A World Without You(18)

I don’t know how this is going to play out. Maybe the moment I see her, I’ll be snapped back into my own time. But if my theory is right, as long as I don’t try to contact her or leave her a message, a warning . . .

My stomach churns. It feels weird to spy on my girlfriend, weirder still to wish I could warn her away from me.

I just need one moment, I think to myself. I just want to see her face. Just once more. It will give me the inspiration I need to figure out how to save her.

That thought—save her—makes reality stutter. I feel it in my navel, a tugging, like the strings of time tightening around my stomach. My breath jerks in my lungs, and my eyes focus like lasers on a single painted concrete block on my wall. I have to shake the thought away. I can’t think about saving Sofía, not while I’m here in the past. If time thinks I am going to screw with it, it’ll throw me back to where I’m supposed to be.

Without her.

I bite my tongue, tasting blood but focusing on the pain. I try to clear my mind. Intent matters. So I won’t intend to do anything other than see her. That’s all. Just one look.

I sense time easing up on me, the timestream calming and accepting my presence here in the past. I stand up, my legs wobbly, but soon enough I get my bearings.

A glance at the clock tells me that it’s near dinnertime. Unless we’re having some sort of event, dinners are served in each unit’s common room, and ours is just down the hall from my bedroom.

I creep down the hallway. I’m not sure what will happen if I’m seen. Just in case, I start thinking of excuses about why I’d be at the academy on a weekend. But I don’t need them—the hallway’s deserted.

There’s sound and light spilling from the common room. I stand with my back against the wall, listening to the clattering of silverware on plates, the low rumble of voices. A sharp laugh—Ryan’s—pierces the air. I dare to peek around the doors and look inside.

On weekends, Gwen and I both go home, leaving Harold, Ryan, and Sofía behind. They sit around the main table in the center of the common room now, eating ravioli. The table’s huge even when we’re all there, but it looks like it’s not big enough for the three of them. They’ve spaced themselves out, each taking a different side of the table and sitting as far away from each other as possible.

The common room is an odd mix of old-school leather and teenaged dishevelment. Big winged chairs litter the edges of the room, interspersed with framed reproductions of famous but somewhat mismatched art—Starry Night beside a Renoir next to one of Picasso’s broken women. But there’s also a giant flat-screen connected to the latest PlayStation in one corner, and a stack of board games on the walnut table in the center of the room.

Harold sits to the right, staring at the walls and sometimes muttering. As I watch, he pauses with the fork halfway to his mouth, a distant look in his eyes. His power isn’t enviable; seeing and hearing ghosts plagues him far more than it helps him. Ryan has his back to me, playing on his phone while he eats. His hulking body slouches over the table lazily.

So neither of them notice when Sofía looks up. Right at me.

A lump forms in my throat. I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Not for seeing her again.

But I can’t look away.

“Hi,” she mouths.

“Hi,” I whisper.

She moves to get up from the table, but I shake my head and raise a finger to my lips. A look of confusion crosses her face, but I can’t explain. I want nothing more than to burst inside, race across the common room, grab her, and never let her go. But I can’t explain why I’m here. I’d have to tell her that I’m visiting her in this past because I lost her in another. I’d have to tell her that I can’t save her.

“No,” I moan as the strings of time wrap around me again, squeezing, pulling. No, I won’t tell her, I want to say. I just want to see her. Just one more moment. Give me that. Please.

But how am I supposed to plead with time itself?





CHAPTER 10




Intent matters. As soon as I even thought about warning Sofía, about trying to save her, time pulled me back.

I thump my head against the common room door. The windows outside are dark, far darker than the evening of October 3, and I don’t have to pull out my phone to check that I’m back in the present, but I do anyway.

At least I got to see her. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

I close my eyes and try to picture her in that moment when she saw me and her eyes lit up. I want to hold on to that image forever.

This is progress. My control has been weakening, but I wanted to see Sofía, and I did. Figuring out the intent thing brings me one step closer to saving her.

I turn to go back to my room, but I realize that it would actually be nice to have a distraction from all that’s going on. I push open the common room door. For a moment, I see it the way it was on October 3, with Sofía at the table, and a smile plays at my lips. But I blink, and it’s today, and Sofía’s not here.

Ryan has the chess set out on the table, and as I step inside the room, a white bishop knocks over a black pawn of its own volition. Ryan picks up the fallen pawn, twisting it in his fingers as he stares at the board, and a black rook slides forward to take the bishop. Gwen cranks up the volume of the television across the room, ignoring everyone but the zombies she’s shooting. Harold must be in bed already.