Warp

by Nat Fladager

  “Oh, Hailey.” He embraces me, weeping into my neck.

  I hold him as tightly as I can. I clutch the tuft of yearning hair above his collar. His body heaves.

  After a couple minutes, Chase picks up his head. I have never seen him look this miserable. He cups my face in his dirty hands and then lets me go, wiping the tears off his eyes.

  29

  All I can think about is how tomorrow turns out. Each second that passes creeps today closer to then, when I break up with Chase, and today, after yesterday, I don’t want to have.

  I brush my teeth, every stroke against my enamel bridging the gap. I tie my shoelaces and the knots knot up my stomach. I shouldn’t consider changing how things turn out. I don’t believe in that. But I also can’t help changing my mind. Seeing him like that. The words he said to me. If things were different maybe Devon wouldn’t have died, or at least, Chase wouldn’t have been alone when he did.

  I feel like a bandit as I come up with my plan. Warp is used to my lack of confidence. It would never expect me to deviate. I have no appetite or concentration. Chase’s monotone greeting at lunch washes over me as I contemplate my big idea. If I write myself a note, telling myself to not break up with Chase and keep it in my pocket when I go to sleep, I will potentially wake up and heed my advice.

  Nausea sets in after school and the idea of never meeting Micah begins to thicken and grow vines. Chase is particularly unloving towards me as he departs campus without asking me to come along. Flashes of his future gloom ripple through my present brain. His watery eyes and short hair, the black clothes and dirt under his fingernails as he holds onto my cheeks like he’s holding on for dear life.

  I watch him skateboard around the corner, his long hair flying behind him. Tomorrow is the last day we are ever together. But maybe not.

  I write myself a dozen notes before bed, trying to sound encouraging to my future self so that I won’t back down. How much will I undo if I do this? I reconsider, getting cold feet. Would Micah disappear? Would I?

  Shoving these fears aside, I uncap the marker and write the note to self bluntly. Do not break up with Chase, Hailey. You will end up regretting it when you get older. Listen to me and not to yourself. I know more than you do in the moment. I fold it as tiny as I can, tuck into my sweatshirt pocket and lay down on the bed, ready to lose and gain everything.

  30

  I awaken to Micah as if nothing happened. To the slippers I wear when it’s cold and the picture of us in Canada. Even the basil we planted last Friday rests in its pot over the kitchen sink, barely grown. I am somewhat reassured that I do not have the kind of power to transform circumstances as I thought I might and also, disappointed.

  I put on a sweater and join Micah on the balcony. I touch his shoulders and he jumps.

  “Jesus, you scared me.”

  “Sorry.” I apologize for more than one thing. I was supposed to be letting go and moving forward. My heart is supposed to be his. “What are you reading this morning?”

  He takes my hand and twirls me around onto his lap. “It’s nothing.” He closes the book. “The Time Machine.”

  “Oh. An oldie.” I pretend the title doesn’t irk me.

  “Yeah.” He runs his thumb across the worn pages. “It was my dad’s. He gave it to me.”

  I am sure Micah has told me about his dad and I am unsure what I should know or what I can say. “Was he scientist like you?” I risk the question.

  “No way.” Micah laughs at this. “He was a garbage man but wanted to be Albert Einstein. He got me into science fiction. He used to read me this book before bed.”

  I play with a loose button on his button up. It’s the same one he wore at the party where we met. I think about how Chase lost his brother and Micah lost his father and how I am incapable of helping either of them. Warp is useless. I am useless. “Is that why you became a scientist?”

  “Perhaps.” Micah pauses but eventually continues. “When my dad died, my mom told me that he hadn't actually passed away, but that he was off time traveling. She was just trying to soften the blow but this book reminds me of him, and almost like maybe, he is...”

  “He is...time traveling?” I finish the sentence, taken aback by the subject matter.

  “Yeah.” Micah clears his throat. An easy smile dismantles from his seriousness. “But that is crazy and impossible. Isn’t it?”

