by Nat Fladager
We’re at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, where we discussed going for our honeymoon. I remember being excited at the idea, the kid in me thrilled to vacation to a carnival. I sit and stare out the window all morning, contemplating about how this is my second honeymoon with my second husband. I feel like a cat, with seven more lives to go.
Near evening, I pull on some jeans and a sweater and head out. My mind is full and bogs me down. I wander through the crowd, getting pebbles in my shoes, and overthink. Kids laugh and squeal. Teenagers are like what Chase and I were and somethings are. I watch people scream on the tilt-a--whirl and smile down from the ferris wheel. Behind the roller coaster, I see a blond man and briefly, my heart jumps and my hands sweat.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I see I’ve missed three calls from Micah, my husband who ditched me for some engineering emergency. I text him to meet me at the merry-go-round and proceed in its circular direction.
“Hailey.”
I hear my name and turn around. “Bryan?”
Bryan moves in close to me, his shirt torn and his hair ruffled. I notice his knuckles are bloody.
“What are you doing? Get away from me, creep.” I back up.
“Why didn’t you listen to me before? Why would you marry him anyway?”
I scurry onto the merry-go-round but Bryan follows me, supposedly deranged. The ride begins. I take a seat on a golden horse near a family and insist Bryan gets lost. “Micah will be here any minute,” I warn him.
“Hailey, what is wrong with you? Jesus Christ. Micah knows. I know. And just because he decided he wanted to be with you instead of research you, doesn’t change the fact that he’s been following you for years. How do you not remember that I told you this?”
I gawk at Bryan, dismayed. The fresh air chokes me. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammer.
“Yes, you do,” he insists, latching onto the pole bobbing me up and down. “It’s not a secret anymore. We know you’re a time traveler.”
It’s all a blur, the next ten minutes, as the puzzle pieces come crashing down and fitting into their empty cardboard shells. I listen to Bryan’s side of the story, which apparently, I’ve heard before. Micah found me in college and traced me to Seattle where he had gotten a job with the help of Bryan, his buddy from Stanford who taught at UOW. He knew where I lived and would often wait on the curb, hoping to run into me. We didn’t meet on accident and it wasn’t a coincidence, the story about his dad.
In the beginning, Bryan and Micah had plans to manipulate me into their circle where they could analyze me and prove their theories, but, as Bryan reveals with a grudge, Micah decided to fall for the “science project”. They broke off their partnership and Micah threatened to expose Bryan’s fraternization with Freshman if he didn’t keep their secret.
“But I don’t care if he says anything,” Bryan says nonchalantly. “He’ll lose more than me.”
“Hailey, don’t listen to a word he says!” Micah reaches me, panting from his sprint. His eye is black so I touch his face as a reaction.
“Is that why you had to go to Seattle?” I ask. “To try and convince Bryan to keep this to himself?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Micah admits. He holds onto my elbows. “But I knew you’d hate me. It’s not like it used to be. I just want to keep you safe.”
I watch Bryan sneak away. We don’t try to stop him. He’s done the damage he came here to do. “As opposed to before when you didn’t?”
“Please, Hailey. We can move past this. Don’t you see? You need me. I protect you.”
I climb off the horse and face Micah shakily, scrunching my hands into fists. My heart feels cold. “How did you even know? Tell me the truth.”
“You called me. Before we ever met.”
“No I didn’t...” I did?
“You talked about how it used to be when we were together and how you loved me. You described things about us, about me. I wasn’t sure, but when I found you, I knew. You change all the time, every day. It’s subtle but evident.”
I lay my face in my hands, unable to look at Micah.
“I want to change that future,” he expresses and pulls me to him. I read his pain clearly. It spreads across his entire body like a sad disease. Perhaps he means well now. Maybe he does protect me and I do need him. “Stay with me, Hailey. Please.”
“I can’t.” I unlatch his fingers from my arms, prying him off me. “If it already happened, it already happened. You need to stay away from me. I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m your husband and you’re my wife,” he reminds me.
“Not all the time,” I retort and jump down into the dirt.
I elbow my way through the crowd, running away in slow motion. I can’t believe what I did, what he did. And yet, of course I did and he did. What an idiot I am. In retrospect, the signs were all there, tiny yet in my face.
I hitchhike and catch a ride to Tacoma where I wait for the Greyhound Bus to California. Micah calls me but I call Chase. It goes straight to voicemail and his “leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you” hits me hard. There’s only one thing left for me to do. I need to tell Chase about Warp. There is nothing else now. Just that.
40
I rest my head against the smudged glass window. Night falls as the bus enters Oregon. My phone is dead but I keep it in my lap for moral support. It’s clear to me now that Chase needs to know. What I thought would tear us further apart is what I believe will bring us together.
The last thing I remember are the bumps on the road as we passed Medford. When I come to, I find myself in the college library with my cheek against the tissuey pages of my history book.
Dazed, I run out of the university and my heart races to the point where it throbs in my earlobes. I get to my dorm and call a taxi and Rachel pesters me about my strange behavior. “I need to go. I need to get to him,” I stammer and she becomes fuzzy and screams out my name while I faint.
