Autumn's Wish (9 page)

I want to tell him I had no idea, but if my mom ends up saving us, she'll spill the truth.

“I wasn't thinking,” I moan instead. “I was just so scared that Schmidt would run down and hurt himself.”

“I have to get out of here,” Sean says. “If I don't get to warm-ups on time, Coach won't let me play. If I don't play, the FSU scout won't see me, and there's no way I'm getting into the school.”

“I know,” I say. “I'm so sorry.”

Sean paces some more, then lets out a visceral scream that I'm surprised doesn't get the attention of everyone else in the neighborhood. Sean seems to think the same thing, because he runs to one of the windows and tries to open it.

“I don't think they open,” I say.

He cocks his fist and looks so furious that I worry for a second that he'll punch it open…but then he just sighs and sits down on one of my mom's big storage trunks. Sensing sadness, Schmidt trots to his side. Sean scratches his head. My heart completely breaks for Sean. He knows every second he's here, his dream is closer to slipping away, but he's not taking it out on me, or on Schmidt, or on any of our stuff. He's just dealing with it.

I move to him and sit down next to him on the trunk. “I'm sorry,” I say, and put my hand on his arm.

“Don't touch me,” he says dully.

Okay, maybe he's taking it out on me a little bit.

We don't talk while we wait. Sean sits and stews, only moving to look at his watch every few minutes. When we finally hear noise downstairs, Sean leaps up and yells down at the door. It clicks open, and as it folds down we see Erick. Sean races downstairs and pushes past him. I follow, but Erick stops me at the foot of the stairs.

“ ‘Accidentally' locked yourself in the attic, huh?” he says with a knowing leer. “Been meaning to try that one myself.”

“Shut up,” I say. “And go get Schmidt. He's in the attic.” I grab Sean's phone from the floor and race out the door. He's already in his car with the engine on, but I tear open the passenger side door and dive in.

“Get out,” he says.

“I found your phone,” I retort. “And I'm coming with you. I want to help explain to your coach.”

Okay, the truth is I want to put on a good show so Sean and the rest of my friends don't completely despise me, but I'm secretly hoping nothing I say will make a difference to Sean's coach.

He drives full speed, his mood getting lighter every second. There's still a full half hour before the game, so Sean thinks the coach might take pity on him, especially with the scout in the stands. “Thanks for coming with me, Autumn,” he says. “I think it might actually help.”

“Hope so,” I say, though I'm not sure I sound convincing.

We screech into the parking lot and run to the stadium, where Sean immediately finds the coach. In a wild rush, he explains everything that happened and urges me to back him up. I try…but the coach doesn't want to hear it.

“Rules are rules,” he says. “You're not playing.”

“But, Coach!” Sean objects. “You can't! Not this game. Suspend me for a different game. The FSU scout—”

“Is something you should have thought about before you went to play hero,” the coach says. “You're out.”

The coach walks away. Sean looks after him, mouth open, like he can't believe the conversation is actually over. Then he deflates.

“Sean…”

It's a sentence I start with absolutely no idea how I'll finish, which is fine because Sean doesn't let me.

“Autumn, don't,” he says. “Please. Just go.”

I sigh and look down at the ground as if I'm intensely depressed, when I actually want to skip out of the stadium.

I saved Sean.

I think.

I need to be sure.

The second I'm out of the stadium, I pull the locket out from under my shirt. I open it up and think a minute, then set it for June, four and a half years from now. That's right after our senior year of college. If Sean's okay by then, I'll know for sure he's safe.

I close the locket and squeeze it in my hand.

Show me what I need to see, Dad. Let me know if Sean's okay.

“Heads up!” Sean cries.

I look up to see him run to the edge of the pool—
my
pool, in my backyard at home—and execute an absolutely gorgeous dive. He hits the water and I squeal and cringe away as it splashes over me, but of course I don't feel it or get wet at all. I run-dance with joy as I trail him while he does a perfect crawl stroke across the pool and back again, then hoists himself out.

“You're moving!” I scream. “You're okay! You're—”

I take a second to notice his perfectly chiseled body, covered only by a tiny black speedo.

“Practically naked!” I gasp. “Since when do you wear a bathing suit like that? I mean, I'm not complaining, you totally pull it off, but…seriously?”

“Seriously, Sean?” Future Me echoes from a chaise lounge. She's on our deck with Taylor, Jack, and Reenzie. “Get back in the water!”

