Spark (16 page)

              “So you’re not going to help me.”

              He shook his head.  “I’m sorry.”

              His words jabbed me in the heart.  My arms and legs went weak.  I felt light as a feather—like I could just blow away and disappear.  How could sitting there with the guy I loved make me feel so small and insignificant?  How could he—if he loved me—not give me the one thing I wanted more than anything?  To erase the past, to have my best friend there with me, alive and well?

              “Then I guess we’re done with all this,” I mumbled.  “I guess that’s it.”

              He nodded.  “Maybe we just need to forget we ever found it.”

             
And maybe I need to just forget about you and Dani and this whole mess,
I thought.  I was too afraid to say it out loud.  Instead, I just held up my hand in something like a wave, and walked out.  He didn’t stop me. 

              Zach had said, “You’re smart enough to figure out why this can’t work.”  If that was true, and I was smart enough, chances are I could figure out good reasons why it
would work.
  And if that didn’t convince him, I could always do it on my own.  I can’t believe I was even saying this, but
I did
know where the key was. 
I could go back to the lab without him and find a way to bring Dani back by myself.

              That night, I couldn’t sleep.  I went from depressed, to frustrated, to angry—tears all the way.  When I finally got calmed down a little, I still couldn’t sleep, and I tried to wrap my mind around everything that had happened to me in the last six months.  I woke up from a bad dream that I couldn’t remember.  I lost my best friend.  I felt trapped in a body that wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do, my brain full of endless, unanswerable questions.  I met someone that seemed to understand me, someone who would love me, who didn’t seem to care that I was painfully different than everyone else, that when most girls were more worried about their clothes and makeup and gossiping about others, I was trying to figure out who I was, because I couldn’t remember anything.  He made me feel lovable, even though I’d experienced things that had forever changed who I was—maybe even who I would become. 

              That last thought—about changing who I’d become, made me cry harder, because suddenly I realized how much our past directs where we go.  Without much of a past—or at least a past I could remember—where did that leave me?

I started thinking about this in the context of the accident, and the possibility of returning to right the terrible events of that day.  What would happen, beyond the obvious (the return of Dani), if Zach and I tried to change the past?  On a whim, I took out a piece of paper from my nightstand and wrote down all the possible answers I could imagine to the following question:  What if we returned to the scene of the accident, four years earlier? 

              Scenario A:  We manage to save Dani from the lightning.  Zach and I emerge into the present unchanged.  I have my best friend back. 

              Scenario B:  We time travel and it doesn’t work at all.  Nothing changes.  We return to the present.

              Scenario C:  We time travel, and it works, but we get stuck there and can’t return.

              Obviously, Scenario A was the best case.  But in reality, best case hardly ever works out in real life.  Especially
my
life.  I could live with Scenario B—at least we could say we tried.  I could also live with Scenario C.  After all, I’d missed four years of my life the first time.  This would give me a chance to get it back.

              I lay awake fidgeting for what seemed like hours—going over the scenarios again and again in my mind.  I kept wanting to text Zach and ask him what I was supposed to do, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was over—at least for now.  Finally, around one in the morning, I drifted off into a deep sleep that lasted all night long, until I woke to sunshine and a lingering dream:

             
I am walking across a cold, tiled floor in the dark.  I open the refrigerator, reach for a carton of orange juice, and pour myself a glass.  I set it on the counter and just before I put the carton back on the shelf, I look down at my toes, with their bright pink polish.  For no apparent reason, I come up with about a thousand adjectives to describe my toes—they are deliciously pink.  They are the inside of a ripe pomegranate.  A tulip.  One of those fruity frozen beach drinks.  An apple.  The color of happy.

              Just then, I feel a warm hand across my back and I step away from the refrigerator, just before I notice a little white box setting next to the juice.  I start to ask, but I already know.  I take it and shut the door.  A hazy film—the reflection of the harsh light on my retinas—shades my view.  I close my eyes and I am in Zach’s arms, the most comfortable place in the whole world.  When he kisses me, I am nothing if not completely, endlessly pink.

