by Nat Fladager
“How about saying, it’s been forever, and replying, it feels like a lifetime.”
“That’s good. Do you remember what else, Hailey?” He quizzed me.
“When we travel back to fourteen, we need to find the other and go to the slide in Rhino Park.”
“Because…”
“Because the wormhole may still be there and we may have a chance to escape it.”
It could take forever. To meet when we are fourteen and also know the truth. It could take years. And millions of things could come between us, just as millions already have. We have put our faith into a theory that could easily be proven wrong and that could leave us exactly where we are now, in a life where we can’t be together.
43
Sunday, I am sixteen and Chase is unaware of our recent rekindling. Monday, I am Micah’s girlfriend and we go the movies. The movie is sad and I cry but it’s not because the movie is sad that I cry.
Tuesday through Thursday, I stay close to college. I eat Top Ramen and barely do my homework. I go to a Ducks game and drink beer from a keg, faking I am simply a college student and not also a two-timing wife, a teenager and a time traveler.
But Friday, everything is better. Chase locates me in our hometown and spills the magic words. We spend the day prancing around and feigning normalcy. I tell him about my hops and how I missed him. He shows me a tattoo he got on his ankle when he was fifteen at the beginning.
“What does it mean?” I kneel to see the tiny sailboat behind his Achilles.
“You know that saying, in the same boat?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I thought I was the only one in the boat.”
I smile and push up his sock. “Not anymore.”
He smiles back. “Not anymore.”
“I wish I could marry you now.” Chase fills me up with happiness.
I weave my fingers through his. “Just think, somewhere out there we already are.”
We split at midnight and depart back into our separate journeys. I want to transform into a bear so that I can hibernate through the ones without him. How crazy to imagine a world without Warp. It’s almost as unrealistic as a world with Warp.
44
Today, the splinter is evident.
I find myself working as a receptionist for a magazine in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am just three days younger than when I first moved to Seattle. My hair is short and I have a cat.
I worry about Chase and where he might be and who is he with. I envision us straddling a crumbling earth, each moment that passes, the further apart we grow. What will happen if we don’t make it back to the slide in time?
I feed my cat and microwave a frozen dinner, watching the sun set in my studio. I have five missed calls from a boy named Hank and texts from friends who are strangers. Shakily, I crawl into bed and fade into oblivion.
45
Last night, I did something bad and it wasn’t until four in the morning two years later that I realized it.
I was eighteen and a kid in school was throwing a house party. Loch Ness Monster was playing the party and because of this, I wore a short jean skirt and wedges that made me three inches taller. I could hear their feedback from down the street as I wobbled across the lawn. My inadequate nerves were shot from the other day but the idea of embracing Chase’s teenage body overpowered my fears.
“Hailey, you came!” Julie greeted me with a Jell-O shot. Her purple hair was coming undone from its multiple braids.
I swigged it and we followed the music into the living room where Chase stood with his Fender and flying hair. I took another wiggly shot and crept closer to the front. I couldn't wait to reach him, to tell him it’s been forever. But then the worst thing happened. The band’s set ended and Chase reached out but not to me, to another girl. He kissed her and she flirted, touching him in all the spots I planned to.
“Don’t worry about it,” a drunk Julie yelled into my ear. “It’s probably nothing.”
He looked out into the crowd briefly and saw right through me. My heart sank to my numb toes. I was a nobody. I was anything but his. I didn’t care if he was the Chase who knew I also time traveled or the one who didn’t. The results were the same and in that isolated moment of adolescence, my heart broke all over again.
I got drunk. Really drunk. So drunk I lost my shoes and when I got home I drunk-dialed Micah and left him a voicemail.
Pick up, Micah. I need to talk to you. I don’t have any of my socks. They are all in the top drawer of your dresser with your socks. I kinda miss your socks. And your trench coat. And all your sci-fi books. You know, I was starting to love you. Actually, I did love you. God, I’m such a mess. Please pick up. Please.
