No Regrets (6 page)

Maybe you'll be surprised to hear and maybe you won't that I did it again that night. Twice. You can bet by the end there was absolutely nothing left to come up and I was just dry heaving. And what did I learn? Nothing.

And then I tried again the next day, Monday. Skipped practice and came right home to jump into the future over and over from the privacy of my bedroom. I did see a few interesting things, I guess.

I only saw myself with him one other time, and it was in April again. I was outside my house, and all of a sudden they came out together. (He met my parents?! Whoa.) Then they got into a nice SUV. They talked or maybe made out for a couple minutes—I couldn't see into it very well from where I was crouched. And good thing, because if I had still been there when they pulled away, would I have been forced to run after the car like the bus?

What would happen, I wondered, if I had arrived in the future while they were driving? Would I have landed in the backseat? Or on the road and then gotten hit by another car? Could I die on one of these trips in the future? The idea scared me.

The other stuff was all ordinary, boring life. Nothing in January, February, or March to tell me if she'd already met him or not. She was on her phone a lot, but that was probably how I always looked.

Oh, and I guess I was going to finally get off my butt and do a volunteer thing like my counselor always said looked good on college applications. Once after school, I saw myself walking a few dogs and then going into some animal shelter building. Unless that meant my parents let me get a dog finally, but I couldn't see that happening.

All this wasn't doing my body any favors, believe me. But I couldn't stop. I skipped school on Tuesday. Didn't even try to play sick with my parents, just made sure my mom left and then went back in my room and closed the door. It was so easy.

By now I wasn't even looking at the calendar or thinking much about the best times. I was just going into the future over and over. Sometimes I even forgot why. I saw myself (or at least my shoes) in the bathroom at church. At a cross-country meet. Out with people from school, some of them I wasn't friends with now. At the grocery store.

The last trip I could manage on Tuesday before I passed out, I watched myself sleep again. On December 20 at 12:30. I didn't even know if that was a school night or what. I think I even fell asleep myself in the future before I was pulled back to my room and collapsed on my bed.

I woke up to my dad shaking my shoulder.

“Layla, Layla!”

I had never seen that look on his face before. His eyes were wide.

“Honey, what happened? I didn't even know you were home. Did you come home sick or … ?”

I closed my eyes again. “I don't feel good. I just wanna sleep.”

“OK, baby girl, OK. You sleep. But first, baby, tell me—did you get sick again in here?”

I couldn't remember. “I cleaned it up,” I mumbled.

“That's OK, that's OK,” my dad whispered. “I'll take care of it. You rest.” I was asleep before he left the room.

When I woke up for dinner, my mom was not so nice.

“I got a call from school,” she said. “Why didn't you tell us you were sick and staying home? So we could call it in.”

I shrugged, playing with my food.

“Girl, is there something going on we need to know about? Does this feel like that stomach flu you had before, or do you have a problem? Are you making yourself throw up? Or are—” she looked at my dad. “Are you pregnant, Layla?”

“Oh my God,” I said, resting my head on my hand. “
No.
”

I didn't know if my mom believed me, but I hardly had the energy to care. On Wednesday I went back to school.

Tanaya stopped me before first period. “You look really bad.”

“I know,” I said.

“Are you sick again?”

I shrugged.

“You have to talk to Coach. Or are you quitting track?”

I shrugged.

“You gotta talk to her. This weekend she's taking us to the U, remember? She went there? And we get to watch a meet and have pizza with the coach and team? Don't you want to go?” She looked so puzzled.

I shook my head. “Naw, I don't feel good, and I've got stuff to figure out this weekend. Have fun.” I walked away.

After that Tanaya kind of stopped speaking to me. Really only Cherry talked to me at lunch. I didn't care. I was only at school on autopilot, trying to conserve my energy for time travel. It was the only thing I cared about right now.

I had to give it a break again, though, for a few days, if I didn't want my mom hauling my butt off to the doctor to find out if I was dying or pregnant.

Then on Sunday, when I was sitting on my bed trying to decide if I felt OK enough for my next trip, it suddenly hit me. What if I was supposed to meet him at this track thing at the U? And now I hadn't gone? What would happen?

I stuffed my fist in my mouth for a moment to try to stop the sobs. Remember, I was exhausted. I'm not usually a crier. Then I bit my knuckle hard and took a breath to pull myself together. I texted Tanaya.

U have fun?

She wrote back right away,
Grl, you missed some fine bruthas!

My heart dropped.
No, no!

C wants to know what's up with you. She's gonna call.

I groaned. I hoped Coach would call me, not my parents.
Crap.

Staring at Tanaya's messages, I knew then that I had to stop. I was making myself crazy and sick, and messing up my life now and maybe for the future. I put my head down and cried all I wanted.

I tried to stay focused all that week. No trips. No wondering. I talked to Coach, and she wondered if I had mono and said I should go to the doctor and get tested. But she didn't kick me off the team. Just said she was worried about me.

At lunch on Friday, Cherry said, “You guys don't have practice today, so you should come to rehearsal with me.”

“Say what?” I said.

“For
Our Town.
I'm helping with costumes and hair, remember? I told you last week? Anyway, there are some guys in it that might surprise you how good they are. Guys we've barely noticed before. If I wasn't taken …”

I snorted. Like that had ever stopped her.

I didn't really want to, but I didn't have anything better to do. Cherry sat down with us in the dark theater.

“They don't need me right now,” she said. “OK, they're doing the last act. So Jennae is Emily—that girl, there—she's come back from the dead to watch some of her life over again. And she knows everything that has happened already—she's like a ghost sometimes and sometimes like her old self.”

I got goose bumps.

“Anyway, I love watching it every time. I always cry,” Cherry said, settling back.

I was kind of confused since we were just seeing the end, but, oh, Cherry was right. I started crying when someone told the girl not to go back to an important day but instead pick a regular day because it would be important enough. I didn't want anyone to notice me crying, so I sat very still and let the tears roll down my neck or drip on my shirt.

But I got so bad toward the very end. The dead girl asks this guy if anyone pays attention to life while they're living it. And he just says, “Nope.” Snot was pooling in my nose, and I couldn't even breathe right.

Cherry handed me a tissue package without looking at me and pointed at Tanaya. I saw she was crying, too. That's when I knew for sure that I had to stay now, not always be looking back or forward. Now was really all I had.

“I'm done,” I told him.

“That's right,” he said. “That's what I came to tell you. Sometimes I give people longer with their gift, but, man, girl—” he shook his head.

“No,” I said. “
I'm
telling
you
—I'm done.”

“OK,” he said. “You're done.”

We were both quiet.

“But I still don't know what to do,” I said. “What could you do right now?” he asked. “Really?”

“I could call Marquis …”

“Is that what you want?”

I looked away. “That other guy … I don't know how to make that happen. Or if I messed it all up already. And don't tell me to trust God or you or something.”

He laughed. “Put me on the same level with God again, please. I like that.”

I ignored him. “And I still don't know if I even did the right thing last summer.”

He came around to the front of the teacher's desk and sat on the edge. “You can only do what's in front of you right now,” he said gently. “That's all anyone can do, Layla.”

I just ran my fingernail through the initials carved on the desk.

“C'mere,” he said, holding his arms out. Then I was leaning against him and he was giving me a hug. “It's going to be all right,” he whispered, rubbing my back.

Over his shoulder I stared at that stupid kitten poster. HANG IN THERE. I closed my eyes.