Autumn's Wish

by Bella Thorne

  By the time I’m done, our pizza arrives. Erick tells me to give his slices to Schmidt, our basset hound. Erick would rather make a smoothie out of some protein powder Mom apparently got him last week.

  “Ugh, you sound like Jenna’s last boyfriend,” I say. “He was this total musclehead.”

  “Jenna likes guys with muscles?” Erick asks, intrigued.

  “Some muscles,” I say. “This guy was one of those workout heads who got so huge he couldn’t lower his arms all the way. And eating with him was a nightmare. He wouldn’t put anything in his mouth but protein shakes. She dumped him after their second date.”

  “Really?” he asks, sitting down and grabbing a slice of pizza. “Even though he was ripped?”

  I smile inwardly. The story’s a complete fake, but Erick has always been disgustingly in love with Jenna, and if he thinks she doesn’t like her guys bulked up, maybe it’ll save him from his ’roid-rage future.

  Mom gets home late, but I’m still awake, and she’s thrilled when I tell her about the pizza. She grabs a slice and a diet soda and takes them to the couch. I curl up with Schmidt on my lap and sit with her while she eats. She’s totally impressed when I tell her about my new SAT date and prep class; then she fills me in on all the construction drama at the new Catches Falls branch.

  The whole time we talk, there’s a question I’m dying to ask, but it’s so the kind of thing I never thought I’d say to my mom that I can’t imagine getting the words past my tongue. I have to stare down at her pizza and address the question to her uneaten crust rather than to her face.

  “Mom…have you thought about…I mean, are you…” Ugh, even asking the crust is hard. I close my eyes and blurt it out. “You’re not dating anyone, are you?”

  Mom chokes on her soda.

  “No!” she says. “Autumn, what would make you even ask that?”

  Other than seeing her get married? “I don’t know, I just…” Inspiration! “I had this weird dream that you were getting married again and—”

  I don’t mean to well up. I don’t. I honestly have no idea it’s coming. It’s just that I see her in my head in that wedding dress with that strange guy, and from where I’m sitting I can see my mom and dad’s real wedding picture on the coffee table in the other room, and the next thing I know I’m starting to cry and Schmidt’s licking my face and Mom’s running around to sit next to me and put her arm around my shoulders.

  “Oh, baby,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry.” I sniff. “I don’t know why I was thinking about it—”

  I sob and Mom rubs my back.

  “It’s normal,” she says. “It’s totally normal to wonder about that. But look at me, Autumn.”

  I meet her eyes. They’re reaching out to mine, full of strength and certainty.

  “Your father was the love of my life. There’s no one else, and I’m not looking for anyone else. I have you, I have Erick, I have Schmidt and Eddy and my work and my friends….My life is full. Okay?”

  I sniff again, and nod.

  Later, while I’m brushing my teeth, I wonder if I already changed the future. I didn’t do anything big, just signed up for a test and a class and had a couple conversations, but maybe it was enough. When I get back to my room, I yank on the chain and pull the locket out from under my shirt. I open it and make sure it’s still set for my mother’s potential wedding day, but before I can snap it shut, I notice something.

  The little number in the top window—the one that used to show a 10—now shows a 9. I can’t imagine why. None of the other numbers in the locket have moved, and this one doesn’t even have a dial next to it. The number changed all by itself, sometime after I made that first jump.

  Chills crawl over my skin as I realize what it means.

  “It’s a countdown,” I whisper.

  It has to be. It was at 10, I made one jump, and now it’s at 9.

  The locket isn’t like the diary or the map. I can’t use it as much as I want. I have ten jumps and that’s it.

  I decide not to jump again just yet. If my jumps are limited, I need to use them more carefully. I need to accomplish more in the present before I check back in on the future. I need to make sure my life can’t possibly turn out the way I saw.

  On Monday I harass Erick to speed up his morning grooming routine—which these days takes way longer than my own—so Mom can drive us both to school early and I can visit the guidance counselor before classes start.

