,” I said. “Jordan, I really have grown up, a lot.” 
He looked back. “Have you?” And with that, he walked out of the room. 
I lay back down on the stagnant pillow, aware of a distilled medical aroma piercing the room. The burning in my chest made my cuts and bruises feel pleasant in comparison. How could he say I never talked to him? He wouldn’t even answer the simplest question I ever asked him. Did he really believe I didn’t care about life? Did that mean he thought I didn’t care about him? Was he actually right? I focused on the dots now appearing to spin across the ceiling. Sam was gone, and whether that was for better or for worse, I didn’t know. But without her, Terra no longer existed, and I was stuck here, stuck here to live through her pain and her rejection all over again. There was no more solace in solitude. T.J.’s mom was dead and it was my fault. For the first time in my life, I wished T.J. was beside me, haunting my shadows and waiting for me to turn around. I wanted to run into his arms and cry on his shoulder, to tell him I was sorry, to tell him everything I knew about my and Sam’s travels through time and space, but I had a feeling he would never again look me in the eye. Just then, my mom ran into the room, followed closely by Jamie. Mom placed her hands on my cheeks and shook my head. 
“Terra, they told me you’d almost drowned. Are you hurt? What happened? Why are you in Idaho? Don’t you ever, ever take off like that again, you hear me?” I swallowed, the image of Jordan melted away into her panicked face. In all of the anticipation of my triple date I had forgotten to tell my mom where I was going. Now I was probably in trouble, I was probably grounded, and the prospect gave me a muted feeling of hope. 
“Am I in trouble?” I squeaked. 
My mom lowered her eyebrows. “Right now, I’m still happy you’re alive. When that wears off, though, I’ll have the restrain myself not to kill you.” 
My eyes filled with warm tears. “Mom. Stuff has happened. My friend T.J., his mom.” “Um, sweetie, they told me everything,” she said. “But I need to ask you about what happened tonight. The police have told me a little bit. Your friend Jordan was at the station filling out a witness report. He said the woman they found in the river was about to hit you over the head with a rock when he and T.J. stopped her. Now, T.J. isn’t talking. I was wondering if you could tell me what happened.” 
“I … don’t know,” I stammered. “It all happened so quick.” 
“T.J.’s mom…” Jamie gulped, now standing beside my mom. Her blotchy face was streaked in gray tear stains. “Did she really try to kill you?” 
“Also,” my mom interrupted, “I saw Jordan on my way in and he mentioned something about you thinking someone may have pushed you in the river. The police also told me that another person in your group is still missing.” 
I began to cry. What could I say? 
“Oh, it’s all right, Terra,” my mom whispered. “We can talk about this later. Here, I’m going to go speak with the doctor. We’ll see when you’re getting out of here.” As my mom walked out of the room, Jamie inched closer. She still looked alarmed. 
“What about your test tomorrow?” I blubbered.
 “Screw that,” Jamie said. “Terra, we had the most terrible ride up here. You’re mom was screaming or crying or both the whole way. So you have to tell me what happened. What about T.J. and his mom? And where did that chick, Ant, go?” 
“Um,” I rubbed my head to check for bumps. Anything that could explain what I was about to say. Fatigue had shorted by ability to rework the truth. I already knew it, and couldn’t stop myself. 
“Jamie, they’re the same person. They’re both dead.” 
“What?” 
“Ant and Sam, uh, I mean T.J.’s mom. They’re the same person.” 
“Huh? How could that be? I met the skinny girl. She ain’t no T.J.’s mom.” 
“Oh, Jamie, I don’t know,” I said. Tears formed a blurry veil over my eyes. “Sam wanted me to marry her son, uh, T.J., so that he won’t kill himself a few years from now. She came back in time, disguised as Ant, and tried to threaten me into doing it, but I said no, so she tried to kill me. Only when she did, T.J. and Jordan startled her, and then she fell in the river.” 
Jamie’s eyes went wide. “Um, OK, Terra. Maybe you should slow down a little there.” 
“I mean it,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy, like some kind of science fiction movie. But I mean it, Jamie. I want so badly for you to believe me. I’m not actually Terra. I mean, I was Terra. But now I’m the Terra who’s living years from now. Jamie, I’m twenty-eight years old. I went into the PNP one night after you and I had a fight, and I met T.J.’s mom. She took my journal and I came out twelve years earlier as this. Sam did it, and, I, uh …” I trailed off.
Jamie was shaking her head now. “Terra,” she said, “I think maybe you hit your head again. What are you talking about? You’re talking crazy.” I rolled my head back. “That night, that night I fell on the floor at the PNP. That was the night. It was summertime. Twelve years from now.” 
Jamie scrunched her eyebrows. Her eyes were glazing over. “OK, Terra,” she said. “It’s OK.” 
“No,” I said. “It’s just that … well, I’m still not sure why I’m here.” Jamie shrugged. 
“I think it’s cause you fell in a river.” 
“Never mind,” I said. Fatigue was setting in again. I wanted nothing more than to put my head back on the pillow and sleep the next twelve years away. “I think you had a weird dream,” Jamie smiled. “I’ve known you six years. You definitely didn’t look twenty-two when I met you.” 
“That’s cause it’s actually been eighteen years to me,” I sputtered. 
Jamie smiled. I could tell she was no longer listening to me. “Here, lay down,” she said, patting my pillow before moving to the metal chair Jordan occupied minutes earlier. “I’ll just hang out here until your mom gets back.” We both sat quietly together, envying the silence. I thought about my only friend and the way she didn’t understand me. I needed her to believe what I told her. She needed everything I said to be a lie. Therein was the root of a conflict our friendship would never surmount. I remembered a day when Terra and Jamie drove out to the Salt Flats to take pictures of debris worked into interesting patterns across the white surface for one of Jamie’s college projects. The reflection of the relentless sun on a shining sea of salt both burned and blinded them when they got out of the car. They grabbed their cameras and walked together to a spot several hundred yards from the road, where Jamie said she passed by some cool rocks on a previous gambling trip to Nevada. Terra had to squint against the sun until all she could see were shadows and light. She followed the sound of Jamie’s footsteps crunching on the desert floor. Jamie stopped, so Terra did too. There wasn’t even a hint of breeze. No taste nor smell penetrated the dry air. No cars passed by on the road. No sound arose from the lifeless landscape. Its flat, blank canvas stretched beyond the horizon. Terra squinted into it until she felt absolutely alone. Shaken to her core by loneliness, she turned to Jamie and said, “Kind of reminds you of life doesn’t it?” Jamie just turned to her and said, “Yeah, with this kind of lighting, I’ll never get a single picture that doesn’t look like black blobs on a white piece of paper.” 
Now Jamie sat next to my hospital bed, the streaked remnants of her concerns and cares still clinging to her face, smiling benignly at me. Jamie needed to hold onto everything that floated just about the surface of reality, and refused to let go even as she watched me drowning in it. It was the same as it ever was. A few minutes went by before she spoke up.
“So I guess Jason went home,” she said. 
“Yeah,” I said. “He ditched me. Didn’t say goodbye. It figures.” 
“And Jordan?” I shook my head. 
“Oh.”
“I should have known,” I said in a stifled laugh. “I’m such a freak.” 
Jamie smiled. I thought, for a minute, she would say something I always needed to hear, something about love and friendship and life and things we never talk about. Instead, she patted down a butterfly bandage coming loose across my left eyebrow. “That’s what we love about you, Terra,” she said. “That’s why we love you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Meaning or Control

The rising sun bathed the hospital room in fluid light when the police came. Four stood in the shadows like grim-faced statues while a detective in street cloths asked me myriad questions about the night before. Routine, they said, especially with a body involved and two conflicting statements from eyewitnesses. 
“A quick run of the scene corroborates your story,” the man said. His face was deeply marred by pockmarks; his stiff hands gripped the metal bars around my bed as he spoke to me with a forceful gentleness. “We found blood at the scene — presumably yours, but we’ll have to request a sample; there was broken branch where you and your friends say the woman went in. Now what did you say you the victim were doing?” 
“We were having a misunderstanding, an argument,” I said. “She thought I was someone else. She was angry with me.” 
“I see. But you say she pulled you from the water.” 
“Yes. She did. Or at least she told me she did. I don’t remember it exactly. I could have crawled out myself.” I looked down. Both of my hands were clenched in tight fists, trembling.
 “I see.” But our forensics show that the woman who confronted you at the river is the same one you followed down from the point where your friends last saw you. Footprints match and everything. Presumably, they would have seen you leave with her. But they both say you left with a third person who we’ve been unable to identify. Can you explain that?” And icy ring surrounded my tongue.
 “That I can’t explain, officer,” I stammered. “The person I walked down to the river with is Ant; I’m sure T.J. and Jordan told you that. I don’t know her very well … only a few days. We had an argument and I fell in the water. Everything … everything after that is pretty much a blur. I remember … I remember feeling very cold,” I emphasized. Stick to the hypothermia, my thoughts commanded. They’ll never force you to distinguish real from imagined if your mind can’t. 
“You had an argument with this person, Ant, followed by a rescue and another argument by the victim, who are two different people.” 
“Yes,” I said. “And yet we found one shoe on the victim that perfectly matched the footprints in the mud where you left your party,” he said, his voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. 
“Maybe a coincidence,” I said. I could feel my arms beginning to shake. 
“And this shoe-sharing person is missing,” he continued. 
“I didn’t see her after I fell in the river.” 
The detective leaned in and adjusted the collar on his denim shirt. “Listen,” he whispered. “I had a conversation with your friend outside. She said you told her you believed these two people to be the same person,” he said gravely. “She didn’t say how.” 
“I was confused,” I said. “I had just woken up when I talked to her.” I looked around the room at the stoic policemen. “Jason!” I said. “He’s a boy we were with. He can tell you. He met Ant. He saw us all walk into the woods together.” 
“But he left after that.” 
“Yes,” I said. “I think he went back to Pineview with other friends.” 
“Can you give us his contact information?” 
“I forgot his last name. But he goes to my school.” I sat stiffly on the back of my bed. Every ounce of blood in my body pounded through my head and legs. My throbbing leg muscles felt like they were about to burst through a literal seam. 
“Can I ask you what the victim might have been doing in the area?” 
“Looking for T.J.?” I said. “She told me she was his mom. She thought I was, well, I’m not sure who I thought she was. An enemy of T.J.’s I guess. She seemed to be in a strange way, on drugs or something, and then she threatened me.” 
“Her body had no sign of any substances,” he said. “She came up clean.” 
“Well, um, she was just angry.” I stammered. “I’m… I’m not sure why.” 
“She never told you?” 
“Not exactly,” I said. “Nothing I could understand, at least.” 
“Did she know you and T.J. were friends?” 
“She made it seem like I was his enemy. No, I don’t think she understood my and T.J.’s relationship.” 
The detective ran his hand along the straw-blond stubble covering his scalp. “Listen, Ms. Weber, I’ll be frank with you. Did you or did you not pull the woman you believed to be Terrance Coulter’s mother in the river?” 
“I did not!” I coughed, my lungs on fire all over again. “It was exactly the opposite. She pushed me in! She was trying to hit me with a rock when she lost her balance and fell in herself.” 
“We have a statement from Mr. Coulter saying you did. He said he saw you.” 
“She was holding me over the water!” I yelled. “She fell onto me when the branch she was holding onto broke and we both went in.” 
“So was she actually holding a rock?” 
“She was.” 
“And what did she intend to do with that rock?” 
“I told you, I’m not sure,” I could feel hot liquid oozing through my sinuses.
 “We have a statement from a Jordan Spencer saying she appeared to be threatening you with a rock.” 
“That’s what I thought, too, but I can’t be sure about that. She was screaming a lot of nonsense.” As I breathed in mucous dripped down my throat and I chocked. The background cops began to move forward, their utility belts jingling. I inched back against the headboard, clutching the metal bars with my stiff fingers. Did my eyes betray guilt? Could they see that I was lying? Everything I told them was true, but it didn’t seem that way. 
“Ok, Ms. Weber, that’s all the questions we have.” He stood up and smiled in his gently forceful way. “Don’t look so scared; it’s just protocol. I’ll tell you now that this does appear to us to be an unfortunate accident. As to your story about a threatening argument or this mysterious third person, we still have a lot of loose ends to tie up. We will be continuing this investigation. We can count on your continued cooperation?” I nodded quickly. “Have a good morning, Ms. Weber.” 
The grave-faced cops shuffled out of the room, leaving me alone in the early morning sunlight. I realized that nearly five hours had passed since Jamie sat by my bed in the dark room. I searched for a conscious moment in the missing time. Had I been sleeping? Awake but unwilling to face consciousness? No, that seemed silly. But how could all that time pass without me feeling either rested or aware of its movement? It seemed like the river, the hospital, Jamie, the police — like it had all happened in an instantaneous moment of compressed time. Maybe this dream was fading away. Maybe Terra was working her way back to the surface, though that didn’t seem right, either. 
My mom came running into the room. “Did the police speak with you?” she asked. 
“Yes, mom.” 
“So everything’s OK?” 
“I think so.” The tears and hot mucous I had so proudly contained started to seep from my face. “Mom, I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s happening.” 
My mom wrapped her arms around me and pulled me away from the stiff headboard. “Honey, it’s OK. You’re OK. It’s going to be OK.” 
“So, can we go home now?” 
“Of course we can. The doctor just needs to run one last quick test, and then we’ll go home.” My mom rocked and rocked me as I let the fountain of hot tears my body had so long been unable to produce soak into her shirt. All of the times Terra laughed when Mom said she’d always be her baby haunted me. She was twenty-two, close to twenty-three, the day she finally moved out of the house; hugging Mom through a wall of shame that formed when she realized she felt too young to be on her own, but too old to stay. “Our adult daughters never grow old to us,” Mom told Terra. “They just grow away.” Terra hated to visit home. The house always smelt of fresh lumber and acrylic paint left over from the latest remodeling project. Shortly before Terra left home, her mom set out to mask the house of its beautiful, inevitable signs of age and decay. Suddenly, they had a new kitchen, new bathrooms, bright swatches of color in the bedroom to cover the sticker residue and fingerprints. But Terra wasn’t fooled. The sad sounds of nostalgia still pulsed through the halls — her father’s ticking alarm clock, her mother’s Mozart playing quietly on the computer, her family’s ancient cat creaking painfully across the hardwood floor. The kitchen smelt of stale cookies Terra always assumed her mom baked mindlessly for grandchildren that had never been born, stored away to petrify in a dusty cookie jar. Maybe, I thought, as I buried my face in her shoulder, maybe she baked those for me. 
Mom and Jamie held me on their shoulders as I limped toward the car. 
“I can walk, really,” I said. “It’s just stitches.” 
“Nonsense,” Mom said. “Can you imagine? One hundred dollars for crutches?” 
“Did Jordan go home?” I asked. 
“Yes,” Jamie said. His dad came and picked him up late last night.” 
“And T.J.?” I wavered. My mom cleared her throat. “He was taken back last night by a police officer, Terra. They’re going to set him up in a nice place stay while he gets everything together.” She paused and hoisted me up. I could feel her grip slipping. “His mom was the only parent he had,” she said, her voice more reserved. “He has an older brother but, well, do you understand?” I shook my head. “You may not see him in school anymore, Terra. The officers told me he has an uncle that lives in Spokane. He may go stay there for a while.”
“He blames me,” I stuttered. 
“Of course he doesn’t,” Mom said. 
“No, the officer told me so,” I said. “He thinks he saw me pull her in. He believes I did it.” A thick uncertainty filled the cold air. Mom and Jamie said nothing. Mom placed me carefully in the front seat of the car. I was still wrapped in the white gown the hospital placed me in. Jamie held my carefully folded jeans in her arms — the only article of clothing I had left behind. A smattering of bruises and cuts covered my arms, and a scarlet splotch had soaked through the bandage on my thigh. 
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened, Terra,” Mom said. “You did the right thing. You were just dealing with a very disturbed woman. She probably has a long history of mental illness. T.J. will be fine, don’t you worry. You can still keep in touch.” 
Somehow, I doubted that. The wave of relief I would have felt just twenty-four hours before at an announcement that I would never see T.J. again washed over me in a dark flood of dread. A sleepless haze that formed overnight followed me the entire ride home, leaving the Interstate quickly for the rural roads that crossed the state line and wound through the mountains toward my hometown. 
The crystalline sky blazed with an intensity of solid blue, fragmented only by the white glare of the sun. I tilted my held back and listened to Jamie snore peacefully in the back seat. The air was warm and dry — already slipping from springtime into the stifling chokehold of summer. I thought of T.J.’s words, laughing at me yesterday when we were young and innocent in his car … “Wait until tomorrow.” 
Mom turned her head toward me. “I want you to take it easy today,” she said. “Now I know to you that seems a tragic waste of a Saturday, but you’re still pretty hurt. You need your rest and recovery and besides,” she smiled. “You’re grounded.” 
I laughed in spite of myself. “I suppose I deserve that,” I said. 
“You don’t have to tell me what happened yet,” she said. “But I would like to hear it from you someday. Until then, you’re going to have to deal with your father. He got home from work too late last night to come up. But he’s furious. I don’t think you’re getting out of this one anytime soon.”
 “Does that mean prom’s off?” Jamie mumbled sleepily from the back seat. I turned toward her in surprise. 
“No, I can’t deprive you of that,” Mom said. “You’ve been planning your day since February. Who is that boy you’re going with again?” 
“Jordan,” Jamie mumbled. “He asked her way back when, to go as friends. Suppose he still wants to go after all this?” 
“Jordan? Is that the boy who saved you from the river?” I nodded. I did go to my junior prom with Jordan. The awkward limo ride and running through the parking lot in rented formal wear … that was after all this? My memory flopped around in its shallow pool, searching for depth measurements. It all seemed so impotent now. “I guess it really depends on what your father says,” Mom said. “But we are grateful to that boy, pulling you out of the water like that. I think you could still go.”
 Jamie laughed. “I supposed the pre-date trip to Raging Waters is off, though.” Mom laughed half-heartedly. “Raging Waters … that’s not open yet, is it?” 
“No mom,” I said. “Jamie was trying to make a joke.”
 Jamie laughed softly to herself for a few seconds and lulled back to sleep. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and the valley rolled onward, painted incandescent colors beneath the cloudless sky. We sped over the mountain pass that once seemed like such a geological barrier between a muddled teenager and the real world, and descended into the tiny subdivided valley of my past, present and future. 
••••••

My dad kissed my forehead and said only one sentence to me as he ran out the door to another work emergency. “Next time you think about leaving the state and swimming in a deadly river, give us a call, please?” he said with strained sarcasm. 
“Well, your father’s cooled off a bit,” Mom said as she helped me up to my room. “You’re a lucky girl.” 
Jamie sat next to my bed, engrossed in a game of Solitaire with a giant deck of Mickey Mouse playing cards as I situated myself on my good hip and swung one arm limply over the side of the mattress, my hand dangling inches away from my red journal. I contemplated destroying it, keeping it away from that raving woman, but my disintegrating logic told me that act would either be catastrophic or not work at all. Somehow it had already happened, or needed to happen in some way to keep my existence moving forward. Either way, I tried my best not to think too hard about the movement of time. 
“Jamie, what about your test?” I asked. “Sorry I made you miss it.” 
“Oh, well, I’ll just take it in June. When I told my mom you were dying up in Idaho she insisted I postpone it. I even think she called the state board this morning. Either way, I win, right? Thanks Terra.” She laughed. 
“Oh, you’re welcome,” I said sarcastically. “That was my entire design for falling into the water. I thought, if there’s anything I can do to get Jamie out of her test, it must be jumping in an icy, raging river.” 
“Right,” Jamie laughed. She lowered her head and reshuffled the playing cards. 
“So, are you going to tell me what really happened?” 
“Jamie, I don’t know what happened,” I said. “Honest. What I told you last night, that’s the best I have.” 
