I'll Stop the World (69)

“What brings you here this afternoon, Justin?” Bill asks as Veronica continues to size me up.

“Justin is Rose’s friend,” she supplies, watching me through slightly narrowed eyes.

“Oh, wonderful,” Bill says, completely unfazed. Is he used to his wife being this intense all the time, or is he just oblivious? He tilts his head at me. “Do you go to the high school? I try to make it a point to meet with every student, but I’m so sorry, I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“Homeschooled,” I manage to rasp out.

“Ah.” His expression clears, and he turns to Millie, who is concentrating fiercely on the zipper of her diaper bag, her little brow furrowed as she tries to pinch the tab between her stubby fingers. “Well, Millie girl, what do you say we get out of Mommy’s hair so she can work, hmm?”

Millie shakes her head, sending her wispy curls bouncing, but Bill scoops her up anyway, causing her to emit a howl of protest. “I’ll see you at home,” Bill says, planting a quick kiss on Veronica’s lips before hefting the diaper bag onto his shoulder and turning to me. The only indication that he’s aware of his daughter’s screeching is his slightly raised voice when he says, “Lovely to meet you, Justin.”

Watching the three of them together—a family—I feel like my veins have been filled with battery acid. The way Bill and Veronica look at each other, look at Millie . . . no one has ever looked at me like that. Not even my mom.

Maybe she never learned how. She never knew her parents, never heard her father call her Millie girl or her mother call her sweetheart. Before they could teach her how to love the way they did, they were burned alive, their flesh melting off their bones and fusing with the cheap school carpet.

I didn’t want to meet these people. I was okay with this ludicrous mission to save my grandparents being something theoretical, which could work or not work, when the only one who would bear any of the consequences either way would be me.

Now, faced with two living, breathing people—one of whom looks just like my mom, while the other looks like me—it’s like my entire reality shatters again. I was never convinced that preventing this fire was my ticket back home anyway, but now, failing at this task won’t simply mean that dead people will stay dead.

It will mean this woman right here, who just invited me in from the rain and served me a Tab and shook my hand, will die. And her husband, who makes it a point to know the face of every kid in his school, will die beside her. And their baby, who reached out with a chubby hand to steady herself on my knee as she passed by on her way to the diaper bag, will be an orphan.

And instead of a thing that just is, like it’s been my whole life, it will be my fault.





Chapter Forty-One


ROSE

Voices floated out of the living room when she opened the front door. Rose peered around the entryway to find Justin sitting stiffly on the couch beside Veronica, looking a bit dazed. The blood drained from Rose’s face as she looked from Justin to her mother.

“Oh. Hello.” The last thing Rose had expected after her blowout with her parents the day before was to find Justin in her house after school.

“Oh, hi, honey!” Diane said, rising from the blue velour armchair in the corner, her voice alarmingly chipper. “How was your day?”

“Fine . . . What’s going on?”

“Oh, that’s on me,” Veronica said with a too-broad smile. “I saw your friend outside, and I invited him in until you got home. He’s just been keeping us company while we work.”

Justin caught Rose’s eye and shrugged, his expression a little lost, like he had no idea how he’d wound up in this situation.

Diane pulled Rose in for a hug, leaning close to her ear. “So I suppose you didn’t get an opportunity to tell him about our little talk last night?” Diane whispered. All the cheeriness had vanished from her voice.

Rose shook her head. “I didn’t know he’d come over here, I promise,” she replied, her heart racing. It was one thing to defy her parents’ orders; it was another thing to do it right in front of them.

“You’ll tell him now,” Diane ordered.

“In front of everyone?”

“You can go outside, but only for a few minutes. Then I expect to see you back in here. Alone.” Her tone left no room for negotiation.

Rose nodded, swallowing thickly, then pulled out of the hug and gave Diane a tight smile. “Let’s, uh, go outside,” she said to Justin, who practically jumped from the couch.

“Don’t go far,” Diane said, a warning in her voice.

“We won’t.”

As soon as he was within reach, Rose all but dragged Justin through the front door after her. The rain had slowed to a lazy drizzle, light enough to walk without an umbrella. Rose would rather get a little damp than risk Diane and Veronica overhearing them.

“Didn’t expect to see you in my living room,” Rose said by way of apology as they headed down the sidewalk, elbows bumping as they shared the narrow strip of cement.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Justin said. “Your face was like you found Freddy Krueger sitting on your couch.”

“Sorry,” she said, driving her elbow into his side on purpose this time. “I thought you might, I don’t know, say something.”