Time Between Us

  “But you did.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did.”

  And now it’s quiet. I can’t remember a time when Emma’s car was this silent for this long. A few blocks later, she finally talks again. “We’re going to spend the day in the city together on Saturday.” She keeps her eyes on the road and tries to play it cool, but she breaks into a huge grin.

  “That’s great, Em.”

  “You sure?” She turns to me. “You are okay with all of this, right? I mean, especially now.”

  It’s weird, but yeah, I’m okay with it. I have no right not be. “Of course I am,” I say, but I feel a little pang of sadness, too because it’s Justin. It’s Emma. And Justin. My friends. Before I can stop myself, I wonder how this will change my friendship with them, if they’ll wind up liking each other more than they like me, and which one I’ll have to stop talking to if this whole thing doesn’t work out. And most selfishly, if Justin will still make me running mixes.

  Emma lets out a dramatic sigh. “Good. As long as you’re cool with it.” She brightens again as she changes the subject back to me. “So—you and Bennett,” she begins with a little teasing tone in her voice. “What happens at school today?”

  I let a nervous laugh escape. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  She turns in to the student lot and makes a beeline for her usual spot. “Well, you’re about to find out,” she sings, and I follow her gaze to find Bennett, standing there on the lawn, waiting for me. I feel sick.

  “Oh. My. God.” Emma snorts as she throws the gearshift into park. “What did you do to that boy? Just look at him.” Bennett has gotten a haircut. It’s still a bit long for my taste, but he looks crisp and clean in his uniform and nothing short of gorgeous—although after yesterday, it’s hard not to picture him in his thin T-shirt and those jeans that rested so perfectly on his hips. And that’s when I remember that his clothes are still in my dryer, and I panic for a moment until I realize it’s not laundry day. “He’s adorable!” Emma gives him a flirty little wave and I slap her hand down.

  “Oh, please; you’re just saying that to be nice.” I’m grateful for the change of heart, even though I know it’s fake.

  Emma turns and looks at me. “I don’t say anything just to be nice, love. Even to you.”

  “Fine. Then please continue to act like a loyal friend and don’t embarrass me.” I’m still struggling with the butterflies in my stomach and the latch on the door when Emma gets out of the car and pokes her head back in to say, “Ahhh, it’s going to be a good day.”

  She slams the door behind her and struts up the small incline toward Bennett, abandoning all concern about my future heartbreak. “Well, hello!” I hear her say as I scramble to join them before Emma has the chance to talk too much.

  “I know!” I can hear her say in a voice as exaggerated as her smile. “I don’t think we’ve talked since your first day here, have we?”

  When I reach the two of them, Bennett turns his attention to me. God, he looks cute. “Hey,” he says. His smile is so warm I think the snow has just started to melt around his feet.

  “Hi.”

  “So, Bennett, I noticed you weren’t in Lit yesterday,” Emma says, and he takes his eyes away from mine to look back at her. “Were you sick?” She stares him down, and I shoot her a warning glare.

  “No. I spent the day with Anna,” he replies, and then he looks straight at me again. We used to be strangers because he insisted on it. Today, we’re standing here like friends because he decided he could trust me with a secret so large, so implausible, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

  “Oh. Well.” She looks at him, then at me, and then back at him. She reaches up and musses his hair. “Don’t cut too much more, or I’ll need to find you a new nickname, Shaggy. See you at lunch, Anna.” She starts to walk away but pivots on her heel and turns back to us. “Speaking of lunch, will you be joining us today?”

  “Yes,” he says, still looking at me, and I grin.

  “Shaggy?” he asks when Emma’s out of earshot. “Is that the best she can do?”

  I roll my eyes and look up at the top of Bennett’s head and smile. “When did you manage to cut your hair, anyway?”

  He shrugs.

  I look around to be sure no one’s listening. “You traveled?” I ask.

  He moves even closer to me and whispers in my ear, “No. I went to Supercuts.”

  I crack up.

  People keep staring at us—walking by, watching us, whispering to each other.

  Bennett says, “I just wanted to be sure you’re okay. You know, after…”

  “Anna!” Three of my cross-country teammates burst in on us, cut Bennett off without even looking at him, and start talking over each other. “Oh, my God! I heard about the robbery! Are you okay?” They all have the same look of concern on their faces.

  The robbery. That’s why everyone’s staring. Of course, a fellow student’s being held at knifepoint would make the Westlake grapevine.

  “Yeah, thanks, guys. I’m fine.”

  They all express their relief and we chat for a few more seconds before they each give me a quick hug and rush off. Bennett and I watch as one of them skids on the ice and nearly plows into the rosebushes.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to be sure you were okay…with everything.”

  “Yeah.” I smile. “I’m okay. But I still want to hear the rest.” I wait for him to say something but he doesn’t.

  “You will.”

  “We should probably get to class,” I say, at the exact same time he says, “I have something for you.”

  “You do?”

  He reaches into his backpack, pulls out a piece of paper, and gives it to me. I let out a gasp when I realize what it is. What he did to get it. I look down at the postcard from Ko Tao and smile at the photo. “You went back? For this?”