“What, the part about a sixteen-year-old girl and a middle aged woman being the same person, or the part about you being, what was it, thirty and back from the future? Back to reclaim your past, or what was it, save T.J.?” 
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Like I said, I was really out of it last night.” 
“Whatever, Terra,” Jamie said, shaking her head. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.” I pictured Jamie pointing her camera into the black and white landscape. The contrast was so complete it was brilliant, and all she could complain about was lack of color.
 “All that weird stuff must have been a coma-induced dream,” I said. “A really deep one. Honest, Jamie, I don’t remember what happened. One minute I was running through the woods with everyone and the next I was flailing around in the river. Everything after that was so … surreal.” 
“Ok,” she said. “I guess I can buy that one for a dollar. By the way, Terra, thirty’s really old. I’d try for twenty-one or something like that first. At least then we could go somewhere better than Caddy’s.” I laughed. 
“So,” I said, “did you bring me anything for a mid-morning breakfast?” Jamie smiled. “You read my mind. Do you want grape or cherry?” 
“Slurpee run?” 
“You know it.” 
“In that case, mix the two.” 
After Jamie left I floated through my own exhaustion in the dreamlike haze. Once I sleep, I thought, the night will cease to exist. I will wake up to the acrid smell of yeast on the cloths I fell asleep in. It will be Sunday. It will be August. Anything can happen. But sleep didn’t come. I could hear the monotone ticking of my dad’s clock, and I remembered the way simple moments carve the deepest scars in memories. In twelve years, I thought, those posters on the wall will be crumpled together in a landfill somewhere. Those stickers on the back of my door will fade and finally flake away, replaced by the brilliant purple paint of my mom’s contemporary phase. This chipped wooden bed that once belonged to my grandmother will be stowed in the basement to make room for the guest bed, some iron monstrosity from the Pottery Barn. Those clothes will finally be picked up and placed into boxes bound for Good Will. Every living cell in the house will shift and grow and duplicate and die, but that clock, that clock will tick on. The Madonna poster reflected the stark sunlight seeping in through the blinds. The filtered beams made the crouching diva looked like she was trapped behind the glowing gates of heaven, and I laughed at the thought. When Terra moved out she framed this poster and then stuffed it in the back of her closet. She couldn’t throw it away. She took that red journal and stuffed it under a new bed, and even when she stopped writing in it, she continued to build her life around it. Somewhere in the future, Terra is still begging me to hold on, I thought. And I’m going to have to find a way to let go.
 Jamie returned about fifteen minutes after she left holding two giant paper cups overflowing in dark red liquid. 
“Cherry grape, just like you requested,” she said. 
“Thanks,” I said. “The sugar will do me some good.” 
“Told ya so,” Jamie said. “All it takes is a near-death experience to remind you there are more important things in life than eating healthy.” 
“Such as?” 
“Well,” Jamie said as she raised her cup in the air. “Such as friends, and good times, let them roll.” 
“I’ve probably had enough good times in the past few days to last me a long while. In fact,” I said, raising my cup. “Here’s to sleep. May it filter through our memories and leave only good times behind.” 
Jamie lowered her cup and shook her head. “No, you gotta keep the bad times,” she said. “How else would you ever tell the difference between the two?” 
I put my cup down. “This seems weird, doesn’t it?” I said. “Why, because I didn’t get Mountain Dew?” 
“No, I said... there’s just something not quite right about this moment.” 
“You mean because a woman is dead and the police think you did it?” 
“Ha,” I said. “That just might be it. That, but more. I mean, they’re shipping T.J. off to Washington. And Jordan knows how I really feel about him. My life is changing drastically. Other people’s lives are going to change drastically. I never really realized the prospect of it. We could turn out … We could be … anything. Everything will be different now than it was.” 
“Are you sad that T.J.’s going away?” Jamie asked. “You know, I actually am,” I said. “I never really thought about it when he was around. I was so wrapped up in this image of what he was to me that I didn’t take the time to see who he is.” 
“I can’t believe his mom drowned,” Jamie said. A streak of guilt shot through my head. “You nearly drowned, too, Terra.”
 “Is that how they say she died?” I said. 
“That’s what Jordan told me,” she said. “He called me first from Lava; he asked me if maybe I could call your mom.” 
“Did you?” 
“Not before I pressed him with about a million questions. Were you dead, too? Were you hurt? Did he rescue you? I think he was getting pretty annoyed with me,” she said. 
“Really?” I mustered a chuckle. “So did he say anything about T.J?” 
“He told me T.J. ran down the river after his mom, so Jordan stopped to pull you out of the water, but only your head was under at the time.” 
“So did he tell you I was dying or something?” 
“He said you passed out, but he checked and you were still breathing. He took you up to some guys that were waiting for an ambulance to come and then he ran after T.J. Said he felt like he ran for almost a mile before he found T.J. halfway in the river, holding on to a big rock and sobbing. He had to grab T.J. and drag him up to the road, and T.J. never said a word. He just stopped crying and got this horrible look on his face, like a corpse. Or sorry. That was a bad thing to say. But Jordan said he basically looked dead inside. The police came and took him away. That’s the last Jordan saw of him. That was before he found out she was dead.” 
“Wow,” I said. “That’s intense.” 
Jamie just pursed her lips and nodded. “It might have been better if you didn’t know all that,” she said. “But I thought I should let you know.” 
“Yeah,” I said. “She, I mean T.J.’s mom, had me on the bank, and she was telling me how messed up T.J.’s life was since he met me. He struggled with some major depression. She thought he might kill himself.” I shook my head with a morbid sense of irony. “It seems like she may have quickened the process. Can’t be good for your mental health if your mom drowns.”
 “Terra, that’s terrible.” 
“I know,” I said. “I just say that because I can’t help but feel responsible. But maybe it will actually turn out okay. I think I’m going to write him a really long letter. We’ll work through this,” I smiled at words I manufactured to make myself feel better. The contrived phrase repeated in my mind … maybe I can save him after all. 
“You could rewrite the Bible, and it wouldn’t change T.J.’s situation one bit,” Jamie said. “He’s got a lot of junk to deal with right now.” 
“Right,” I said. “But I’ve got to do something. You’d be surprised how much a single page of writing can change everything.” 
Jamie nursed her Slurpee for a while as I drew a flipbook cartoon of a fish struggling upstream on the pages of a novel I found on my dresser. Jamie eyed it with passing interest.
“So you’ve graduated from stick figures and ax-murderer Santa Clauses,” she said. I flipped the pages slowly, watching the pen and ink figure jerk into movement. 
“I guess so,” I said. More minutes of silence drifted by. I completed my cartoon and I could hear Jamie sucking the last of her Slurpee. “Well, I should probably get going. You’re probably exhausted,” she said. 
“I could use some sleep myself.” 
“Right,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you tonight,” I said. 
“I was thinking of going to Caddy’s, but maybe I’ll stop by before that.” 
“We can rent some movies,” I said hopefully. 
“Sure,” she said. “When you’re family finally decides to get a VCR. Until then, I’m gonna stick with Caddy’s.” 
“Oh right,” I laughed as she walked out the door. Nothing to say. No reason to stay.


Chapter Fourteen
Just as Sure as the Past

The afternoon finally slipped away into some semblance of sleep. In fits of localized pain I awakened periodically from mournful dreams of college kids flailing in a fountain of mud during a rain-soaked concert and fourth-of-July fireworks pounding over campers on a reservoir — moments long past that would never come to pass. I finally awoke for good at the shrill ringing of the phone on my dresser. It rang more than a dozen times before I finally stood up and limped toward the receiver. The house seemed empty. I could hear my mother snoring oblivious in the adjacent room. 
“Terra, is this you?” a soft voice said. “Um… Jordan?” I wheezed, adjusting my voice mid-sentence to mask my surprise. The room had faded into the gray solitude of night again, but my alarm clock flashed 12:00 over and over. “What time is it?”
 “It’s about 11:30,” he said. “Did I wake you up?” 
“No,” I said. “Well, yeah, but I’ve been sleeping all day.” 
“Oh, um, well…” 
“What’s up?” I said. 
“Terra, I just got a really strange call from the police.” 
The blood in my hands chilled, sending streaks of ice through my veins. “What now?” I said. 
“Well, I got a call from, well, I think it was T.J. He said his name was Terrance.” 
“That’s T.J.,” I said. “What did he want?” 
“Well, first he asked if my name was Jordan, and I said it was, but I thought it was strange he would ask that since he was the one calling me. Then he said in this really creepy voice that he was at the police station and needed to speak to you urgently.” 
“Now?” I said. 
“He said now.” 
“Why did he call you?” I asked. 
“Not sure,” he said. “When I said that you were at home, he said I should come too and bring you with me.” 
“Are you actually going to go?” 
“I think we should see what’s up … given everything that’s happened.” I stretched the phone cord as far as it would go and looked out my bedroom window. The neighborhood was ghostly quiet. 
“OK,” I said. “But can you pick me up at the corner?” I was still wearing snowman pajama bottoms and an orange T-shirt when Jordan’s Buick doused the lights in front of my house and pulled slowly to the corner of the block. I limped barefoot across the wet grass and slipped on a pair of tennis shoes after I jumped into the passenger’s seat. He hadn’t changed his clothes since last night. His black pants he looked disheveled. His tight lime green polyester shirt was smeared in mud and spattered with specks of blood. 
“Which station?” I asked as I pulled my hair back with a rubber band. 
“The one on Main,” he said. He breathed out and looked at my flannel-covered legs. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” 
“You mean physically or mentally?” 
“Both.”
 “Well, neither,” I said.
 “So let’s try and get this over with quickly.” In two miles we had reached the downtown district, already abandoned for the night. The entire street was doused in darkness, from bars to specialty shops. Only the police station flickered with any sign of life, a dim light shining through the shop window with the insignia “Pineview Police 911” in chipped paint on the surface. We swung open the door and walked inside. No one sat at the receptionist desk, but we could hear radio static playing softly in the back room. We slipped around the tight entrance into a large area filled with unmanned desks. A single officer sat near the source of the music, engrossed in a stack of paperwork. She squinted as she looked up at us. 
“Can I help you?” she asked in a rhaspy voice. 
“We got a call from a friend who said he was here and needed us,” Jordan said. 
“Your friend the curly-haired kid?” I nodded. She tightened her lips. 
“I see,” she said. “Come with me.” She swung open a metallic door and led us into the holding cell, lined with empty cages and cold bars. “Normally this goes against policy,” she said. “But seeing this poor kid’s situation.” She shook her head. “He’s here for his protection, mostly. He’s unstable.” 
“Can you tell us what happened?” Jordan said. “Are you the judge?” the officer retorted.
“Obviously not,” Jordan said. “Well, then you better ask him.” She led us to the last cell, a dim room shadowed from the glare of florescent lights in the hallway. A black silhouette sat slumped on a short bed in the corner, his hands slowly massaging a tangle of curly hair. His face jerked toward the door as he heard us approach and he stood up. All I could make of his features were his eyes, gray and hollow. 
“T.J.,” I said. “Are you OK?” A hoarse, deep voice pierced the lonely cell. “T.J. Huh. Haven’t heard that one in a while.” He rose from his bed like an old man standing up from a park bench. His figure was stiff but unwavering. He hobbled toward us until the dim light in the hall revealed his face, streaked in dark shadows. The officer still stood behind us, arms folded and face twisted in exasperation. “Officer, do you mind if I have a word with my friends in private?” T.J. said. 
“Are they your lawyers?” she replied. 
“Of course not.” 
“Of course not,” she repeated. “Fine. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Keep in mind,” she said to Jordan and me, “that I will be locking the holding door behind me. If anything, and I mean anything happens, you just bang on it.” She triumphantly stroked the nightstick dangling over her hips. 
“That’s fine,” I said. 
“OK,” she said. “Just don’t forget it.” She turned and walked away. I waited for the door to latch shut. 
“T.J., what the hell are you doing in here?” I asked. 
“Terra,” he said, his voice still muddled and hoarse, “is that you?” 
“Of course,” I said, surprised at the exasperation in my tone. I thought I would be relieved to see him. But all the pain instantly came flooding back. 
“It’s been a while,” he said. “It’s good to see you standing there.” His eyes narrowed as he said those words, filled with darkness. He turned to Jordan, squinted, but said nothing to him. 
“Um, sure,” I said. “T.J., you have to tell us what’s going on. Why are you in here?”
“Terra, can you tell me what day it is?” I froze in thought. 
“It’s Saturday, April 13th, for just a few more minutes,” Jordan said. 
“Right,” he said. “That’s what I thought.” He turned to me. His dark face flushed with color. “So can you tell me what the hell I was doing in a youth home facility in Utah, no more than three hours ago?” His voice increased in volume as he spoke. 
“Don’t … don’t get so mad,” I squeaked. 
He lowered his shoulder. “I apologize. You see, it’s just been a really long day. I just want to know why I was … there. It didn’t make any sense.” 
“Well,” I coughed. “I think they took you there, T.J., on account of, well, on account of.” “On account of your mom and her accident,” Jordan interrupted. The green glow of florescent light seemed to face from T.J.’s face as his complexion turned white. “What? What accident?” 
“T.J.,” I pleaded. “Of course it was an accident. You remember. It was only yesterday.” 
His eyes widened. “Yesterday?” 
“Just last night,” I stammered. “Remember? In the river. It was an accident.” 
T.J.’s knuckle, wrapped around the bars, began to tremble and turn white. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a crumpled piece of paper. “April 13th was the day before the Titanic sank,” he whispered. His voice shook. “The day before, wasn’t it?” I shook my head in confusion. The images of last night fought their way back. T.J.’s face was muted by a transparent memory of rushing water coursing through my head. But then I saw him sitting in his the driver’s seat of his T-bird, telling me to wait until tomorrow.
 “No, T.J.,” I said. “I remember you told me April 13th was the day the Titanic sank. That’s today … Saturday.” I mustered a smile as his face sank into the mysterious horror surrounding him. He gripped down on the wad of paper. 
“You… you,” he stammered. He looked up in rage. I stepped backward until I was perched against the adjacent cell. 
“No, T.J., no,” I whispered as Jordan took a few steps between T.J and me. 
“Now T.J.,” Jordan said. “What you and I both saw was a complete accident. I don’t care what you told police. Terra and I know it’s a lie.” 
“You don’t understand,” T.J. said, trembling, sounding further away than ever. His fingers loosened their grip around the bars as dropped the tightly crumpled wad of paper to his side. “This all wrong, the wrong day. I had … the wrong day!” he screamed and launched the paper ball through the bars. I ducked as it came toward me. It landed at my feet and I reached down to pick it up. T.J. paced in his cell as I unwound the torn, yellowed sheet. The handwriting on it looked faintly familiar. The blue ink was faded and blurred to almost nothing, but most words were still legible. Jordan peered over my shoulder as I scanned the page. 
“April 13th.” I read in silence. “In a narrow mind we only see what we allow ourselves to believe. It’s amazing how many stages my mind can go through in one day. There was the boredom level at Jamie’s, and then some 1989 nostalgia as we danced to Paula Abdul. Depression and regret as Mike told us about how messed up he really his. We drove downtown to buy some cookie dough, and then there was that indifferent level before we went to Caddy’s, where all this energy and dancing threw me into this almost euphoric level I don’t get to experience much. I saw Jordan there. I should have been happy, but I’ve been so tired that I just got mad. Now I long again for that boredom. Then I wouldn’t care one way or the other.” 
I shook my head in familiar disbelief as my eyes wandered to the corner of the page, scribbled with something that wasn’t familiar. A small doodle of a crudely drawn boat sinking into water, with the words “Wait until tomorrow” scribbled in black ink at the top. Jordan’s phone number was written in the same blue ink as the journal entry at the bottom, and in that instance I recognized the handwriting, the wording, completely. 
“T.J.,” I whispered, “this is mine, isn’t it?” Jordan jerked his head up and passed his confused gaze from me to T.J. “I remember this,” I said. “Where did you get this?” 
He reached out from behind the bars and grabbed the paper from my hand. “The Titanic sunk on April 14th! April 14th!” he screamed shaking it above his head. 
“T.J.,” I said. “That page is from my journal. This is the journal your mom had. Where did you get it? Where’s the rest of it?” T.J. was still shaking his head violently. “All this time. All this wasted time, confusion and time,” he said. I could hear him using anger to suppress a deeper, creeping rage. 
Jordan scratched his bottom lip back and forth across his front teeth. He looked at me. “What year, which April 13th is it?” he said. “In that letter?” 
T.J. stumbled back to his bed and plopped down. “All this time,” he mumbled. “All this time.” 
I walked toward him and pressed my hands and face against the bars of his cell. “T.J., you have to tell me where you got this,” I said. He looked up at me. 
“You want to know how I got this?” I nodded. “And I guess now you want to know what it means.” I stopped nodding and widened my gaze. 
“I went into the river,” T.J. said. “I grabbed her by the pack. I had her. I had her. The pack came loose. I grabbed a rock. She broke away. Her pack was all I had left. And this,” he said, holding up the sheet of paper. “This was all that was inside.” 
“My journal was inside,” I said. He stood up. 
“Yes,” he spat, his words becoming much clearer. “I had no idea what it was. Or why she had it. But I read it. I only understood it to be a tribute to everything that was wrong with life, with love, with me, with you.” He shot me a look of disdain. “Writing in for the future, writing for humiliation and pain. It was so … hateful. I was so, so angry. I ripped it all up. The whole thing. Except for one page. It was a page I save because of its date, a page dated today,” he screamed. “It was the cornerstone of your mean-spirited elegy. I marked it and kept it so I would always remember. Always, this date.” 
“You read… the whole thing?” I said. I pictured the book with its torn pages and rounded corners. Terra wrote in the book up until, well, it was a good two years from now. All the things she said. The awful things she said. The events only she could predict. The events that would never happen. T.J. read it without understanding it, but he knew every word was true. T.J. turned and collapsed face down on his bed, hands behind his head, quietly tearing against snarled strands of his hair. “I hate this hair,” he muttered. “I hate this place. I’m not supposed to be here.” He looked up again, face beet red. “I’m not supposed to be here!” 
“He’s gone mad,” Jordan whispered in my ear. I nodded in half-hearted agreement. Just then the officer burst in. 
“OK, kids, twenty minutes,” she said. “Time to wrap up the love fest.” Jordan and I nodded and followed her, T.J.’s heavy breaths following us all the way to the door. The police officer ushered us out the door and bolted it behind us. 
“Officer, I think he’ll be OK. Can’t you let him out?” I said as Jordan cocked his head and mouthed “are you crazy?”
 “Sorry,” she said. “Can’t do that. We need to determine the charges first.” 
“Charges?” “Kid tore up the entire reception area of a youth home,” she said. “Damn near killed the night clerk in the process.” 
“What did he do?” Jordan asked. 
“Threw some chairs, a paperweight, stabbed the clerk in the neck with a fountain pen, allegedly,” she said, adding an extra layer of sarcasm on that last word. “The counselors were quick to attribute it to post-traumatic whatever, but in this jurisdiction you don’t get to plead stress for attempted homicide.” 
“Is that what you’re charging him with?” I asked, horrified. 
“I can’t say, and I really shouldn’t be speaking to you about it either. You’re just a visitor. Hey, I feel bad for the kid, too. Just lost his mom, nearly drowned. He wanted to talk to you … the one phone call thing … kid watches too many movies. But I thought I could give him at least that. But tomorrow, you may see him leaving this station in shackles.” 
“He couldn’t have,” I whispered, imagining a barrage of violence that could only have been directed at me in effigy. “It can’t be.” The officer just folded her arms and shook her head. “Better get going,” she said. “Leave your number. I’ll keep you posted about the progress, when he gets a court date and stuff.” I could feel the gash in my leg throbbing wildly as Jordan and I left the station. He brushed his hand across my neck and grasped my shoulder. His skin was as cold as a stone grave. 
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “It’s not.” 