  “Ms. Falls!” he cries when he sees me, and springs up from the largest beanbag chair in the office. Mr. Winthrop had some kind of epiphany over the summer, I guess, and decided he’d get more guidance customers if he became a “cool” teacher. For him that meant ditching his desk and chair and replacing them with an assortment of beanbags, a thick plushy rug, and a giant chalkboard where anyone who comes in can scribble down whatever’s on their mind. As far as I know, Jack and J.J. are the only people who use the board. They sneak in whenever Mr. Winthrop isn’t there and write innocuous anagrams for the most disgusting phrases they can come up with. Today the board says “aging toad goon,” but I can only imagine what the letters spell rearranged.

  “After last winter, I thought I’d lost you,” Mr. Winthrop says.

  Last winter was the last time I tried to reinvent myself. I was dating J.J. and feeling suffocated, plus I wound up losing all my friends due to map complications, so I threw myself into becoming the best possible college applicant ever. I was pretty amazing at it and have a single semester of admissions office perfection to show for it. But then I got my friends back and wanted, oh, a life, so I fell off the wagon a little bit.

  “You did,” I agree, “but I’m back and I’m all in. How do I get colleges begging for me?” I tell him I’m already on the SAT part; it’s the other things I need help with.

  “Well,” he says, “there’s the obvious: grades and teacher recommendations.”

  “Study hard and kiss up to the teachers,” I echo. “Got it.”

  Mr. Winthrop doesn’t think “kissing up” is exactly right, but I’m still pretty sure it’s what he means. For a second I consider giving a Catches Falls puppy to each of my teachers as a big win-win. The puppies find homes and my teachers love me for bringing them joy!

  With my luck all my teachers would be allergic. Maybe I need a better plan.

  “Beyond that it’s your extracurriculars,” Mr. Winthrop says. “Are you still following your singular life’s passion to improve the lives of the elderly by volunteering at Century Acres?”

  “Did I say that was my singular passion?” I ask.

  “You’re not volunteering there anymore?”

  “I was…” Right up until I found out Lame Future Me works at the Century Acres front desk. Now I think I’m more likely to change my future if I avoid the place except for Eddy visits. I try to explain this to Mr. Winthrop without giving anything away, but he just looks at me like I’m crazy. Then he reminds me that colleges love “arrows,” kids who follow one passion and see it through, no matter what. He urges me to come up with some kind of extracurricular that at least seems similar to helping the elderly, even if it’s not at Century Acres.

  I’m still thinking about the problem at lunch, and my plan is to bounce it off all my friends. But when I see them sprawled out in a circle on the lawn where we always eat, all I can think about is them at my mom’s wedding. Sean in particular. He’s sitting there next to Reenzie with his arm draped over her shoulders, but he’s looking across the lawn at a bunch of way-too-cute freshman girls wearing tiny tanks and shorts.

  “Seriously, Sean?” I ask as I plop down between Taylor and Amalita with my tray of barely edible cafeteria food. “Your girlfriend’s right next to you. Stop looking at those girls.”

  Sean’s blue eyes get scattered and confused. “What girls?”

  “Belly shirts and navel rings? Hot new blood? It’s totally not cool for you to scope out when you already have the hottest girl on campus.
” As an exclamation point I chomp into my hot dog.

  Sean crinkles his forehead in a way that is empirically completely adorable, regardless of the fact that he’s off-limits and a cheating cad.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks. “I’m watching those guys throw the football.”

  He nods across the lawn and I see that just beyond the girl-candy are indeed a couple of freshman jocks tossing a football back and forth.

  “I like that you’re checking the belly shirts, though,” Jack says with a wicked leer. “And I really like when you talk about how hot Reenzie is. Reminds me of a dream I had last night.” He waggles his eyebrows lasciviously.

  “Oh please,” I shoot back. “Like you actually—”

  I stop myself before I inadvertently out him right here at lunch. Truthfully, I think he’d be happier if he just told us all the truth and stopped pretending so hard, but it’s his choice and his timing and it’s not my place to push him into anything. Instead I play along and grin right back. “Like you actually could handle Reenzie and me in the same dream.”

  “Ew. Tell you what. You stop dreaming about me,” she says to Jack. “And you…,” she adds to me, “you can go ahead and remind Sean how hot I am anytime you want.”

  “You don’t have to remind me how hot Carrie is,” J.J. says, smiling down at his girlfriend.

