Autumn's Wish

by Bella Thorne

  “Sit down, loser!” shouts some burly guy who doesn’t even go to our school. “I’m trying to see!”

  “Sorry,” I say. My voice does not echo through the stadium this time. I guess Tom cut the power to my mic. I slip into the seat next to Jack that J.J. just vacated and try to make myself as small as possible.

  “I wish you’d told me ahead of time,” Jack says. “I’d have told you it was a bad idea.”

  I nod, staring down at my lap. In my peripheral vision I see the people next to and in front of me laugh and stare, but if I don’t focus on them, I can drown them out a little.

  “Want to get out of here?” Jack asks.

  I do, desperately, but I feel like standing up would just get everyone’s attention, and I can’t take that right now. I shake my head.

  “ ’Kay,” Jack says. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  He turns his attention to the game, and I keep mine in my lap. It’s torture to sit here. I wish I could just close my eyes and blink myself home so I could pull an Amalita and burrow under my covers for three weeks.

  Then I realize. I can close my eyes and go away. Maybe not home, but someplace else. Maybe someplace that’ll show me things don’t turn as bad as I think. I wait until the group right around me turns back to the game, then pull the locket out from under my shirt. I open it but keep it cupped in my hand and don’t look when I fidget with the dials. I know Dad will make sure I go someplace I need to see. After a few seconds, I close the locket, squeeze it in my hand, and think only about my dad, reaching out his hand to guide me.

  Dad is truly looking out for me. I open my eyes in a super-clean, white-and-stainless-steel modern-looking kitchen, and right in front of me are two flat computer screens, built into the wall. The one on top shows a calendar. It’s early December, same as when I left, but it’s fifteen years in the future.

  “No wonder the kitchen looks modern,” I say. “Or since I’m in the future, is it actually retro?” I lift both cupped hands to the sides of my head and make an explosion noise while I stretch my fingers out and move them in either direction: Mind. Blown.

  The panel below the calendar is a photo album, I guess. Or a screen saver that shows pictures. I watch the slideshow for a bit. It’s mainly pictures of me and Erick as kids, some of us in my now. There’s others of us older, like me graduating college in my cap and gown—it has to be college because the cap and gown are blue, not black like the ones we wear at Aventura. Plus I look older. Then there’s one of me, Reenzie, Amalita, and Taylor. How old are we there, twenty-six? I do the math and figure I’m in my thirties in this future.

  My thirties. How crazy is that?!

  I keep watching the screen, and I see lots of pictures of kids. These two dark-haired toddlers crawling all over a grown-up Erick. Are they his kids? And the two redheaded girls…one who looks maybe seven holding hands with another who’s maybe five. Could they possibly be mine?

  This has to be my mom’s place. No one else would have this many pictures of Erick and me and—I guess—our families.

  “Autumn, it’s ten in the morning,” my mom’s voice rings out, as if to confirm my thoughts. “I don’t need a drink.”

  “Well, if we’re having this conversation, I do,” I hear my future self say.

  My instinct is to hide as I hear footsteps coming closer, but that would be ridiculous. I’m invisible to everyone here. I stand my ground as Future Me walks into the room.

  “Holy crap, I’m gorgeous!” I shout.

  I can’t help it. It’s insane, the body that walks into this kitchen. And I can see every inch of it because Future Me’s wearing skintight jeans and a super-clingy black, low-cut top. I gape and move closer as Future Me opens Mom’s fridge and brings out a bottle of champagne and a container of orange juice. “Sure you don’t want a mimosa?” Future Me calls.

  “Ten in the morning, Autumn,” Mom says again. “I only keep that stuff in there for you.”

  Future Me rolls her eyes and mixes a drink. As she does, I check her out more closely. There’s something off, but I can’t quite figure out what it is. Then she lifts her head to look at the slide show of pictures. She’s standing perfectly still now, facing me and smiling, and I gasp out loud.

  “Oh my God, what did you do to us?!” I shout.

  I wasn’t wrong at first glance. Future Me has a killer body. But it can’t possibly be real. I couldn’t get that much cleavage if I shoved every sock I own into the strongest push-up bra in the universe.