Funny, I thought, that he would interpret my reaction as guilt and not the blood-draining fear I was actually feeling. I felt guilty just then for not feeling guilty, but I couldn’t reconcile all the confusing things T.J. said. The confusing things he now knew. The last thing I wanted to do was step forward. I just wanted to go back, only back, to never look forward, only back. We stopped outside the station. Jordan stood with his hands in his pants pockets, shivering against the light breeze. He stared blankly off into space. 
“I feel like we should do something,” I said. 
“What?” Jordan asked. 
“You heard the cop. He’s really got himself in deep. I don’t think there’s much we can actually do for him.” 
“We should go visit that night clerk,” I said. “At the group home. We could find out exactly what happened.” 
“No, Terra, we should go home. Look at your face,” he said, running his cold hand along the small cuts across my cheek. “You look like you haven’t slept in three days.”
“And I won’t now,” I said. “Look, Jordan, you sensed it in there, didn’t you? We don’t need to hold this facade in front of us anymore. You and I are two people caught in a very strange dream that has nothing to do with us, you and me, and yet we’re in it together. You’ve got to help me.” I lowered his hand as I gazed at him with my most pleading look. “Besides, I need a car.”
Chapter Fifteen
Caged Rat

 “We don’t even know where we’re going,” Jordan said as his Buick sputtered down Main Street. 
“Sunnyside,” I said. “I distinctly remember something about that from what my mom told me. It’s all I’ve got. Pull over here.” 
Jordan pulled up to a curbside payphone and I jumped out, flipping through the pages of a phone book until I found the listing.
 “Here it is,” I said. “Sunnyside Youth Residential Treatment Center. It isn’t far from here.” 
We pulled into the dark, almost empty parking lot. “Terra, if what that officer said is true, this night clerk is going to be in the hospital.” 
“True,” I said. “But I think she was exaggerating. Look — no police tape. No cop cars. You think they’d be doing some kind of investigation.” The front room looked like an entrance to a law office, with plaques and certificates lining the marble-papered walls. Everything was dark, save for a small, unmanned desk in the back corner. 
“See,” Jordan said. “The guy’s probably on life support as we speak.” 
“I still think that officer was full of it,” I said. 
A young woman wearing a green silk bathrobe and ratted bun flying in all directions came running into the room. “Can I help you?” she said in a whispering tone. “We’re closed for the night.” 
“We’re just looking for… a friend,” I said. “The guy who works the night shift here.”
“He’s taken leave for the night,” she said. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” 
“Is it true he was stabbed with a pen?” Jordan blurted. 
The woman looked taken aback. “Yes. I mean to say, there was a disturbance here. But he’s going to be fine.” 
“Told you,” I whispered. 
“Can you tell us what happened?” Jordan asked. “We just had a few questions and it would really help out … a friend of ours.” 
“Well, I don’t think I can tell you,” she said. “We’re not cops,” I said. “Or reporters. We’re just concerned citizens. We just want to help our friend.” 
She pulled her bathrobe collar around her neck and tussled her hair a bit. “Okay” she said. “But if I tell you, will you leave?” 
“Yes,” Jordan and I said in unison. “Well,” she said, with a scandalous gleam in her eye. “I don’t know much. I didn’t see the part where he went nuts. I’m just one of the live-in staff here. But we got this kid in today, a routine foster care situation — temporary, you know. Well, he told us he was eighteen, but we couldn’t confirm that. Our records showed him being seventeen. Anyway, he was out of it, but seemed stable enough not to place in lockdown, so we put him in a room and gave him some dinner. Then, about an hour later, he comes charging out of the room, says he needs to leave right then. Gary told him no, he’s in state custody so he can’t leave. So the kid charges for the door and Gary pushes automatic lockdown. The kid goes nuts and starts throwing things at Gary. Then he turned and threw chairs at the window, but it wouldn’t break, and Gary went up to stop him so this kid grabs a pen from his shirt and stabs him in the neck. Luckily, he didn’t push too hard and only drew a little blood. Then security finally came and tazed the kid and then the police came and hauled him away. That’s all I know. But, scary, huh? I’m just glad Gary got through it. We haven’t had a violent incident like that in four years, and that kid wasn’t even one of our residents. It’s crazy.” 
“Really? That’s what happened?” I said. 
“Not lying,” she said, sounding satisfied at the prospect of being involved in something so dramatic. “Thanks,” Jordan said. “That’s what we wanted to know.” 
“Wait,” the woman said. “Who are you trying to help out?” 
“Well, our friend is the crazy kid,” I said. Her mouth dropped open. I grabbed Jordan’s shirt and we hurried out the door. 
“He must have just snapped,” Jordan said as we walked to the car. “It’s completely obvious. The same day his mom dies they put him in some lockdown juvenile hall and expect him to be okay with it. If it were me, I probably would have set fire to the place.”
“We know why he’s in jail,” I said. “But nothing else really makes sense.” 
“No,” Jordan said. “It doesn’t. But it’s all we’ve got. Are you okay with it now?” 
“Jordan, aren’t you curious at all about what T.J. meant when he told us about that piece of paper?” I asked. 
“You mean the diary entry?” he said. “I didn’t read all of it, but that was strange, wasn’t it? You say it was yours?” 
“Yeah, it was.” 
“So, was that something you wrote last year or something?” 
“Not quite.” 
“Well, it sure wasn’t today. Unless you’re living some secret double life that I don’t know about.” 
I laughed, though probably not convincingly. “Jordan, I have to go back and talk to him. He’s in real danger now.” 
“You mean as opposed to the fake danger he was in when he took a midnight dip in a raging whitewater river?” 
“Well, no, but, yeah,” I said. “Do you think we could get back into that police station?”
“Well, obviously not around the warden,” he said. “But Alcatraz that place is not.” 
“You mean?” 
“I mean, didn’t you see the streetlights reflecting onto the floor? There’s a street-level window that leads right into his cell. And the only thing behind Main Street is a big abandoned alleyway. We used to go there all the time to feed stray cats.” 
“Are you suggesting a prison break?” 
“No, of course not,” Jordan said. “But if you really want to speak with that psycho some more, I bet I can get you all the time you need.” 
We parked several blocks from the station and picked our way through the alleyway behind an array of specialty shops. We had to hop several chain-link fences and stack two garbage cans to get over a concrete wall before we came upon the backside of a cinderblock building. A yellow bulb on the adjacent wall cast a single stream of light on the grime-crusted ground. The building was lined with dumpsters and narrow slits of windows with bars over them. 
“Now wait here,” Jordan said. “This place surly has cameras around it — not that anyone probably watches them much. I mean, common, this is a Pineview drunk tank.” I laughed. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m going to go back to the station and talk to that officer. Act like I desperately want to be T.J.’s lawyer and get him out of there. Maybe if I can appeal to that soft side of her, she’ll let me stick around and bug her for a while, and then she definitely won’t be able to look at those cameras. In the meantime, you can check above those dumpsters for the window you’ll need. Give me about ten minutes.” 
“Jordan, you’re the best,” I said and cleared my throat. “About what I said yesterday, in the hospital room. I was just, I mean, I was a little delirious you know, a little drugged up.”
“Terra, it’s OK,” he said. His mouth curled into a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t quite know what to do. I know I didn’t handle it the best. But, you know, it came on a little sudden. Well, really, this whole weekend came on a little sudden.” He looked around. “We don’t need to talk about this now,” he said. “Let’s focus. Now is the time for action.” He sprung back over the wall, leaving me alone in the putrid yellow glow of the street light. I walked up to the first dumpster and leaned against it, the sweet stench of trash filling my raw lungs. I waited for an eternity of seconds, not quite knowing when ten minutes would pass, not quite sure I wanted to make my move at all. The cold air settled on my skin, slowly drawing heat from my motionless body. If I sit here long enough, I thought, I’ll reach equilibrium with the air. 
My mind contemplated nothing but the breeze passing through my lungs and the rows of barred windows the appeared as lifeless as the air, as cold as my skin. The situation seemed deadly serious to me, but I had noticed Jordan’s demeanor starting to take on that fountain-of-youth exuberance I saw in his eyes last night. He was all too eager to help me along what must seem to him a dangerous and pointless quest. Why was he helping me? Was there something in the words I said to him, in the way I looked at him last night that may have lingered? Or was it something more? 
Uncountable time passed before I heard a faint knock come from above. I jerked my head toward the source of the sound. The first window of the row wrapped again, louder this time. I reached to close the dumpster lid before hoisting myself on top, stomach first, and kneeled beside the tapping window. Through the dust-covered glass I saw single strip of T.J.’s face, illuminated in rotten yellow light. The rest hid in shadow, but I could see his lips tightened in defiance or desperation. 
“Terra, Terra, is that you?” he said. The glass muffled his voice, but he could hear his words even as he spoke softly. I wrapped my fingers around the cold bars. 
“T.J.,” I said. He laughed with a sad overtone. “Have you come to break me out?” 
“No,” I said. “I’ve just come to see if you’re okay. I know about what happened.” 
He took a step back and before I could see what he was doing, the window slid free of the seal in a cloud of dust. “This is amazing,” he said. “They even let you open your own windows.” 
“T.J., I know what happened,” I repeated, adjusting my weight so I could kneel against the cold bars barricading his window. “Do you now?” he said, defying no hint of emotion in that statement. “Yes. I know about the youth home. And that journal. I know what you must think of it, but believe me, it’s not what it seems.” 
“Oh, it’s exactly what it seems,” he said. He wriggled his wrist between a pair of bars and placed two fingers on my lips before I could open them in protest. “Don’t worry. I no longer care about how much of an idiot you think I am. In fact, I have you to thank for not allowing me to waste another minute caring about it. But everything else, as it turns out, is useless as well.” 
“Everything else?” I said. 
“Acceptance comes quickly, doesn’t it?” he said, running his hands through the mop on his head. “Here I am, thinking my world has ended because everything I’ve lived my life for comes to this. But then I saw you, and I realized that I can just go back and try again.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “If you don’t know exactly what I mean, then I guess you were right about us never sharing any sort of connection,” he said, shaking his head. “I had always thought more of us. But, then, I was always wrong.” 
“What?” 
“I lost everything that night,” he said. “The night of April 12th” he added with a stiff chuckle. “Everything. I told myself I never thought about it, but I did. In, fact, it went through my mind every single day. I never moved beyond it. And one day I finally realized that was all I needed.” T.J.’s pupils expanded and dimmed, constantly adjusting to beams of yellow light escaping around my trembling body. In stoic stillness he watched me for several seconds. His nappy hair, his youthful face, his tattered clothing, everything he was to me yesterday was betrayed by his eyes. They reflected to me only the immersion of life, the memory of time that darkens as it grows old. He was an old man in a nursing home, staring into space at the dinner table, waiting for a moment that the moving world could never see. I could almost see that moment now because his eyes reflected nothing more. 
“T.J., how far have you come?” I whispered. 
“So close, and so far away,” he said. 
“T.J., how far?” 
“You should call me Terrance,” he said. “I don’t even know who …” 
“T.J. is anymore,” I finished. 
“So you do know?” he said. 
“How far?” 
He leaned his head back and laughed. “Hmmm, let’s see. That would be twenty-two years,” he said. “Far further, I fear, than you.” 
“Terrance, I …” 
“Time moves forward, just as intended,” he said. He closed his eyes. 
“So you came back, then,” I said. “Can you tell me … ?” 
“How?” T.J. said. “I wish I knew. I pondered this for I don’t know how many years. It came to me early. Several days after she died, I was ready to throw that notebook down into a fire I lit in … a backyard, when out flies a strange envelope that escaped from an inside pocket. The letter inside was distinctly mine, I recognized it in an instant, but I had never written it. I was sure of that. The content was, well, very disturbing. It shook me to the core, but it took my mind off my mother’s death … and everything else. At least for a few days.”
“So you found your own suicide letter,” I said. “The one Sam had.” 
“You could call it that,” he said. “So, I see you knew about it. And so the timeline unravels.” 
“I only found out about it when your mom showed it to me … yesterday,” I said. 
“She had written something interesting on it that caught my attention, even more so than the note itself,” he said. “It wasn’t the type of thing you’d write in articulate letters below your son’s own suicide note. It said, ‘He’s not yet gone through time and space.’ And there was writing on the back, too. A strange poem. I didn’t know it. I became obsessed with the circumstances and her possession of that letter, and therefore, also concentrated on the only other thing I had preserved, a single page dated “April 13th” with my own note on it. I knew there was a connection between them. And so, the cycle continues.” 
“So you say twenty-two years have passed since you found this letter, and you still thought about it on a all the time?” I said. “Enough to send you back here?” 
“Well, you see, I didn’t have a whole else lot to do.” He turned his head and nodded in the direction of his cell. “I was serving twenty to life in the state pen.” He laughed. “I finally find a way to break free, and, well. Yes, some things never change.” 
“You? But why?” 
“For murdering you,” he said without hesitation. “The perfect crime, if you ask me. But, good to see such life-altering things can be undone. That does give me hope.” His voice and his face showed no change in emotion, no diversion from his tranquil irony that seemed so out of place in this situation. A sharp feeling similar to frostbite set into my limbs, a numbness that tingled and burned. “You don’t seemed too shocked,” he said. “Even then I could tell you saw it coming. You just looked up at me and so easily accepted your fate. But before you died, you told me about that night with my mother, about your journal, about your past. Everything, in its impossible way, was beginning to make more sense.” 
“How could you?” I whimpered. “How did you?” 
“With your father’s gun,” he said. “I was tearing through your house, looking for new journals, when I stumbled across it. I was there to say goodbye because they were going to ship me off to Washington and it was your fault. You were all alone … so tragic, in those last moments, with your bruised face and blood pulsing through the first bullet hole I put in your shoulder. Never was a great shot. But I had to finish the job. It was the merciful thing to do. So it was done. But when I learned I could trade universes, undo it all, I decided to become a reformed man. I decided to save everyone.” 
“You’re crazy,” I whispered. 
“Not anymore,” he said. “I have a new outlook.” 
“But the youth home. The night clerk.” 
“So I still have a small temper,” he said and shrugged. “I was just shocked at my surroundings. I expected to find myself the day before today, not holed up in that lockdown facility where it all began. I didn’t know if I still had time. I had to see if I still had time.”
“Why, T.J.?” I said. “Why did you want to kill me?” 
“T.J.,” he said, “was the one who killed you. Not me. He didn’t want to, though. It’s just that, from the way things looked at the time, you were in a very bad place. As far as he could see, Mother’s blood was on your hands. And then there was that cold-hearted book to deal with. He was just in a position where he could no longer tolerate the fact you existed. I’ve moved on, don’t worry.” 
“But after I told you what really happened … with the book, with your mom? You still did it?” 
“Oh, you didn’t tell me everything,” he said. “I guess it’s fair to say you never had a chance. You just kind of blurted it out in mostly-nonsensical pleadings. At the time, it didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t until later, when I started to unravel my mother’s mystery, and feel the spirit of her gift coursing through my blood, the power of those letters … then did I really piece together what you meant. You were coerced here, as I understand it, to save me. How sweet of her. How sweet, and misguided.” 
“And the river,” I said. “That was her trying to get her revenge on me. The river was her fault.” 
“You still look so tragic with those bruises on your face,” he said with a hint of a smile. “So beautiful.” He reached his hand through the bars again but I pulled away. “I figured out most the story. I don’t blame you anymore. If it makes you feel any better, it made me feel a whole lot worse about what I did.” 
“Not really,” I said. I had an urge to bolt away from those bars, to run into the mountains and never return. Sam was never able to stop T.J.’s suicide until she herself died. How did I know I wasn’t stuck in the same grisly loop? 
“Now you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” T.J. said. “Or at least you’re as white as one. Don’t worry, Terra. That corpse of yours belongs to another universe, not another time. See, what I learned beyond every clue my mother left behind is that she didn’t travel through time, exactly. She traveled through space — well, more like spaces of consciousness. It’s the sliding doors theory. Quantum physics, if you believe in that sort of thing. For everything you do, there are infinite consequences, and infinite branches of time and space where those consequences are acted out. It’s not synchronic, so it’s possible to see yourself at all points in your life if you travel far enough.”
“So you’re telling me this whole stupid charade … this goes on forever?” 
“Yes,” T.J. said. “Basically. But when your consciousness ends, your energy ends. That’s why memory forms the only portal back. That’s why we can only travel to points where our past choices and our present choices diverge. These letters were the catalyst … a physical memento that turns memory into reality.” “T.J., this is all so …” 
“Unbelievable? Science fiction? Ha, don’t I know it. And it’s impossible to explain, really. Like expecting a small child to understand just how far away the stars really are. Now I’m trying to tell you how close they really are. It can’t happen. I can’t make you understand. But, for what it’s worth, this is who I am. I mean, I’ve spent my entire adult life on the inside. She was my only connection to reality, to my memories. My dad left when I was a kid, and she raised me.” 
“So you moved through these portals of time and space, just to save her,” I said. “You were serving a prison sentence that could have followed you to the end of your life because you killed me, but the thing you wanted to stop was her death?”
 “Well, I knew I would stop myself from killing you in the process,” he said. “But, first thing’s first. Now, look at me. I’m a free man. And I’ve got an eternity of space in front of me. I no longer need to fear death, Terra. I no longer need to fear you.” 
“So what happens now?” 
 “I move on. Forward or backward.” 
“So you’re taking the back road again?” 
“Who knows?” he smiled. “Time will tell.” As T.J. drew a deep breath I listened to my heart race. The heavy thumping resonated through my veins, thick and hollow. His eyes were icy and dull, the same shades of gray that colored my fear. I thought of the many afternoons we stared at each other, never really seeing into the other’s hearts. T.J. and I had never before shared an emotion together, and suddenly, right there, against a greasy dumpster and a jail cell, we shared a hatred that ran so deep, so distant, that we could no longer walk among the living. Together we were shells, wrapped around the emptiness of a life and love we no longer owned. We were souls sucked into a universe beyond existence. Stripped of our selves, we were open graves with nothing to bury within. We were paper buildings swaying in the wind. We were roads paving the most barren corners of the desert, only to take the long way home. 
“So, Terra, how old are you?” T.J. said after a long silence. I slunk back, my movement echoing inside the hollow dumpster. 
“I’m twenty-eight,” I said. 
“So, what happened in your life, your universe, once we had our shallow and foolish love affair?”
 “You mean before or after you snuff me out?” I said, feeling venom build in my lungs. T.J. was unfazed. 
“That’s not a part of your life,” he said. “That’s a part of my life. You never lived through that mistake and anyway it was decades ago. Now, the summer Terra and T.J. spent together — I never experienced that. How did you put it in your book? That ‘poison summer.’ I never knew it, because you snuffed that out. So I just want to hear about it from you.”
“Nothing happened,” I said. “We stopped speaking. We graduated. I set to living the idle life. I never changed. We never saw each other again. I turned twenty-eight. Then I lost my mind and now I’m stuck here.” 
“So, you’re telling me, you really had nothing lose, when you came back here.” 
“Maybe. But I didn’t exactly come here on purpose. If I recall, I was dragged here.”
 He smiled. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Oh, you have to choose,” he said. “Time forces us forward. Only our memories can take us backward.” In that moment, he looked very old, with deep creases running beneath his eyes. I remembered what Sam told me about shadows. 
“Are you saying that I can go forward?” 
“Only as the Earth moves,” he said. 
“So, what are you trying to say? I can’t change the future. I already know that.” 
“Oh, you already have,” he said, holding the crumpled piece of my journal in the light. “Or did today turn out to be a day that you simply hung out with your friends and went dancing at a club? As long as you move and breathe, you have no choice but to change the universe. That’s infinity for you.” 
“You shouldn’t have come back here,” I said, the hollow thumping in my chest growing louder. “You shouldn’t have been given the chance. You shouldn’t have had the last two decades to waste away in jail. They should have put you in front of a firing squad.” 
“They don’t try seventeen-year-olds on capitol charges,” he said. “And anyway, I pleaded guilty.” 