  “Awww,” Carrie coos, “because you already know?”

  “No,” he deadpans. “ ’Cause you keep reminding me yourself.”

  Carrie gasps, offended, and stomps across the field. J.J. has to chase her down and beg her not to leave. “It was a joke, Carrie! It was a joke! I’m sorry! I love you! You’re gorgeous! You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen!”

  I lean over to Amalita and speak softly. “You know she left her bag here.”

  Amalita rolls her eyes. “She was never going anywhere. She just likes him to chase her.”

  Ames takes a big swig from her water bottle.

  At least, I think it’s a water bottle. It’s hot pink and I can’t see what’s inside it.

  “Whatcha drinking?” I ask.

  Ames grins. “Cosmopolitan. Want some?”

  My jaw drops and I look around before I lean closer and hiss, “Amalita! The school has a zero tolerance policy! You could get expelled!”

  “Relajese,” Ames laughs. “It’s agua. You think I’m insane?”

  J.J. and Carrie plop back into their spot, but this time Carrie uses J.J. as a human lounge chair, resting her back against his chest and her arms on his knees while J.J. wraps his arms around her.

  “In case it wasn’t clear,” J.J. tells us all. “I was joking. Carrie never reminds me that she’s beautiful. I know it for myself.”

  “Good boy,” Carrie says, like J.J.’s a well-behaved pooch.

  “So here’s something interesting,” I say as lightly as possible. “I read this thing in the newspaper about underage drinking. Sobering stuff.”

  “Why are we having this conversation?” Reenzie asks.

  “Why are you reading a newspaper?” J.J. asks. “Who are you and what have you done with Autumn?”

  His voice is playful, and my heart jumps a little. It’s been a long time since J.J.’s teased me about anything. We used to go back and forth all the time, and we knew each other so well we could say a million things with just a look. I catch his eye and he smiles, but it only lasts a second before Carrie senses his attention isn’t completely on her and leaps in with a subject change.

  “So, Autumn, I saw you come out of Mr. Winthrop’s office this morning,” she says. “What’s up?”

  Jack snorts. “Did you see the ‘aging toad goon’ on the wall?”

  “I did,” I said. “Quite lovely.” Then I decide as long as I have the group here, I’ll get their help. “Here’s the deal. If I want a college to love me, I need a lifelong passion that I can suddenly discover, cram into the next three months, and make colleges believe I’ve been all about it forever. Extra points if it’s not wildly different from helping the elderly so I look all arrowy.”

  “Pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Taylor says. “A passion is a passion. Like me and theater. Or Sean and football. Or Amalita and—”

  “Zander,” Ames sighs as she sprawls out on the lawn. “The way that boy dances, Dios mio. I can’t believe none of you were there Saturday night.”

  “That’s good,” J.J. says. “Colleges would love it if Autumn’s passion was some guy who cut all his classes and partied every night. She’d get in everywhere.”

  “Don’t mess, J.J.,” Ames warns, jangling as she points a finger at him. “I’ve known you too long and there’s too much I could say.”

  “Hey, back to me!” I say, breaking in before Ames blurts something hideous about J.J. and Carrie. “I’m serious. I need a stroke of extracurricular genius.”

  “Join me on the Senior Social Committee!” Carrie says. “We plan all the parties and events for the year, and we could really use some help.”

  I wince. Everyone I know of on the Senior Social Committee is like Carrie: perky people pleasers who get really excited about things like shiny confetti in cutesy animal shapes. Nothing wrong with that, just not really my style.

  “Come on, Autumn, it’s perfect!” Carrie says. “Colleges love the Committee Girls. They know we’re responsible and motivated, and we can lead. Plus a lot of our events raise money for charity—including elderly charities—so it helps you with your arrow thing too!”

  I’m not entirely sure I love the idea of getting more Carrie time, but she makes some great points.

  “Okay,” I relent. “I’m in.”

  “Yes!” Carrie screeches. “Welcome to the sisterhood! You’ll meet me after school for your first meeting. We’ve only been back a week, but we’re deep into Halloween dance planning—it’s less than two months away—and we need some serious answers about which looks better: fake tarantulas or fake black widows.”

