I'll Stop the World (103)

I’m working through the Entertainment section, reading an ad for Teen Wolf (“A Howling Success!”) when a shadow falls over me. I look up to see Deputy Kenny Gibson glaring down at me. “What are you doing here?”

What. The hell.

“Um, reading?” I say, holding up the paper.

He sits down beside me, propping a meaty arm across the back of the bench. If CrossFit existed in the ’80s, this guy would be their god. “Interesting reading spot. Great view of the community center. Sure you’re not waiting for someone?”

I shake my head, swallowing.

He narrows his eyes. “Not, perhaps, Rose Yin? Her mom’s debating here tonight.”

“Oh,” I say, my voice sounding hoarse. “Yeah, I think I heard about that.”

He shakes his head, his expression dark. “Listen, kid, I don’t know who you are, but I know you were told to leave that girl alone. So if I were you, I’d go read somewhere else. Got it?”

Not knowing what else to do, I nod, clenching my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. All I wanted to do was see them one last time. I wasn’t even going to say anything. And now I can’t even have that much.

He pats my shoulder so hard my teeth rattle, then gets to his feet. “I’ll be around all day. Don’t let me see you here again,” he says before heading into the community center, leaving me alone on the bench.

I want to scream, but instead I crumple the newspaper in my hands, my whole body trembling. Stupid Gibson. Stupid 1985. Stupid me, thinking I can do a single thing to make any of this more tolerable.

I get up from the bench and walk down the sidewalk, toward the bus station.

The ticket to Hawthorne is only a couple of bucks, but even with 1985’s low prices, fifty dollars plus the last of Stan’s Oreo money isn’t going to last me long. I need a plan. I try to think back, remember whether Stan gave me any hints for what I’m supposed to do next, but I come up empty-handed. If he ever told me what he did to support himself in the years after leaving Stone Lake, I wasn’t listening.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don’t get on the first bus, or the second, telling myself I have plenty of time. I’m not in a rush. I’ve got my whole life to be Stan, and I’m not quite ready to leave Justin behind yet.

To pass the time, I scan the job listings in the newspaper. They’re all for Stone Lake, not Hawthorne, so they won’t do me any good, but I tell myself it’s helpful to know what sorts of opportunities are out there for a Dollar Tree–trained time traveler like me. Despite my lack of a high school diploma—in 1985 or otherwise—or any other credible documentation, it doesn’t seem like it should be too hard to find a minimum-wage job, provided their background checks aren’t very robust.

I guess I could eventually invest in the stock market. Get in on the ground floor of Apple or Google or Facebook or some other mega-bajillion-dollar tech company that will set me up for life. Maybe that’s why Stan never worked. He always said he retired early, although I figured that was just code for “permanently unemployed.” Now I wonder whether he actually had a lot more cash stuffed in his mattress than I previously thought.

But of course, becoming a stock-market millionaire still requires me to get enough money together to actually invest in the first place, and to tide me over for the years it will take for my knowledge of the future to actually become profitable. All the Google stock in the world won’t do me any good if I starve to death before the internet becomes a thing.

Before too long, though, I toss the paper aside. Trying to plan out my lonely life of solitude is depressing as hell. Every time I focus on it too much, I get this awful, writhing feeling in my gut, like I’ve swallowed a snake. I’ve only ever loved three people in my life. And judging by Stan’s completely nonexistent social life, that’s the way it’s going to stay.

Two of them I won’t see again for decades, and when I do, I’ll be someone else.

And the third is already done with me.

The thought is crushing. I can’t hold it for long, or I’ll forget how to breathe.

So I slump in my seat as morning bleeds into afternoon and buses continue to depart without me on them, trying to distract myself with the soap operas playing on the TV in the corner. They’re the same ones I’ve been watching at Mrs. Hanley’s, but I can’t even get into them because I’m too distracted watching the clock.

Veronica’s and Bill’s faces keep flashing through my mind. They don’t know that their time is almost up, and there’s no way for me to warn them. Veronica already doesn’t trust me. For all I know, if I tried to convince her and Bill to stay away from the school, it would turn out to be the very reason they go.

No matter how I look at it, saving them is a lost cause. In a couple of hours, they’ll be gone.

Then why can’t I let this go?

Why do I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin if I stay on this bench a second longer?

Can I really sit here watching soap operas, knowing what I know?

Can I really just get on a bus and leave?

I should. There’s nothing I can do. My knee still throbs every time I put my full weight on my leg, a reminder that any attempt to change the past is pointless.

Rose doesn’t want anything to do with me. That walking canker sore Gibson will probably throw my ass in jail if he sees me again.