“Did you ever feel any remorse? I mean, any real remorse? At all?” The wrinkles beneath T.J.’s eyes seemed to stretch toward his hairline, wispier, thinner than it had ever been.
“They put me in a dark prison,” he said. “I spent my life with the ghosts of the living, and that’s worse than death.” 
“So you felt regret,” I said, “for your own situation.” 
“I felt sad,” he said. “About ending your life.” 
“That’s not the same as remorse,” I said.
 “No, I guess it’s not.” 
“So when you kissed me, in your car … yesterday. You never meant that.” 
His face softened. “Love and hate, Terra, are divided by a very thin line that gets exponentially thinner. I should have guessed that you don’t understand that.” 
“If you’re saying that I’ve never been in love, I think you’re wrong.” 
“What … Jordan? You can’t honestly believe … after everything.” He watched me with a look of both envy and pity … the way an old man looks at a young man about to embark on a perilous journey. He knows the young man will experience life-altering adventure, but he also understands that life is wrought with suffering and only marked in the end only by the deliberate endurance of pain. 
“I know,” I said. “I think I always knew it wasn’t love. But you told me I had to make a choice, a reason to make it back here. So I’m telling you now. He was my choice. Your mom knew it before she brought me here. You, me, your mom. We’ve made some bad choices.”
T.J.’s face darkened. “You know nothing of my mom’s choices,” he growled. 
“I know she lived her life for the sole purpose of saving you,” I said. “She definitely wouldn’t have wanted to see you wither away in prison.” 
“You know, if she had thrown you in the river, and not the other way around,” he said, tightening his knuckles around the bars. “She threw us both in the river!” I shouted, a little too loud. A clang hit against the dumpster and I jerked my head around like a spooked cat. Another clang went off a distance down the alley and I jumped down from my perch. T.J. hoisted himself up to press his face against the bars. “Where are you going?” he yelled.
“You,” I whispered venomously. “When you get out of there, you better stay away from me.” 
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re more than enough poison for one eternity.”
Chapter Sixteen
Remembering April

I took a gimpy, running leap for the concrete wall and threw my arms over the top. I struggled to hoist my legs up, wincing as rolled over the top of the wall on my injured leg. I landed on my back with a thud, thrashing on the cold concrete to roll the piercing pain away. Just then, I heard a faint whisper. 
“Terra? Are you OK?” I turned my head. No light escaped over the concrete wall, but there was a dark outline stirring against its shadow. 
“Jordan,” I whispered hoarsely. “Did you distract the cops? Are they coming?” 
“I never went in,” he said, grabbing my shoulders to pick me up. 
“Huh? Then what, where have you been?” 
His fingers loosened beneath my arms as he heaved a sigh. “Um, I’ve just been waiting,” he said. 
“Right here?” 
“Yes.” 
“This whole time?”
 “Yes.” 
I jumped away from his grasp. His eyes had the same look of wonder they always had in my memories, of an infant placed on the cool summer grass for the first time in his life, feeling for the first time wet dew on his virgin skin. To me, Jordan would always be an innocent with no words to express his awe. I felt betrayed by that look. 
“I can stand here on my own, thanks,” I said. I took two swift steps to the fence and scrambled over. As I went up, Jordan held his hands beneath the bottom of my feet. “I’m OK, I’m fine,” I said. 
Jordan looked around. “No rush,” he said. “No one is coming. I’ll take the fall if they do.” 
I threw myself over the last fence. I could feel warmth returning to my limbs, even as the spring air cooled into the earliest morning hours. Searing pain gripped my thigh but I tried to hide it. A loud rattle echoed through the alley as Jordan cleared the fence. We moved quickly back to the street. He walked to the passenger’s side of his car, which was parked crooked against the curb of the empty street, and opened the door. Without a word he walked to the other side, slipped in, and started the car as I sat beside him. In the idling car engine turned roughly as though it were trying to speak. I strained not to make eye contact. Exhaust seeped in through the air vents; it smelled like cold mornings on my way to the bakery, and it tasted like ecstatic nights dragging the midtown strip. 
I stared ahead to the vacant street and the distant glow of an unchanging stoplight. I’ve been here before … on this same cold night, I thought. I’ve breathed this same reassuring pollution. Jordan’s knuckles held tightly to the steering wheel, and still we didn’t move. I watched and waited for the streetlight several blocks down to turn green, and it never did, and as it stayed still, so did we. Jordan and Terra had been here before, but it wasn’t this night, exactly. It was February — Valentine’s Day, to be exact, driving back from the All-Doors cover show in Ogden. The band was horrible. Terra and Jordan both knew it. They both knew they could have done a better job with bongo drums and a rubber band. Jordan hummed “People Are Strange” as they rolled away from the parking lot of the all-ages club and coffee shop. Terra joined in with the lyrics; where she couldn’t remember them, she made them up. As they drove north, Jordan popped his Doors mix tape in the stereo, and soon they were both shouting as loud as they could over the words of Jim Morrison, their own lyrics that would never belong. “People are strange, when you’re in danger, people will kill you, and not even cry. People are wicked. When you are haunted. Streets will wear you down. But won’t let you die.” And they laughed so hard that the exhaust-filled air started to burn Terra’s lungs. She could feel it for days afterward, coughing and hacking as she walked between classes. But she didn’t even care. They rolled through the sleepy streets, so late in the night that even the drunk run at the PNP had ended. She felt a wave of dread because there was nothing for them to do, nowhere for them to go, but home. Then at a stoplight, that stoplight, he turned to her with his faint, simple smile. She looked back at him with all of her longing and anticipation pushed aside, just looked at him, looked into his awestruck blue eyes as though there were nothing else beyond them. Without breaking that gaze he said, “This light is going to stay red all night. It’s like it doesn’t want us to get home.” And with that, with that sweet, simple smile, he leaned into the passenger seat and kissed her lightly on the lips. That was all. He broke away, still smiling, still silent, and the light still didn’t turn green. She had this dream, once, that it never did.
 A sudden jerk of the car moving into gear startled me back to the present. I looked right into Jordan’s bloodshot gaze. His lips stretched tightly against his cheeks, but he didn’t turn his head as he pressed lightly on the gas and let the car creep forward into the street. 
“Um, Jordan,” I said. “Don’t you want to watch the road?” 
He slammed on the brake, stopping the car mid-lane. A sad fury smoldered in his eyes. “Terra, you know that Ant’s still missing, right?” 
I had completely forgotten. The mention of her name made my blood congeal. The look on my face didn’t faze him. He took a deep breath and continued. “I talked to the cops again today, on the phone,” he said. “They’re dropping her case. Do you know why?” I didn’t move. “Because we have no proof she’s a real person. They went to the school. No school records. They checked out her name. Not a single person in their database has that name. I argued with them forever today. But they told me that you and I, everyone who was there that night, we’re all mistaken. Ant’s the same person they pulled out of the river, they said.”
His bottom lip quivered a bit and he cut himself off. I just sat frozen to the seat as the idling engine pumped more and more carbon monoxide into the cab. I didn’t know what he expected me to say. “I’m just really confused,” he said. “These last two days have been really weird, and now, and now …” A veil of water coated his pupils. He shut them quickly and turned his head forward again. I searched for something to say, but bewilderment stifled any words that tried to come out. Was he sad because he knew Ant was dead? He barely knew her as it was. And now after everything we’ve been through, he was crying over her in front of me. I inhaled thick breaths of polluted air and maintained my silence. He put the car back in drive and began to roll forward again. We came to the stoplight that remained red seemingly forever. I looked back and Jordan, his moist eyes fixed on the road, his face bathed in the reflection of the red light. I turned to the light and wondered if he was thinking at all about the early morning of February 15th, driving in a dream where the city lights never turn. I realized that of all of the memories I held in my heart, this was one of the few that still actually existed. 
“Let’s just get this out in the open,” he said, still watching the light. “I was listening, I mean, I was eavesdropping on you and T.J.” He breathed a loud sigh. “I snuck up and hid in front of the dumpster you were sitting on. I probably shouldn’t have, but I just wanted you to know, so maybe you’ll tell me what the hell is going on.” 
“Jordan, I …” Just then the stoplight turned green. I motioned for him to drive. 
“It doesn’t matter,” Jordan said. “No one’s around. I’m not moving.” 
“Fine,” I said. “No one is making you.” 
“You know, Terra, for someone who’s approaching thirty, you can still act like a real child,” he said. 
“Wait, What?” I stammered. Jordan held his steadfast gaze at the stoplight, which turned yellow and then back to red. “Jordan, I, I…” My blood was boiling. “So you were listening to me and T.J.” He nodded. “You heard all that, and, and actually believe it? Wait. I don’t care what you heard. No one in their right mind would believe any of that crap.” 
“Do you believe it?” 
“Well, I don’t expect myself to be sane. I do hope better for people still living in the rational world.” 
“What I can’t rationalize is why two people would talk about something so coherently when they believed they were having a private conversation, unless there was some element of truth to what they were saying,” he said, the brightness in his eyes fading slightly. “And you know, I’m tired, and I haven’t slept in two days, and who knows how late it is now, but when I found you in the river, I knew something was up. And then tonight came, and this whole mystery was forming. And when I heard that part of your explanation, well, it made a lot of sense. Call me crazy.” 
“You’re insane,” I said. “You actually believe that story about murder in the future and traveling through time?” 
“And if I were you, I’d stay far, far away from that T.J. character,” Jordan said. “I don’t care how much has changed since last night. He’s just nuts enough to do it.” 
“And what about Ant?” I said. 
“I don’t know what her story is,” he said. “She seemed like a cool chick, but now, I don’t know. I wanted to ask, but, something tells me I don’t want to know.” 
“That’s good,” I said, “because that one is way beyond my realm of understanding.”
“So,” he said. “What do you want to say?” 
“I don’t believe this,” I said. “I told Jamie, last night, right to her face, and she laughed at me.”
 “Well, even if it’s not true, it’s an amazing state of mind.” I looked at Jordan, bewildered. Of all the people I never wanted to know the truth.
 “What’s it like?” he said. “
What’s what like?’ “You know.” A smile crept across Jordan’s face. “The future. The great beyond. What am I like?”
 “I don’t know,” I said. “You and I pretty much lose touch not too long from now.”
“Really?” 
“Yup,” I said. “Give it about two more months, and I have absolutely no memories of you beyond that.”
 “That true?” His voice inflected with genuine disbelief. “Huh. And T.J.?” 
“Pretty much the same story.” “Huh,” he said again. “So, um, how long have you been here?” 
“In Pineview?” 
“No,” he said. “Here. Right now.” 
“About three days,” I said. “God, it seems like years have passed.” 
“That’s it? Three days?” 
“Yes,” I said. “I woke up on the floor of the PNP Wednesday night. I haven’t stopped reeling since.” 
“So that night up in the canyon?” 
“That was me,” I said. 
“And that time a couple weeks ago when we played Scrabble at Dre’s house?” 
“Not me,” I said. “Well, me, but… not.” I searched back in my memory for any time I played Scrabble at Dre’s house. I couldn’t find it, and decided in an icy moment that he was probably thinking of someone else. 
“Wow,” Jordan said. “That’s amazing.” The stoplight turned green again. “We’re like two blocks from a police station,” I said. “We should probably get moving.” 
“Yeah,” Jordan said. He touched the gas and we crept away. Soon fresh air was coming through the vents again. “So,” he said as we left downtown and rolled back into the suburbs. “So no one you hang out with now is part of your life ten years down the road.” 
“No,” I said. “Well, Jamie and I still spend a lot of time together. Most of our time together.” 
“You’re not married?” “No. Not unless you count Jamie.” I tried to laugh. 
“No kids?” 
“Nope.” 
“What do you do?” 
“I bake,” I said. “Bread and rolls and stuff — for a bakery.” 
“Are you still drawing?” 
“Not really,” I said. “For fun, still, I guess.” 
Jordan reached up and scratched a patch of light hair on his chin. “So all that stuff adults pump into us about following our dreams?” 
“Really is a load of crap.” I laughed out loud. Jordan smiled, but he looked sad again. 
“So why here?” he asked. “Why now?” 
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess you heard T.J. tell me that I chose this moment.” Jordan nodded. “I don’t know,” I said. “It was subconscious I guess.” 
“You know, for being crazy and all, you’re sure being clearheaded about this.” 
“We clearheaded crazies, we’re the craziest lot.” Jordan laughed. The car turned onto my street. 
“Don’t stop in front of my house,” I said. “If my mom finds out that I’ve been out, she’ll kill me.” 
“Still worried about your curfew?” he said. 
“Well in this world, I may have psychopath killers and their angry moms on my tail, but I’m still a dumb kid.” 
“Oh, you’ll always be a dumb kid to me,” Jordan said. The mood had become surprisingly light, and I felt relieved. Jordan crept a few houses beyond mine and stopped. He turned to me with a strange look on his face. “So what you said to me, in the hospital. Did you mean it?” 
“Say what?” 
“Well,” he shifted uncomfortable in his seat and looked out the side window. 
“You told me you loved me.” 
“I didn’t say that exactly. Anyway, I retracted it tonight, right?” 
“Not exactly,” Jordan said. 
“Well, I think I was on a lot of pain medication. Don’t I get a free retraction?” 
“It’s just that, when you said it last night, that’s what I thought too,” Jordan said. “I wanted blamed your meds, and they crazy stuff that happened, but I admit I was scared about what you said. But then after tonight, after all this, well, I realized. It could very well be a decade later to you. You really could be a twenty-eight-year-old person who hasn’t talked to me at all since this moment. And yet, you still think about it. That has to mean something.” 
I leaned back and pressed my scalp against the cold window. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” I said truthfully. 
“So you’re admitting to me that you’re a single baker that still lives in Pineview, and we haven’t talked in ten years, and you still think about me,” he said hesitantly. 
“Well,” I said. “I’ve always thought of myself as a simple loser, but you put it so eloquently.”
 Jordan laughed. “It’s just that I would have never known you felt that way.” 
He reached out and brushed his hand over my arm. His cold fingers sent a rippling sensation over my skin and I shivered involuntarily. “Did you feel that way a few months ago? Or, I mean, did you feel that way when you really were sixteen?” 
Jordan dangled his hand over the headrest just inches from my face as I leaned forward and stared into his halting blue eyes, dotted with flecks of gold light. Over time, Terra had forgotten the specifics of his face. As the years drained away she thought she remembered it; but really, she was only seeing ghosts … shadows … transparent images moving through the dark. I searched his eyes for that moment of clarity, the moment when I could say I loved him and mean it, and have it mean something for him, Jordan, and not the ghosts haunting my memories. But Terra stood in my way, pleading with me to react quickly, to make my move, to proclaim an undying love I could scarcely understand. She held my thoughts to a drenching Saturday in May, when a downpour hit the city park so hard it sent a flood of black water gushing through the streets. Terra was huddled with a crowd in a pavilion, moving closer together as water slammed the aluminum roof until she was sure it would collapse. A wild-eyed band of teenagers clutched their instruments atop a picnic table, ragged T-shirts and long hair drenched in sweat, standing as still as statues while their amplifiers crackled against the metallic roar. A deafening clap of thunder shook the ground, and everybody in the pavilion screamed. The wave of terror in Terra fueled something like a soaring anticipation she could hardly contain. She looked up at the roof flecked with chipped paint, watched it tremor and willed its collapse. The sound mimicked hundreds of thousands of hands clapping at once, a beautiful white noise so loud and constant it was the closest she ever came to experiencing perfect silence. The crowd closed in as she struggled through it, pushing her way to the makeshift stage. She turned around to climb atop the table and stood side by side with its stoic musicians. As they looked toward the horizon, she could see what they saw. Time stood still in that crystal moment; the faces in the audience were locked in wonder. No one spoke, and no one moved. Terra believed in that moment that time could and in fact did stand still. Then, suddenly, a small ripple erupted from the epicenter of the crowd and broke away. Terra recognized instantly the two figures of Jordan and Dre, arms strained and fingers stretched toward the sky, sprinting into the storm. They jumped away from the concrete floor and splashed toward the quick obscurity of the downpour, their stiff figures faltering, tripping, but never slowing. And like that, they were lost in the blur. Beyond all the terror and anticipation, Terra felt a floodgate of childlike joy pour over her shivering body. She jumped down to the back of the stage, and already feeling a soaking mist envelop her, moved quickly toward the threshold. Then, he was there, at first only a shapeless figure moving in from the side. But he got there first and intercepted her, grabbing both her shoulders and shaking her a little too violently. 
“Where are you going?” T.J.’s lips had mouthed. Terra heard nothing. “Outside!” she yelled back. T.J. mouthed something else that looked like “lightning” and pointed threateningly toward the inundated city park. Terra didn’t care. His warning meant nothing. “I want to go outside!” she yelled. T.J. held on tighter. Another blast shook the pavilion as the pounding rain grew softer. She could hear T.J. yelling, “This storm’s right on top of us. Are you nuts?” 
“Let go!” she yelled. The rain subsided to a light drizzle, and then a mist, and then nothing so quickly that the crowd remained still even as the storm disappeared completely. T.J. loosened his grip as Terra felt an overwhelming regret creep in, remorse for a lifetime of mundane events, events that led up to and eventually crushed the one moment that truly mattered. Terra looked at T.J. with a venomous hatred she had never before felt, and at the time didn’t know how to direct. He was wearing that same flannel shirt he always wore and an infuriating ‘I told you so’ smile, as if that last clap of lightening would have somehow found its way to her. She couldn’t face him so she turned and stomped away, struggling back into the crowd as the band hesitantly lifted their guitars and began to play. Once again, terrible, terrible noise echoed through the pavilion as the crowd tore away from its paralysis and began to move. Terra threw herself angrily against the thrashing mass as the band picked up speed, all the while trying to look away from T.J., who still stood in the back, never taking his eyes off her. In the midst of directionless violence Terra stole glimpses of the park, now carpeted in silty black puddles. A faint rainbow formed in the emerging sunlight. As the crowd crashed against her, she watched that rainbow grow brighter and clearer. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Every negative emotion passed through and released. The clouds cleared a path for the sunlight. She was going to tell him, she thought. She was going to tell Jordan how she really felt. All those months of unanswered questions, of peer-driven pride and flailing regret, felt as if they had washed away. All that was left was clarity, the exhilarating simplicity of her situation. She was finally going to ask Jordan if he wanted to hang out again. She was going to find out if he still wanted to hang out with her. She wasn’t going to let him disappear into the blur. She was going to tell him, finally, that she liked him. Maybe even loved him. 
Only Jordan never returned from the storm. She waited and watched as the rainbow subsided, as the glistening sun disappeared behind the clouds and finally behind the horizon, as the band pack up its instruments and the crowd dispersed. T.J. came to collect her and led her to his car. She scoured the muddy ground for his footprints and scanned the parking lot for Jordan’s Buick. Nothing. Jordan and Dre never returned to the concert. From nothing, nothing comes. 
Those stilted spring months didn’t matter anymore. They were long ago, and yet lost to the nonexistent future. Years had passed, and Jordan was looking right at me with shimmering flecks of gold in his eyes, smiling because he could see exactly what I had wanted to say all along before I ever had a chance to say it. “I did feel that way, Jordan,” I said slowly. “I guess, after all this time, yeah. I did.” 
Jordan’s mouth curled into a silly half-grin. “Well, that’s really, I mean, that’s kinda cool,” he said. 
I smiled back. “Do you really think so?” 
“Yeah,” he said, moving his hand from the seat to brush a strand of blue hair away from my face. I sat paralyzed in place, eyebrows arched and nostrils flared as he leaned in closer. His hot breath smelled of cinnamon and strands of curly hair clung to beads of sweat on his forehead. He closed his eyes. This had happened in my mind so many times, and in my life so many more — the faces always changed, but the awkward silence, the clunking movements, the breath-holding anticipation had become such a constant it no longer caused my heart to race. Only this time, this time, it was really his mouth that closed around the chapped surface of my own and it was the actual salt on his lips that I tasted. Without hesitating, he moved in closer as I raised my trembling hand to his face. He ran his fingers through my hair and clasped the back of my neck. My veins turned cold, my skin numb, my heart stopped as his lips brushed across my cheeks and slowly moved deeper, all the while my eyes wide open and blind to the swirling darkness outside.