  He shrugs and gives me a sheepish grin. “You needed a souvenir.” The bell rings in the distance, making us both officially tardy. “I’d better get to class. I’ll see you at lunch.” He turns to walk away, but I call out, “Bennett.” He turns around to face me again.

  “Yeah?”

  “I still have your clothes.” That doesn’t come out the way I planned, and I quickly look around to be sure no one has overheard me.

  His mouth turns up into a satisfied grin. “Good. I guess I’ll have to come by and get them.”

  Argotta asks me to stay after class, and I reluctantly send Bennett off to the dining hall alone. Argotta asks if I’m okay and goes over some things from yesterday’s class, and five minutes later, I walk into the dining hall to find Bennett planted at our usual table with Emma and Danielle. He looks like he’s holding his own.

  “You’re just in time,” Emma says as I set my tray on the table. “Bennett was just telling us all about himself.” She turns to me and says, “He’s not really into sports, you know?” She shrugs and takes a bite of her sandwich.

  “Well, like I said, skateboarding is actually a sport,” Bennett says.

  “Oh, I guess it could be. But it’s really more of a mode of transportation, isn’t it? I meant, you know, school sports. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Lacrosse. Hockey. Those types of sports.”

  “Team sports.”

  “Well, no, you could swim, I suppose. Or play tennis. Those are sports too.”

  “Or, you could skate,” he says calmly. I can see the wheels in Emma’s head turning as she attempts to land on the perfect retort. She glances at me sideways, and I give her a warning look, reminding her with my eyes of the promises she made me this morning: To be nice. To not embarrass me.

  “Sure. You could skateboard, I guess.” Emma looks back at me for confirmation that she has said the right thing, and I give her a grateful smile. And silently will her to stop talking. She looks back at Bennett. “So, what other hobbies do you have?”

  So now it’s a hobby. I just look at him, the boy who doesn’t need a sport or a hobby, becau
se what he can do counts for more than either one in my book. Bennett looks ready to jump back into the skateboarding-as-a-sport debate, so I answer for him.

  “He travels,” I say, and all three of them look at me. “He’s been everywhere. Haven’t you?”

  They turn their attention back to Bennett, and he shrugs like it’s no big deal. I sit back and listen as the three of them spend the rest of lunch talking in animated tones about the places they’ve seen. I’ve been on this side of the conversation before, but this time, I don’t feel left out. Instead, I’m completely captivated, mentally taking notes, and wondering which of these beautiful-sounding destinations Bennett might take me to next.

  Emma pulls up in front of the bookstore to drop me off, and before she even has the car in park, her head whips around in the direction of the record store across the street.

  Okay, this is already a little weird.

  “Are you going over there?” I ask as I open my door and step out onto the curb. I lean back in to hear her answer.

  “No, not today. Today he should wonder if I’m going to pop in, and then, you know, miss me a little bit when I don’t.”

  I roll my eyes. I don’t think that’s Justin’s style, but then I realize, since I completely missed his attraction to my best friend, maybe I don’t know much about Justin’s style after all. “Okay, Em. See you in the morning.”

  “Bye, love,” she says, and I watch her drive off.

  The bells on the bookstore door give their standard jingle, but an unexpected chill goes through me when I hear them today. I usually associate them with happy memories, like coming in on a Saturday morning to help my grandfather stock the shelves, or the first time Dad gave me my own set of keys and let me lock up for the night. I’ve spent the last two days being grateful that the intruder was caught before he could take any of our money, but until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that he robbed me of my bells.

  “Hey, Annie.” Dad’s at the counter, punching numbers into the calculator, and making a small stack of the day’s receipts.

  I plant a kiss on his cheek. “Hi, Dad.” He pecks my cheek in return and goes back to the accounting. Neither of us acknowledges that the store is different today, but I know we both feel it.

  “I’m going to run to the bank and make the deposit,” he says without looking at me. “From now on, I don’t want you to do the night drop. I’ll take care of it.” I liked making the night drop. I watch as Dad collects all the receipts and staples them together, and stuffs the cash from the register into the zippered pouch. “I made arrangements to have an alarm system installed this weekend. It sounds pretty fancy. It even has a remote control, so you can just press a button from anywhere in the store and it will call the police immediately.”

  I look at him sideways. “Which is great, as long as you’re carrying the remote.”

  “Well, yeah, I suppose.” He laughs. “That’s a little intense, isn’t it?”

  “No, not at all. We can get matching leather belts, with little holsters.” I reach into my make-believe holster, quick-draw my invisible remote, and point it at him. He does the same.

  “You know, I was thinking,” Dad begins.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I was thinking that maybe it’s time I hired a Northwestern student to help in the store. You’re busier now, training for State. And finals are coming up soon—”

  “In a month.”

  “Before you know it, you’ll be dealing with college applications—”

  “In six months.”

  “And even though I haven’t met him properly, you seem to have a boyfriend now.”

  “I do not have a boyfriend.”

  “And you have better things to do than sit in this musty old store every other night, don’t you think? It would be a great job for a college student.”

  “No, it wouldn’t, because it’s already a great job for me. Thanks, Dad, but I’m fine. I like working here.” Besides, I’ve got to make money for my travel fund somehow, and it might as well be here.