Micah didn’t pick up but he did get my message. I am the reason for him going off the deep end, just as I am the reason for Chase’s make out session with the busty girl from Biology. They didn’t break my heart, I broke theirs. Everything is coming full circle, except that it’s coming in an oblong variety.
46
Two times I have been fourteen and both times, Chase hasn't answered me right. I felt angry but I knew he was also finding me unaware. I leave the days as quickly as I can, too impatient to wait for them to pass naturally.
And then one day it’s the future and I wake up to Chase in his big bed. He leans down in my ear and murmurs, “it’s been forever.”
“Feels like a lifetime,” I say back. There are a bunch of snapdragons next to the bed and I know this is congruent to the day he repeated.
Let’s elope,” he suggests.
“Let’s.”
Ecstatically, we head out on highway 50, bound for South Lake Tahoe, and Chase opens up. He lets me know how it felt realizing his brother died years before he did and how my mom informed him of my marriage to Micah at the grocery store by the heap of Fuji apples. Loch Ness Monster broke up without his knowledge and somehow he made a living by investing in Apple when he was eighteen, having seen the profit spike at twenty-five.
He tells me how our dared “first” smooch at Rhino Park occurred after many other others. “One day, you just walked up to me at school and kissed me. I could taste your strawberry-flavored Chapstick for the rest of the day.”
“I wish I was there,” I tell him.
“You were though.”
Along the way to the 24-hour wedding chapel, we stop for a dress and a bow tie which I tie around Chase’s throat. I slip out of my flip flops and we have a short ceremony in the grass during twilight. For ten minutes, it seems that my nerves welcome back remiss feelings and I swear I can see the true pink that sits above the water. For ten minutes, I forget that I time travel.
Afterwards, we sit on the sand and drink from a cheap bottle of Champagne, taking it all in. The day is slipping away and we will soon be lost at sea, searching for our boat. “Even if this is all we ever get,” I let Chase know. “It will be enough.”
47
Things feel different. I haven’t been twenty-eight before but it’s more than that.
I am home at my mom and dad’s only everything is slightly off. The shoes at the front door are now at the back and the pictures that are hanging are pictures that never hung. I have a suitcase full of clothes that aren’t my style and some perfume with an undetectable scent. I lean into the bathroom mirror and twirl mascara onto my eyelashes because tonight is my ten-year high school reunion and I hope to see Chase.
“You look nice,” my mom compliments me before I go.
I yank up my tights.
“Try to have a good time.”
I hug her and pretend I don’t notice all the oddities. “I will.”
I am anxious as I walk to the school. My steps are jagged and my shoulders tense. Just days ago, I married Chase but we aren’t married today and I don’t know what that means.
“Hailey, there you are!” Julie greets me and introduces me to her fiancé. Politely, I chat for five minutes before excusing myself. I weave through familiar and unfamiliar faces, dodgin
g questions, and looking for him.
“Jack and coke,” I take a break from my quest and order a cocktail.
“That sounds good. I’ll have the same.” A man stands next to me. “Hailey? Hailey Nash?”
“Yup.”
“It’s me.”
“Sorry.” I squeeze the lime. “I’m bad at names.”
“Radley.”
I take a big sip and stall.
“Radley Becker. Come on, your memory can’t be that bad. We went out for like a month.”
Radley, the popular kid on the football team. I smack my head. “Of course. I'm sorry. I’m very distracted tonight. How are you?”
“Good. Great. Just bought my first house. Never thought I would be excited to have a mortgage.”
I coerce a laugh. “I bet.”
“You look great, Hailey. Just how I remember you.”
“Thanks.” I look down at my ice cubes melting into the liquor. The pit in my stomach expands. Why isn’t he here? I just need to see him. “Hey, you know Chase Morgan.”
“Oh man, good old Chase. We had some great times on the football team.”
“But Chase wasn’t…” I stop myself. I have no idea what Chase did on this timeline. I had no clue Radley and I dated. “I mean, have you seen him?”