Chapter Seventeen
Life After

Terra never doubted the sunrise. She had no reason to. She noticed it nearly every morning, could predict its arrival almost to the minute and sometimes even took the time to watch it. Those were the quiet mornings — with ovens blazing and nothing to do, Terra would grab her obnoxious coffee concoction and step outside to the coldest part of morning, just before the blazing orb peaked over the mountains. 
Pressed against Jordan’s moist body, I thought of her sipping from a steaming cup and counting silently in her head the seconds that passed before life’s one true constant erupted into view. She took subtle satisfaction in the celestial cycle; it meant she was alive. I leaned in Jordan’s unconscious embrace and realized I no longer had that same assurance. Terra used to watch the sunrise complacently even as life disintegrated around her, because to her, the passage of time — disintegration — meant life was true. I watched silver clouds drift above then dark horizon and felt fear, because I understood that life is simply a portal to infinity, one that opens and closes. Trapped in the threshold, a person could stand still forever, waiting for the sun to rise.
 Jordan snored softly as the digital clock on his stereo clicked to 4:33. I blinked slowly and pressed my cheek deeper into the freckled surface of his shoulder. My bandaged leg still stung where his skin met mine. The circulation had ceased flowing through my left arm, wedged beneath his torso, but I dared not move. I feared, more than the sunrise, more than the cold movement of time, that this moment hung over the abyss of eternity, and if Jordan woke up, it would cease to exist. So I lay very still, fighting nagging pains in my body that demanded I move away. I thought of victory, but could not bring myself to celebrate. I thought of love, but could not bring myself to rejoice. I had drifted beyond feeling and emotion. Somewhere, deep inside, Terra was laughing and dancing, extending her middle finger to the cruel face of fate. She knew she managed to swim through a cyclone of self-fulfilling prophecy and emerge in the calm, wrapped in the innocent arms of her life’s love. But I still groped for faith, knowing in my heart I could bring no such innocence. 
The minutes crawled but refused to stop. Jordan stirred slightly and draped his hand over my side. I carefully pulled my head onto the reclined headrest to look into the stillness of his face. His moist lips curled and his long eyelashes quivered slightly as if lost in a dream. I thought of an ethereal song written for the idle listener and let the tune play through my head: “Waiting for something to open my eyes. I wait for the feeling to know I’m alive.” 
The words evoked no arcing wave of joy, only more fear, and I closed my eyes to the distant hope of sleep. Jordan’s body shuddered as he ran his fingers across my shoulder and pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I think I fell asleep.” 
I opened my eyes, mere inches from his. I raised my eyebrows as Jordan’s face stretched into a smile. “Well I … I …” he trailed off. He raised his body enough to free my arm, then inched closer. “I’m glad you’re here.” 
“Me, too,” I said. 
“That was … unexpected.” He rested his elbow on the seat and propped his head up. “Have you … done anything like this before?” I laughed out loud in spite of myself. Warm blood was beginning to return to my arm, its numbness working its way to my head. 
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, you know.” 
Jordan laughed hesitantly and rolled to his back, reaching one of his long legs over the shifter. “Oh, right,” he said. “I guess that would be weird if you hadn’t.” 
“So you’re still buying that story,” I said. “That wasn’t just an elaborate ploy to get me into the bucket seat of your Buick?” 
He laughed. “If anything, I’m the one being taken advantage of,” he said. “Why’s that?”
“Well, technically speaking, you and I being together is an illegal offense in this state.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “You’re eighteen, aren’t you?” He laughed and shook his head. “Seventeen?” Straddling the small space between the two seats, he reached out and rolled me on top of his torso, wrapping his arms around my lower back. I gasped with a quick shot of pain but quickly masked it with a giggle. “
You’re amazing,” he said. “Right now, I believe in anything. Aliens could pull over our heads in a UFO made of peanut butter and it wouldn’t seem strange.” 
“For me, that would be a welcome shot of normal,” I said. He glanced sleepily away. Suddenly he sat up, inadvertantly shoving me into the passenger’s seat. “4:44!” he cried out. “Geez, when did it get so late? We need to get home.” 
“Can’t it wait a few more minutes?” I asked. A purple strip of light had ascended beyond the horizon, already washing the world of its cold gray with the first semblance of color. “I mean, we’ve been out this late already.” 
“No way,” he said. “My mom gets up at five every morning to go running. She could jog right by here. Damn, she’s going to notice the car is missing.” He squirmed from beneath me and rolled back into the driver’s seat, quickly pulling his jeans from the floor. 
“Okay,” I said, feeling utterly drained. “I guess I’ll get going, then.” He nodded tersely as I pulled my shirt from the back seat and contorted to pull my pajama bottoms back on, wincing again at the pain in my leg. 
“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked, now fully dressed and blindly stabbing his keys at the ignition as he watched me writhing into those stupid cotton snowmen. 
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll go now. Thanks for the ride.” 
“Don’t look so sad,” he said. “I really need to get home. You do, too — remember, grounded, curfew? I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” 
“Okay,” I said. He stretched out to give me an awkward kiss on my cheek as I turned for the door. “Call me,” he said as he ground the starter. A cold breeze hit my skin as I stumbled into the emerging dawn. My back was still turned when Jordan’s Buick rolled away, headlights still dark but engine roaring. A red glow underscored the horizon, a sure sign, I remember my dad telling Terra, of a coming storm. My leg throbbed; I limped toward my parent’s fence and with all the strength I had left, threw my good leg over and rolled toward the other side. I carefully slid open the back door and crept up the stairs toward my room, toward the sweet disguise of sleep. My heart was pumping lava; its pounding rhythm was the only thing I could hear as I crawled into my bed and pulled the stack of comforters over my head. I hated myself for squandering my eternal moment, for the fact it was over. “So much for the sunrise,” I whispered, glancing at the orange now seeping in through my blinds. “What have you done?” 
A loud noise erupted from the next room that I recognized as my brother’s snoring. He would go on to become the successful one in the family. Full scholarship in pre-law to the University of Seattle at eighteen. Married at twenty-two. Graduated from law school by twenty-three. Joined a prestigious practice as a clerk in Salt Lake City before his twenty-fourth birthday, earning the undying praise of my parents, whom he would visit in their northern hometown only during Christmas and funerals. He missed our grandma’s second wedding, for crying out loud, and still Terra had to sit through the whole reception and hear about how great he was, how he and his beautiful wife were trying for a baby, and, oh, so-and-so’s brother’s friend has a cousin that’s still single and an accountant to boot. I laughed out loud because to me he was a stupid thirteen-year-old kid with no sense of responsibility, just snoring away in the next room that was probably trashed with his muddy soccer uniform and obscene piles of baseball cards. But he could sleep soundly, secure in his future, because things will play out exactly as they always have. 
T.J.’s multiple universes theory was useless. Fate prevails. The sun sets and rises. A perfect circle leads back to the beginning. I shivered beneath the weight of my covers as the image of T.J.’s hateful face prowled my thoughts. I welcomed it, for it pushed away the nagging regret that surrounded my night with Jordan, and my own confusion as to why I should feel that way. It was everything I had ever wanted, and yet I had a sinking feeling that it was somehow nothing. 
“All for nothing,” I whispered. “From nothing, nothing comes.” 
Then, out of old habit, instinct even, I reached beneath my bed and tore open my red notebook, my old sanctuary, and stared at the blank pages. I grabbed a marker from the table and scribbled my last words to my last faithful friend, my journal — who was no longer trustworthy — to say goodbye: “From nothing, nothing comes.” 
I had no comprehension of my anger, no reason for it, but I seethed as the black ink bled into the thin pages. I slammed the book shut and threw it against the wall, loud enough that my brother snorted and stopped snoring. Feeling no more satisfied, I climbed out of bed to pick it up. I marched out to the front yard, where two tin garbage cans waited patiently to be taken away by the Monday truck. I ripped off the lid and wedged the book between two plastic garbage bags, enjoying the clang as I dropped the lid back down. Feeling sleepless but exhausted, I tiptoed back to the house and slithered into my bed. 
••••••

 “Terra! Terra! You sleeping?” My eyelids fought through a thick crust of mucous and opened to my little brother’s snot-nosed face only inches from mine. 
“Go away,” I said. “Mom and I are going to church,” he said. “Are you coming?” 
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to.” 
“Mom says you have to come.” 
“Tell mom my leg still hurts,” I said. “I’m not going.” 
“OK,” he said. “But mom says you’re sleeping too much.” 
“Tell mom I couldn’t sleep much last night. My leg hurt. Tell her I’m going to sleep now.” 
“Mom!” he screamed before he even left the room. “Terra’s not going!” 
“Is Dad here?” I croaked before he could leave. 
“He’s at work,” my brother said said. My mom popped her head in the door as he slipped around her. “Are you feeling OK, honey?” she asked. 
“Not so good, Mom,” I said. 
“OK,” she said. “You’re dad’s not here, so if you need anything, just give Natalie next door a call. Her number’s on the fridge.” 
“Aren’t you taking your Blackberry with you?” I asked. 
“My what?” 
“Oh, um, nevermind,” I said, pulling my pillow over my head as she shut the door. Light seeped in from the blinds. My alarm clock read 8:55. My head was spinning, my hip throbbing and I still felt caught up in a lie. I crept to the front door and watched through the peephole until my mom and brother drove away. The house had the scattered silence of a Sunday — a cereal bowl, still half-filled with soggy corn flakes, sat on the kitchen table, which was buried beneath some kind of newspaper explosion. Ads covered the kitchen floor with several coupons already cut out, and the desktop computer was paused on some ancient black and orange video game. Someone left the window cracked, and I could hear birds singing. Sunlight streamed in, bathing the counter in streaks of light. I stuck my face to the cold glass of the windowpane and watched a sprinkler rotate over a bed of daffodils in the backyard. A soft knock hit the front door several times. Startled, I grabbed the rubber band strewn among the Sunday paper and pulled my hair back as I limped toward the door.
“Jason!” I gasped as the door swung open. Jason stood on the porch clutching a small bouquet of daisies, wearing a suit and a sheepish smile. I imagined my own wrinkled cloths that hadn’t been changed in more than a day and my static fly-away hair. I could feel my skin on my face flusing red. 
“Hi, Terra,” he said. As I backed away from the doorstep he held his arm out. 
“I can’t stay long,” he said. “I was just on my way to church. But I just wanted to come by and say that I heard about what happened on Friday night and I’m really sorry that you got hurt and that I left like that and everything. I just left because, well, I met up with some guys from the wrestling team at the restaurant and then I thought you ditched me, and well, I’m sorry. I had no idea what was going to happen.” He raised the flowers to my face. I took to bouquet and quickly lowered them to my side. 
“Thanks,” I said. “Um, are you sure you don’t want to come in?” 
“No,” he said. “I’ve gotta go. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” 
“OK,” I said. “I appreciate it.” “
How are you feeling? Are you hurt much?” 
“Just some scratches,” I said. “So you up for some more basketball on Monday?” 
“Sure,” I said. 
“Great,” he said, widening his smile. “I’ll see you then.” 
“Okay,” I said. He turned around and bounded back to a large station wagon idling in the driveway, filled with people that were probably his family. I waved as they pulled away and quickly shut the door, listening to my heart pound in my chest. 
“Ugh, embarrassing,” I groaned as I threw the daisies on the counter and habitually began sifting through the newspaper. I skimmed the headlines and laughed at a few of the ads, including one for a “laser disc player, only $999.” I might have continue to suffer through one humiliating experience after the next, I thought, but I was never going to spend a grand on something I could get brand new for forty dollars five years later. 
“The only thing more fleeting than happiness,” I said, “is new technology.” I picked up the phone receiver, attached to the wall by a curling cord, and dialed Jamie’s parent’s number. She picked up on the second ring. 
“Hey,” she said. “How are you feeling?” 
“A little better,” I said. “I had kind of a strange night again last night, too. Wouldn’t call this the best weekend of my life. Do you want to go get some coffee or maybe a huge Sunday breakfast or something? Maybe we could eat away our troubles.” 
“I’d love to,” she said. “But my brother’s performing in some kind of choir thing in like an hour and I think my mom is going to make me go to it. Maybe later tonight I’ll drop by your house? I’ll bring some ice cream and another Slurpee for the sickie.” 
“Well, okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you tonight.” 
“But, just so I’m briefed, long story short, what happened?” she said. 
“Well,” I said. “Jordan and I, well, I think we got back together last night.” 
“How can you be back together with someone you were never together with in the first place?” she asked. 
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I really threw myself out in the open last night, and I’m worried that he won’t return my feelings.” 
“That’s always a risk, but … oh wait …what?” she called out beyond the phone. “Terra, I gotta go. My mom’s calling me.” 
“Oh, one last thing,” I said. “Did you know T.J.’s in jail?” 
“Wait, what?” Jamie said. “He couldn’t be. He dropped by my house like five minutes ago. Oh, I meant to tell you. He said he didn’t want to see you, but wanted to give me something of yours.” 
“He dropped by your house? But how?”
 “It’s in a box and it’s sealed. I don’t know what it is. Oh, I really have to go. My mom is going to eat a brick. I’ll talk to you tonight, okay?” 
“Wait, Jamie?” I heard the other line click. My head was spinning again. None of that made any sense. I plopped down on a kitchen chair and stared vacantly at a cereal box, seeing nothing. T.J. must have been released from jail, I thought, and of course he wouldn’t come see me. But what could he have of mine? What was he doing now? I wove through my confusion, and in the midst of it all I imagined Jordan, lying in the endearingly childish race car bed inside his room. I envisioned him stretched out in satisfaction, thinking about night together, of a science fiction story come vividly to life, just unreal enough to leave behind in the dust of sleep. 
In a more subdued fantasy, I realized it was more than likely he had been drawn into the ecstasy of last night by his own fantasy-driven, drama-hungry consciousness, and not by me. I collapsed in a chair and hit my head repeatedly against the table surface, trying the erase the image from my mind, of Jordan at the hospital in Pocatello, staring into my pleading eyes, smiling politely, and disappearing completely. All the events that separated then from now seemed woefully unreal. The youth home, the police station, the alley, the sweat-coated vinyl of Jordan’s car. Could it possibly have been my own fantasy driven dream, my own drama-hungry creation? Could it be I’m just compensating for the countless times Terra embraced yet another emotional drifter through her life and pretended he was Jordan? It was hard to see the line, anymore, where memory ended and reality began.
Chapter Eighteen
Tomorrow Comes

I must have fallen asleep again on the table. A small tapping from downstairs alerted me to a warm puddle of drool beneath my cheeks. I ignored the mundane sound at first, but something seemed oddly persistent about it. I shot up after a second tapping, with a piece of the newspaper still stuck to my cheek. I pulled it down and walked toward the source until I arrived at the garage door. I pressed my ear against the wood and heard it again, much louder this time. I grabbed the doorknob and opened it slowly, expecting to meet a woodpecker or my parent’s crazy cat on the other side. Instead, I nearly choked as my face met T.J.’s, eyes-bloodshot and streaked in tears, with his fist raised to the door. 
“What … what …” I shook my head violently. “What are you doing here?” 
“I didn’t know if you were home,” he said. His voice sounded timid, but determined. He was wearing the same rumpled pair of jeans and donated T-shirt he had on in jail last night.
“Why … how did you get out of jail?” I said. 
His mouth turned into a sad smile. “Out on bail,” he said. “My uncle in Spokane actually came through.” 
“Why are you here now?” I demanded. 
“I thought you might have left,” he said. “I wanted to get the rest of this.” He held up a crinkled piece of paper, yellowed around the edges. 
“That again?” I said. “You know I don’t have that journal anymore.” 
“No, this,” he said. “He unfolded the paper, torn right down the middle. It was blurred beyond recognition, but behind a black smear of ink I could make out the word “nothing.”
“That’s not my journal page,” I said. “Well, yes it is,” T.J. said, holding it closer to my face. “I believe you wrote this. I’m sorry I took it, but I need it back.” 
“What are you talking about?” I said. 
“Wait,” he said. “I remember now.” He darted from the garage doorstep toward the front lawn, stopping at the garbage cans and throwing off the lids. He threw out black bag after black bag, ripping through the contents as I walked into the garage, dumbfounded. What was he doing? What could he possibly want? And then, I remembered, too. 
“From nothing, nothing comes,” he yelled, stomping back from the garbage cans empty-handed. 
“Where is it?” 
“You know where my journal is?” I squeaked. “It’s not there!”
 “It has to be there,” I said. “I put it there last night.” 
He crumpled the torn piece of paper in his clenched fist. “It’s gone?” he growled. “You mean I already have it?” I stared at him, bewildered. He ran back to the garbage cans and kicked them violently. 
“It’s gone?” he yelled. I backed up quickly as he turned and sprinted toward me. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the house, slamming the garage door behind him. His eyes were filling with tears again. “Terra, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I stole it, but I need it. I don’t know where I can go without it.” 
“What is it?” I whispered, my voice filled with fear. “
Your journal entry,” he said. He was panting slightly. “The wrong one. It’s the wrong one!” He shook his head. “I can’t believe this!”
My blood suddenly started flowing cold. “From nothing, nothing comes,” I said. “That’s what I wrote last night. How did you get that?” 
He dropped the wadded-up paper and ran both his hands through his hair. “I lied,” he said. “I broke out of jail. Faked a seizure and everything.” He laughed. “Can you believe it? What am I going to do now?” 
“What?” I said, my voice wavering. “You did what?” 
He looked up. I could see color flowing back into his face. “That’s right,” he said. “It worked once. I knew it would work again.” He knelt down on the ground to pick the paper up. “You see, the first time was shortly after you left me alone, when I vowed I never wanted to see you again.” He stood up and looked me right in the eyes. “But I lied about that, too. I did want to see you again. It had been so long … I couldn’t help it. They were wheeling me out on a stretcher when I jumped up and ran, oh, I ran. I didn’t stop until I reached your house — but what I found.” Tears began to trickle down his face. “I saw you, Terra. I saw that.” 
“You did what?” 
“That’s right, you and that worthless …” He wiped his face with the back of his wrist and smiled. “Well, I did a damn good job of restraining myself that night. I watched him drive away. I watched you walking back into the house. Then, after only a few minutes, you came back out, holding something I had only seen once before.” 
“My journal,” I said. 
“You just threw it away,” he said. “These are your memories, they’re all you have now, and you just tossed them away. I took my opportunity. I didn’t know what it could do for me, but I was hopeful. That’s one thing you can say about me, Terra. I’m hopeful.” 
“So you thought you could use it to go back again, the way your mom did,” I said. “You thought you could use it to save your mom.” 
“Time stands still with you, it’s amazing,” he said. “They did take me back to jail. And, yeah, they weren’t too happy about that stunt I pulled. They took your journal away from me. But before they did, I was able to rip this out.” He held up the wadded piece of paper. “I stuffed it in my mouth so they wouldn’t find it. I didn’t know where it would take me.
But,” he sighed, “it brought me here. Too late, again. And now the whole thing is gone.” I looked down at his hands, clenched and trembling. The paper reminded me of some cursed text from a horror movie, the kind the obligatory disposable character finds in his the basement, the mysterious document that unleashes a hellstorm of demons as the character screams his last agonizing scream before the screen fades to black. It haunted me instantly. 
“Isn’t it interesting,” he said, “how the illusion of absolute freedom only makes you realize you’re a slave?” 
“What do you mean?” 
“I mean,” he said, sounding angrier, “that we move backward in time, and still can we do nothing to change our futures.” 
“What do you know of my future? What are you trying to change with that paper?” I asked. He ignored me. 
“You were right,” he said. “That night in the alley. My mother doesn’t want this for me.” I noticed not only his hands were trembling, his arms, his shoulders, even the skin on his face shook. 