  I think she’s joking, but when I meet with the “sisterhood” that afternoon, I realize there is absolutely no humor in what they do. They discuss the pros and cons of candy corn versus mellowcreme pumpkins with the same intensity that my mom and Eddy bring to issues of human rights in Cuba…or the way Jack and J.J. debate the merits of the Millennium Falcon over the Starship Enterprise. There’s also a guy in the sisterhood. Gus is gay, and I worry that lumping him in as a “sister” is completely insulting, but when I bring it up he scoffs. Not only am I being way too sensitive, he says, but we on the committee have bigger issues to deal with—like mylar versus paper streamers.

  Seriously? This is what colleges are into?

  Whatever. At least now I have a passion for them, and the sisterhood becomes part of my hard-core new schedule. It’s kind of like where I was last spring, only this time it’s better because I’m not keeping busy to avoid a suffocating boyfriend. Instead, I’m changing my life. School days are all about my classes, and I spend my free periods getting a jump on homework so I can go home after Committee and dive into SAT prep. When I realize I’m having major trouble with my American history class because I can’t read all those dates without them getting jumbled in my dyslexic head, I don’t do my normal thing and figure I can handle it myself. I don’t even bring the problem to ADAPT, the group I go to for kids with learning issues. Instead I go right to my teacher, Mrs. Foreman, and ask her for help. Not only does she promise to find me a tutor, but she also says she’s very impressed by my initiative.

  “Thanks,” I say. Then, as I’m about to leave, I point to the water bottle she always keeps on her desk—the one decorated with the U.S. Constitution—and add, “I keep noticing your water bottle. It’s so cool! Did you order it online?”

  This leads to a ridiculously long conversation about the amazing things you can find on Amazon. It completely eats into my free period and a chance to do homework, but I leave knowing Mr. Winthrop would be proud. Kissing up to a teacher? Done. Mrs. Foreman will write me a kille
r college recommendation—especially when I use the tutor she recommends to kill it in her class.

  When SAT day comes, I’m not even nervous. Mom drives me, since I’m the only one I know taking them right now. Reenzie’s spring score was practically perfect, so she’s concentrating on APs; Sean’s was fine for his football scholarship, and Taylor’s was fine for her theater schools, which are more about her audition. Amalita did okay but she says standardized tests give her hives, so she’ll do what I once thought I’d do and just let it be. J.J., Carrie, and Jack are taking the tests again, but not until November.

  Unlike me, Mom’s insanely nervous. “I still can’t believe they turned down our request for accommodation,” she snaps as she drives me to the test. “It’s not right that you’re penalized for working hard to keep up with your class!”

  Since my dyslexia means reading can take more time for me than for other people, I applied for extra SAT time. They turned me down, on the grounds that I take tests with everyone else at school, so I should be fine. Mom’s still furious about the injustice, but I’m over it. Plus I’m prepared. I could nail the SAT in less than the allotted time.

  Okay, turns out that’s a lie.

  I end up not finishing, and I walk out of the test with a sore pencil hand and a raging headache, but I think I did really well. In fact, I kinda can’t wait for the next two weeks to zip by so I can find out for sure.

  I expect my mom to pick me up afterward, but instead it’s her friend Amanda. She looks really young to me, and I can’t figure out why until I remember the last time I saw her was at my mom’s wedding…three years from now. “Sorry, Autumn,” she says. “Contractor emergency. Your mom had to run out and talk to them at the new place. Wanna come hang with me and the pooches?”

  If Mom’s out, I’m sure they’re shorthanded at Catches Falls, and I can always use some puppy therapy, so I say yes, and the minute I see the place I’m thrilled I did. Catches Falls isn’t huge. It’s a single storefront in the middle of a strip mall, but Mom’s a genius and put a puppy play area right by the big front window. People can’t help it. They always stop, check out the pups, and most of the time come in. Even if they don’t take a dog themselves, they volunteer or give a donation, so the place does really well. That’s why she’s working on the new location. It’s not on a popular walking street like this one, but it can hold a lot more dogs, and it’ll have a big outdoor area with a giant yard and a doggie swimming/wading pool shaped like a bone.