Spark (15 page)

              My dad glided the car into the parking lot, a slow crawl into a spot.  We all just sat there dumb for a few minutes, waiting for someone else to make a move.  Finally, Dad stretched his arm over the back of the front seat and turned around.

              “You ok?”

              I was thinking I’d been better, but I nodded anyway.  “Yeah.”

              He glanced nervously at Mom. 

“I’m sorry about California,” I said.  “I sorta messed that up for you.”

Dad looked confused for a moment, and then sighed.  “That’s not—it
wasn’t
important—we just wanted you to get well.”

              I gave him a weak smile.  “I’ll try not to let you down.”

              Dad got out first and I joined him.  Mom stayed in the car, her eyes glazed over.  I felt sorry for her, a little bit, thinking how hard it would be to revisit such a bad memory.  Dad walked me over to a faded pavilion where we had my party, describing in too much detail who was there and what they were doing.  I wanted to stop him and just say get on with it, but he clearly needed to tell me these things for some reason.  It was like he needed to remember it just right.  He laughed when he told about Mom singing some song she liked that he hated. 
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
he called it.  “Dumbest song ever,” he added.

              He stopped talking and paused, looking up at the sky like he was afraid a storm would crop up right then and there.  Thankfully the sky was clear as a bell—blue sky and everything.  It was a beautiful day.

              “And over there…” he said, pointing off toward a big pond, “is the swing.”

             
What a dump,
I thought.  Everything was old and rundown, chipped paint and rust everywhere.  You could tell the grass wasn’t kept up.  No one was around.  It was like a ghost town—or ghost park, I guess. 

              Ironically, I wasn’t immediately drawn to the swing, but to these really old ride-on toys, circus animals on big springs.  They looked ancient, the paint all worn off, rusty handles.  There was an elephant, a horse, a tiger and one that was so worn smooth that I wasn’t even sure what it was.  There was no paint on the face.  That one was my favorite and that is where I went first. 

I sat on it for a long time, thinking mostly about Dani.  For some reason, it was easier to think about her, out there in the open where no one would know or look at me funny if I started crying.  The thing is, I was just so mad at Dani.  What was she thinking, trying to get me off that swing?  My parents told me that just before the lightning hit, she came running for me, grabbed the chain to get me out of there.  But it was too late, for both of us.  Only, I lived and she didn’t.  It was like a bad dream, a big dumb joke the universe played on both of us.  She was trying to help me, and she died.  Something’s not quite right about that.

But I would have done the same thing.  I would have saved Dani in a heartbeat.

Sitting there felt sort of peaceful in a way.  There were no weird thoughts or messages in my head, just me and an old place from my past.  A real place that changed my life forever.  It’s crazy, but it felt good to be there.  I guess you could say I felt closer to Dani there.  The weirdest part of all?  I didn’t feel sad.  I wasn’t struggling to picture things in my mind.  After the simulation, I knew all of it, of course, every little detail.  I knew what Dani’s hair looked like, the color of her shirt, the sound of the wind whipping the empty swing next to me.  It was like now that I had a memory of it, I didn’t have to wonder about it anymore.  It had happened—to me.  And I was going to have to live with it.

I noticed that dad had gone back to the car, so I jumped off and dusted the rusty powder off my pants.  It was time to get back to my life, whatever it turned out to be.  I wasn’t sure just who that was yet, but I knew it would be someone Dani would have loved getting to know.

Change The Past

              Meetings at the lab with Zach became a regular after-school event.  After a while, we didn’t even have to say anything.  We just showed up.  We did a lot of talking, reading through Zach’s dad’s research, reading files.  I found out a whole lot more about myself than I ever knew, lots of things I’d forgotten.  I fell in the bathtub when I was four years old and had a severe concussion, for example.  My mom made my kindergarten graduation dress and I refused to wear it because it was blue instead of purple.  I didn’t remember any of these things—and my parents certainly never talked about them.