  “And what is up with your face?” I wail. “How are lip implants still a thing and why did you do them???”

  Future Me doesn’t answer. She just smiles with those balloon-animal lips that are seriously not attractive on anyone and certainly not on me. Even my hair, which at first glance looked gorgeous and natural, I can now see isn’t my real color. It’s some kind of crazy mix of orange and blond and spreads in waves down below my shoulders. It’s pretty…kinda…but I know my hair doesn’t grow like that. It has to be extensions.

  “Autumn, for real?” I ask her, but of course she ignores me.

  Future-Me leads me into the main room of what seems like a beautiful condo. One whole wall is glass, and through it I can see the ocean. We’re right there practically on the sand, but judging from the view we’re several floors up. The room is light and airy, and my mom is sitting on a puffy cream-colored couch. It’s weird. If I’m in my early thirties, then she’s in her late fifties, but she looks much older. Her brown curls are threaded with gray, and she’s curled on the couch under a crocheted afghan. Surrounding her—on the walls, the end tables, and the coffee table—are framed pictures of my dad. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Mom, sometimes with all of us as a family. It’s like she’s built a little shrine to him and is all curled up inside it.

  Future-Me sits on the other end of the couch and takes a big sip of her drink. “Okay, let’s talk about it.”

  “Is it true?” Mom asks. She nods to a magazine on the coffee table. I sit on the floor to get a good look at it. On the cover is a picture of Kyler Leeds, and I swear, I always thought he was hot now, but he is smokin’ in fifteen years. Like, it’s unbelievable. I guess he’s a movie star now because the picture shows him looking lustfully at some equally gorgeous young woman and the headline reads: KYLER LEEDS AND DINA FLORES, with the subheadline SPARKS FLY ON THE SET AND OFF—ARE THEY LEAVING THEIR MARRIAGES FOR EACH OTHER?

  Future-Me sighs. She dips her finger into her drink, then licks it clean. “It’s true.”

  I look back and forth between Mom and my Future Self. They both look so pained and sad I have to laugh out loud. “Seriously? We’re this upset about Kyler Leeds? I don’t even care this much about him now!”

  “I thought you went through counseling,” Mom says. “I thought when the baby was born, he promised no more cheating.”

  Future-Me laughs ruefully. “Mom, I married a superstar. Of course he cheats. It’s part of the package.”

  I literally fall over backward as I realize what they’re saying. “Hold up—Kyler Leeds is my husband?! Those kids in the picture—they’re mine and Kyler Leeds’s?!” I gasp as something even more vital strikes me. “I’ve seen Kyler Leeds naked?!?!?”

  “I just think you deserve better, Autumn,” Mom says.

  “Are you kidding?” Future-Me says. “I have everything in the world. I have nothing but money, we go on fabulous vacations, I have great help for the kids…I bought you this condo, right? And I have a great home….”

  I noticed the whole time Future-Me says all this, she can’t meet Mom’s eyes. When she finally does, she crumples and tears well in her eyes. When she speaks again, she sounds small and broken. “I don’t know, Mom,” she says. “You say I deserve better, but I don’t know that there’s anything better out there. I mean, Kyler was supposed to be my something better. Remember how we started dating?”

  “How can I forget?” Mom asks. “You framed the article. It’s right there on the wal
l.” She gestures across the room.

  “Are you kidding me?!” I shout. I leap up and run to the wall, where a huge glass frame holds a several-page feature from People magazine, detailing my great romance with Kyler Leeds. I immediately devour every word. Turns out it all started with my big performance at the football game. Apparently a lot of people filmed it on their cell phones, and it went so hard-core viral that Kyler saw it, and felt so bad for me he “rekindled a friendship sparked by their grandmothers.” Friendship turned to love, the article says, which reached a crescendo my senior year of college, when Kyler reenacted my big stadium moment and proposed to me in the stands. Unlike J.J. Austin, however, I didn’t turn him down. We got married the summer after I graduated, we have two kids, and according to People, life has been a fairy tale since then.