              Even in the dark, I can see that Zach is on the floor.  He’s kneeling on one knee with the box.  And would you believe, I don’t even cry?  I almost laughed because I am standing there in some trendy little kitchen—mine, presumably—with lime green curtains and daisy canisters—and I am smack in the middle of a cliché:  The man I love—gorgeous, amazing Zach—on bended knee, getting ready to propose.  Did people still do that?  But I just sigh.  It’s a cliché, but a good one.  See, I always knew Zach and I were meant to be together.  I just never expected it to be so darn funny when it finally happened.

              Finally, a giggle works its way out, partly because I am nervous, partly because Zach is wearing those old worn out striped pajamas that looked like something my grandpa would wear.  “I’m sorry,” I say, on the verge of tears.  How absolutely wonky that humans are capable of laughing and crying at the same time.  Pure insanity!

              Zach just grins the way he does—both innocent and cocky all at the same time.  Again—wonky!  “You know you want to,” he says.  There.  That grin again.  How the heck can he be so smooth and calm right now anyway?  God, I love him.

              Now I’m crying and all I can think is that I’m glad I don’t have makeup on because it would make a serious mess on my face.  I get a little nervous, thinking I look like a fool.  But he just reaches up with a tissue and wipes it across my cheeks like it’s no big deal.  And really, it isn’t.  I just don’t like to cry, especially in front of people.

              I nod, harder than is really necessary. 

              “So, that’s a yes, then?  You’ll marry me?  Make me the happiest man on the planet?”

              I nod again and something—a cross between a whimper (uber-lame) and the English word for yes, affirmative, right on, etc. 

              And then, because I’ve never been too lucky when it comes to dreams, I wake up, just before the little white box opens in Zach’s hand.

              Was this Scenario Z?  Zach and I, happily ever after?  If there was a way to make sure this one came true, I’d jump in it and never turn back.  And yet, when I was fully awake the next morning, I realized: 
There are no guarantees in life.  Anything is possible.

              Then, the even greater truth hit me like a thunderclap: 
If we can see into the past—if all time exists in one moment—then we can also see into the future.  I could find out, once and for all, if Zach and I were destined to be together.  Had the dream been a sign? Was marrying Zach my destiny? Was Dani alive in the future?  Were we supposed to be best friends for the rest of our lives?

Alex and Tess

             
The following week, Alex sort of followed me around at school, like he knew something was up.  I hadn’t told him about Zach and I getting together—and I hadn’t told a soul about us breaking up.  But still, it was like he knew.  Probably because I came to school the next day with puffy eyes and no makeup.  I blamed it on not sleeping and getting up late—at least that’s what I’d told Cricket.  But Alex following me around was different.  I hadn’t really talked to him since the day the three of us had gone snooping at the lab.  Every time I turned around—in the lunchroom dropping my tray at the counter, at my locker, coming out of the bathroom, it seemed like Alex was right there. 

By ten o’clock the following Saturday, Alex had already texted me four times.  First, he was out for a run.  Then, he was going to his little sister’s soccer game, then out for lunch.  Finally, he texted me that he wanted to see me.  He’d asked,
What’s wrong?  You’re not yourself.  Hope you’re ok. 

              He picked me up that afternoon, and my parents, beaming in the doorway, waved enthusiastically as I bounded out to Alex’s car.  They liked Alex, that much was painfully obvious.  He was the kind of guy parents lived to tell their neighbors about—clean cut, popular, oozing with charm.  And I liked him too, but it wasn’t anything you’d call a romance.  He was like a male version of me—we liked the same things:  popcorn, cheesy home video shows on t.v., popping bubble wrap.  We even liked just sitting around thinking up these strange things we had in common.  As luck would have it, I’d found someone else that was just as much of an oddball as I was.  We were comfortable with each other, like a pair of old sweatpants.