The next thing I know I am fourteen and have just gotten my wisdom teeth pulled. I beg my mom to let me leave the house, to let me use the telephone. “I’m dying,” I scream at her as she ices my face and feeds me Tylenol. “Stop being dramatic, Hailey.” She tucks me in. “Go to sleep and you’ll feel better”
Minutes later, I find my head on the edge of Chase’s flimsy pillow. I turn over to an empty bed and a note that asks for me to go before he gets back. “Last night shouldn’t have happened,” it reads. I cry into his sheets and lay on his side. On his nightstand is dust and a library copy of Ender’s Game with a bookmark that looks familiar. I take the book and open it and my Jurassic Park valentine from the fourth-grade falls into my lap. “But why?” I speak aloud. I wipe my tears and insert the card back where I found it. He had to keep it this long for a reason, didn’t he? Not just to mark his place but to remember me. Doing as asked, I leave his apartment and run home where I down a couple of my mom’s Lunestas and bury myself under the covers.
“Is this your stop, miss?” The bus driver wakes me. I notice the sweater I was wearing when I left Micah is the sweater I have on now. The sun shimmers over the velour seats. “Where are we?”
“Ashland.”
“It’s not my stop.”
“Maybe stretch your legs. We’ll be here for twenty.”
I get off the bus and calmly walk into a cafe and ask to use the phone. I dial Chase’s number and each ring presents new hope.
On the fourth, he answers. “Hello?”
“Chase! It’s me, Hailey. My phone died. Please don’t hang up.”
“I won’t. Where are you?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Hailey, where are you? Seattle?”
“Ashland.”
“Stay there. I’m two hours away.”
“You are?”
“Wait for me, okay?”
I wind the cord around my finger, unsure what is happening but elated something is. “Okay. Hurry.”
&nb
sp; 41
I pace the sidewalks for an hour before it begins to rain then I find shelter under the awning of a natural foods shop. I count the raindrops. Two hours has never felt as endless.
One car passes in front of me after the other and I think I might die. I breath slowly, in and out, in and out, staying conscious. When I am on the brink, I notice headlights move towards the curb and the hood of Chase’s metallic car. Chase gets out and I meet him in the street.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask, overwhelmed.
Chase pinches my arm. “No.”
I wrap my arms around him. To my relief, he holds me as much as I hold him.
“Come here.” He peels me off and leads me into his car where he retrieves a piece of folded paper and lays it in my hand.
My eyes widen at the sight of my note to self as I unravel it from its tender ball. Do not break up with Chase, Hailey.
“I found it yesterday,” Chase explains.
“Yesterday?”
“It was here in my car, where your feet are. I found it after I broke up with you.”
“But I broke up with you.”
“No, you didn’t. You kept asking me to give us another chance. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
Does this mean I did listen to myself? And in some vein of reality, the other situation played out? I try to separate fact from fiction, but they are one of the same.
The sticky note is barely sticky in my palm. I ogle at my scribbles until Chase gets my attention by touching my knee. His fingers shimmy through the tear in the denim to my skin. “Hailey, tell me you do it?”
“Do what?” I hold my breath.
“Time travel. Because that's what I do and I think you do, too.”
A crushed can of Mountain Dew and a giant revelation sit in-between us. I look at Chase and he looks at me, up and down and side to side. Our hair drips from the rain.
“How long?” I take the first step. “That you’ve been...doing it?”
“I don’t know. Feels like an eternity. How about you?”
“Same.” I wonder where he’s hopped to and if I’ve been there. Is he also Warp’s?
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“Super.”
“I remember the first day,” he dives in. I can tell he is bursting at the seams. Even the sleeve of his cotton shirt is shredding wayward threads. His eyes blink steadily. “I was suddenly sixteen and we were in love. I never knew anything like it. It was the only thing that felt real. Then one day, I traveled further, and I was a grown man and you had gotten married. When I returned the next day to us as teenagers, I hated you.”
“Chase.”
“But I still loved you.” He softens. “That’s why I kept messing up and getting with you after we broke up. I didn’t realize until this morning that I was the reason you ended up with someone other than me.”
Tears gush into my eyes and Chase is foggy in their flood. “But I also ended up with you,” I reveal and grab his hands. “I don’t know how or why, but less than a week ago we were newlyweds.”
“Hailey, what are you talking about?”
“I swear it was real. I was there. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted, since before I time traveled.”
Chase kisses me and pulls me over the armrest into his arms. “I love you, Hailey,” he tells me. “I never stopped.”
High on the truth and unable to keep our hands off each other, we find a motel with vacancy and get out of our wet clothes and into one of the double beds. We’ve been living a complete lie for God knows how long. We could have trusted each other. We could have helped each other.
“Are you okay?” Chase asks me at the vending machine. His hand is on my hip or my elbow or neck, as though if he lets go, I would disappear.
“Are you?”
“Now I am.”