  According to the conversation between Future Me and Mom, however, he’s been cheating on me the whole time.

  “I worry about you, Autumn,” Mom says to Future Me. “The things you do to yourself to try to get his attention…” She gestures up and down my body, and Future Me’s face grows even tighter than it surgically is. “Whatever I do to my body is for me, not him,” she says. “I like it.”

  I snort. “Not unless you’ve had a brain transplant, you don’t.”

  Future Me shakes her striped mane and smiles. She puts a hand on Mom’s knee. “Enough about me. I’m worried about you. You’re in L.A., right on the beach. You’re still young. There’s a million things to do. I invite you to parties all the time and you never come. You just sit here by yourself unless your grandkids are around. You need to get out there and live, Mom. You could meet someone!”

  Mom smiles and gestures to the pictures all around her. “I did meet someone. Your father.”

  “Mom…,” Future Me starts, but Mom shakes her head.

  “I had my time. I had amazing years with the love of my life. No one else will ever compare to that. You said so yourself, remember? When I tried to date that man Glen? Remember that?”

  Future Me nods. Mom’s eyes suddenly get wistful.

  “I ran into him recently—did I tell you that? At Disneyland. I was with the girls. He was there with his wife and daughter. It was perfect, actually, because Maisy and Lily wanted to ride Tower of Terror and they didn’t want to do it alone, but you know I can’t do that one. Turned out Glen’s family was going on it, so the girls went with them. Glen’s not a thrill ride person either, so he stayed back and we talked. It’s funny. He said he thought I was the one he’d marry. And he said he still thinks of me whenever he eats anything pumpkin flavored.”

  Mom laughs, but it’s sad, and I see her eyes are far away. Future Me must see the same thing, because she looks pained. “You really liked him, didn’t you.”

  There’s a little too much silence before Mom answers; then she scoffs. “No! Besides, I’m perfectly happy with the way things turned out.”

  As she gets to her feet and walks away, Future Me calls out, “Where are you going?”

  “To make a mimosa!” Mom chirps. “I can’t let you drink all alone, can I?”

  When I open my eyes, everyone around me is booing. For a second I think it’s because they saw what I saw, and they’re booing me for being a terrible daughter and ruining my mom’s last chance for happiness. Then I realize the other team just scored a touchdown and our chances of winning the playoff are slipping away.

  I grab Jack by the arm. “If you ever—ever—hear me say I want to get any kind of plastic surgery, you have my permission to kick me in the head.”

  I want to also tell him never to let me marry Kyler Leeds, but he won’t really believe that’s an option for me anyway, plus I’m fairly certain I can remember that on my own. I wait until the next big play is happening, then slip out of my row as best I can and walk home. Erick’s there with a group of friends. They’re all piled on the couch, watching something disturbingly familiar on the TV: me, singing loudly and off-key as I stumble-walk through the stadium toward J.J.

  “Seriously?” I explode. “Already?”

  Erick’s friends respectfully stop laughing. Erick’s mirth is unabated. “Are you kidding? It’s already up from, like, twenty different angles. This one’s the best.”

  “How did you even know to look for it?” I ask.

  “I have you on Google Alert,” Erick explains. “Only a couple of the videos call you out by name, but once I had one, I looked up the others. So good.”

  “I’m not insane, Autumn,” J.J. says on the screen. “I’m done. The answer is no.”

  “Harsh,” Erick says. Then, as if only now realizing I’m a real person this happened to, he looks concerned. “So…like…are you okay?”

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask, ignoring his question.

  “Up in her room,” he says. As I walk upstairs, he calls after me, “If it helps, you’re getting tons of hits! You could totally get on Tosh.0!”

  I climb up the stairs and knock on my mom’s door.

  “Come in!” she calls.

  She’s in a pair of gray silky pajamas, propped up in bed and watching TV. She smiles as I come in.

  “Hey, Autumn!” she says. “I thought you’d be out late tonight. Wasn’t there a game?”