So comfortable that I was already starting to worry about how I would tell him that I was in love with Zach—even though we had just broken up.  How would I tell him without choking up and making an utter fool out of myself?  He was a friend, and it was a breach of honesty not to tell him what was going on.  But bringing up the subject of Zach made me nervous.  Don’t ask me how I knew, but I was pretty sure Alex had other ideas about us.  I was pretty sure he had a crush on me—I mean, why else would he care so much?  According to Alex, he’d never had a real girlfriend, which meant my job was going to be even harder.  But, at the moment, I was just glad to have a friend, so I was going to have to suck it up. 

              As soon as I got in the car, I asked where we were going, and he said, “It’s a surprise.”

              I shrugged and put on my seatbelt.  “I’m in,” I said.

              As we drove, my mind wandered to my thoughts from the night before—the scenarios, the past, and, most importantly, the future.  I thought about what it would be like, to be in Zach’s arms, right then, both of us knowing that we would be together forever, how his eyes would melt all the bad stuff away in my head, how his breath would whisper on my neck—
This is how it’s supposed to be, Tess. 
Then the anger he’d expressed to me just days before—the unfairness of his decision not to help me save Dani.  He knew—maybe more than anyone else—how important she had been—how important she was.

              Suddenly, I found myself saying, “Alex, will you take me somewhere?”

              Alex gave me a sideways glance with a hint of a grin.  “Sure, where do you want to go?”

              “Take me back to the old building where Zach hangs out.”  I cringed inside and the lie—
I mean the building where Zach and I hang out.  Our place. 
Alex had no idea how close Zach and I had gotten.

              Now Alex looked nervous.  “Why…?”

              “There’s just something I need to do,” I shrugged.

              “Tess, what’s going on?”

              I wanted to tell him—I really did.  But I knew that if I did, he’d believe me (because he always did), which meant he’d talk me out of it or threaten to tell someone if I went through with it, to keep me safe.

              “I can’t tell you,” I said.

              He shot me a look of resignation that told me he didn’t like it, but accepted it nonetheless.  “Ok, whatever you want.”

              When we got there, I told him to stay in the car and that I’d be back in a few minutes, to honk if anyone came, to which he reluctantly agreed.  He said to be careful, twice, and I felt badly, walking up to that building, as if I were betraying not only Zach, but Alex, too.  Alex, especially, didn’t deserve it.  Zach, I reasoned, had sort of brought all of this upon himself.  I used that reasoning to justify taking the key from the crack in the bricks and opening the door.  I had to work quickly.

              I found a seat at Zach’s computer and logged myself in—
Soliloquy 18. 
A password I would never forget as long as I lived.  I had to find a way into the future—and I knew it had to be there, somewhere.  Because everything that was precious to me was locked in that moment.  That much I knew.  I started perusing files, scrolling through page after page, looking for something—anything that could reveal my future—for any clue about where my life would end up.

              The honk didn’t come soon enough.  Within seconds, Zach burst through the door and was standing there, his shoulders squared, eyes alive with anger.

              “What are you doing?!”  He demanded.

              I pushed myself away from the computer and got up, started for the door, but he put out his hand to stop me.  Any minute, Alex was going to come barging in, too, and then how was I going to explain myself?  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here.”

              I saw Alex come up behind Zach—with a look of determination and fear, with his short legs and small body, like a child standing next to Zach’s towering frame.  He didn’t say anything, just stood there, like he wanted me to tell him what to do.  “Let me go,” I said.  “I’m done here.”

              When Zach grabbed my arm, Alex moved in.  He shoved his palm against Zach’s shoulder.  “Hey buddy, watch it.”  Zach whirled around.  “What the hell are you doing here?”  Jerking his head back to me, he fumed, “What is this, Tess?”

              Alex’s faced turned red—from anger or embarrassment or both.  “C’mon, Tess.  Let her go, Zach.”