Proof of Forever

by Lexa Hillyer

  She was never supposed to feel this way again: what it’s like to be plain. What it’s like to be invisible.

  She doesn’t remember walking back to the bunk. The lit-up cabin leaves a halo on the matted grass surrounding the screened-in walls, and the air is filled with a low hum she can’t quite pinpoint. She blinks rapidly, trying to remember which Tali she is—modern Tali or past?—and steps through the doorway, where the unidentifiable hum gets louder. It’s Hadley Gross, blaring into her French horn, her black hair snaking behind her in a long, fat braid.

  Why Hadley feels the need to practice just before curfew, in their bunk, Tali will never understand. She’s good, as far as Tali can tell, but there’s something almost obscene about the way her thick lips press up against the lip of the horn, the way the big brass instrument wraps itself into her lap, the way her face gets so red as she blows into it.

  Tali glances around but notices with some relief that Zoe is not in the cabin. She must be making good on her vow to practice.

  Suddenly there’s a gloating face right in front of her: Paige McAlister, who has been passing around camp mail. “No letters,” Paige tells her. Paige reeks of a cheap, vanilla-scented body spray. “But you’ve got a Feddy.” Paige holds out a small box.

  “Thanks,” Tali says, her spirits lifting. Everyone loves a Feddy. Maybe her mom has sent her something good, like Italian truffles or nice Swiss face wash.

  She takes her box and heads out the back door of the cabin, sitting down on the back porch to open it. As she’s tearing open the cardboard, she hears Joy’s voice, quiet, in the distance. She looks up. Joy is crossing back toward the cabin alone, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She must have left Luce at the bonfire, probably with Andrew.

  Tali considers offering an apology for ditching them, but Joy pauses, turning around in the darkness near the trees, cupping the phone close to her face. Tali stops ripping at the cardboard so that she can faintly make out Joy’s end of the conversation.

  “No, I . . . I’m not leaving early. We only have a few days left. I want to stay.” Joy’s voice is hushed but urgent.

  Tali sits there, puzzled. She’s startled when only a moment later, Joy is beside her, the phone stuffed into her back pocket.

  “Hey,” Tali says. “What’s up? What was that about?”

  Joy turns to her, and the usual warmth in her eyes—that ability to make you feel like you’re the only person in her world at that very moment—is gone, replaced by something else. Something that startles Tali and even scares her a little. Something animal. She wants to call it anger. Without thinking, Tali backs away slightly.

  But just as quickly, Joy’s expression changes in a single blink. “Nothing,” she says.

  Tali pauses as a creeping sensation worms through her: She’s lying.

  What’s going on? She wants to call Joy out on it, but something stops her. What did Tali miss that last summer at camp? What changed? Joy obviously has some sort of secret, and Tali senses it’s connected to why she disappeared at the end of this summer, leaving not just their school but all of her friendships behind.

  She clears her throat. “Well . . . if you want to talk about it, I’m around,” she says, though the words feel like lead—more lies. She and Joy haven’t talked, really talked, in two years. Why would they do so now?

  “Thanks,” Joy says, her voice rough. She tosses her side braid over her shoulder and heads inside.

  Tali sits there on the porch for another minute or two, trying to process. Around her, the night air chatters and gossips, full of leaves rustling and insects mating and campers’ voices carrying over the wind. Finally, she returns to opening her Feddy.

  Inside the box is a Steiff teddy bear and a note from her dad. For your collection, sweetie. We miss you. Hope you’re soaking in those final camp days. Her stomach tightens.

  The note goes on, asking about the end-of-summer relays—he remembered her story about tripping on a Hula-Hoop last year—and how her friends are doing and saying he can’t wait to see her when he gets home from their trip, just in time to pick her up from her last day of camp. But Tali’s eyes have glazed over, her conversation with her mom once again returning to haunt her.

  Your father’s company is under investigation.

  No.

  Your father is under investigation. Her mother’s voice had wavered, like she’d been crying.

