A Straw Man (The Clay Lion Series Book 3)

by Amalie Jahn

  “Please, Coach, I just need a minute of your time.”

  He stopped again, this time sighing heavily as he rested the palm of his hand on the hood of someone’s decade-old commuter.

  “You think I don’t blame myself for what happened?” he asked rhetorically without turning to face me. “You think I don’t wonder what would have happened if I had just let him play with that injury? Because I do, you know. Every damn day.” He finally turned to face me and his complexion was ruddy. Worry deepened the lines around his eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said, approaching him warily, “it’s just that I’m trying to figure out when exactly the bad feelings between Sam and Nate began.”

  He threw up his hands in exasperation. “How the hell should I know?” he replied. “The whole team’s always angry one minute, made up the next. I never heard or saw anything negative between those two until Friday afternoon. Sam got pissed and left, slamming the door behind him after I announced that I was sitting him out and giving the Ohio State game to Barnes. Nate went after him, and when I heard them arguing in the hallway, I went out to make sure things didn’t escalate further. Sam was yelling at Nate about making him look bad. Said he was sure Nate was missing his passes on purpose and was catching Barnes’ throws just to be spiteful. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard!” He shook his head, shading his eyes from the late afternoon sun. “Who would have thought he’d never play another game?”

  Listening to the story of Sam’s final hours through the filter of someone else’s memories was more difficult than I’d thought it would be. I steadied myself to go on.

  “So they hadn’t been fighting earlier in the week that you know of?”

  “As I remember they came to our pre-game meeting together that afternoon.”

  “And so it was just that disagreement that caused the tension.”

  “I suppose. But why the heck does it matter now? The whole thing’s water over the dam.”

  I stepped out of the way as a car passed between us. “It probably doesn’t. I’m just trying to understand so maybe I can help Nate move on. Give life a second chance. I have one more question though, if you don’t mind.”

  He nodded.

  “It’s about you. Your decision to sit Sam out…”

  He rolled his eyes. “What about it?”

  “It’s just that I was wondering if you would have benched him if Nate hadn’t caught all those passes from Zach Barnes all week?”

  “What difference does it make?” he countered harshly.

  I couldn’t tell him why his answer was important but I needed him to be completely honest. “Maybe it won’t make any difference at all, but I really need to know the truth. If Nate hadn’t played so well in practice with Zach, would Sam have started in Saturday’s game?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “The truth?” He puffed his cheeks and let the air escape slowly through his teeth. “The truth is I didn’t bench Sam because of Nate. I benched Sam because of Sam. He was hurt and didn’t want to admit it, but it was affecting his ability to play. That’s why I sat him out. So the answer is no, it wasn’t a kneejerk reaction to Nate’s performance. The idea to bench him was already there. Makes me sick to think of it now.” He hesitated and finally looked at me again. “Does that answer your question?”

  “Yeah. It does. Thank you.”

  He nodded and considered me one final time before turning to leave. “You know,” he called over his shoulder as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “if he could get his grades up high enough to be reinstated, I would take him back in a second. He’s a good ballplayer and a nice young man. It’s a shame two careers got destroyed that night. Maybe you’ll be able to get through to him.”

  I knew the chances of getting through to Nate were slim to none, and I was done with that dead-end tactic. I had a better strategy for getting him back on the field and back into his own life, but there were still a few details I needed to address before I was ready to commit fully to my plan.

  I had decided, if I was going to go through with using my trip, I wasn’t going to tell anyone I was doing it. Brooke told her parents and Charlie had as well, but I didn’t see the need to worry anyone unnecessarily about something out of their control. If everything went as I intended, no one would ever have to know, particularly since I was taking extreme precautions against making their same mistakes.

  As far as I was concerned, Brooke’s main issues stemmed from the fact that she traveled for an extended period of time. Each time she traveled for almost six months. It was no wonder she encountered such problems when she returned. I was only going to need one day to accomplish what I was setting out to do and couldn’t imagine anything catastrophic happening in less than 24 hours.

  The side effects created by Charlie’s experience weighed far more heavily on my mind. He was arrested for saving two lives, both his father’s and his mother’s, during his trip to the past. Both of their deaths had been prevented without Charlie’s knowledge or intent and the fact that he was sentenced to 15 years in prison despite his lack of direct intervention concerned me. Since Sam’s death would occur on the date I was returning it would be imperative that I do everything in my power to assure his accident would still happen. As much as it destroyed me to know I might see him and be unable to save him, I couldn’t risk saving a life - at least not that of a person who was already dead. Nate’s life was another story altogether.

  I came to terms with the changes I was planning for his timeline. I could only hope that keeping him from fighting with Sam would remove the guilt associated with his death. The trick would be eliminating the fight without saving Sam’s life.

  In any event, I consoled myself with a single comment Charlie made just after we discovered his mother saved his life. He mentioned how ironic it was that he saved lives and got arrested while Brooke’s actions caused Mrs. Cooper’s death and she was never discovered. With that in mind and under the guise of researching for Senator Turner, I called several members of the Time Travel Safety and Investigation Board to probe them for information regarding inconsistencies in their arrest procedures.