“T.J.?” 
“My name is Terrance,” he said as his eyes shot wide open. I stumbled against the arm of the couch and fell into it. T.J. mustered a sinister chuckle as his face disintegrated into deep-set wrinkles. He smiled to reveal a grin of gray teeth. His mane thinned and disappeared, leaving short strands of wiry hair around his temples. His stomach bulged out and hung over his pants, and his arms bulked up almost instantly, their blotchy leather skin stretched over rippling muscles. In a breathless moment he had transformed from a disheveled, beanpole teenager into an overweight 40-something marred deeply by life. I gasped.
“Terrance,” he repeated. “And you know what I do know of your future, Terra? I know it’s based in a memory that no longer exists. Just as I’m based in a memory that no longer exists.” He held his hands up to his face. “I am what I am. You are what you are.” 
“What did you do?” I said. 
“This ‘nothing’ is yours, Terra,” the older, yellowed, crumpled T.J. said. “Your memory. You life. You created it. I’m just passing through.” He walked toward me until he stood directly over me, my legs still slung over the arm of the couch. He reached out to stroke my cheek and run his thick fingers through my hair. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “If only I could return before all this darkness began.” 
“Maybe you could,” I squeaked. I hated myself for sounding so weak. I wanted to make him go away. Anything to make him go away. 
“I have things,” I said. “Other kinds of journal entries with emotional connections. Maybe they would work for you. Get you back to a better time.”
His gray smile curled. “Do you?” I nodded. T.J. gripped my shoulder tightly with his muscular arm. “Show me,” he said. 
I jumped up and lead him up a flight of stairs to my parents’ bedroom. I opened the closet and pulled down a large file box labeled in black marker “Terra, School Projects.” T.J.’s older body stood over me as I shuffled through a disarray of math homework, spelling tests and finger paintings. Finally I arrived at something I remembered, a comic book drawn by a bewildered second grader, devastated by thoughts of her own mortality. I held the dog-eared pages in my hands as T.J. looked over my shoulder and said nothing. I pictured seven-year-old Terra curled up in the back of that very closet, piled among her mother’s worn-out shoes and dusty dress coats, scribbling intently the story of Wondergirl who could fly away from earthquakes, who could swim across the stormy sea, who could conquer a thousand perilous journeys and never die. I pulled off the rubber band that bound it and flipped through the book until I came upon a crayon-rendered image of a round-headed cartoon in a cape, hugging a dark-haired man, titled “Wondergirl meets her future husband.” 
“This,” I said. “I remember this.” 
T.J. reached around and grabbed the book. “This?” he laughed. “How old were you?”
“Seven,” I said. “Maybe eight?” 
“Why did you make it?” 
“I was afraid of death.” He held it up and pointed to the wide-eyed character. 
“This isn’t you,” he said. 
“No, that’s Wondergirl.” 
“No, I mean, it’s not you who made this. Is it?” 
“No, I guess not. It was Terra, the one who made the memories in that journal you destroyed.” 
“Seven?” he said. 
“You can go back … and save your mom. Stop her from ever finding me. Stop yourself from meeting me.” He continued flip through the book. 
“It’s funny,” he said. “I hated you for decades. And then I saw you that night, looking at me from behind those bars, and then all that old stuff didn’t matter so much.” 
“So … so you’ve forgiven me?” I asked timidly. 
“You know, if there’s one thing I’ve always believed, it’s that we create our own reality. We make our own stories to make sense of the void surrounding us.” He looked up. “I believe it now more than ever.” 
“So what are you saying?” 
“Most people think life is a series of doors that we actively walk through,” he said. “I’m saying it’s a seat behind a window.” He carefully unfolded the journal entry and placed it inside the comic book, next to the drawing I showed him, and closed it. “We’ll see whatever it is out there through this window. But eventually, we reach out to touch it and realize it’s just a piece of glass. What we see, our lives, it’s all simply pictures in our minds.” 
“That just doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “You can’t write life off that easily.” 
“No?” he said. “Tell me, what do you see?” I shook my head. “I see a middle-aged man. You, what you probably looked like before you came here.” 
He smiled. “That’s what I thought.” He walked toward me and lifted me from the pile of papers sprawled on the ground. As he held my shoulders, I could still smell cinnamon and salty laundry detergent. The comic book crumpled against my shoulder blade. 
“So this, this is just an illusion, right?” I said. “How do you do it?” 
“The people in dreams see us as we see ourselves,” he said, pulling me closer against his chest. He let go and turned around, inhaling deeply as his withered body began to deflate. Wild hair sprouted back onto his head and as he turned to me his youthful skin stretched over his face. The pitch of his voice rose as he spoke. “Come with me,” he said excitedly.
 “Come? Where?” I said, rubbing my shoulders as I backed further away. He looked up.
“A new window,” he said. “You and I are trapped looking out of this one. It’s dirty. The glass is smeared. Is this the life you want, Terra? Is this what you really want?” 
“You’re going back somewhere, and you want me to come with you?” I stammered. He nodded and moved toward me. I took a few more steps back. “I … I can’t,” I said. 
“Why not?” he said. “Look at us. We already share all of this. This time, this universe... we’re so amazingly connected to it all. Let’s grow up together. Live our lives as if this mess never happened.” 
“No,” I said. “I can’t just leave here.” 
He inched closer. “But you have to.” 
“What about everything you said … about having to choose … about being alone behind your window? Why do you need me?” 
“Because,” he said. “My universe doesn’t exist without you now. This is going to sound like a cheesy lyric or some terrible Valentines card, but in this context,” he held the book in both hands. “I really mean it. As soon as I decided to travel into your memories, you became my world.” 
“I thought I was the only one in my world,” I said. Jordan threw to book down and walked forcefully back to the closet. He ripped down hangers, flinging dress shirts and ties across the room until he turned back to me holding a glistening silver gun. 
“What … what are you doing?” I whispered. 
“So do you actually think I’ll turn back to another time, another universe, and you’ll be rid of me?” he said. “Do you plan on just running back into his arms?” 
“T.J., no, don’t” I whispered, my voice falling away. 
“I have to create my own reality,” he said. “Sometimes, I have to take it by force.” He grabbed me with one arm and pulled my body toward him, holding the book behind my back and the cold gun beneath my T-shirt, pressed against my ribs. “Look into my eyes, Terra,” he said. “I still love you. It will take time and healing, for us both, but I think we can learn to love each other.” His face was beginning to blur. Everything behind him turned a dark shade of gray, and then formless black. 
“T.J., please, no,” I said. “I can’t go back again. I don’t want to. Why can’t you just let me go?” 
“Terra, you just don’t understand right now. We are connected. We need each other. You won’t stay here without me. Not after everything you’ve seen.” My legs began to feel weak and I could feel them collapsing from underneath me. T.J. held on tighter. His voice sounded more strained. “You have to choose to go, Terra. But, please, you have to go.”
“No” I whispered, my voice becoming softer, my muscles relaxing and sagging into the strong bind of his arms. “I want to stay here.” 
“You don’t get it, Terra!” he screamed. “You just don’t get it!” 
“Get what?” I said dreamily, and a strong sensation to sleep began to fill my head. “There is no me separate of you any more.” He pulled the cold metal away from my side. I felt his grip loosen and I dropped limply to the floor. The blackness surrounding his body began to lighten to murky gray, and then a colorful blur. His eyes softened as the barrel of a silver handgun slowly rose in front of them. 
“Goodbye, Terra,” he said. “This is not the end for you, remember, because the window of your memory lives on into eternity.” He held up the book. The numbness in my body and head subsided and I reacted with cold fear, jumping quickly from my perch just as his finger pressed down on the trigger. A firey weight like a cannonball collapsed into my torso and rippled across every nerve in my body before its deafening explosion pierced the air. I fell back in stunned silence, unable to move my limbs as T.J. lowered his head in prayerful consideration. His fingers went limp and the gun dropped to the floor with a muffled thump. He held the book gently with both hands as his body rippled against the background, blurring, fading. Consciousness was the last thing to let go.
Chapter Nineteen
Windows

The winter brings fog, and the sky was blind the day Jordan and Terra met. It happened during a hazy day in the grip of late January. Fog built up slowly over the course of that stagnant day, and by the time Terra walked outside after her final class, there was no contrast between the snow-covered soccer field and the sky. As she stepped out into the frigid afternoon, a layer of moisture immediately began to form on her face and hands. It cut like wind chill even as the air stood still. 
She grumbled as she crunched through a film of ice covering the snow. As she moved away from the school building, she held her cheek against her shoulder so she could watch it fade into the fog until it, too, disappeared. She stopped and looked around for a minute, because she had no clue which direction she was headed. She knew these fields eventually lead to the streets that lead to home, but the landscape had been erased. She thought of walking back inside to ask Jamie, who had been sick for a week, for a ride. But in a strange flash of fear she couldn’t remember which path to follow to get back to the school. 
The visible ground was littered with footprints. So she just shivered against the ice crystals forming on her coat and grumbled more audibly. Just then, a dark figure approached from the direction she was facing and stopped several feet in front of her, his face blurred by the fog. 
“You okay?” he said. 
“Yes,” she said. “Just this weather sucks.” 
“I disagree,” he said. She waited for him to leave, but he remained, still not moving close enough for her to see his face. 
“You go to school here?” he said. 
“Yes,” she replied. The fog between them seemed to grow thicker, so he took a few steps forward. 
“You want to see something cool?” 
“OK,” she said. Without asking, he grabbed her hand and began to lead her across the footprint-dotted field. She felt a sudden surge of heat from his touch, and tried to catch up as he let go and ran faster. He was dressed in all black, except for a yellow winter hat pressed tightly against his head, releasing only a few wisps of his auburn hair. She couldn’t see his face. She was sure she didn’t know him. But she didn’t feel afraid. 
“Here,” he said. They were still running, and Terra, lungs now burning as she panted for breath, had to squint to make out any contrast. Sure enough, there were lines forming against the blank landscape. He stopped in front of an eerie outline carving glistening white lines into the white air. Terra looked up and realized she was standing beneath the giant oak tree at the edge of the school grounds, the legendary make-out tree she had seen from a distance but never approached. It was coated from trunk to tip in crystalline frost. Each delicate branch sparkled brilliantly against the fog. 
Terra swallowed and listened to the boy breathe. At the time, she didn’t think about the silence and vacancy of the fog. That didn’t come until later. No, in that moment, she heard music in the simple breaths of a stranger, saw vivid beauty in the bone white glow of a skeleton tree. 
“Isn’t that cool?” the stranger asked. 
“Wow,” Terra said. “It looks like a tree made out of salt.” 
“Yeah, you know it does.” He looked at her. For the first time she could see his face — red cheeks and nose burning against his cool blue eyes, auburn strands of air peaking out of his tragically hip yellow snowboarding hat. “What did you say your name was?” 
“Terra,” she said. 
“Terra,” he smiled. “You mean like the earth?” 
“Just like it,” she said. 
“And yours?” 
“Jordan,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.” He held out his gloved hand. 
“You too,” she said. She reached out to shake his hand and he pulled her toward his body. She gasped but immediately melted in the warmth of his grasp, her nose buried in his wool coat, her head nestled just below his chin. 
“We should hang out,” he said as he shook her playfully. 
“You in grade ten?” 
“Eleven,” she said. “I’m a junior.” 
“Hey, me too,” he said. “You like punk music?” 
“Love punk,” she said. She could feel him stepping back and she reluctantly pulled away from him. 
“There’s a Bouncing Souls show this weekend. Want to go?” Terra smiled and nodded.
“Great,” he said. “He grabbed a pen from his coat pocket and held it to the palm of his left hand. “What’s your number?” As she told him he grinned widely and scribbled large obnoxious numbers on his skin. 
“Oh, I gotta go,” he said. “Now I’m really going to be late for work.” Then, as quickly as he appeared, Jordan vanished into the formless space from where he emerged. Terra just stood still, her back turned away from the great ice-covered oak tree, not sure which direction to start walking. Then, familiar voices began to emerge from the fog. They started in low and approached her, getting lounder … clearer …
 “I’d say she’s had a rough week, but...” 
“John, do you really think she, do you think she actually? Oh I can’t speak of this. I can’t talk about this right now.” I blinked against the dull white and tried to focus my vision. Orange light streamed in from above, and I could see the soft blue eyes of my mother, blurred by tears. 
“Oh, Oh, John, I think she’s awake,” my mom said, holding her hand to my cheek. “Terra. Terra, honey, can you hear me?” 
I coughed and nodded my head. “Mom? Where am I?” 
“Hospital, honey. You’ve, well, you’ve been shot.” 
“I’ve what?” 
“It just grazed your side, went in and out” my dad said with a hint of uncertainty in is his voice. “Doctors say you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. They gave you some pain medication.” He looked away. The room surrounding me was becoming much clearer — the muted colors of tan wallpaper and carpet. I turned my head to see the sterile white sheets of my bed. 
“T.J.!” I called out. “T.J.! Where’s T.J.?” 
“Oh, honey,” my mom said, blinking rapidly to disguise the tears trying to escape. “Please don’t get hysterical. I’m sure he’s fine.” 
“He’s gone?” I panted. “Are you sure he’s gone?” 
“Oh, Terra,” my mom sobbed. “Why didn’t you tell us what was wrong? Why couldn’t you tell us? 
“Jeanne!” my dad hissed. “Not now. Please, you remember what the doctor said?” 
My mom suppressed her sobs but continued to hiccup quietly. I glanced around the room. The setting becoming more familiar to me — stucco-tiled ceiling, stainless steel instruments. I couldn’t get T.J.’s calm, hateful face out of my thoughts. Did he go back to the past? Wouldn’t things be different now if he actually made it back? Or was he right about other universes? Could he have been right about memories? My memories? Was any of this real? I looked down at my own body, swathed in a blue paper gown. I lifted it to see a white bandage wrapped around my torso from my waist to my chest. 
“New stitches,” my dad said. I laughed out loud at the new addition to my bandaged thigh and bruised body. It didn’t hurt, and I was feeling detached but peaceful. 
“Do you want some more morphine?” my mom blubbered. “The doctor told us you can push this button if you’re not feeling well.” 
“How do you feel?” my dad said. I ran my fingers across the bandage. 
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think maybe I feel … okay. Maybe this is going to be okay.” 
My mom looked up. “Do you mean that?” she said. “You’re not going to try this again?” My dad cleared his throat loudly. 
“Try what?” I asked. “With the, well, you know. Your father’s handgun.” 
I cocked my head. “What are you trying to say? Do you … you think I shot … myself?” My mom put her face in her hands. 
“Honey, you don’t have to explain anything to us,” my dad said. “Just try and get some rest, and then we’ll talk about anything you might need. We want to help you through this.”
“How could you think I shot myself?” I cried. My dad just shook his head; my mom continued to sob into her hands. 
“All the evidence. All the clues he left behind,” I said. “And, well, who would be stupid enough to shoot themselves in the stomach? Don’t you think if I was going to go through the trouble, I would have aimed for my head?” 
My mom started shuddering again. “No, no,” I said. 
“This is, well, this is … I didn’t shoot myself. Did I?” I looked pleadingly at my dad. He looked down. I thought back to the last thing I could remember. I was the one who let T.J. in the house. I was the one who tore down that box of stuff. But I never held the gun.
“Mom, Dad, I swear I didn’t,” I said. “I can prove it! Didn’t they check the gun for prints?” 
My dad cleared his throat again. “Sweetie, you had your hand right next to it when they found you. It was my gun, pulled down from the closet, along with a big box of your childhood papers. They were scattered all over the floor. I should have locked it away sweetie, with you and your brother in the house. I should have gotten rid of it. I’m so sorry.”
“But I wasn’t holding it. He was holding it!” 
My mom looked up. “Who?” she asked. 
“T.J.!” I screamed. 
“Calm down,” my dad said. “I promise, sweetie, the police are doing an investigation.”
“He broke out of prison,” I said. “That’s not a great alibi.” 
“T.J. was in prison?” my mom asked. 
“Meanwhile, honey, we’re really glad you’re awake,” Dad said, ignoring both of us. “We really want you to have some help through this. We’ve contacted an organization. There are some people we’d like you to talk to when you’re feeling up to it.” 
“Oh no,” I said. “I’m … I’m not ready to be crazy yet. I just came back. I have so much still that I want to do. I have so much to figure out.” 
“We can talk about this later,” my mom said. “Please, can’t we just talk about this later?” She sobbed loudly. 
“Mom,” I said. “Can you hold off the shrink visit for just a little bit? They’re going to inject me with drugs or electroshock or something, and I just need a little bit of time to figure something out. If I’m crazy now, then I’ve always been crazy. I … I can’t …”
“Sweetie, we,” my dad trailed off. 
“If he’s still here, he will kill me,” I said. “He will find me. Please. I need to know that T.J. is gone.” 
“You’re safe here at the hospital,” my dad said. “They won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Are they going to hold me here?” I asked, and looked between my parents’ grave faces.
“You’ll be safe here,” my dad said. “Please trust us.” 
“They want to help you, as much as well do,” my mom said, wiping the sleeve of her dress across her face. 
“It’s still Sunday?” I said. 
“Evening,” my dad said. “You gave us quite a scare for a while. Doctors couldn’t figure out why you were unconscious. We thought you may have taken something.” 
“Dad, please believe me, I’m not trying to kill myself,” I said. “It’s T.J. He did this.” 
“I know how much you care about T.J.,” my dad said. “And, honey if you really want to talk to him, we’ll get in contact with him. I’m sure he’s still in the area.” 
“No, Dad, I don’t want to see him. I want to …” A nurse popped her head in the door. My mom stood up quickly and walked toward her. The nurse whispered something in her ear, and she motioned for my dad. 
“Oh, sweetie, we have some paperwork and some things we need to check up on,” my dad said. “You sit tight and we’ll be right back. And remember to push that red button. I think it’s been a while since you had your last painkiller.” 
I nodded, and my parents walked out the door, leaving me in the dim room all alone. I looked around at its surroundings. I might as well be back in Pocatello. For that matter, I could have been back in my apartment in Pineview. Everything was unraveling toward the center. A small window reflected the dim sunset along the rooftops of neatly parked cars. I jumped from my bed and limped to the window, my leg hurting more than my stomach, which felt cold and numb. I reached for the windowpane and slowly opened it, pressing my nose against the screen to smell the humid, pollen-filled air. I saw a small white Toyota Corolla pull into the parking lot and creep toward the front of the hospital. I recognized the short brown hair of the driver. 
“Jamie!” I whispered. She was probably here to visit. She might even ask me the same stupid questions about my suicidal tenancies. She was the last person I wanted to talk to right now, but at the same time I was dying to talk to someone. I watched as she emerged from her car and walked toward the front door. Without a second thought I pushed as hard as I could against the screen, letting it fall to the bushes below. And then I climbed out.
“Jamie, Jamie!” I called as I limped toward her, my hospital gown barely covering my butt. She stopped and her eyes widened in surprise. 
“Terra!” she said. “What in the hell are you doing?” 
“I’m breaking out of this joint,” I said, continuing toward her car as she followed me. “My parents intend to electroshock me. You gotta get me out of here.”
“Terra, I can’t just break you out of here! Look at you!”
 “No time,” I said. “No time. Please, Jamie?” 
She shook her head as I jumped into the passenger’s seat. “I’m going to get arrested for this.” 
“And you’ll be my best friend for it,” I said. 
“I already am your best friend,” she said. 
“So I’m your crazy best friend in need of the biggest favor of my life,” I said. “Can you drive me back home? I need to see Jordan.” 
“Jordan? Why?” 
“Because T.J. attacked me,” I said. “He said he was leaving … town … but I don’t believe him. I think he might go for Jordan.” 
“T.J. attacked you?” she said. “Terra, are you sure?” 
“Well, no, actually,” I said. “I’m not so sure about much of anything. But I’ve got to try.”
“Well, I’ll take you,” she said as she started the car. “But you’ve got to promise me that you’re going to stop acting crazy and we’re going to start doing some normal stuff together again.” 