  Tali pulls out her cell phone and heads for the Dumpsters behind the counselors’ lounge, remembering that there’s a spot over there where she can usually get better reception—and privacy. She wants to call her mom back and make it all go away. She wants to call her dad and demand an explanation. But how can she? Whatever her father did, it won’t really happen until two years from now. So what is she supposed to say?

  Instead, she tries to dial Ashlynn but realizes she doesn’t have her number in her phone. Right. Of course. Because they aren’t even friends yet . . . and won’t be until junior year, after Joy moves away, after Luce becomes busy, after Zoe becomes a band groupie and starts looking at Tali like she’s some kind of fraud every time she so much as dares to sit with the popular kids.

  As she paces the periphery of the counselor cabins, Tali’s chest aches more and more. What’s so wrong with her that she has no one during what’s turning out to be the scariest moment in her entire life?

  Everything her dad worked so hard for, traveled so far for, stayed out so late on weeknights for, will vanish. So what was it all for, really? Shouldn’t he have known better? Doesn’t he know most people don’t get a second chance?

  She can’t keep her father’s gift. She won’t repeat the past—not when she knows it’s going to lead to such a horrible future. Not when she knows now that it’s founded on a bunch of lies.

  She lifts the heavy lid on one of the Dumpsters behind the lounge cabin and drops the box, letter, and teddy bear into it. Then she lets the Dumpster clang shut with a metallic bang.

  She feels the faintest hint of tears on her cheeks as she jogs back around the dark side of the counselor cabins, only to run directly into someone.

  “Whoa, whoa. You okay?” says a boy’s voice. Her eyes have begun to get used to the darkness, and she sees a boy’s bare chest and a whistle glinting around his neck. Standing this close to him, she can smell the strong, familiar scent of super-high-SPF sunscreen, coming off his whole body in waves. A lifeguard, obviously.

  “Fine,” she mumbles. She starts to dodge him, but he stops her, placing a warm hand on her arm.

  “What are you doing out here so late?” he asks.

  Tali is about to respond that it’s none of his business, but when he turns slightly she can make out the planes and angles of his face. He’s taller than her and the moon is behind him so at first she’s convinced she has it wrong. . . .

  She must be gaping, because he crinkles his brow and says, “What?”

  “You’re . . . you’re Tow Boy!” Tali blurts out, connecting the dots. No wonder he’d recognized her, if vaguely.

  “Excuse me?” the boy says, looking even more confused.

  “You work for the local tow company. You know, cars, accidents, popped tires? Right?”

  The boy shakes his head, but now she’s sure it’s the same guy who picked her up the night of the reunion. He’s got to be only a couple of years older than her. Eighteen or nineteen, max. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and she realizes of course he doesn’t because they’re in the past. “This is my first summer at Okahatchee. Look, you should be in your bunk. I could give you a demerit for being out after curfew.”

  Tali’s surprise turns rapidly into annoyance. “First of all, only counselors give out demerits. Not lifeguards. Secondly, I had to take care of something important, which is too much to explain—”

  “What, you had to throw away a teddy bear?” He grins, one of his ey
ebrows slightly perking up, like he’s trying not to laugh at her.

  Tali feels a flush of heat across her face and is grateful for the darkness—hopefully he can’t tell. “Were you following me or something?”

  “I was on my way back to my cabin when I saw you racing by with a teddy bear in your hand. I feel sorry for whoever sent it.” In the dark, it’s hard to make out his expression. “What did he do to piss you off?”

  “What is this, the Inquisition?” Tali puts her hands on her hips, trying to seem in control of the situation. Still, she can’t help but be pleased. Tow Boy—it is Tow Boy, she’s sure of it, even if he’s not yet aware of his own future calling—assumes the teddy bear came from a boyfriend. She won’t correct him. “Anyway. It’s just . . . I found out he was lying to me. For a long time.”

