“So he’s dead?” Eli asked.
Derek nodded.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
Only two years after we’d gone through the portal.
“That’s when my parents were released and I got to come home,” Derek added.
“My mom?” Eli asked.
“She’s alive. I think she remarried a few years back.” Derek shrugged.
“What about Dad?” I asked.
Derek shook his head. “He didn’t know how to deal with losing you, so he married some woman he worked with and started a new family. He tries to get me to come over a lot, but . . .” He shrugged.
My parents were suddenly on different sides. Derek had chosen my mom.
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, if anything. None of this felt real. It felt like a nightmare. I wondered if I would wake up tomorrow and be with Janelle. I wondered how much I was willing to erase, how far I would go back if I could.
Eli looked at me. “Let’s go to bed.”
We slept in my old bedroom.
The room was the same as I left it, except for the thick layer of dust covering everything. When I was nine, for Derek’s birthday, my parents gave him his own room with a new bed and let him paint it and decorate it however he wanted to. Both of our childhood beds were still in my room. They were old wooden beds that had actually been my dad’s when he was a kid. You could put them together like bunk beds or separate them.
Eli sneezed as he shook out the comforter on Derek’s old bed.
On the window was a dusty picture frame. I wiped my fingers through the dust. It was me, Derek, and our dog, Hope. I hadn’t been able to ask about her, not once Derek started telling us how things had changed. Seven years had gone by, but I’d hoped she would still be here. It was clear she wasn’t, and if my parents had been in jail and my brother sent to a group home, Hope would have gone to a shelter or new owners. Wherever she was, I hoped she was happy.
The wind whistled through the window frame, and I listened to the muted, faraway sound of the chimes outside. I looked at the bed in front of me and thought of Janelle. Was she getting into bed thinking of me, too?
We shouldn’t have left her there in Park Village like that.
The mattress on the other bed creaked from Eli’s weight. I pulled my own covers back, the fabric rustling as it revealed flannel sheets with fire trucks on them.
“Remember when we slept over here during that freak snowstorm?” Eli said suddenly. “We were, like, eight I think.”
“Yeah, it only snowed, like, an inch, but your dad declared a state of emergency and had a snowplow drive him over the next morning to pick you up.”
“I was so pissed,” he said. “You and Reid and Ian got to all stay here and hang out and play Space Shield and I had to go home.”
“They were here for almost three full days. My dad kept joking that if we ran out of food we would eat Reid first because Ian was too skinny.”
Eli laughed. “He was really fucking skinny. I wonder what happened to him.”
I didn’t want to think about it. He was just another casualty in all the lives I’d ruined by falling through the portal. Everything that had happened here—our families falling apart, the people Eli’s father had jailed or executed—that was all on me. Plus everything that had gone wrong in Janelle’s world, all the people who died from the disasters, the people who were pulled through the portals. If I just hadn’t fallen through it that first time, things would be so different.
“How could he do it?” Eli asked. I knew from his tone that he’d switched directions. He was talking about Reid now.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.
Eli must not have expected an answer, because as I stared at my ceiling, I heard him roll over and sigh. I wondered how long it would take both of us to fall asleep. If exhaustion would claim us or if we’d lie awake, unable to relax.
I thought about Reid and how it wasn’t right what happened to him. The things he had done.
It all happened so fast.
Reid had confessed.
“He surprised me,” he said, turning from Eli to Janelle. “I was in the middle of trying to get a portal open, and he just walked in like he owned the place. The portal opened and I couldn’t let him see it. So I pulled the gun and I shot him. I didn’t know it was your dad until later!”
“And then you just kept right on going?” He never told us any of this. He lied to our faces. And when things kept getting worse, he kept lying. “Even after the earthquakes and when we were chasing Eric Brandt around?”
“You fucking got me shot for no reason,” Eli added. It would sound cold to anyone else, but I knew him. I knew he was thinking what I was. That everyone who died because of the earthquakes, that was all on us. Not just because we accidentally fell into a portal and ended up on the wrong world. Not just because we were trying to get home and made a few mistakes. Not just because of an accident.
Janelle swayed a little, reaching out a hand. I grabbed her waist, trying to steady her as she leaned over, and then I pulled back her hair as she heaved.
I should have known it was Reid. I should have stopped him.
That’s what I was thinking when the portal opened. The cool rush of portal air opened right next to us, and I had a moment of panic where I wondered what I had done to open it up. Only two soldiers came through the portal alive. With their guns trained on us, one of them shouted, “Get on the ground, hands behind your head.” I recognized the voice. It was the guy we followed, the guy who shot Eli.
“Right now!” the other one shouted. It was Taylor Barclay.
I was going to do what they said. I held on to Janelle to make sure that she would do it too. I had no doubt that these guys would shoot her if they needed to.
At first I thought they shot at us anyway. I heard the guns go off and waited to feel the pain. Janelle turned. I grabbed her, suddenly convinced she’d been hit. I tried to see if she was bleeding, and where, but she struggled against my grip and threw herself behind me.