  I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. The rebel part of me desires to expose Warp to Micah to ease his pain. Maybe his dad is time traveling but he will only think that is crazy as long as no one tells him otherwise. But when the moment to speak arises, I can’t tell my secret. I just can’t.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. I lean my forehead against his. “But I think that anything is possible.”

  31

  I follow Chase down the boardwalk. We have hours left in the day but I count the minutes. This was my favorite day before today.

  “Come on, Hailey,” Julie yells at me. “You’re lagging behind.”

  I pick up my pace and trip over my loose shoelace. Chase notices, kneels and ties it for me, double-knotting the string. I look down at the top of his head, holding onto the stuffed dolphin I won after an hour obsessively playing for it.

  The now is really before if it is not after. I have no present, only the fuzzy edges. I can’t change when and where I hop or what has already happened or will. Warp has no weakness and preys on mine.

  “There you go.” He pats my foot.

  “Thanks.”

  He rises. “We better get going before we gotta head back.”

  I nod and lace my fingers with his fuzzy ones. “Yes, we better.”

  32

  Rachel and I sit on the grass after Art History chugging blue Gatorades.

  “I feel like crap,” she complains. “Don’t ever let me drink tequila again.”

  Like her, I am also nursing a hangover but from a night I experienced weeks ago. “Just vodka then,” I tease. She moans and I moan and we lay down atop our backpacks.

  I close my eyes and rest. My thoughts wander, through the backroads. Earlier, Rachel had asked me to come back with her to Seattle after graduation. She said I could work the summer at her family’s restaurant and get tips. She said we would get a place of our own and throw parties and that I could have the bigger bedroom. “You don’t want to go back there, do you?” She continued her campaign. “Back to nothing.”

  Nothing. Is that what it has become? But she’s right. Why would I want to return? Back to the hot summers and the cul-de-sac that kept me spitting distance to Chase and his two-story house with his bedroom upstairs, next to his brother’s room. My mom is older now and unhappy and my dad doesn’t do anything good. Chase lives on the opposite side of town and only invites me over if it’s before Thanksgiving last year. I’m too old to play at Rhino Park, even when I’m younger.

  A familiar clicking noise stirs me away from memory lane. I open my eyes and pick up my head. It’s the sound of heels on the sidewalk but not just any heels. Micah’s.

  I stand up and dust the grass off the back of my thighs, watching Micah walk past me, a younger Micah, but him just the same.

  “What is it?” Rachel lifts her head. “Do you know that guy?”

  I want to run after him, ask him to remind me of what we have, but it’s before we met. He must be visiting the science department or doing something completely unrelated to me. I watch him scurry along disappearing into a crowd of people, unaware of my presence. “No.” I sit back down and finish my sport’s drink. I miss him because he is years away. “I don’t.”

  33

  “There she is.”

  My eyes pop open.

  “Drink this.” Micah lifts my head and brings a glass of orange juice to my lips.

  My head hurts and I am dizzy. A daisy lays next to me, dilapidated. “Did I faint?”

  “Yes. Are you okay?”

  I sit up and it all comes back to me. There is my dad with his wrinkles, my bouquet
of daisies sitting beside me. And there is Micah dressed in a tuxedo. This is my wedding day and he is my groom.

  “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” I say, every feeling creeping its way to the top. I already knew it was him. I was ninety-nine percent certain.

  Micah sits next to me on the ground. He brings my fallen strap back over my shoulder. “I don’t believe in luck. You just fainted from nerves. But it’s all okay now. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined you this beautiful.”

  I adjust the flower in his lapel. His hair is slicked back and his skin appears velvety. “I will be fine,” I guarantee and Micah brings me to my feet.

  “I wish my dad were here. He would have liked you.”

  I kiss Micah’s velvet cheek. “I would have liked him.”

  The isle is endless. I can hear myself breathing slowly and heavily as I plant one foot ahead of the other. I pass my mom and she is crying. I see Julie standing at the front and I figure she is my maid of honor. Finally, Micah reaches his hand out to me and I make it.