  Technically, that’s true, even if Tow Boy doesn’t know she’s referring to her father.

  Tow Boy watches her through narrowed eyes. “I get it,” he says with a nod. “You’re the pretty-girl type.”

  “What do you mean?” She can’t stop from thinking: He thinks I’m pretty. And that’s the pre-pretty Tali.

  “I’ve seen you around this summer, flaunting yourself in front of the guys. If we’re not perfect, we’re not worth your time.” He shakes his head.

  “You don’t even know me,” Tali says quickly, self-conscious. She can only dimly recall him from two years ago—Okahatchee is a revolving door for lifeguards, even hot ones. But he has noticed her all summer? It makes her feel unsettled, off guard. He’s obviously cocky and full of himself. The last thing she needs to deal with right now.

  “True,” he says, crossing his arms.

  “But you know what I know?” she says, taking a step closer to him. She’s so close she can smell something else besides his suntan lotion—a musky, slightly sweaty boy smell. She picks up his whistle, her fingers brushing against his bare chest ever so lightly. “It’s girls like me who keep boys like you employed.”

  With that, she lets the whistle fall back against his annoyingly hard chest, spins around, and walks off.

  It was mean, sure. But then again, he needed to get the hint and stop stalking her. And anyway, she won’t ever have to see him again, once she gets the hell out of the past for good.

  8

  Pompeii looks like this—a giant pile of black ashes.

  With a charred stick, Joy pokes at the soft mound that was once the bonfire, picturing a miniature city perfectly preserved underneath it. Some embers are still smoldering, glowing red like lava.

  Few people know that Vesuvius is an active volcano even now—when it erupted so violently a couple thousand years ago and destroyed the city of Pompeii, that wasn’t a one-hit-wonder thing. It could still have a big comeback, and something like three million people live close enough to it that they’d be killed almost instantly. Those three million people must simply be willing to take a gamble on their lives.

  She drops the stick, wiping her hands on the back of her shorts. She is supposed to be focused on getting the talent-show tiara, which she earned two years ago through a pity vote. She knows it. She didn’t even participate in the talent show—she was the behind-the-scenes coordinator. And if there’s one thing she’s certain of now, it’s that she does not want pity votes this time around.

  After the unexpected phone call, she had wandered the campgrounds for a while, trying not to run into anybody. By the time she made her way back over to the bonfire, it had died down and everyone seemed to have returned to their cabins for curfew. In fact, she should probably do the same.

  On her way toward Blue Heron, though, she hears the sound of girls giggling somewhere in the trees. She stops and watches as three girls from a younger bunk—probably Hawk or Wolf—clad in bathing suits, dart off toward the path that veers straight into the woods, around the right side of the lake. To Red Cliffs.

  The cliffs she was always too afraid to leap from, down to the water forty feet below, even though there’s a tree with a tire swing up there, and kids much younger than her are brave enough to try it every summer. The cliff swing is an Okahatchee tradition.

  The three girls appear to be around twelve, and Joy wonders if she knows them—knew them. Whatever. It’s likely she led them in arts and crafts, years back. She was always doing stuff like that with the younger campers—teaching them how to weave shells and feathers into their friendship bracelets and lanyards. She’s always found kids easy to be around. Even when they’re brats, they still have a certain sweetness, an innocence. They don’t think about the future, they just think about now. And, for the most part, like Joy used to, they believe in fantastic.

  Curious, she turns left at the path instead of heading straight toward the cabins, and picks up her speed, occasionally glancing over her shoulder to be sure she hasn’t been spotted. It has always been easy to sneak around Okahatchee at night. She’s pretty sure the night counselors are too busy drinking or hooking up to notice the campers breaking rules.

  Soft pine needles poke at her feet around the sides of her flip-flops and the cool night air invigorates her as she follows the trail of voices and laughter, high and light and carefree, toward the edge of the water.