I turned to follow her. But one of the soldiers grabbed me and pushed me to the ground. My face hit the dirt.
“Help!” Janelle screamed, and I smelled the blood.
I turned, despite the gun trained on me, and saw it was Alex. She was kneeling over him, while Reid was holding a gun.
“It’s Reid!” she screamed just as he raised the gun.
There was another shot, and he fell. Crumpled to the ground. I knew instantly he was dead.
When I finally did manage to fall asleep, it was fitful. At first it was the images of Reid, holding the gun and falling to the ground. Then it was Alex, the hole in his neck, the blood pouring out, covering Janelle’s and my hands. I heard the gunshots, I tried to save them, but no matter what I did differently, it always ended the same. Their blood soaked the ground. I stood alone, staring into their empty but open eyes.
When the dreams changed, I saw only Janelle.
She was standing at the edge of a chasm. Between us was blackness—empty and vast, like a portal. Even though I wasn’t moving, it felt like I was somehow getting farther and farther away. She looked smaller and blurrier with each second that passed. Her features were less defined, and I struggled to somehow see her more clearly.
I called out to her, but she didn’t look at me. I called again. I screamed her name, but she didn’t seem to hear me.
Then she turned her head like she was looking down into the blackness. I looked into it and saw nothing, and somehow I knew that was very, very bad. I yelled out to her again. I needed her to look at me. I didn’t want her to see into the black. I shouted her name. I begged for her to turn, to see me. I even jumped and waved my arms to get her attention.
She kept staring down into the chasm.
Then there was a loud cracking noise and she fell to the ground.
I woke up covered in sweat, heart pounding, and I couldn’t help but feel like it hadn
’t been just a dream.
It felt like a warning.
Three weeks passed.
On day two Eli moved in with his mother and her new family. She insisted. He smiled and put on a good show, but I knew him well enough to recognize how stiff he was. He hadn’t wanted to go.
I spent day four with my father. I hardly recognized him. He’d put on weight and more expensive clothing. He was happy to see me of course, but once I explained how I’d gotten back, we didn’t have much to say to each other.
Day five, I moved in with Derek.
Day seven, he got me a job at the garage where he worked. It was at the edge of downtown East Clemente City, and on our way home we stopped to eat dinner with our mom at the old house.
Days eight through twenty-one were the same.
I tried to trick myself into feeling like my life was normal.
Like this was the life I was supposed to have.
I was grateful to have my family back in my life, but I couldn’t help feeling out of place.
I’d fought so hard to get back here. I’d told Janelle I didn’t belong in her world, that I belonged here. And I did. Or at least I should have.
But I moved through every day with a sense of unease that didn’t seem to be going away. In fact it just seemed to be growing. I didn’t fit here, either. I had been gone too long.
On day twenty-two, something happened.
I woke up before Derek’s alarm went off. I reached under the couch and grabbed the small notebook and pen I found there. I’d started keeping a list of things to tell Janelle. I wrote them down whenever I had a chance so I wouldn’t forget them. Not just the obvious things, like how much life had changed here or how disappointed I was in the man my father had become, but the little details of life here that I hadn’t remembered. That everyone drank this cheap beer called Light Blue Ice and it tasted like it had been artificially sweetened. That instead of Roberto’s or even Taco Bell, the only Mexican food here was from this poorly named place called Refried Beans that had great tacos and beans, but not much else worth eating. That traffic lights were red, yellow, and blue.
That morning I just wrote: I miss you.
“Hey, you up?” Derek called. “Let’s go get breakfast at Mom’s. We’ve got time and I’m desperate for wafflecakes.”
Wafflecakes: really thick waffles, 2X the thickness of your waffles, sometimes with a jelly or cream center. Served with ice cream instead of syrup. They’re pretty amazing.
“Put away the diary,” Derek said with a laugh as he came out of the bedroom. “Let’s go.”
I did what he said and left the notebook on the coffee table so I could write more when we got back.
That afternoon, I was under a car, working on an oil change, when Derek’s favorite song came on the satellite radio. I recognized it by the weird arrangement of electronica tones that played in the beginning, and I wished I had some kind of noise-canceling headphones to wear. The music just felt foreign. It wasn’t just that I didn’t really know the song, it felt like the style was something I didn’t understand: grunge rock mixed with electronica beats.
I was trying to think of a good way to describe the music to Janelle, when military-style combat boots walked past me. I flinched. They were familiar: the style, the soles, the scuff marks on the left toe, the strange way they were laced up.
I slid out from under the car and jumped to my feet, ready to ask the owner of the boots what he was doing here. But whoever belonged to those shoes wasn’t there. I walked out of the garage, surveying the area, trying to place where he might have gone.
Derek came out of the office. “What’s wrong?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his face.
“Somebody was just here. A guy wearing combat boots,” I said. “Did you see him?”
Derek laughed. “There are thousands of guys in combat boots that come through here. They’re called the city guard.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t know how to explain. I had seen those boots before. Not just the style, which no matter what Derek said seemed different from the city guard. What really stuck out, though, were the laces. They looked like they were almost braided and tied with some fancy knot. It was something I’d only seen once before. On the boots that were right next to my face the night Reid died.
