If You Were Here

by Stephanie Taylor

  I set the yearbook on the dresser and sank back onto the waterbed. Everything settled in around me for the first time since I’d opened my eyes: I was in my house, but it wasn’t 2016. My mom was in the house, but she wasn’t a grown woman—she was an 11-year-old girl named Lisa with a Barbie and a bad attitude. The room shrank around me as my field of vision narrowed. I laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling and the frosted glass of the light fixture with its etched flowers. What the hell was going on? How was this even possible? My grandma was still alive, and my grandpa had come in from jogging like it was nothing for him to be up and out of a wheelchair.

  And my uncle Andy! He’d breezed in and sat down next to me at the table like it was nothing. He had to be real, right? This had to be real—I’d tasted the pancakes drowned in syrup, and I’d felt the weight of the phone in my hand as I’d held it to my ear, listening to the voice of some kid named Roger. This wasn’t just some crazy dream—this felt real.

  I focused on the things that were fixed around me: the poster on the wall; the light overhead; the mirror by the door. Those things weren’t moving or changing. My breath came short and fast as I tried to calm my racing mind. It seemed idiotic to pinch myself to see if it was all some elaborate hoax or a trick my mind was playing on me, but in the moment it seemed like the only way to wake myself up if this was just a dream. So I pinched my arm. Hard. And it fucking hurt.

  “What the hell?” I sat up on the waterbed, sending waves out from my body like a pebble thrown into a pond as I watched my skin turn red where I’d pinched it. I guess this was real. All of it.

  A shiny object at the foot of the bed caught my eye. Its slick, black, rectangular shape and size were as familiar as my own face. I stared at it, wondering if it could possibly be what I thought it was. My palm started to itch with the need to hold it, and I knew that it was precisely what I’d been missing. The extension to my arm that made me feel complete. The very thing that kept me from walking around feeling naked and awkward and lost in the world.

  That shiny object on the floor was my lifeline to the world, my way of communicating, of not feeling bored or alone when I had no one to talk to. It was my box of pixels and aluminum and happiness.

  It was my iPhone.

  4

  December 16, 2016

  Mad World

  The door to room 15A was closed. Blake Schiller stood before it in his long coat, holding a Colt .45 in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Behind the cheap wooden door sat Daniel Girch. He could feel it in his bones. Daniel, who had to know what was coming. Daniel, who deserved exactly what he was about to get. The room was silent and dark. Blake could imagine the students crouched beneath the desks or using them as a barricade against the wall, their cell phones silenced but buzzing with activity as they Snapchatted or texted their panic to the world.

  “Daniel Girch!” he shouted. His voice echoed down the hallway. “Come out here. We need to talk. It’s Blake.” The lights in the east wing were shut off, and the green exit sign over the door at one end glowed ominously, reflecting off the freshly polished linoleum. Blake’s silhouette stood out in the dim hallway, and the combination of darkness and silence made it feel cave-like.

  Inside room 15A, Daniel was indeed on the floor, hiding between Alexis and Karina. They’d turned the tables and chairs over, just as Blake had imagined, and they were using them as if they were shields that could actually stop the spray of bullets if necessary.

  “Why is he calling you?” Alexis mouthed to Daniel. He leaned closer. “He’s saying your name,” she whispered into his ear. “Why does he want you?” Daniel turned his palms up and gave a shrug.

  All eyes in the room turned to Daniel.

  “Girch!” Blake called again. A shiver ran up Daniel’s spine. “If you try to save yourself, you’re only sacrificing the others!”

  Mrs. Henderson, Daniel’s English teacher, looked at him with wide eyes. She was like a frightened rabbit with her curly hair frizzing around her face. He shrugged at her just like he had at Alexis.

  There was no part of Daniel that wanted to stand up and walk out into that hallway. Alexis held her hands over her mouth as she listened to the loud sound of Blake tapping his Colt against the metal lockers right outside the classroom door. Karina reached over and pinched Daniel’s thigh as if this would force him to spring into action or do something to save them all.

  “Tick-tock, Daniel,” Blake said calmly. With the blanket of silence that had fallen over the school, his voice rang through loud and clear. It was almost like he was standing in the room with them.

  Mrs. Henderson stood up slowly and took a deep breath. The class watched in horror as she approached the door. Daniel got up to stop her; whatever Blake wanted with him had nothing to do with Mrs. Henderson, and she was his favorite teacher. Watching her stand up straighter and square her shoulders in her white sweater made his heart ache. There was no way Mrs. Henderson would be a match for Blake Schiller and whatever artillery he’d brought with him.