  “You changed everything,” he reads his vows. “You gave me a life I never knew was possible.” He rubs his thumb under his eyes.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I whisper to him. “I didn’t write anything.”

  “You don’t need to say anything.” Micah pushes the wedding band onto my finger.

  “Micah, do you take Hailey to be your wife, forever and always,” the officiant asks him.

  “I do,” he agrees.

  “Hailey, do you take Micah to be your husband, forever and always?” the officiant seeks my agreement.

  I will not stay married every day. Warp will make sure of that. I also can’t say I would want to stay married every day.

  “I do,” I return the sentiment. Micah showers me with kisses and momentary, I am Micah’s wife and Micah is my husband.

  34

  I know this. This breath and its rhythm. This heavy arm across my ribs. I crack one eye open and a crack-sized image of Chase appears.

  “Good morning.” He greets me with a kiss, a spritz of his butterscotch hairs tickling my cheek. He sweeps me up in his arms. “Sweet, pretty Hailey. My sweet, pretty wife.”

  My heart stops. What the heck?

  I latch onto him and the words he spoke. I kiss him wantonly, incapable of monogamy. “Hubby,” I return, fishing for more.

  Chase grins. “Is that what you’ll call me from now on?”

  “Why not?”

  “Might as well tell the world.”

  Is this a dream? The first I’ve had in Warp? I search around me for dream-like evidence, unicorns and upside down skies. Everything appears normal except for the obvious, that I am married to Chase and not Micah.

  I find my cell phone and the date. Two days from now I wed Micah. I recall the ceremony and the cake we ate and the dances we danced. How could that have happened if this happened?

  Chase takes me for a piggyback ride around the hotel room, dodging Champagne corks and bits of clothing. He opens the curtains to let in the sunshine and the glittering oval of Lake Tahoe.

  We order room service and drink mai tais for breakfast until we are drunk and horny and have sex three times in a row. Then we put on bathing suits and go to King’s Beach and get sunburned.

  I am living out a pipedream. Older Chase wants me back. We have grown up and gotten married, what I hoped for since I was a kid, since two days from now, since every day.

  We romp around in the sand and hug and kiss. We tell strangers we are newlyweds and I forget that I promised Micah forever. I used to have morals. I used to care about doing the right thing, before Warp warped me. I used to love Chase as much as I do now.

  35

  Chase falls asleep cuddling my red body. I study him closely. I follow the frown lines on his forehead, the scars on his lips, chin and legs from all his adventures, ones I have mostly missed. I touch the top of his warm head. It turns me on and therefore I kiss him.

  “Hailey.” He stirs.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you, hubby.”

  He looks around and takes a short breath. “What? I mean...where are we? Shit.”

  “You were just dreaming.” I shhhhh him. “Go back to sleep.”

  He relaxes back on the fluffy pillows. “Lay with me,” he requests.

  I rest my head on his pounding heart and pet his chest. “I love you,” I tell him freely. “More than anything or anyone else.”

  36

  I am tightly wound when I arrive younger and once again, Micah’s. It takes me longer to acclimate than usual. My body may be here, but my soul is elsewhere.

  Micah makes breakfast while I lay on the coach. I hear the kettle boil and him scraping butter on toast. He talks to me but the words float in the air, undigested.

  I close my eyes and envision Chase melting over me in our hotel bed. We rolled around on the beach, encrusting our skin with sand like human snickerdoodles. For a minute there, I believed everything turned out as it should have. I breathe in deeply and shut my eyes. Micah’s presence sinks into oblivion as I fall away until I disappear.

  37

  I am irritable while I get ready and during our walk down the street to the bar. Micha’s hand searches for mine and on the tenth bounce against my hip, he catches it.

  “Hey,” he tries to catch my attention.

  I am irritated by the way his hand engulfs mine and reminds me of how I am happy in this life, the one with him and not the other.