  He pulls me into a hug. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” I say, but my voice is muffled by his wool sweater.

  He finally lets me go, pulls on his coat, and grabs the bag of cash. He’s no sooner out the door than the bells jingle again.

  I look up and see Bennett walking right toward me.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he says to me.

  We stand there awkwardly shifting our weight between our feet and trying to think of something to say.

  “I’m glad you came by.” I wring my hands. “I wanted to thank you again for the postcard. That was really sweet.”

  “Sure.” I watch his face get red and am grateful that it’s not about me, for a change. “I got one for myself, too. To remember the day.” He looks as nervous as I am. Which somehow makes me feel a lot better. “Anyway, I just came by to say hi and to get that book. On Mexico. For Argotta’s class.”

  “Oh, right, sure.”

  He follows me over to the Travel section and I run my finger along the bindings, stopping to extract my favorites. After I’ve removed a good selection of six or seven, I sit down cross-legged on the Berber carpet and lean back against the shelves.

  “Sit.” I gesture for Bennett to join me, and he mirrors me on the floor. I reach into the pile of books and I hold up the first one. “This one sucks. Hardly any pictures.” I put it down, starting a new pile on the floor, and pick up another. Suddenly I feel a strange sense of déjà vu. “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  I look at him for a minute. “Did we sit like this the other night? Before the robbery and your do-over thingy?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much exactly.” He smiles. Then he looks surprised. “What? Do you remember it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  He picks a book out of the pile and holds it up. “This one’s fine for budget travel, but that’s not really what we’re after.” He grins as he puts it on top of the one with hardly any pictures.

  It sounds like something I’d say.

  He grabs another. “This one has high-end hotels and restaurants, so it’s a little too pricey for us. But the pictures are nice.”

  Yeah. That’s true. And this is kind of freaking me out.

  He picks up another book, and when he opens his mouth—presumably to repeat more of my words—I interrupt him and say, “Why don’t you just tell me which one I recommended?”

  He leans over me, reaches back into the shelves, and removes a book. “Excuse me.” He brushes up against my arm and returns to his spot on the floor, but closer. So close our knees are touching. “This one’s your favorite.”

  I nod.

  “Best details. Vivid photos. Recommendations for budget hotels, but not, like, hostels or anything. And it has recommendations for three-day tours, five-day tours, and longer stays, so we can just put them togeth—”

  “I want to hear the rest of the second thing.”

  He looks at me for a moment. “Where did I—”

  “You can do over minor details in the past to affect the outcome, but you can’t erase an entire event. You can travel to any place in the world and into other times, but only within certain dates.”

  He looks at me like he’s surprised that I remember his words so exactly, but how could I not? They spent the night tossing and turning in bed with me.

  “Right.” He smiles a little. “I can only travel within my own lifetime. I can’t go back before the day I was born, or even one second beyond the current date. The first time I tried it, it worked, but, well, things went wrong. I’ve tried a thousand times since, but nothing happens.”

  I picture a timeline in my head that starts at the year he was born and continues on until today. “So, you can’t travel before 1978 or after today?”

  He reaches down to one of the Mexico travel guides and starts playing with the pages like it’s one of those little flip books, studiously avoiding my gaze. “No. I can go further i
nto the future than that.”

  “But I thought you couldn’t—then how—” I’m not getting this. And he’s not helping much. “Okay, let me ask it this way: How far beyond 1995 have you gone?”

  He inhales sharply. He doesn’t look at me. “Two thousand and twelve.”

  “But isn’t that ‘beyond your lifetime’?”

  But he’s looking at me like it’s not, and I feel a knot in the pit of my stomach.

  He raises his eyebrows, like he’s just waiting for me to catch on. “Wait…when were you born?”

  I think a full minute passes before I get my answer. At least it feels that way.

  “March 6. Nineteen ninety-five.”

  I just stare at him. “That was last month.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “March 6, 1995?”

  “Yes.”

  That’s when it hits me. The photos in his grandmother’s living room. The framed pictures of her daughter holding a baby. Named Bennett.

  “No way.” He’s still not looking up at me. “The pictures on Maggie’s mantel.” I don’t even realize I’ve said it out loud, but I must have, because he finally looks up and nods.

  “Maggie’s your grandmother.”

  He nods again.

  “And the ‘real you’ is…” I can’t bring myself to say the words: an infant. “In San Francisco.” That’s the reason there aren’t any older pictures of Bennett on Maggie’s wall.

  “Well, I’m the ‘real’ me.” He holds his arm out and hits it to prove that it’s solid. Then he looks at me. “But, yeah. In 2012 I’m seventeen. In 1995, technically, I’m…not.”

  I picture a completely different timeline. One that starts in 1995 and ends in 2012.

  “What about the…other you? The one in the pictures.”

  “I’m still in San Francisco, probably lying in a crib, staring up at a mobile or something.” I cringe and he looks at me sideways, but I shake it off and try not to look like the Baby Bennett thing isn’t weirding me out. I must look confused instead, because he clarifies. “I can be in two different places in the same time, just not in the same place at the same time.”