  “Blake,” Mrs. Henderson said. “I’m not letting Daniel leave this room.” Her words were strong, but her voice wavered. “No one is leaving this classroom, and no one is coming in.”

  Daniel sat back down again. Blake Schiller wanted to see him in the hall. This could not be good. It wasn’t that they had any current issues, but things hadn’t been good between Daniel and Blake for several years. It had all changed when they’d moved up to middle school. After years of being best friends, they’d started sixth grade with plans to conquer every sports team together and to be the social kings of the school. Everything was going according to plan until Blake noticed Daniel distancing himself. At least that was the accusation. It was always, “Daniel, why don’t you come over anymore?” and “Daniel, you don’t sit with me at lunch anymore.” But Daniel had wanted to branch out and meet new friends. It was simply what you did in middle school.

  “Give me Girch,” Blake said from outside the door. “I’m not leaving until I see him.”

  “You need to go,” Mrs. Henderson said. “Security will be coming for you soon, not to mention the police.”

  Everyone looked at each other hopefully. Were the police really coming to save them? Could security do anything to stop someone with a gun and a grudge?

  “Come on, Mrs. H,” Blake said. There was disbelief in his voice. “I’ve got two guns and I want Girch. You’re gonna give me what I want.”

  Mrs. Henderson turned around and looked at Daniel. There was hesitation in her eyes. She was trying to stand up to the person who’d come to harm her students, but even she knew she was outmatched.

  As the seconds ticked away in the quiet room, a loud crack filled the air. Almost in unison, everyone in the room jumped at the sound of a bullet being discharged. Daniel instinctively put his arms around Alexis and Karina’s shoulders.

  Milliseconds after the sound of the gun firing came the shatter of glass. The long, narrow window next to the classroom door exploded, its shards ripping the blinds and spraying through the room like shrapnel. Karina screamed in Daniel’s ear and buried her head in his shoulder.

  The fear in the room ratcheted up several notches with the realization that no longer was there anything standing between Blake and the people inside room 15A. Students pulled desks and chairs in front of themselves and ducked for cover. Two girls moved to use Mrs. Henderson’s large desk as a hiding place, climbing underneath it together and curving around one another like twins in the womb.

  “Daniel. This is your last chance.” Blake’s voice pierced the air. There was no longer glass and wood separating them, and all Blake would have to do was reach through the broken window to unlatch the door.

  Daniel watched as Mrs. Henderson fell to one knee on the hard floor, a hand covering her chest as she did. She made a muffled sound as she tried to speak, but whatever she wanted to say came out garbled. As she sat on the floor and leaned back on one elbow, Daniel could see the spread of blood across her white
sweater like red wine spilled across a bed sheet.

  This was too much. Mrs. Henderson was bleeding, people were screaming, and it was all his fault. Whatever Blake was there for had to do with him, and if Mrs. Henderson had gotten shot because he hadn’t been man enough to go out there, then that was going to be on his head—maybe forever. He couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Blake,” Daniel shouted, his voice too loud for the small room. “I want your word that you won’t shoot again, and then I’ll come out.”

  5

  January 1, 1986

  When the Night is Over

  Roger threw open the front door as soon as I knocked. He scanned me from head to toe while I did the same thing to him.

  “Rad outfit, bro,” he said, nodding at my parachute pants. “You gonna breakdance for me?” He moved around in an exaggerated way like he was about to bust out a piece of cardboard and start doing windmills.

  I shot him a look and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “Probably not. It’s cold out here.”

  Roger stepped aside and I got a better look at this kid. He was about six inches shorter than me and skinny in that way that makes a guy look like he’s all arms and legs. He had frizzy reddish hair and really shiny silver braces that made it hard for him to close his mouth completely.

  “What?” Roger said. “You just gonna stand there and make love to me with your eyes, or you wanna come in?” He slammed the door behind me and walked through the entryway like I was supposed to follow.

  The familiarity of the front room tripped me out. Mr. and Mrs. Delucci must have bought this house from Roger’s family at some point over the years and kept everything the same. Because I’d lived next door to this house my entire life, I knew that the wallpaper I was seeing that day was the same as the paper that was still there in 2016. I’d seen it through the giant front window every time I’d ridden my bike down the sidewalk or knocked on the door to score some candy on Halloween. Even the carpet and the fireplace were unchanged: brown shag on the floor, and unpainted red brick with a slab of wood for a mantel. The only thing that had changed from my time to this time was the car in the driveway. Mr. Delucci’s black Escalade was gone, replaced by a four-door Toyota Corolla in a hideous baby blue.

  Roger slid across the wood floor in his white gym socks and then spun around and pointed his fingers at me. “Risky Business,” he said, giving me a cheesy grin.