  I order a mai tai because it reminds me of my honeymoon with Chase and Bryan arrives upon happenstance and orders us a second round.

  “Bryan, this is Hailey,” Micah introduces us.

  “The famous Hailey.” Bryan shakes my hand.

  I twirl my mini umbrella irritated.

  Micah punches Bryan chummily in the arm and the two of them laugh happily and drunkenly like they are good friends.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” I act naive.

  “Bryan’s my colleague at the university,” Micah chimes in.

  “Oh, another science geek?” I smile coyly and eat my cherry.

  Bryan laughs and Micah laughs and I laugh because they laugh. “I suppose that’s accurate.”

  “And what’s your specialty?”

  Theories and such,” he answers vaguely.

  “And such?” His vagueness irritates me.

  “How about you?” He changes the subject.

  “I am sure Micah has told you all about me.”

  “I bet you still have some secrets up your sleeve.” He lifts his glass. “Cheers.”

  “To secrets?” I lift my glass to meet his.

  “No, to you,” Bryan corrects me. “To Hailey, the girl of Micha’s dreams.”

  Micah is drunk when we walk back home. He is heavy on my shoulders. He lights up his fourth cigarette and I watch it burn in the tainted dark.

  “This part of town reminds me of Eugene,” I share. “Quiet and easy.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “You’ve been there, you know.”

  Micah wavers as he walks. He gives me a wet smooch on the cheek. “I’ve never been to Eugene.”

  “Yes you have. I mean, haven’t you?”

  Micah flicks his cigarette into a puddle. “Maybe when I was a kid,” he answers. “But I don’t remember it.”

  I think back to when I saw him on campus, not long ago. I look at his shoes and shape to reassure my memory. Why wouldn’t he tell me he was there? Or was he there? Perhaps this is another twist in my reality, just like the other day with Chase.

  “You’re the best,” he slurs. “I told Bryan how perfect you are. I never thought you would be this perfect.”

  “That’s nice.” I hold him up. “But there’s no such thing as perfect.”

  “Yes there is.” Micah bends down to meet my face. He smushes his nose against mine and his eyes cross. My heart makes some wiggle room for him. “Because that’s what you are.”

  3
8

  My dad cuts open a watermelon. “How are things?” He hands me a wedge. “School and boys and whatnot.”

  I bite the top of the fuchsia triangle. I think this is my dad’s way of giving me “the talk”. Because I’ve been older, I don’t cringe at his effort.

  “Alright,” I answer. “Actually, they’re awful.” We sit at the kitchen counter under the ceiling fan. It’s over one hundred degrees today and my dad’s forehead is dotted with beads of sweat. “I’m confused and miserable. It’s unbearable”

  My dad scratches his balding head. Five years from now, he’s bald. “Is it that boy I see you with? That Morgan kid.”

  “Yes. Kind of. But it’s more than that. Everything’s messed up and there’s no way to make it better. It’s only going to get worse.”

  I think my dad wished we were just talking about sex. He squirms in his stool, unsure how to respond to the agony of his sixteen-year-old kid.

  “Everything is temporary,” he picks his words and pats me on the back. “In a year or two, what you care about now, won’t matter anymore.”

  I blink and with my lashes, come tears. I lean my head on my dad’s shoulder, linking my arms around his neck and cry. “It’s never going to end. I’m really scared, dad.”

  “Sweet pea,” he reverts to my childhood pet name and slowly, reciprocates my hug. “Now, now. Don’t say things like that. It’s all going to be okay.” He quiets me. “Tomorrow will be a better day.”

  39

  I am in a fit of sleeplessness and every other minute, I come to in a different state of being. I am small and then I am big. I am in my childhood bed and then a stranger’s. My eyelids fall and rise until it is morning and I am reincarnated as an adult in a hotel room.

  There’s a note on the nightstand. Had to run back to Seattle to take care of something at work. Meet you at the state fair by eight. Love you, Micah.