“It’s a deal,” I said. 
“So tell me,” she said as we pulled away from the parking lot. I was straining my neck to see if my parents had discovered the open window yet. I felt terrible, but a few more minutes of parental agony may just save my life. “What exactly happened with T.J.?” 
“Well, remember what I told you in the hospital about me traveling back here from the future?” She shook her head. “Terra, I mean, yes, but …” 
“Well” I said. “It’s the truth whether you believe it or not. At least, it’s what I believe. So hear me out. T.J.’s been doing the same for at least twenty years. He’s just been traveling back and back and back and I think he just couldn’t take it anymore. He shot me because I wouldn’t follow him.” 
“Okay, Terra, so what’s Jordan got to do with it?” 
“Well, T.J. told me he’s in love with me.” 
“Right,” she said. “No surprise, so?” 
“Well, T.J. is a homicidal maniac.” 
“OK, maybe, and …” 
“And I’m in love with Jordan.” 
Her eyebrows lifted and she turned her head to face me. “Really?” she said. “I mean, this isn’t just one of your games? Like with the locker and that kid in … what was it … English? Do you really feel … in love with Jordan?” 
“I’m afraid I always have been,” I said. “It’s my one, great, incurable disease.” 
“That’s just, well, are you sure?” she said. 
“I’m positive,” I said. 
“And you think T.J. would try to, um, off Jordan for that reason?” 
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But something tells me that if Jordan is still there, still okay, that means T.J. is gone. I could sleep if I knew for sure.” 
“Terra, I don’t know,” Jamie said. “Isn’t this based on a lot of assumptions?” 
“Yes,” I said. “Such is reality these days.” 
“Do you think Jordan feels the same way about you?” 
I lowered my head. “No, I don’t.” 
“Then why go to all the trouble?”
 “Because, after today, I’ll never know. After today, I’m crazy. Today is it. This is the end.” 
“Terra … you’re not going to?” She clenched her teeth and drew her index finger across her throat. 
“No,” I yelled. “Please Jamie, you don’t have to believe me. You just have to trust me.”
Chapter Twenty
Everything’s Haunted

It was dark by the time Jamie pulled into Jordan’s driveway, his Buick parked in the same spot as ever, beneath a dim streetlight. 
“Will you wait for me here?” I asked. 
“Sure,” Jamie said. I crept barefoot toward the doorstep and jiggled the doorknob. It was open. I could hear the television blaring in the back room. I crept up the staircase toward Jordan’s opened door. I heard muffled music and peaked inside. Jordan was sprawled on his race car bed with stereo headphones on, eyes closed, body still. I opened the door and walked toward his bed. I was practically standing over him before he opened his eyes and jumped. 
“Terra!” he gasped. “What are you doing here?” 
“I just thought,” I said, trying quickly to think of words that would make my intentions sound less crazy than they were. 
“Well, I was worried about you. Have you seen T.J.?” 
“No,” Jordan said, jumping up from the bed and removing his headphones. 
“Not since last night. Terra, what are you doing here?” His eyes widened as he looked down. “What happened to you?” 
“Oh this,” I said, sheepishly running my hand along my paper gown. 
“Well, T.J. and I had another run-in.” 
“What? Last night?” he said. 
“This morning. He, um, well, I guess he broke out of jail.” 
“Was that him?” Jordan said. “They had a clip about it, well, just now — on the news out of Ogden. They said there was a jailbreak in northern Utah and they haven’t apprehended the suspect. I was worried but I didn’t really think it was possible. Terra, what did he do?” 
“Wait...” I said. “What do you know? Did they say where he went? Why didn’t you call them?” 
He shook his head. “What could I even say? I mean, I just met the guy. And all that... stuff we were talking about. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Run to the police and tell them he broke out because he’s actually some forty-year-old guy who’s sick of being in prison. I didn’t know what to think about it. But, Terra, what happened to you? What did he do?” 
“He came to see me. I think he shot me,” I said. “I’m not sure. I guess I could have done this to myself. That’s what everyone seems to think. But what happened, I mean, I remember it so clearly. Then he got away. You sure you didn’t see him today?” 
“He shot you?” Jordan said. “Like, shot you? Really shot you? Where?” 
I lifted my gown. “Right here,” I said, pointing the bandage wrapped around my torso. “I guess it went through my side. Strange because I can’t even feel it.” 
“Good God!” he said. “Are you sure? Is that really?” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?” 
“I broke out,” I said. “I had to. They’re tossing me in the crazy house. I just came here because I wanted to make sure T.J. didn’t shoot you too. I just felt like I had to see you.”
“Really?” he said, still holding on, still shaking his head. “I mean, really?” He sat back down again and gripped both hands tightly around the back of his neck, burying his cheeks in his strained arms. 
“Well,” I said, stepping lightly toward the bed. “I was worried T.J. would come after you. But there’s something else, too, something I wanted to ask you.” 
“Ask me what?” he said, sounding distressed. 
“I guess what I really wanted to know was how much of this was real. It’s been a crazy week, and, well, let’s just say I’m not entirely opposed to the crazy house idea.” 
He lowered his arms. “I don’t understand what you mean. Are you telling me T.J.’s coming here?” 
“No,” I said. “I think it’s possible he went ... away. I think he may actually be gone. But this is the truth — I’m not thinking straight. I’m caught up in these … memories. I need you to tell me if this one thing is real.” 
“Terra, you want me to tell you what’s real?” 
I nodded my head and sat down next to him. “Yes. Yes I do.” 
“Terra, I don’t know,” he said. He turned his head away, and tried to laugh. “Look at me. I live in a fantasy world as much as anyone else, even as much as you. I mean, look at last night.” 
“So,” I said blankly, feeling a cold lump building in my throat. “So last night wasn’t real?”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, grabbing my arm as I jerked my head away. “Terra, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that, well, last night you were so ... exciting. You had all these ideas ... these exciting ideas. And the night and the adventure and the mystery of it all. I think we both got just a little caught up in it.” 
I forced a little laugh and pulled away from his grasp. “Jordan, I know I’ve only known you ... what, three months? I dreamed of it today, about meeting you, in that January fog.”
Jordan smiled. 
“But it’s strange,” I said. “How far I’ve come for the past. These aren’t just memories for me, anymore. You’ve got to know the implications for me. This is my eternity.” 
“What are you saying?” Jordan said. “I’m asking you what I asked you in the hospital, with my eyes wide open,” I said. 
“You mean?” 
Hot fluid began to burn through my sinuses. “When you shook your head and walked away.” I could feel tears coming on. I didn’t fight them. 
Jordan smiled. “Surely, it’s not that big of a deal? I mean, you and me? We’ve had a lot of fun, but …” Droplets worked their way down my face. I felt them falling gently to my arms and I conjured a smile. 
“It shouldn’t be,” I said. “You’re right. Why is it such a big deal? It’s just this stupid thing, something wired into our brains without our knowledge or consent. It shouldn’t make people crazy and homicidal and willing the traverse the irreversible strands of time. But it does, Jordan. It really does. I wish I knew why.” 
Darkness crept in behind the moisture in his eyes. As I silently pleaded for him to look away, the stilted images of our short life together pulsed through my head. Together we moved backward in time, through our night together in his car, losing ourselves in the Idaho woods, calling out to the echo of the canyon, sprinting heart-in-heart into a apocalyptic downpour, kissing softly in the delirium of 3 a.m., disappearing into the January fog. His expression revealed nothing as we watched each other in silence, his mouth straight and unmoving, mine quivering against the weight of shame. I watched the stagnant space growing between us, frigid and shrouded in fog, and still he would not look away. 
My tears blurred the features of his face until I saw nothing but soft lines and faded colors. The room surrounding us dimmed. Shadows replaced the frantic concert posters and newspaper cutouts that defined Jordan’s world. The world became as it was — swirling geometric shapes and empty space. The emotions I cherished ran so deep they slipped into the void. It seemed too late for the warmth that rushed back as Jordan’s hand encircled mine. My whole body, released by drugs or shock from the dull pain, felt entirely numb. Every muscle felt frozen in place; the shallow heat of his skin wasn’t enough. 
I closed my eyes to banish the tears, gain focus and restore my movement. When I opened them, I saw the dark blur Jordan’s face. Rather, the shape in front of me resembled T.J.’s silhouette, backlit by an intense glare of the deepest, brightest afternoon. Terra was there on the other side of the threshold, hoping somehow he wasn’t really there, willing him to disappear. 
“Can you walk with me?” he asked, standing in the doorway of what must have been her parent’s house, letting all the heat in. Behind him the sun blazed low on the horizon. There was a rumble of a swamp cooler in the background, humming in rhythm with the low murmur of his voice. “I have something I really want to talk to you about.”
 “What do you want?” she said, sounding exasperated. “I don’t have time for this. I have some chores to do and then Jamie and I are going to the movies.” 
“It will only take a minute,” he said. “We could go down to that park around the corner. It’s a nice day.” The backlighting made him seem so benign. The relaxed figure at her doorstep failed to match the image of her malice that followed him to the deepest part of the poison summer and beyond. In the shadows, she couldn’t see his pleading eyes, his desperate smile. For a minute, she thought maybe, just maybe, he had banished those inner demons that permeated his personality and haunted her. She leaned against the door. 
“I guess I could,” she said. “But I’m really not in the mood to fight you today. It’s much, much too hot today.” 
T.J. stepped forward, his figure moving away from summer’s glare and into focus. “That’s fine,” he said. “We’ll go the park. Just enjoy the afternoon. I won’t say a word.” 
“I thought you had something to tell me,” she said, and realized she was squinting so tightly she could only see the stark shadows on his face.
“Well, it’s more like a question,” he said. “So ask me right here.” 
He stepped closer inside. She didn’t move away from the doorway, forcing him to stop only inches from her body. “Terra, do you hate yourself?” 
The demons came rushing back. He so earnestly stood his ground. She shuddered and shook her head. “Of course not,” she said. “Why ask a stupid thing like that?” 
“I’ve just been thinking about this whole thing lately. You know — you, me, our time together summer, the way you’re walking with me one day and then sneaking over your fence to avoid me the next. That’s the only reason I’ve come up with — the only thing that makes sense to me,” he said. 
She laughed. “You know, I wouldn’t have to jump my own fence if you weren’t stalking me in your car like you were going to jump me with a knife. What makes you think I don’t hate you?” 
He smiled. His benign expression suddenly struck her as misguided self-confidence, not diplomacy. “You don’t hate me,” he said. 
“Why?” she said tersely. “Just because you think you’re this cool person with a car and some cash who thinks he’s smart because he likes to rant philosophically?” 
His expression didn’t change. “You don’t hate me. It’s yourself you hate, isn’t it?” 
“And what crazy idea is this particular theory based on?” 
“Because this game we’re playing — it isn’t mine. It’s yours. You made it. You made all of this.” 
“You’re nuts,” she said. “I didn’t choose any of this.” 
“But I think you’re in control,” he said. 
“If I was in control, you wouldn’t be here.” 
He ignored her. “The only thing you don’t control,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders, “is this.” 
“What? Me?” 
“What you do control, is this,” he said, spanning both arms as wide as he could stretch them back toward the landscape. “Everything this is, it’s what you make of it.” 
“What are you saying?” she said, shaking her head in confusion. 
“I thought, to get through to you, I needed to see what you see. So I’m asking you — what do you see?” 
“I don’t know,” she said trying to open her eyes to the blinding glare. “A few trees. Some ugly houses. The sun. And I see you.” 
“Are you sure?” he said with a disarming smile. It caught her off guard. Her anger was beginning to dissolve again. She laughed. 
“Oh, I definitely see you,” she said. 
“That’s what you see, Terra, but I see you.” 
“Peek-a-boo,” she said, feeling like she was in on the joke. 
“No, Terra,” he said. “I realized today, why I can’t get away from you, no matter how terrible you treat me. Because everything I see, I see through you. Do you understand?” 
She finally stepped back. “T.J., I think I should shut the door. My mom would kill me if she knew I was letting out all the cold air.” He didn’t move.
 “Did you hear me?” he asked. “Do you understand?” 
She shook her head. “Of course not, T.J.” 
“It’s like imaginary friends, you know?” he said. “Everything that moves through them, moves through you, and all the way back around.” 
“Are you saying I made you up?” she laughed. 
“No, no,” he said. “I’m just trying to create an example for you, of what I want to say to you. We’re all imprisoned in ourselves, right? So when two people, you know, really care about each other, they subconsciously create ways to coexist. And when it means something, I mean, really means something, they stop being individuals. They become one.” 
“Oh, T.J.,” she said. “Really, that’s the corniest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 
He looked hurt. “No it’s not. I’m being sincere. This is the way we survive. The world to us is nothing more than what we see. Which makes us truly, truly alone. They only way we can, well, procreate, is to release our individualism and join the world of another.” 
“Are you going to remember this, when I ask you about this tomorrow?” she said. “Or is this just another crazy idea you came up with after breaking into your mother’s wine cabinet this morning? Is this like the time you told me that people are actually the result of a bioengineering experiment by extraterrestrials that was abandoned millennia ago?” 
“I’m just trying to tell you, Terra, that there’s this part of me that’s ... you. And I need to know if you feel the same way, deep down.” 
“I don’t think you can know that, really know what we are,” she said, reaching for the door. “I certainly don’t.” 
“Just take a walk with me. You don’t have to talk. I promise I won’t say anything. I just want you to go on a walk with me. Just walk with me and look around at the world you’ve created.” 
Terra had a feeling that he wasn’t going to back down from this one. “Fine,” she said. “One walk. One more walk.” 
She stepped around him into the glaring afternoon. He wrapped his arm around her, but she pulled away. “You know, T.J., there are a lot of holes in this theory of yours,” she said. “It’s a good thing we’re not talking on this walk. It’s going to be one heated debate someday.” 
He just smiled and snuck his hand around hers before she could jerk away again. “Holes get deeper and wider until there are no holes left.”
Chapter Twenty-One
A Space With You

“Terra? Terra? Are you sleeping, Terra?” Jordan’s voice echoed softly from a great distance. I stirred against the purple darkness and willed my eyes to open. 
“Strange time to catch a nap,” the blur of Jordan said, and I shook my head a few times. As the color and light sharpened, I saw Jordan’s kind face framed by gaudy red upholstery, the gold-trimmed interior of a vehicle or a small room. I lifted my chin. Jordan’s Adam’s apple hung precariously over a tight bow tie, crowning the rumpled exterior of a too-small tuxedo.  He was sitting across from me, arm stretched over the corner of a wraparound seat. I looked down at my knees, draped in lavender chiffon. I shook my head again. 
“What?” I said. “Well, you haven’t said anything in about five minutes,” Jordan said. “I thought you fell asleep on me.” 
“I think I must have been,” I mumbled. “But, I … where are we?” I swung my neck around to look out a tinted window at a parking lot tinted by a dim orange light. 
“Well, we’re at the grocery store now,” Jordan said. “Our dates ran in to get some beer for tonight. You already must have been asleep when we got here. Terrance took Jamie with him because he said she looked older.” 
“What?” I said. “Jordan, what are you talking about?” 
Jordan smiled. “It’s not just not prom without a little happy fuel, now is it?” he said.
“Prom?” I said. “Since when?” I glanced out the window again. “What is today?”
“Saturday,” he said. 
“Saturday?”
 “April 20th,” he finished. He looked at his watch. “Are you feeling okay?”
 I nodded. “I feel okay,” I said, looking down to mask a flickering horror that pulsed beneath my skull. 
“You look really pale,” he said. “Were you passed out?” 
I massaged my forehead. “I don’t know,” I said. 
“Well, sorry,” he said. “I mean, we just met and all. I didn’t know if this was a normal thing … like if you had epilepsy or something.” 
“What do you mean … we just met?” 
“Well, I mean, we’ve passed each other in the halls. I never met you until your boyfriend introduced me to Jamie.” He smiled. “He set us up.” 
“My boyfriend?” Just then the side door flew open, T.J. and Jamie ducked into the room with two cases of Coors Light clutched in their arms. “Works every time,” T.J. said. I gasped. 
“Hey, Terrance, I don’t think Terra’s feeling all that great. Maybe you guys should run back in and get her some ibuprofen.” I could feel flames smoldering in my veins, building pressure beneath my skull until I could hardly sit up. “I don’t feel well,” I mumbled. I rolled my head around. Questions continued to mount until I had nothing to stand on. “I think I need to go home.” 
“Terra, what’s the matter with you?” Jamie said. She looked furious. 
“Are you having a migraine again?” T.J. asked, his own benign face hovering above a rented tuxedo that inched up at the cuffs. He put his arm around me and I winced involuntarily. 
“She looks awful,” Jordan said. “She doesn’t have any color left in her face.” 
“You looked fine when we went into the store,” Jamie said. I inhaled quickly and remember. I looked down and ran my hands across my torso, grasping the base of my ribs. Everything felt intact — no hint of a bandage, no pain. I grabbed the edge of my skirt near my ankles and pulled it up until I reached my thigh. Nothing. Nothing but smooth ivory skin. 
“My cuts, my bandage … they’re gone,” I said, jaw gaping open when I finished speaking.
Jamie bent over to put the beer case on the floor and moved next to me on the seat. “Terra, you’re sounding crazy,” she whispered forcefully. Sure enough, Jordan was scrunching his eyebrows, lips pursed in confusion. T.J.’s head tilted to the side. His eyes glazed over as he disappeared into thought. 
“You know, my accident, at Lava Hot Springs, and then, just this morning,” I said, turning to T.J., feeling defiance and fear as he focused directly on the floor. “You shot me,” I said, feeling a surge of heat release through the blunt statement. 
T.J.’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. 
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jamie whispered sharply, spitting droplets of saliva into my ear as she spoke. When she finished I could hear Jordan laughing out loud. 
“This is some kind of game, isn’t it?” he said. He turned to T.J. “Terrance, what is she playing?” 
T.J. shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice low and careful. “Actually, Terra, you’re scaring me.” 
“And you’re scaring me,” I shouted. “What are you doing ... and what am I doing here?”
“Terra, calm down,” Jamie said, still sounding annoyed, but more gently so. “We’re all just going to Prom. Just like we’ve planned for a week now.” 
“And him? And him?” I stammered, gaping at T.J. “You’re just going to sit here and let him take me out?” 
“Terra, what are you doing?” Jamie said. “You and Terrance have been going out since the very first day of seventh grade. You’ve been talking about this like it’s you’re wedding day. Which, knowing you guys, it practically is. So what’s the big deal?” 
“But … how?” I looked up, bewildered. “My junior prom … don’t you and I go to my junior prom?” I said to Jordan. “Our sad last date?”
“No,” Jordan smiled, still laughing. “You go with teenage hubby Terrance. I go with Terrance friend, Jamie.” 
T.J. just sat silently next to Jordan, beer still nestled in his arms, with a distant look on his face. Jamie now joined in on the laughing. “Really, Terra, what are you playing?” she said. “Or is it all right if we go and try to salvage this night together?” 
I put one hand over my eye and rubbed my face. “Something’s happened,” I said. “But it’s impossible. This isn’t mine.” 
A small light suddenly flickered in T.J.’s eyes. 
“No,” he said. “This is mine.” 
I looked up. I could feel tears building underneath my eyes. “Hey, Jordan, Jamie, do you think you guys could run back in and get Terra some aspirin?” he said. “And maybe a cake or something for later.” 
“Sure,” Jordan said. “We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.” 
Yeah,” Jamie said as she followed Jordan out the door. “And the windows better not be fogged up when we get back.” 
“If the limo’s a rockin , don’t come a knockin,” Jordan called out as the door slammed shut. The both erupted into laughter as they ran toward the store. T.J. stared at me with a stone grave look on his face. “Terra,” he said. 
“Yeah?” 
“You ... you remember me,” he said. My heart began to race. I inched closer to the door.
“Of course,” I said. “How could I forget?” I looked around. “But what is this place? Where am I now?” 