  I discovered the TTSIB, as well as several of the other federal agencies tasked with supervising time travel, historically suffered from a severe lack of staff and funding making it necessary for them to streamline operations. Because of the shortage, protocol for monitoring individual trips was established within the first five years of public travel, thereby eliminating the burden of tracking each and every trip. Statistical analyses were recorded during those early years, documenting the types of travelers who broke the laws most frequently. The research showed highly-educated men between the ages of 18 and 40 from wealthy backgrounds were far more likely to break traveling laws than those in all the other groups combined. Based on those findings, the government used its meager resources to monitor just those travelers the analysis program deemed a threat.

  I prayed being a girl would save me from being monitored just as it had saved Brooke.

  I clung to that hope each day I snuck off Grounds to my mandatory time travel classes. They were boring. Uninspired. I felt as if I’d learned more in my own life about time travel than I was learning from the board certified instructors. While I was supposed to be taking notes on significant events in time travel history, I created dozens of flowcharts tracking “what if” scenarios, playing out the full ramification of each of my possible moves. My future felt like a giant game of chess where the outcome was based solely on my first move. The first move had to be right.

  While I juggled schoolwork, friendships, and my traveling classes, I also kept tabs on Nate in the event he should own up to his addiction, rendering my trip unnecessary. His oldest sister, Kay, was the most responsible of his siblings and also my strongest ally in the battle for his sobriety. We’d established something of a friendship through the course of my relationship with Nate so she didn’t find it particularly odd t
hat I should reach out to her inquiring about his well-being.

  “Have you seen him lately?” I asked during our most recent conversation.

  “Not since his hearing last week. I meant to call you about it, but the kids have been so busy with school starting and fall sports, I just didn’t have a chance.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, unaware that his hearing had already taken place. “What happened?”

  She groaned into the receiver. “The judge let him off easy. I was hoping maybe jail time would knock some sense into him, but he got off with just a fine and community service, if you can believe that. I guess I should be happy for him, but there’s no way I can celebrate anything to do with the mess he’s gotten himself into. He was supposed to be the one of us who did something great. So much for that.”

  I heard screaming in the background, like the sound of something feral.

  “Do you know where he is now? What he’s doing?” I asked over the din.

  “Turn down that television and stop hitting your brother!” she called to one of her children. “God bless. I’m sorry. They’re about to kill each other in there. Every time the phone rings it’s like a signal to lose their minds. Anyway, what about Nate?”

  Part of me felt sorry for bothering her. But she was my only reliable source of information. “I just asked about where he is now?”

  I could hear the sound of a door being shut and the children’s squawking quieted. “He’s at home with Mom and Dad, although I don’t know for how much longer. They’re about done with him too. Mom caught him taking money out of her wallet on Tuesday. I don’t know what to tell her to do. I just wish Nate would hit rock bottom and get on with it.”

  Instead of responding, I bit my tongue. What exactly was he supposed to get on with?

  Recovery?

  Normalcy?

  Death?

  As much as I liked Kay, I didn’t agree with how she dealt with Nate’s addiction. In fact, I didn’t agree with how any of his family approached it, as a conscious choice, instead of what it truly was - the most visible symptom of his unresolved issues. I couldn’t make them understand that he needed aggressive therapy, not condemnation, and so knowing the environment he was living in only intensified my guilt.

  When I didn’t respond immediately, Kay began rambling to fill the awkward silence. “He talks about you, you know? Gets nostalgic about stuff you did together. While we were waiting together for his hearing he kept repeating over and over again that you were the best person he’d ever known. He’d tell me and then five minutes later he’d tell me again, as if he’d forgotten that he already said it aloud.” She paused. “You must be on his mind a lot.”

  I welled up, thinking about how abandoned he must have felt. I was a horrible person. “He’s on my mind a lot too,” I said finally.

  “I gotta tell you, Melody, none of us blame you for breaking up with him. I can’t believe you hung in there as long as you did to be honest. You’re too young to be tied down to the train wreck he’s become. You need to get out there and find someone new, you know? I mean, I don’t mind talking to you and keeping you updated on how he’s doing, but if you’re hoping he’s gonna pull out of this, I think you’re wasting your time. Seriously. You should find someone who won’t let you down.”

  I had no desire to continue our conversation. After hearing what I needed to know, that my trip was still necessary, I suddenly couldn’t wait to hang up. I thanked her for her time and promised to keep in touch, but knew I wouldn’t call again, especially since every word she spoke drove daggers into my heart. Her final comment about finding someone who wouldn’t let me down was a hard pill to swallow. Nate wasn’t the only one who disappointed people.

  By November, the time had come. I scheduled my trip for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and told my mom I was going to Lesley’s house overnight to meet her family’s new puppy and would be home the next day, in plenty of time to help stuff the turkey. I figured I might need extra time alone Wednesday night just in case something didn’t go as planned. I was nothing if not thorough and always arranged for contingencies.