“It might not have even been a guard. Those stupid boots are making a fashion surge. Would you believe I saw this cute girl in a pink miniskirt and black combat boots?” Derek said. “It was unsettling. She was hot, but those boots just didn’t look inviting.”
I pictured Janelle in black combat boots, but then I shook the image from my mind. I didn’t want it to stick. Not because I thought it was frightening, but more because it I didn’t want to picture her dressed like she was in IA.
“I didn’t see anyone, man,” Derek added. “Just try to relax.”
I nodded, but relaxing wasn’t something I’d been able to do for a long time.
As I was about to get back under the car to finish the oil change, I spotted a tan sedan parked across the street. I couldn’t remember if I had seen it before or not. It was nondescript, the kind of car that from its profile could be any number of makes and models. In a color that just seemed to fade into the background.
I stared at it. Something about it stood out. It wasn’t necessarily new, but it was too clean, too shiny, like it wasn’t used often, and its windows were tinted. It didn’t belong.
We worked from seven to five, so when it hit five on the dot, Derek was already in the car. His hands drummed on the steering wheel as he waited for me.
“I’m not up for dinner at Mom’s again,” he said when I got in.
I nodded and settled back into the car.
It only took me a few turns to realize we weren’t going home.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said when I sat up a little straighter.
“Have I ever loved surprises?”
He laughed. “Remember when Mom used to always bring us home surprises? I loved that.”
I smiled. I had too. She would come home from work and pick up surprise meals or surprise desserts or surprise presents that she gave us “just because.” I wondered if that had stopped when I left.
We pulled into the parking lot of a bar called Rusty Hinges. It was decorated like a beach bar with tiki torches and fake-grass umbrellas shading the tables, even though we weren’t really anywhere near the beach.
The drinking age here was only eighteen. “I’m still a year shy,” I said as we got out, wondering if my brother had forgotten.
He shrugged. “I know a guy.”
I followed, though I really didn’t want to go in. There were people laughing, sharing things with each other, having fun. I didn’t feel like I belonged there with them. If I was going to sit in a bar, it should be with people who knew me and understood me. With Eli and Reid and Janelle.
“Look, I know you’re upset about Reid,” Derek said. “And I respect that you don’t want to talk about it. You’ve got a lot on your plate with Dad and everything that you weren’t expecting here, but you can have fun, too. I’ve been sort of seeing this girl, Alice. We’re meeting her and a friend. It’ll be great. Like a quad date.”
“Quad date?” I said.
“Yeah, four people,” Derek said. “You know, on a date?”
I swallowed hard. There wasn’t much he could have said to make me want to go in less. That was my fault, though. Because I hadn’t told him much. It felt selfish to go into all of the things that had happened to me in another world, when right here his life, my family’s lives, had fallen apart. I hadn’t said anything to him about Janelle. Not really.
Even though I told my mom about her, it hadn’t felt right to bring her up to Derek. Not after I realized what had happened here, how much of their lives I’d ruined. It didn’t feel right to tell him that Janelle had made me happy, had made me feel alive in that other world, or that I missed her every second I was here. I wanted my brother to be happy. I coul
dn’t bear for him to think that I wasn’t glad to be back.
I knew which table we were going to as soon as we walked in. There were two girls sitting under an umbrella. One of them fit my brother’s taste perfectly: fair skin, blond, bright blue eyes. She looked delicate and very pretty.
She waved when she saw us.
The other girl looked over. She had long dark hair, but Derek still would have liked her. She was delicate and pretty too. “I’m Stacee,” she said, holding out her hand when I reached the table.
“Ben,” I said.
She smiled and turned to Alice. “I told you he wouldn’t remember me.”
I looked at Derek and he shrugged.
“We went to elementary school together,” Stacee said. “I was a year ahead of you, but I lived down the street from Ian.”
“Ian Shyrock? How is he?”
“He’s good,” she said. “He finished high school this past year. He took some exams to get ahead, and now he’s joined the military. He’s down at basic.”
“That’s great,” I said, even though I couldn’t picture the Ian I had known in the military.
“Oh my God, you would not believe what happened to Stacee today. Tell them,” Alice said.
Stacee turned pink and offered me a small apologetic smile. Something about it made me think of Janelle. Maybe all girls, not just Janelle, did that thing where they blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind their ear, but the way Stacee did it made it hard for me to listen to her story about how two guys in the city guard yelled at her after one of them opened a door for her and she didn’t say thank you.
All I could focus on was the fact that she wasn’t Janelle.
I wanted to be invested. Stacee was nice. She smelled good, she was funny and smart, she had a great smile, and she was pretty. She laughed at the right times when Derek interjected to say something funny and rolled her eyes when his jokes missed the mark.
Her hair was darker, her eyes smaller and less round than Janelle’s. At the same time she was taller, maybe even a little thinner, too. She didn’t have the same athletic look to her that Janelle did. I couldn’t imagine this girl swimming in the ocean or carrying a gun.