“It’s just as they called it,” T.J. said. “Prom night.” 
“I’ve forgotten everything, haven’t I?” I said. “I mean, the hot springs, the police station, Sunday morning. None of that happened? None of that was real?”
 “Define real,” T.J. said quietly. 
“I’m not in a position to do that,” I said, pulling against the purple satin flowing down my legs. “T.J., can you tell me how old I am? Where I am? Who I am?” 
“It’s Terrance,” he said, his voice continuing to lower. 
“Right,” I said. “Whatever. You know what, you don’t even need to answer.” I sat back. “Eventually, I’m going to snap out of this.” 
He ran his hands through his hair, which, I noticed for the first time was trimmed short and spiked with stiff gel. He rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “I thought there was a chance you might come back someday,” he said. “I just hoped against hoped that we might come to some kind of an understanding.” 
“What do you mean?” 
T.J. dropped his hands to his lap. “It’s been almost ten years, now, Terra. Ten years we’ve been together! Don’t tell me you’re going to leave now just because you’ve come to some sort of realization about my past?” 
“Your past?” I shouted. “This is my life, my life you’re messing with!” 
T.J. lowered his eyebrows. “No, this is my life now,” he said. “This is my world. Don’t mess this up.” 
I shook my head. “This is yours?” I said. “Is this what you become, you know, after you disappear?” 
“Seven years old,” T.J. said. “It’s not an easy age like it seems.” He smiled. “But you were such a beautiful kid. Giggling in the sun as you ran through the sprinklers. I got my mom to enroll me in your summer camp, transfer to your middle school. We grew up together. The rest is history.” 
“You,” I said, my voice shaking. “You shot me and you stole this from me.” 
“And I see you lived,” he said. “I never was much of an aim.” 
“Then why did you bring me back?” He shook his head. “I didn’t. You found your own way here.” 
“I had nothing,” I said. “No journal, or letter. I was at Jordan’s house for crying out loud! Not even a day had passed since … since …” 
“Well, a lot of time has passed,” T.J. said, and I noticed his hands were clenched in a fist and shaking. “Centuries have passed. Millennia. Please, Terra, don’t do this.” 
“So you tricked me into dating you when I was too young to know?” 
“I didn’t trick anyone,” he said. “We found each other. Just like I said. We can’t stay apart.” 
“And why is Jordan here?” I yelled. 
“I set him up with Jamie,” he said. “Surprisingly, he said yes.” 
“But this is your scenario! You had it all. Why bring him into the picture?” 
“I had to know,” he said. “I had to! You think I haven’t been haunted all these years by what I did? I had to know it was meant to be.” 
“So now he’s here with Jamie?” 
“I wanted you to meet him,” T.J. said. “Get to know him in the context of what he truly is and not some fairy tale where he appears out of the mysterious fog to sweep you away. He’s a liar and a clown, Terra.”
 “You’re a bastard,” I said. 
Tears were now flowing freely down his face. “I had to know the meaning,” he said.
“Well, obviously, something got lost in translation,” I said, bunching up the folds in my skirt and standing up from my seat, hunched over against the plush ceiling. I moved for the door, but T.J. grabbed my dress and pulled me down next to him. 
“Please, Terra, don’t leave,” he said. 
“So what are you going to do about it?” I said. “I’m not the same Terra you ripped from the cradle. Either you’re going to have to bring her back, or accept the fact that this Terra isn’t going to date a man who stalked her and shot her … twice. Just doesn’t bode well for the relationship, if you ask me.” 
“That’s an ironic thing to say,” T.J. said, wiping his fingers between his eyes. “You of all people shouldn’t think too hard about the future.” 
“And you shouldn’t think too hard about the past,” I said. “You’ve got us both caught up in this horrible loop. I don’t want anything to do with it, anymore.” I tried to stand again.
T.J. held steadfastly to my dress. “Tonight, Terra, just give me tonight,” he said. “I’ll prove to you how much I’ve changed. 
“T.J., please,” I said. “I can’t do this anymore. If you really love me, you’ll understand that I can never see you again. You can kill me. You can go back and try to create some different scenario. But it’s never going to be what you need it to be. It’s never going to be real. Please, just let me go.” 
“Terra,” he said, “I can change this. It doesn’t have to be this way.” 
“Go ahead and try,” I said. “I’m done, T.J. You’re on your own.” 
“And Jordan?” he blubbered, inhaling a loud shot of phlem. 
“Maybe Jamie will have better luck with him,” I said. “I don’t care.” 
“You do care, you do,” he said. “Time doesn’t forget. You don’t forget. Your memories will haunt you.” 
“I chose to remember,” I said. “I can choose to forget.” 
“You can’t forget,” T.J. said. “I’ll learn,” I said. 
“And where do you think you’ll go?” T.J. said, looking up defiantly. “You have nowhere else to turn.” 
“I have the future,” I said. “The blind march forward. And uncertainty, now, is my greatest power.” 
“Uncertainty means you don’t have anything,” T.J. said. 
“I’ll always have you,” I said. 
T.J. looked at me hopefully. I smiled, a lump building in my throat as tears began to break free. “And if it means something to you, you should know that I’ll never forget you.”
“Terra … wait,” he said. 
“Don’t come looking for me,” I said. “It isn’t me you’ll find.” 
I lunged forward, ripping the shiny fabric of my dress free from T.J.’s grip. I reached out and plunged the door handle downward, then tumbled out of the limo into the orange-tinted night. There was a light drizzle hitting the streaked pavement and I broke out in a run. Jordan, who had just walked out of the grocery store, dropped a white bag and burst toward me. Jamie followed close behind.
 “Terra, what’s going on?” she yelled. “Where are you going?” “Terra, stop!” Jordan cried out. “What’s wrong?” I looked back him, bounding across the pavement. His tuxedoed body seemed to flicker and crackle in a static storm.
The night sky faded in a flash of light. Suddenly it was quiet, and Jordan was standing against a white car, looking up and blinking into a snowstorm. 
“Yeah, we’ll hang out,” he said. “We’re friends, right?” He brushed away droplets from his face and ran his fingers through his hair. Large flakes fell all around him, the kind that plummet from the sky in clumps. “Look,” he said, opening the back seat door. “I had fun at prom. I think it’s great that we’ve kept this casual. Okay? I’ll call you.” 
“No! No!” I screamed, shaking my head against the image until darkness and noise once again filled the sky. Out of my peripheral vision I could see Jordan gaining on me with Jamie following close behind. I looked back and saw T.J. poking his head out of the limo, grasping the open door with one hand and using the other to run his fingers nervously through his sculpted hair. 
“Where are you going?” Jordan yelled. “What are you doing?” 
As I looked forward again, Jordan’s image flickered and emerged in the foreground. His bored gaze was broken by swirling cubes of light, reflected by a disco ball overhead. Dancing couples twirled in the background as he towered over me. I looked down and saw his hands clasping my waist. “Lady in Red” played mournfully over crackling speakers. 
“These dances are so lame,” he said. 
I pushed quickly away, plunging backward into the empty night. I could hear Jordan’s footsteps gaining on me. “Terra! Terra!” Jamie screamed from a distance. “Have you lost your mind?” 
I felt my feet leave the pavement as I began tromping through low-lying sagebrush. A large field sprawled in front of me, lined by the soft lights of approaching suburban sprawl. My eyes began to flicker and once again the open space closed. I saw the image of Jordan sitting in the back seat a limo, hands clenched around a wine glass full of sparkling apple cider. 
“Sorry I couldn’t get champagne,” he said. “My mom just about freaked out when I asked. But hey, here’s to good times,” he said, raising his glass. 
“Go away!” I screamed, holding my hands to my ears as the scene faded, my legs on automatic as we tore through the field. I glanced back again to see a trail of shredded chiffon, with Jordan only a few steps behind. He lunged forward and grabbed my shoulders with enough force to pull me backwards into a large bush. I bounced off the sharp branches and hit the ground on my face with a resounding thud. 
“I’m so sorry,” Jordan said. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just, well, where do you think you’re going? What’s wrong? Did Terrance say something?” 
I could feel my hair and dress tangling around brittle branches as I struggled against Jordan’s grasp. He was heaving loudly, trying to pull me up. He lifted me by the waist as I arched my back, looking directly into his wide eyes. He flickered again; I tried to shake the image out, but the sky became gray and bright again. Jordan stood in front of me holding a single long-stemmed rose. I looked down to see myself standing on my front porch, with a blue-sequined gown flowing all the way to my combat-boot adorned feet. My head shot up in terror. 
“Where am I?” I whispered. 
Jordan smiled. “It’s chaos here. It’s Thunderdome!” 
“What?” I said. 
“Oh, I’m just joking,” he said. “Are you ready to go?” 
“Go where?” 
“Why, to the Prom, of course,” he called out, pointing his fingers triumphantly to the white limo in the driveway. 
“Oh, Dre’s going to ride with us, okay?” he said. “We’ll go get her after the champagne.”
“It can’t be,” I said.
 “Look, if you don’t want Dre to go with us, you can pay the limo guy, okay?” 
“No,” I said. “I won’t fall into this trap.” I looked up at the overcast sky and closed my eyes. 
“Terra? Terra? Are you blacking out again?” Jordan yelled. I slowly raised my head. Jordan had me sitting on the ground, legs extended, arms dangling to my side. Jamie knelt in front of me, waving her pointed index finger in my face. 
“Terra, how many fingers am I holding up?” she said. 
I tightened my forehead muscles to hold my eyes open. “Jamie … I don’t know what, I mean, one,” I said weakly. 
“Don’t pass out on us,” she said and turned to Jordan. “Where’s Terrance? Did he go for help?” Jordan shrugged and hoisted me up, locking his elbows beneath my shoulders and resting the back of my head on his chest. My mind told me I had the ability to move on my own, and yet my neck dropped to one side, my legs hung uselessly, like they were detached from my torso. Jordan began dragging me across the ground. 
“Let’s get back to the store,” he said. “There’s a phone there.” 
“Put her down!” Jamie yelled. “Stay with her and I’ll go call.” Jordan lowered me to the ground. I felt my rag-doll body crumple beside the sagebrush. He gently pulled out my limbs until I lay perfectly flat on the ground. Why couldn’t I move? What was happening now? My head whirled but stayed with the moment, even as Jordan sat down beside me, watching my stillness with intent fear. 
“He’s pulling me back,” I mumbled, as a warm stream of drool ran down my cheek.
“Who is?” Jordan said, not moving his gaze.
 “The universe. My universe.”
 “What are you talking about?” he said. 
“Jordan, promise me you’ll keep Terra away from T.J.” 
“T.J.?” 
“You know, Terrance.” 
“Your Terrance?” 
“He’s bad news.” Jordan nodded with false enthusiasm. “Ok, Terra, I’ll keep you away from T.J.” 
“He sucks people in,” I said. “He uses memories to destroy lives.” 
“Terra, what did he do?” The nighttime grew around me, weaving its dark web through the glittering stars. 
“Everything,” I mumbled. But it’s not what he did that drove me away from him, I thought as I looked up at Jordan’s desperate and clueless face. It’s what he didn’t do. It was the way he could never be beautiful or creative or in awe. He could never achieve nor accept anything more than stranded affection. T.J. was just an ordinary soul living an extraordinary life. He had all of the insight of time with none of the wisdom. He longed for love and chose fear. He longed for joy and chose inebriation. He longed for a future and chose the past. A cold surge shot through my veins. I motioned to shiver but could not. 
“It’s because he’s me,” I said. “He’s exactly like me.” 
“Terra, I don’t know what you mean,” Jordan said. His voice echoed, as if he was moving away from me in an empty room. “Did you and Terrance break up?” 
“We were never apart,” I mumbled, slurring the syllables. “We were never apart.” 
“I’ll go get him,” Jordan volunteered, his voice growing ever softer. “Do you want to talk to him?” 
“I’m can’t hold on anymore,” I said. “There’s no need to fear.” 
“You don’t need to worry,” Jordan said. “Terrance isn’t going to leave you. He loves you. He told me so.”
 “It doesn’t matter,” I said. The cold gravity of space wrapped around my skin, chilling the blood crawling toward my heart, leaving only the deadening sensation of ground crumbling beneath me, pulling me downward, inward. 
“Did he hit you?” Jordan screamed from across a widening canyon. “Do you have a concussion? Don’t fall asleep on me, Terra! Don’t fall …”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Parting

The rich smell of fried potatoes and maple syrup hit my nostrils. I jumped as if awakened from a stolen moment of sleep and rolled over on my back. I blinked quickly against a blinding sunlight pouring into a dark room, strange and familiar all over again. As the moisture in my eyes subsided the room sharpened into focus with a clarity that surprised and frightened me. The polished acrylic tables, brown carpet, mint green walls and faux plants glistened in the sunlight — it was the PNP, shiny and new.
Even as I understood my surroundings, I couldn’t quite reconcile them. It was as if I stepped back into a memory. But I was certain I had denounced my memories to embrace the unknown future. I sat up quickly and placed my hands in a sticky puddle. I looked down to see a spilled pitcher of brown syrup lying next to me. The shuffle of feet rushed up from behind and a giant pair of hands grabbed my shoulders.
“Dear, what happened? Are you okay?” a familiar voice said. Large fingernails dug into my skin and stood me on my feet. I turned around to see Sam’s smiling face towering over me — with brown hair creeping through a plastic hairnet, she appeared to be in her mid-thirties. I gasped and took a few steps back.
“Don’t worry, honey,” it’s okay if you spilled the syrup. I just want to make sure you’re not hurt. Are you hurt?”
My mouth hung open. I shook my head.
“OK, then, back to breakfast.” She picked me up with remarkable ease and set me on a cold vinyl bench next to a boy with curly brown hair and pouty lips. His eyes were wide and filled with moisture.
“T.J., oh, I’m sorry, I mean, Terrance,” Sam said. “Sweetie, do you know how Terra fell?” The little boy shook his head. “Well, keep a closer eye on her, okay? Finish your pancakes and then I’m going to take the two of you back to bible school. Is that okay?”
He nodded limply and turned his head away.
“Okay, then,” Sam said. “You kids be good.” She grabbed a white rag from the table and knelt down to mop up the syrup. “Oh, what a mess,” she said. “I’ll get to this later.”
And with that, she turned and walked away. I turned quickly back to the boy, who was pressing his chin into his raised chest with a bewildered look on his face. He didn’t look at me.
“Terrance?” I said. “Is that you?”
He looked up and ran a tiny hand through his curly hair. “It’s you, isn’t it?” he said. “You came back. That’s why you fell on the floor. You came back.”
“So your mom …” I said, looking back toward the kitchen. 
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“So I guess you got exactly what you wanted.”
He shook his head. “How did you get here? How did you find me?”
“I don’t know,” I said, for the first time noticing how high-pitched my voice was.
“It’s impossible,” he said. “I didn’t leave anything behind.”
“Even me,” I said. 
He looked down. “There’s no way I can reconcile what I’ve done,” he said. “I’m so sorry for it.”
I shook my head. “No you’re not. How long has it been?”
“Three months,” he said.
“Well, that didn’t take you long ... to find me. What did you do? Ride over on your bike? Ask if I could come out and play?”
His eyes filled with tears, which wasted no time flowing down his chubby cheeks. “What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Well, I think I’ve forgiven you,” I said. “That’s why we need to move past this.” He jerked his head up. “Don’t worry,” I said. “There’s a bright future yet.” 
“You’re not leaving now, are you?”
“Do you really want to spend your life stuck in a memory?” I said. “Do you really want to live behind the window of the way things were?”
“I’ve suffered a long time,” he said. “And now, I’m here, and that wasn’t you sitting across from me. This isn’t your past! This isn’t your life!”
“No fighting!” Sam’s voice called from behind a thin white wall.
“I went to the end,” I said. “I saw what becomes of me and you. It’s not real. It’s built on a lie, your version of the truth. Why would you choose that?”
“I didn’t choose it!” he said through clenched teeth. I looked him directly in the eyes. I was tired of his desperation, of his deception. His face had changed to that of a child, of a stranger. But his eyes could not deceive. They did nothing but conjure up the ghosts of the past; images of Terra looking blankly into the mirror on a Saturday night, too apathetic even to despise herself.
“Oh, Terrance,” I said, “we always choose.”
He shook his head. I felt a guilty pang for speaking so sharply to a child and looked away.
“You came here on purpose,” he said. “How did you find me?”
“To tell you the truth, I have no idea how I got here.”
“But I left nothing behind,” he said. “I wanted you to come. You said you couldn’t.”
“I didn’t think I could,” I said. “But the journal …” I shrugged. “It must be a crutch,” I said. “I think the real issue here is memories we can’t let go. Somehow we get wrapped up in them, lost in them, until we become them. They become us. But then, we have to choose that, don’t we?”
“So?”
“So I went to the bottom of that experience tonight. I don’t want to think about my past anymore. I’m choosing to walk away.” 
Terrance laughed. He sounded like a child who was the first one on the hill in a race to the top. “And where exactly do you think you’ll go, Terra?” he said. “I don’t know if you know this yet, but you’re seven years old now. You’re a child. And you’re trapped in a memory that’s not your own. The world doesn’t know you. You have nothing to build from.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll walk blind into my future just like everyone else. You of all people should know there are no real second chances. We’re always going to live the same, no matter how much differently we want things to go. And we’re always going to do things different, no matter how much they seem the same.”
“You sound like me,” Terrance said and smiled. “And you still don’t know what you’re talking about. How long have you been wandering around out there?”
I smiled. “As far as I can tell — a week. Twelve years, maybe. What does it matter? You said to me once only the past exists. And I’m here to tell you only the future remains.” 
He jumped down from the table, standing at my eye level still as I scooted toward the end of the bench. “You can’t just leave,” he said. “I will come back to you. I’ll find a way.”
“I don’t think you can,” I said. “With me, you only pull yourself further backwards. What are you going to do? Whittle yourself right down to birth?” 
“I could,” he said. “I could do this forever.” 
“Then go right ahead,” I said. “Just like you said. They’re your shadows, not mine.”
His eyes filled with tears. “You were always the enemy,” he said. 
“I know,” I said. “I feel the same way.”
“About me?”
“About myself.”
“Don’t think you can make yourself and adult and walk away,” Terrance said, still standing defiantly by my side. “It doesn’t just happen. You need your precious memories for that. You need concentration, dedication to the past. You’ll fall further into this mess if you try. You’ll slip away.”
“I don’t need to,” I said. For the first time I help up my hands to see my own stubby fingers, adorned in myriad jelly bracelets and a bright silver ring with a plastic jewel inside. I ran my hands down a lime green t-shirt and florescent pink shorts, along the soft hairs on my short, thick legs. 
“I am who I am.”
I tried to push around him but he grabbed by shoulders. “And what of Jordan? Who is he to you now?”
“He’s no one,” I said. “A stranger. I’ve never met him.”
“And don’t you think you’re going to eventually meet him?” 
“Perhaps,” I said. “In passing, maybe, someday. And maybe we’ll lock eyes briefly, for that single moment that stretches toward eternity. Then we’ll look away, always wondering what might have been.”
Terrance let go of my shoulders. “You think you’ve changed, don’t you?” he said.
“No,” I said, “I hope I have.” I watched him back away from the table and collapse beside the puddle of spilled syrup. I got down from the bench. “T.J., don’t worry. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you’re free now. There’s no need to fear.”
Terrance looked up at me with a sad smile. “And what are you now?”
“Jordan made me crazy, and you turned me into a time traveler. But my mom named me Terra Jane. You know me the best now. I guess you can call me T.J.”
He mustered a single laugh, breathing in and out a sigh as I turned for the door. Sam’s muffled voice called out to me as I threw open the glass door with muted strength and bolted across the parking lot. I heard her footsteps run toward me. She was too late. I bounded down the sidewalk, sprinting past the glittering cars and storefronts toward a world I had never seen before, held in the suspense of squinting clarity as I glided, effortlessly, into the brilliant light of summer.