Radley’s expression dims. “Hailey, do you mean you don’t know?”
“What?”
“God, I would have thought since you guys went out for like two years.”
“Radley, what don’t I know?” I brace myself.
“He died last May. I didn’t go to his funeral because I had to work but I heard most of our classmates went. Car accidents suck.”
I can’t move or breath. Radley becomes a blur of parts and sections as the light shuts off inside of me. I shove my drink into Radley’s hand and run into the bathroom.
“No, no, no.” I hold myself up by the sink, too heavy for my feet. I look in the mirror and the mascara I had applied with hopes of looking pretty for Chase is running down my cheeks in ugly streaks.
At some point Julie finds me and tries to console me. I ask her as many questions as I can without coming across suspiciously oblivious to my own life. Chase and I dated for our Junior and Senior year before I went off to Europe for the summer then returned and went to school in Arizona. She asked me why we broke up and who did the breaking up. I told her I didn’t understand myself. She said she remembered us being happy.
“Do you know where he was going when…when?” I can’t get it out.
Julie lowers her head and nods. “Rumor has it he was going to see you and try and get back together.”
I sob onto her satin dress and when I am able to gather my breath, I get up and leave. I take off my shoes and run, out of the gym, out of the high school, and out of the evil alternate universe, the one where not only Chase and I aren’t together, but where Chase isn’t alive.
48
I can’t take anymore. I’ve been pushed to the edge and there’s nothing beyond it. Warp has to know this. It has to have some sort of empathy for the poor suckers it trapped. I would give anything to have the day Chase and I need. My happy childhood. My daisy ring. I’d give all my other lives for just one day and one chance. I’d even give the memory of Chase being in love with me because at this point, it will always just be a memory not a reality.
49
“Hailey, wake up. You’re gonna be late.”
I hear knocks and stir. I get out of bed and open the door.
My dad tightens his paisley tie. “Mom’s making French toast. Are you ready for your test?”
“What test?”
“Algebra. The one you studied for last night. Come on.”
9th grade math. I hug my dad. “Yes, I did.”
I dress in my teenage clothes and brush my teenage teeth. I’ve been back here before without him but I have faith today it will be different.
I see him at his locker. I pinch myself to make sure I don’t faint and wake up in Micah’s bed. “Chase, hi.” I rush over to him.
He raises his head to me. “Hello.”
“It’s been forever,” I say with urgency.
“Almost like a lifetime,” he replies and we embrace, our young bodies incapable of supporting our timeless emotions.
We ditch class and leave the school through the cafeteria entrance. Chase holds me close as we walk through the alleys and parks of town, avoiding everyone, especially adults. We get to his house and lock ourselves in his bedroom.
“I’ve seen the rupture,” I begin, snuggling his pillow to my chest.
“Me too.”
“It’s not pretty.”
“It could be expanding as we speak.”
I sigh. “Chase, I’ve seen the worst.”
“It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“You die.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I’ve been there. To my death.”
“Oh my gosh.”
“And then I woke up and I was in bed with you, the day we got married.”
“You’re immortal.”
“No, I don’t think so. Just lucky.”
I hug Chase with all my might. His head grows heavy on my shoulder and we sink onto the mattress, overlapping like blocks of Jenga. We procrastinate as long as we can because we know we could lose it all and perhaps, we already have.
“Come on.” Eventually, Chase summons the courage. “Take my hand.”
I slip my hand into his. He encourages me with several kisses. “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
We look at the slide, standing there lackadaisically in the late afternoon with its rust and it's Giving Tree status. We look at it and are afraid to death.
“The city removes it a few years from now,” Chase says, reading my mind. “If someone else found the wormhole, let’s hope they find a way out like us.”
Slowly, we make our way to the stairs that lead up to the ominous slide. Chase and I smash our bodies together at the top. We hold hands and kiss for one last time.
“Don’t worry.” He holds my shoulders. “I love you and I’ll love you again. On the count of three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
…”Three.”