I walk over to Future Me to check her out. She's wearing a turquoise bikini and funky round sunglasses that are so super-cute, I kinda can't wait the four and a half years until I can buy them. Big smile, long orange hair, great makeup, hanging out with her high school friends…This is looking good!

Reenzie picks up a bottle of iced tea from our outdoor table. “A toast—to all the graduates!”

Jack, Taylor, Future Me, and Sean grab bottles and clink.

“So we all graduated,” I say as they drink. “That's excellent!”

“Is it horrible that I'm kind of glad Amalita isn't here?” Reenzie says as she lowers her bottle.

“Yes!” Taylor admonishes her.

“It's not that I don't want to see her,” Reenzie clarifies as she sits back on her chaise. “It's just that it was so hard watching her fall off the wagon again and again. It's exhausting.”

“Her parents say the place she's in this time is really good,” Future Me says.

“Third time's the charm,” Sean says, perching on the end of Future Me's chaise. She smacks him on the arm. “No, I mean it!” he insists. “I hope she gets better this time.”

“Okay, I get it!” I shout to the universe in general. “I need to deal with Ames and the drinking thing. I'll get her away from Zander and the parties. That'll do it, I know.” I move to Taylor and sit down on her chaise with her, and it's only a little awkward when she stretches out so her legs go right through me. “So tell me,” I say to her. “Are you with Drew? Did that work out?”

“Hey, everyone! Are we too late?”

The voice is weirdly singsongy, and I turn to see J.J. coming in from the back slider. He's bent practically double and holds the hands of a very small person with dark hair just like his. The baby toddles along on wobbly feet and knobby legs, and I'm pretty sure he'll topple if J.J. lets go.

I rest my head in my hands. “J.J., tell me that's not your and Carrie's baby.”

“Hi, Uncle Jack!” J.J. says, waving one of the baby's hands. “Hi, Uncle Sean! Hi, Auntie Autumn and Auntie Reenzie and Auntie Taylor!”

Everyone coos and calls their hellos, and Taylor and Jack get up to play with the kid on the lawn, which I now realize is scattered with baby toys. Why? Does J.J. bring his kid here all the time? I remember the other future, where J.J.'s parents didn't have a lot to do with him. Is it like that here too? Did my mom take him under her wing? I wouldn't be surprised. She's nuts for babies.

I, however, am
not
nuts for babies, either now or apparently in the future. Future Me is all about lounging with Reenzie and Sean and isn't even looking at the baby on the lawn.

“Hey,” Reenzie says. “Have you guys seen the Keith Hamilton billboards?”

“
Keith Hamilton
billboards?” I ask. “What's he on a billboard for? Did he invent something?”

“Yes!” Taylor cries from the lawn. “I cannot even deal with how hot he is!”

“Seriously?!” Future Me and I ask at the same time.

“Oh, Autumn, you have missed out,” Jack says. “Boyfriend is an
underwear
model.”

“He is
not
!” she and I again say at the same time.

Jack grabs his phone and finds something online, then shows Future Me. I, of course, check it out too.

Wow. The Keith Hamilton
I
know is cute enough, but he's a goofball. He's super smart and, as far as I can tell, hangs out with his group of all-guy friends in the halls, quoting movies that make them laugh. Oh, and he's in the school a cappella group. But
this
Keith…this Keith is shot in moody black-and-white, looking sexily at the camera, wearing an open button-down that shows his entire
eight
-pack and, of course, his Calvin Klein underwear.

“Keith Hamilton,” Reenzie says in disbelief. “Who knew?”

“Carrie did,” J.J. calls from the lawn. “She had a
huge
crush on him. To the point where if he'd shown any interest at all…” He leans closer to his son and says in a high-pitched voice, “I don't know that you'd even be here, little guy.”

My pulse speeds up. If Keith Hamilton had wanted Carrie, she'd have chosen him over J.J.? I can make that happen! I can make Keith her Scare Pair!

“I totally get why Carrie would have a crush on Keith Hamilton now,” Taylor says, “but
then
?”

“Come on, look at her taste,” Jack says. “She had a huge crush on
J.J.
”

“Thanks,” J.J. says. “You're a good friend.”

“Hey, we all had crazy crushes in high school,” Future Me says. “I liked Sean.”

Reenzie raises her hand. “Guilty.”

“Doesn't count as a crazy crush when you've both been back to the well within the last year,” Sean counters.

“Ew,” I say, but Future Me and Reenzie just look at each other and shrug, admitting he has a point. Clearly what Sean said isn't news to either of us.

“I had a
major
crush in high school,” Jack says.