              Zach and I didn’t talk too much about the simulation.  For one thing, it scared the crud out of me.  I sort of wanted to forget it.  Plus, Zach had warned me that if anyone found out about what we were doing, things could get dicey.  That was the exact word he’d used.  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I didn’t really want to find out.  It was like we had some unwritten pact.  What happens between us stays between us, so close we don’t even need to talk about it. 

So we just spent time together, mainly.  The lab was sort of like our secret place, where we could go to get away from our parents and all our friends and all the stupid drama at school.  For the first time since I lost Dani, I was starting to feel like I had a best friend again.  And the last thing I wanted to do was mess that up. 

              One day we were sitting there and out of the blue, Zach got all serious and scrunched up his eyebrows like he does.  I guess he was ready to hear about the simulation.

“What was it like for you?”

“Sort of like watching a movie.”  I shrugged.

“And your reaction?  Did you feel better at all?  About what happened?”

“You mean like at peace about it or something?”

He nodded.  “Exactly.  See I’m trying to get at the core principals of my dad’s research, but I’m coming up with some things that just don’t make sense to me.  Like that, for example.  Why relive the past?  What’s the point?  That’s why we have a memory.”

              “Yes, but memory is imperfect,” I noted.  “I’m the poster child for that.” 

              “True,” he laughed.  “But why do we need to know
exactly
what happened?  It doesn’t change anything.”

              “No, but it’s sort of cool—you know, that it’s possible to—”
Go back in time
, I was thinking, but didn’t want to say it.  We’d avoided those sort of expressions when talking about this stuff.  It just sounded plain crazy.

              “See the past.”  He said.  “Yeah, it is.”

I was starting to daydream just then, thinking back to the day I woke up from the coma, lying in that bed with those white blankets wrapped tightly across my legs.  What happened in that one moment was like the turning point between my old life and the new.  One moment that stood out from all the rest.  Sometimes things have to remain, no matter what happens before or after.

              “Zach, are you thinking what I’m thinking?"  I said, offhandedly. 

“I don’t know, what are you thinking?”

              “Maybe your dad didn’t just want to revisit the past—maybe he wanted to change it.”             

Zach had been tapping his pencil furiously and suddenly stopped.  A flash across his eyes.  “That’s it,” he said.  “That has to be it.”

              “If we can change the past,” I said.  “Then we can change what happened to Dani.”

              “Tess, I don’t know…”

              “We could bring her back.”

              “Besides, it might not even work.”
              “Zach,” I pleaded.  “We'll never know unless we try.”

              “We don’t know all the implications...”

“It doesn’t matter.  I’ll do it.” I exclaimed.  “If it will bring Dani back, I’ll do it.  Please, Zach.  She was my best friend.  Besides, if she was willing to save my life back then, the least I can do is return the favor.”  I had started crying, apparently, because Zach reached up and wiped my cheek.  “I miss her so much,” I whispered.

Zach looked visibly tired, I noticed, as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders just then.  “Let me work on it,” he sighed.  “Do some more research.”

I squealed, hugged him like mad.  “Thank you, Zach!”

He sat back and gave me a crooked grin.  With his sharp jaw line and the wild whorls in his hair, I felt a warm flip-flop inside, a tiny love punch. 
You are so mine
, I thought. 
All mine. 
I grinned back, thinking he looked like he just got out of bed and I almost giggled, but then I got this really funny feeling in my stomach all of a sudden, like someone had grabbed hold of it and squeezed really hard. I gasped.
 

              A scene flashed in my head:  Dani and the Dork, sitting on that park bench four years ago, at my birthday party.  For so long, all I could see was Dani, running toward me with her hair all wild, the flash of light that swallowed everything.  But this time, I was looking at the Dork.  Zach.  Zach!  Dork!  Zach was the Dork!

              My hands started quivering uncontrollably.  “No,” I said, shaking my head.  “No way.”

I started to get up and leave, but Zach's face softened and he took my hands.  “So you just figured it out.”

