“What am I looking for?”
“Take a slow walk along the other side of the street from my house, right at seven. You’ll know.”
“Fine. But I need a map to figure out the location. The Chaser doesn’t understand your addresses.”
“No problem. I’ll bring it up on Google.”
If there is a difference between 2012 and 2015, I’m not tuned into the culture enough to perceive it. To me, it looks like I could have hopped a couple minutes into the past to another part of Los Angeles.
I arrive early in the morning of February 14. Since the computer map Iffy showed me uses satellite images of the neighborhood, I’m able to coordinate this with my Chaser and pinpoint my arrival to a narrow space behind several retail shops a few blocks away from Iffy’s mom’s house. Since the space hasn’t been paved over, I can check for footprints in the sand. There are shallow depressions that look at least several days old, but nothing indicating anyone has walked between the buildings since then.
Confident my arrival will go unnoticed, I set the Chaser for 6:30 p.m. the previous day and jump back.
The evening is cool but not unpleasant. I note the addresses and keep track of time as I walk casually through Iffy’s neighborhood. Her house comes into view a minute before 7:00 p.m.
A car has just pulled up in front of her house. A baby-faced teenager straightens his hair and runs a hand down his nice shirt before heading up to the front door. I’m still not directly in front of the house when the door opens, but I’m able to see the large man standing inside. A conversation ensues. The only thing I can understand is when the man yells into the house, “Pamela!”
When Iffy appears at the door, I slow. She looks young enough to pass for a pre-teen. While her skin is pale as ever, her hair has yet to be reduced to her current boyish style and is pulled into a long ponytail. She’s wearing roomy pink pants and a matching bulky top.
The look on her face when she sees the boy is one of surprise, and judging by his demeanor — though I can’t see his face at the moment — he’s surprised, too.
Words float across the street…
“Ready” and “dance” and “I thought” and “way.”
The large man says something to Iffy. She looks reluctant, but he continues talking until she steps outside with the boy. The man closes the door, and the two kids walk slowly toward the boy’s vehicle.
I cross the street, angling my path so that I’ll reach the sidewalk at the far edge of Iffy’s property. It crosses my mind that this could interfere with their conversation, but it soon becomes apparent that they’re so wrapped up in each other, they don’t even notice me.
“…talk about it,” the boy is saying when I’m finally able to hear them.
“That was two months ago. I thought you were kidding. You should have checked with me again.”
“I didn’t…I thought…”
“Ryan, you’re a nice guy and all. I’m just not a dance kind of person, okay?”
“But you said yes.”
“Because I thought you were joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry, all right? I’m so sorry.”
She turns back to the house. When I reach the sidewalk, I continue past a couple houses before looking back. The boy is still standing by his car, staring at Iffy’s house. I turn away, feeling like I’m adding to his embarrassment.
Iffy gasps as I reappear in her room. She’s lying on her bed, her hands pressing against her temples.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
She blinks multiple times as she breathes deeply. When the tension finally leaves her face, I know the worst of the pain is over.
“How do the companions stand it?” she asks, propping herself up on an elbow.
“They’re sedated and don’t feel much, I think.”
“They’d have to be if they do this all the time.”
I help her sit all the way up.
“So…what did you see?” she asks.
“The fact that I vanished from your room and your nerve endings caught on fire isn’t enough to sway you?”
“Could be that’s just a teleportation device. Which, I admit, would be very cool. But it’s not time travel.”
“You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” I know I shouldn’t let this happen, but I’m enjoying our banter.
“Tough enough to survive a bout of crippling pain.” A pause. “Well?”
I tell her about the boy.
Her eyes are wide as I describe him. When I finish, she nods and whispers, “Ryan Smith. We’d known each other for years.”
“And the man who answered the door? Was he your father?”
“Stepfather.” Her voice is stronger now. “He made me go out and talk to Ryan.”
“The boy asked you to go with him somewhere but you didn’t want to, right?”
“To the high school Valentine’s Day dance. He asked me, like, months before. I didn’t think he was serious, especially since he never mentioned it again.”
“He must’ve been afraid you’d back out.”
“Yeah. I figured that out eventually.”
“Why did you pick that for me to see?”
She looks down at her hands. “In May, before school ended that year, Ryan and his mother were killed in an accident. A truck driver dozed off and crossed the center line, right into their sedan.” She looks at me. “Same car you saw. I’m positive I’m the only girl he ever asked out, ever would ask out, and I turned him down in the worst possible way. So that night’s kind of stuck with me. Talk about selfish. What would it have hurt to give him one night?”
I could say it wasn’t her fault he never asked out anyone else, but I know it won’t do any good.
“I believe you,” she says, and then leans against me, her head on my shoulder. “I believe you.”
I don’t realize how much tension I’ve been holding until it breaks at that moment. My secret is now a shared one.
Without any forethought, I slip my arms around her. Our faces turn toward each other and our lips meet in a kiss initiated by both of us. It’s my first, and it’s impossible to believe there will ever be a better one.
We lie back on her bed at some point, and I tell her the part of my story I left out earlier — the part that triggered my coming to find her.
A shiver runs through her when I finish so I pull her close.
“You’re telling me in four days everything will go away,” she says.
“I wish it were different.”
“It could be.”
I know what she’s thinking, because I’ve spent the whole day at the library thinking it, too, but I say, “Your world shouldn’t be here. It’s a mistake.”
“Which means I’m a mistake.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s true.”
I say nothing.
“If you change things back,” she says a few moments later, “you’ll only be replacing one genocide with another.”
This, too, I know. It’s part of what’s been brewing in the back of my mind, haunting me. “No matter what I do now, I will always be responsible for one.”
She lays her head against my chest. “And you think it should be the one I’m part of?”
I run my hand over her hair and onto her back.
I don’t know what the answer is.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The creaking of floorboards wakes me.
I open my eyes to a sunlit room and the sound of birds. What’s missing is the press of Iffy’s body against mine.
From across the room I hear a faucet turn, followed by the spray of water. A few moments later, I can see steam building in the bathroom through the partially open doorway. I lay my head back against the pillow and stare at the ceiling.
How is she going to feel about me this morning? How is she going to feel about the man who, in now three days’ time, will help erase her world?