“Somebody ask him who!” I shout to all my friends. “I need to know for the Scare Pair!”

“Well, yeah,” Reenzie says, rolling her eyes. “You were in love with Carrie.”

“Hello! Do I need to come out to you again? Carrie was a cover!” Jack says.

“For who?” Taylor asks. “Who did you have a crush on?”

“Thank you, Taylor!” I proclaim. Then I move closer to Jack to make sure I hear it right.

Jack gets a dreamy look in his eyes and smiles. “Tom Watson.”

“Tom Watson!” Future Me and I shout together. I feel good that I seem to have so much in common with my future self. Then she continues without me. “You could have totally had him! He was out!”

“Yes, but
I
wasn't,” Jack says. Then his smile widens. “He made me wish I was, though.”

I grin right back at him. I'm totally going to make his high school dreams come true.

“You know my big high school crush,” Taylor says. “Mr. Ryan Not-Gay-at-All Darby.”

“Oh, he's gay,” Jack says matter-of-factly. “I ran into him at a gay bar in Boston.”

“I knew it!” Reenzie crows. “Up top, Autumn.”

Future Me and Reenzie are about ten feet away from each other but lift their hands in an air high five.

“I had a crush in high school,” J.J. says.

Future Me echoes me again as we both turn bright red. Reenzie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, we know.”

“No,” J.J. says. “Other than that. I never told any of you guys. Mariah Amhari.”

“You totally told me that!” Future Me says. “But you said you just liked that her name was an anagram.”

“Because by the time I told you that, I had
other
crushes,” he says pointedly. “Freshman year before I dated Carrie? Major Mariah obsession.”

“Were you still interested in her senior year?” I ask. “Enough to leave Carrie if Mariah was your Scare Pair?”

“Hi, everyone!” calls an absurdly high-pitched voice. It's Carrie coming out the back slider. Carrie plus thirty pounds. Which I guess makes sense because while J.J. has one baby, she's holding
another
one!

“Twins?!” I roar. “Seriously with this?!”

Fraternal twins, clearly, because the two babies look nothing alike. The one Carrie holds has wispy orange hair and pale white skin. Honestly, she looks more like a baby J.J. would have with
me
than with Carrie.

“Ellie!” Future Me cries. She bounds out of her chaise and practically runs to the baby, gently taking her out of Carrie's arms. “Did you miss Otis? Did you want to come out here to play with him?”

Future Me—who totally ignored the first baby who came outside—is now on the lawn making squeaky noises to this second baby. The one who has orange hair like ours.

All the happiness I felt at learning everyone's crushes? Gone now. My skin's crawling, and I walk slowly to the lawn. It
would
make more sense to have baby toys here if the baby was mine….

I shake my head. It's impossible. I graduated college! Future Me said so! And I'm not great with baby ages, but this one has to be around a year old, and no way could I graduate college and have a one-year-old. Plus, if this is Future Me's baby, what was she doing in the house without me? Wouldn't I want to be with her?

I get chills as I think of another possibility. Maybe I had the baby but gave it to my mom to raise because I wasn't ready to be a mom. Or maybe…Oh God, didn't I say I hooked up with Sean our junior year of college? What if
he and I
had a baby and we gave it to my mom?!

Future Me is on her knees on the lawn, playing peekaboo with baby Ellie.

I stare at Future Me's stomach. It's perfectly flat. Would it be perfectly flat if I had a baby a year ago?

“Anybody hungry for snacks?”

I look up at the sound of the male voice, and my head actually explodes.

Okay, not really. But kinda really.

The man emerging from my house no longer has a bushy blond beard and mustache, nor does he have a fringe of blond hair. He is entirely bald now, like a too-large lollipop on an ultrathin stick. His glasses are as round as his head, and he grins like someone too oblivious to ever have an unpleasant thought in his life. He holds a tray of mini sandwiches with the crusts cut off and sets it on the table; then he beelines for the lawn.

“Ellie-belly, your sister's trying to have big-girl time with her friends,” he says, scooping up the orange-haired baby and swinging her high into the air. The baby laughs.

“It's okay, Glen,” Future Me says, holding her arms out to take the baby back. “Otis is here. I'll take her. We can all play.”

“Little Ellie will never have to worry if her family loves her, that's for sure.”

It's my mom's voice, and I turn to see her coming outside with a tray of two lemonade pitchers and a bunch of glasses.

“Mom! Stop carrying stuff!” Future Me jumps up and grabs the tray from my mother.

Which is when I notice she's
very
pregnant.