  She runs faster now, breaking into a true lope, feeling the blood pounding in the veins of her legs and throat and ears. Suddenly she’s afraid to lose them, afraid they’ll jump too soon, afraid one of them will get hurt. Don’t they know how dangerous the cliffs are, especially at night?

  When she breaks through the clearing in the woods and sees the tree and the little O of its tire swing dangling below, swaying just slightly, for a moment she’s surprised by how quaint the whole scene looks. Not dangerous at all. The three girls are huddled together and one is whispering urgently while another giggles, and the third wraps her arms around herself, obviously cold and a little scared. She hears them count down, one of them squealing quietly, and then she takes a harsh breath as all three grab hands and race over the edge, disappearing completely.

  Joy’s heart seems to stop pumping. Gone. They’re gone—three birthday candles blown out.

  But then she hears the almost simultaneous set of splashes, and another minute later, the tinny sound of distant gasps and voices, fading away.

  Slowly, Joy inches into the open clearing and approaches the ledge. As she reaches the lip of the cliff, she carefully leans over, peering at the water. In the cool, mossy darkness, the drop seems even farther. She can barely see the shapes of the three girls, who are clambering over the rocks a little ways down, shivering.

  She grabs the rope of the tire swing, sliding her legs through its mouth, and kicks off the ground, swinging out over the ledge, testing her nerve. Wondering if now’s the time. If she should take the leap, too. She may not get another chance, after all.

  What is there to lose? she asks herself, though some other voice in her head responds: Everything.

  She shakes her head slightly, trying to shut out that voice.

  But it has curled its way throughout her chest like smoke, making it hard to breathe.

  She allows the swing to slow to a stop.

  Then, with a heaviness, she slips out of it, and moves away from the ledge. The tire swing sways listlessly, exuding disappointment. The wind turns chilly, and Joy hugs herself as she turns and walks back toward her cabin.

  She has changed, she reminds herself. She has.

  And she’s got an opportunity to relive the rest of this summer. It should be different this time—better, happier, freer than ever before.

  But she needs more time.

  She stares up at the sky through the trees. How did you get so far up there, moon?

  No answer comes.

  The tiny sliver makes her think of one of Uma Finkelstein’s clipped toenails.

  Don’t you know how easy it would be to fall?

  9

  TUESDAYr />
  The final sprays of dirt fall over Zoe, blocking out the rectangle of light above. She tries to scream, but no one hears her. Cool, damp walls of earth surround her, keeping her arms pinned to the sides of her body. Trapped. She can’t move, can’t escape, can’t breathe. She tries to expand her lungs, inhaling dirt. She’ll die out here, buried alive, alone, unheard, unseen.

  The voice that always comes to her in this dream comes to her again now: Give up. There’s no point in struggling. There’s no way out.

  Zoe wakes up with a hard gasp, almost falling out of her bunk.

  Her bunk. Right. She’s at camp. Safe. Alive.

  I have to tell Cal I had the dream again, she thinks. And then she remembers, all in a rush, that she broke up with Cal, that he was hurt, that he gave her a ride to Okahatchee anyway, that he even said he’d go grab a burger and come back for her later that night if she wanted a ride home from the reunion.

  Zoe sucks in a deep breath, taking in the familiar scent of the Camp OK cabins—mildewed towels and a strange comingling of Body Shop body spray and mosquito repellent. So. This isn’t part of the nightmare. She really did dump Cal. And she really is here . . . and fifteen again.

  For a second, she can’t help but be a teeny, tiny bit pleased. She always suspected time travel was a real thing, not just the stuff of sci-fi. In a way, it was all delightfully, surprisingly elegant—no fuss, no fancy machinery, more like a simple hiccup in the normally forward trajectory of a life.

  She’s going to be hailed as a genius when she proves this really happened. BU’s physics department is going to go ridiculously nuts. She’ll probably get the rest of her tuition covered by scholarship without even having to apply for one. She won’t have to pick up any more shifts at Tasti D-Lite during breaks. She’ll be a campus legend, a hero . . .