  I was hoping, of course, that everything would work out perfectly so by the time I got home Thursday morning, Nate would be on his way to my house for dinner, and we would be free to live out our happily-ever-after.

  C HAPTER TWENTY ONE

  FALL SEMESTER - THIRD YEAR / SECOND YEAR

  The morning of my departure, I woke up early. Like 2:00 am early. And I wasn’t excited – I was petrified.

  It dawned on me, as my eyes adjusted to the dark, that changing the outcome of Nate’s situation wasn’t going to change Nate. Regardless of whether I was able to successfully keep him from the guilt associated with Sam’s death, I would never be able to remove whatever fostered his addictive tendencies from deep within. It was there, and it was a part of who he was, just waiting for the right combination of stress and pain to release it from its dormancy. It was a truth I had never fully considered.

  As the paleness of morning peeked between the mini-blind slats, I stretched and yawned, still disquieted by my middle-of-the-night revelation. On my back, staring at the dingy popcorn ceiling, I did what I always did when faced with a dilemma.

  I plotted the worst case scenario.

  Suppose I had to spend the rest of my life waiting for Nate to succumb to the temptation of addiction? How would it be to never know when something might trigger him to use? Could I be with a man who was a ticking time bomb of self-destruction?

  In an instant I knew that I could. I wouldn’t like it and it wouldn’t be easy, but there were no promises in life. I couldn’t guarantee that anyone I met and fell in love with wouldn’t have their own laundry list of issues. Nate was kind and he was honest. He loved and respected me, challenging me to be the very best version of myself. Perhaps having his demons out in the open would make them less sinister. Knowing what they were, I could face them and help him to deal with them, if need be, before they were allowed to take over.

  It was little consolation, but it was all that I had – just enough to propel me, one foot in front of the other, through the entrance of the same time travel facility both Brooke and Charlie had passed through years before.

  I had come too far. There was no turning back.

  My trip wasn’t scheduled until 3pm and it took over an hour of processing before my chaperone led me to the stainless steel chamber which would send me back to relive the most important day of my young life. Employees kept asking if I was alone or if there was someone I was waiting for – apparently most travelers brought a companion along for moral support. As I waited for the countdown to begin, the space beyond the glass wall reserved for friends and family remained empty and I knew why coming alone was discouraged. Directions were piped in through the loudspeaker, and I regretted there was no one to send me off. No one to wish me well or greet me when I returned.

  As a blinding light filled the chamber, I held my breath and closed my eyes. A moment later, the brightness dimmed, and I tentatively opened one eye, peering at the scene before me, half expecting to still be in the chamber. I found, however, that I was in the old dorm room Lesley and I shared my second year. Three of her hoodies were thrown over the back of her desk chair and a pile of my books were strewn across my unmade bed, proving I had indeed been delivered to the right time and place. A quick glance at the clock confirmed she was still in her 10:30 chemistry class, assuring she wouldn’t come looking for me until lunchtime. I tore a piece of notebook paper from the folder on her desk and jotted a quick note to inform her of my whereabouts. Without wasting another second, I set out in pursuit of Nate. If my plan was going to work, I knew I needed to move quickly.

  On Fridays, Nate took Great Civilization of the Western World at 8:00 and Spanish at 9:20. I had absolutely no idea what he did after class on this particular day because in the original timeline I spent the morning by myself, studying in the library with a hot cup of coffee and my favorite playlist. Wher
ever he was and whatever he was doing, I hoped he was willing to change his plans. I sent him a quick text.

  Over these case files. But they gave me a crazy idea. Wanna blow off the rest of the day with me?

  I hurried beneath the canopy of ancient oaks that lined The Lawn, a huge grassy knoll situated between the dorms and the main Grounds as I waited for him to reply. I was giddy at the prospect of being face to face with him again. It had been months since I’d seen or spoken to him and over a year since we’d shared anything that resembled a normal conversation. Nate – the old Nate, my Nate, was somewhere on Grounds wholly unaware of what his life was about to become. Of what our life was about to become. At that moment, waiting on the cusp, I decided that if I got nothing more out of my trip than one more amazing afternoon with him, it might just be enough.

  Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead, and I remembered just how hot it had been those first weeks back. Having taken the weather into consideration when I formulated my plan, I hoped the scorching temperatures would make my proposal an easy sell. As I rolled the sleeves of my t-shirt, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Thought it was just u and ur books this morning, he replied.

  The anticipation of having him so close was almost too much to bear.

  Change of heart. Someone wise said life wasn’t worth living if it wasn’t fun. Hotter today than yesterday. Maybe we should go get wet.

  Within seconds, he responded.

  I like where this is headed. Whatcha got in mind?

  My hands shook as my fingers flew across the keys.

  Tubing? James River? U’d have to blow off practice…

  I pressed send and waited. My entire trip hinged on whether or not I would be able to persuade him to skip practice. It wasn’t something I’d seen him do – in fact, he was more likely to play injured or with a fever than not show up. I was about to send another message when his reply appeared.