We insert coins and select Corn Nuts and yogurt covered pretzels.
“Does anyone else know?”
I lower my eyes guiltily and retrieve the snacks. “He does.”
“Micah? Is that his name?”
I press B5 for a Butterfinger. “He figured it out. I guess, he’s known all along.”
“I think Devon knew or had an idea.” Chase presses his palm against the small of my back. It encompasses most of me. “When I go back, I can sense he is reading me differently. I’m sure he thought I was going nuts.”
“I’m sorry about your brother. Were you at his…” I can’t get the word out.
Chase nods. “Yeah.”
“There are probably a lot of days we haven’t experienced together.”
“At least we have this.” Chase kisses me. We walk back to the room, joined at the hip.
“You’ve grown up so fast,” he observes me.
I take off my shoes and cross my legs on the bed. “Too fast.”
“I wouldn't say that.” Chase removes my hair from its rubber band and watches it fall to my shoulders. “Overnight, you became someone I couldn’t stop thinking about. I remember seeing you wave to me from across the street. Your shirt came up and I saw your belly button. All I wanted to do was hold you where your skin was exposed.” He touches my left knee. “And you had a bruise right here. I worried it hurt.”
Chase’s words soak through my skin and into my bloodstream. “It didn’t.”
“Why did you go with him?”
“Because you pushed me away.”
“Because you went with him.”
“Chase, don’t you see? Everything we have done is because of what we’ve already done. It’s an endless loop. Except, we seem to create some sort of dual reality when we mess with stuff. Like my note to self.”
“And the flowers.”
“What flowers?”
“The ones I sent you the day before your wedding. It was the second time I’ve been to that day. I kept the date on my calendar since I knew when you got married. The first time I let it happen, the second time, I tried to stop it.”
“You repeated a day you already lived through?”
“It’s the only time I have. I woke to the day before and stayed up through the night so that I could have a second chance.”
“Chase, I never got the flowers.” I scooch closer and push the pile of junk food out of the way. “I haven't experienced that scenario, just like you never experienced me breaking up with you.” I think back to Bryan confused why I didn’t listen to him when he told me about Micah before. What else has been lived out along a different wavelength of time?
Chase lays down and takes me with him. Our secrets have been divulged and now rest softy in the air, liberated. “I have no clue how we are both doing this, but if there was anyone I would want to time travel with, it would be you.”
Chase swirls the daisy ring he gave me around my finger. “That’s sweet.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I apologize. “I could go back and try now.”
“I’m worried that could do more harm than good. We’ve already done enough damage.”
“Chase, I’m scared.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Hailey.” He turns to face me, our noses and lips and eyelashes centimeters from one another. “We are in this together and we will get out of this together. I think I know what happened and I know what we need to do.”
42
“Do you remember that one day we went down the old slide at Rhino Park?” Chase makes a pot of complimentary motel coffee. It’s past 2am and we refuse to go to sleep.
“We went hundreds of times when we were kids.”
“But it wasn’t when we were kids.” Chase hands me a Styrofoam cup. “There was this one day when school let out early for some teacher conference or whatever. We were walking home and decided to stop at the park.”
I close my eyes and think back, wheeling through waves of misplaced memories.
“We ran track in P.E. earlier and Julie French-braided your hair during lunch,”
Chase hints. “You took out the braids as we walked and your hair was all wavy.”
I tug at a strand of my stick-straight hair. “It was fall, wasn’t it? Almost Halloween.”
“We talked about how we were too old to trick-or-treat but wished we still could.”
“I remember.”
“We went up and down the slide for old times’ sake. We climbed it until my arms ached. And there was this strange sensation when we went down.”
I imagine myself climbing the metal slide and swooshing down it. My cheeks were hot and the air was chilly. I can hear Chase’s laugh and my giggle. I was excited that it was just us at the park.
“Was it sort of long? The last time we went down?”
“And had that feeling like the drop from a roller coaster or driving quickly up and down a hill.”
“We talked about it. We both thought it was strange.”
“Yes, but we let it go.” Chase motions for me to sit down. He kneels before me and his forehead crinkles. “I’ve thought about this a lot lately. I won’t make any sense, Hailey, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
“What Chase? Tell me.” My heart races.
“I believe a wormhole overtook that slide and we got sucked into it.”
I stare down at him, speechless.
“Plus, Hailey, think about it. Have you ever gone back further than fourteen? I haven’t.”
I think about it. “No. Never.”
“It had to happen then.”
I push his loose hair behind his ears. “So what do we do now?”
“Reverse it,” Chase answers confidently. “We reverse it.”
We fall asleep sometime before sunrise, our feet overlapping under covers strewn with half-eaten packs of Frito-Lay. We are just kids wrapped up in adult packages battling an invisible monster. I wonder how much Warp knows what we know.
“Find me in the future and marry me,” Chase proposed just hours earlier.
“I will.”
“And remember, when we cross paths, one of us may not have been here yet, so we need to be careful. Let’s use a question and answer to see if we are on the same page. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”