  “We were losing.” I shrug, as if the state of the football game had anything to do with why I usually stay or go. I notice the picture on Mom’s night table. A framed shot of her and Dad. I know it’s on their honeymoon because they told me, but it’s so close on their faces it could be anywhere. Mom’s laughing about something and Dad has this satisfied smile—probably because he’s the one who made her laugh—and they look so young and happy and in love that it hurts.

  I think about Future Mom with her shrine of Dad pictures surrounding her all the time.

  “Want to watch with me?” Mom asks, scooting over and patting the bed. “I figured I’d hang up here and give Erick and his friends some privacy.”

  I hop onto the bed and scrunch low so I don’t tower over Mom. I pretend to watch the cooking show that’s on; then I ask, “Mom…do you ever see Glen?”

  “Glen?” Mom repeats as if it were the silliest word in the English language. “No. He called me once, after our dinner, but I made it quite clear I wasn’t interested in pursuing anything.”

  “Really? ’Cause I was thinking…maybe you should call him again.”

  Mom turns and looks at me quizzically. “You want me to call him?”

  “I’m just saying…maybe I was a little harsh when we all got together. I mean, I don’t want you to…you know…miss out on someone just because I got a little weird about it.”

  “Oh, baby…” She leans over and kisses my head. “I love you for worrying about me. But you were right. And honestly, I knew it too. I had the most wonderful man in the world in your father. There isn’t anyone else out there who could possibly hold a candle to him. Certainly not Glen.”

  She sounds convincing, but I remember the way Future Mom looked when she reminisced about Glen, and I know she feels more than she’s letting on. I try to press her on the subject, just to see if she might reach out to him again, but she’s firm. The Glen chapter of her life is closed. She even deleted all his contact information.

  I guess the good news is I know my mom listens to and respects what I have to say. The bad news is my advice led her down a path that will make her miserable. I think about it after I tell her good night and go into my room. My very first jump was to her wedding. Everything there seemed wrong: my friends, me, Erick…but especially Mom and Glen. I was positive that’s why Dad wanted me to see it—because everyone in my little corner of the world was on a crash course toward disaster, and I had to stop it.

  But now I think that was a mistake. I think he sent me to the wedding because Mom getting married was the one thing that was right in our future.

  I pull out the locket and gaze at the zemi. I imagine the triangular face morphing into the smiling face of my father.

  “I should’ve known,” I tell
him. “You love her. You want her to be happy…even if it means moving on.” I sigh and throw myself back against the pillows. “I can fix it, though,” I tell my dad in the zemi. “I’ll get them back together again. I promise.”

  I kiss the zemi, tuck the locket back under my shirt, and pull a pad of paper and pen from my nightstand so I can make a list of everything I know about Glen. It’s very short. I know he likes animals because he showed up at Catches Falls before he knew my mom, I know he likes pumpkin-flavored food, and I know he shops at the Trader Joe’s near us. That’s it. During our one dinner together, he only asked about us and said nothing about himself, so that’s all I’ve got.

  I’ll make it work. I promise myself that until I make this right, I won’t even think about any other future problems. It’s not that hard, really. Ames, Taylor, Reenzie, Sean, and Jack seem to be on a pretty good path. My future with J.J. is a giant catastrophe, but I don’t get my true love until Mom gets hers. Besides, I have no idea what to do to make the J.J. situation better right now. Better to give it some time before I try anything else.

  Operation Glen starts at Trader Joe’s. He shops there, so I stalk there. I ride my bike over every day after school. I leave the minute it ends, and I’m happy to escape. Ever since the football game, school is pretty much a nightmare of people mimicking my bad singing, asking me if we can go out again, or papering my locker, backpack, and once even me with their versions of “iguana wet goo.” My friends stick by me and have my back, but I’m still way happier getting to school the second it starts, spending every free moment in the library, and leaving immediately after it ends.

  At Trader Joe’s, I sit outside and watch people come in and out. I bring all my books and my laptop so I can get my homework done and work on the Common App for colleges. I hang until it gets dark, taking the occasional break to go in the store and get snacks, use the bathroom, and case the place in case Glen snuck by me at any point.