“You mean you’re—back then?  But how?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you wouldn’t have believed me.  I had to wait until the right time—or until you figured it out on your own, which you obviously just did.”

“I can’t believe this.  You’re the Dork?  The goofy kid from third grade?”

He shrugged.  “Crazy isn’t it?”

“But—why didn’t I recognize you?”

“Partial memory loss—remember?”

“Yeah, but you’d think I’d remember
that,
” I groaned.  You are not going to believe this, but I didn’t really care anyway.  He was gorgeous, sweet, smart Zach.  And he was mine.  The past was what it was, and I was ok with that.

Zach looked at me like he didn’t know what to do or say.  So I did it for him.  I kissed him. 

“So I guess this means I’m officially
not
a Dork,” Zach said.

“No,” I said, smiling.  “You’re still a dork.  But you’re
my
dork.” 

“Then let’s get down to business,” Zach said, wheeling his chair around back to the computer.  “First things first.”

Suddenly it dawned on me: 
Zach was the last one to talk to Dani. 
Surely, that meant something.

But before he could type in a single thing, I grabbed his arm and pulled him around.  “
This
is first.”  I jumped on his lap and kissed him like there was no tomorrow.  Literally.  It was like 10,000 years, and when it was over, I had fallen completely, utterly in love.

When I got home from the lab that night, Cricket was sitting on my front porch swing, drinking a root beer in the dark.  She was huddled up in a big brown jacket that was too big for her.  When I got closer, I realized it was my dad’s jacket.

              “Your parents told me to wait,” she said.  She tugged on the sleeves of the jacket.  “I forgot my coat.”

              “What are you doing here?”

              “Waiting for you—duh!”

              “Ok, so I’m here.  What’s up?”  I sat down on the swing next to her and the chain creaked so loudly it startled a cat that was apparently hiding under the porch.  We giggled as it dashed through a pile of leaves and across the yard.

              “You tell me.  You’re the one with the fabulous life.  No seriously, is Zach, like
normal
?  I mean—that old building and stuff.  It all sort of freaks me out.”

              I started kicking my legs to make the swing go.  “Don’t worry.  He’s normal.  His dad owned the building.”

              “So it’s not like his
lair
or something?”  Cricket snickered.

              I shook my head.  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

              “Well, at least you’re not boring.”

              “Please.  I’m boring. Trust me.”

              “Um, wild personal experience story, gifted brain, and a majorly cute boyfriend does NOT equal boring.  Hello!”

              “Well, you are right about the cute boyfriend.” 

              Even in the dim glow from the streetlight, I could see Cricket was in deep-thought mode.  She had a way of seeing right past the obvious in almost any situation.  “A cute boyfriend who is a good kisser.  Someone you feel like you’ve known your whole life.  Right?”

              “Right.”

              “And?”

              “And what?”

              “Well there has to be
more
.”

              “Nope that pretty much says it all.”

              Cricket crossed her arms.  “Spill it.” 

              “Please. You sound like my mom.” 

              “Yeah, well I’m not your mom, so you can tell me everything.”

              I sighed.  I remembered what Zach had said about telling anyone about the research.  The only safe territory was to tell her what she wanted to hear.  “I think I’m in love,” I said plainly. 

Cricket squealed.

Endless, Unanswerable Questions

              The next day at the lab, Zach told me, “I’ve been doing some more research.  And it’s not going to work.”

              “What do you mean it’s not going to work?”

              “I mean going back—changing things.  It’s too dangerous.”

              I crossed my arms with a huff.  “Great.”

              “Listen to me,” Zach said in a more serious tone.  “If we go and start messing around with the past, it will change everything.”

              “I thought that’s what we wanted—to bring Dani back.  That’s everything to me.”

              Zach looked hurt.  Was he already jealous of Dani?  “I know,” he said.  “But you don’t understand.”

              “Make me understand,” I offered.

              “I can’t.  I just don’t want you to do it.  Besides, you’re smart enough to figure out why it can’t work.”