  “What’s risky business?”

  “The movie.” Roger stared at me. “You know: Tom Cruise sliding across the floor in his socks and underwear…never mind.” He waved a hand and walked through the doorway into the kitchen. “Clearly last night did you in. So how you feeling, buddy?”

  “Uh, okay.” I looked at a tall wooden case in the dining room that was full of dishes and glasses. “And I’ve seen Risky Business, I just forgot.”

  “Of course you’ve seen it. Who hasn’t?” Roger stopped and turned to look back at me in awe. “And for the record, you were an animal last night. You kept knocking back Graveyards like you were drinking the tears of a thousand virgins.”

  “I did?” We stepped into the kitchen and Roger yanked open the refrigerator by its faux wood handle. “What’s in a Graveyard?”

  “Everything, dude. Whiskey, Scotch, Tequila, Gin, Vodka. You name it.”

  “That sounds horrible.”

  “It’s supposed to be horrible. That’s the whole point.” He stuck his head into the fridge and shuffled some containers. “You want something to eat?”

  I shook my head.

  “Cold pizza? Chips and dip? Fried chicken?” He took each item out and set it on the counter as he named it.

  “I’m fine—you go ahead. My grandma made pancakes.”

  “Your grandma is over?” Roger peeled back the aluminum foil and pulled out a huge triangle of pizza.

  It hit me as I watched him take a big bite that my “grandma” was supposed to be in Palm Beach, and that the woman next door making pancakes was actually supposed to be my mother. “No, sorry. I mean my mom made breakfast. I’m good. Just feeling the pain of those Graveyards,” I said, hoping this might explain the fact that I’d been making zero sense since I’d walked through his door.

  Roger shot me a weird look as he shoved the rest of that piece of pizza into his face. Cheese dangled from his chin. “What about Jenny?” he asked with a full mouth.

  “I dunno.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Roger pulled a paper towel off the roll on the counter and wiped his face. “You two were in the closet during Seven Minutes in Heaven and then the next thing I knew you were gone. You totally disappeared.”

  “We did?”

  “Yeah!” Roger opened the container of fried chicken and took out a piece. “She was cute, too. Hey, wanna play some Mario?”

  “You have Mario?”

  Roger gave me a strange look. “Dude, we just played it yesterday. Let’s go to my room.”

  Roger’s bedroom was plastered with posters of the Celtics and of various cars, and the floor was covered with clothes and crumpled papers. I stepped over a pile of pillows and sat on the edge of the bed while Roger set up the console in front of his television.

  “Is that a DeLorean?” I pointed at one of the car posters.

  “The dream car, dude.” Roger stopped what he was doing to admire a car that looked so hilariously retro to me that all I could imagine was Marty McFly behind the wheel with the Flux Capacitor lit up over his shoulder.

  “Come closer,” Roger said, motioning for me to sit next to him on the floor instead of on the bed. “You won’t be able to reach the controls.” He was still looking at me like I was an idiot from outer space, so I did what he said without question.

  “So this Jenny girl,” I said, sitting on top of a pillow next to Roger. “Did we smash?”

  “Did you smash what?” Roger handed me the control.

  “You know, did we do it?”

  “Dude, I have no idea. I was counting on you to bring the details.” The jingle at the start of Mario filled his bedroom. Neither of us spoke for several minutes as we played the game.

  “So, who else was at the party last night?” I moved up to the next level of the video game with ease.

  “The usual. Heather was there—that’s who convinced Jenny to come, I think.”

  “Right, of course,” I said casually. I moved the controller so that Mario wouldn’t die. I needed to act like everything he said from this point on was fact. So far I liked this guy, and to be perfectly honest, I needed him. I mean, I had my family next door, but how much does the average family really know about the teenagers living in their house? We need friends to survive; our friends are our lifelines. Without Roger, I was just some visitor from another time who dressed like a freak and hung out with his dead relatives.

  “And Matt was there…Jake, David, Christina, Emily. Maybe a few other people, but we got pretty shitfaced, so I don’t really remember.” Roger leaned over as he played the game, eyes glued to the television screen.

  “Roger!” a female voice echoed down the hallway. “Roger Allan Napoleon!”

  “Shit, it’s my mom.” He tossed his controller on the floor just as she opened the bedroom door.

  “What do you want, woman?” he asked in a completely unscary growl.

  His mom looked down at us with exasperation. “That party you had last night in the basement?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Someone threw up on the carpet in front of the washer and dryer. I want that cleaned up immediately.”

  “I can’t, Mom. You know what puke does to me.”

  “Then get your sidekick here to clean it,” she said, tipping her head in my direction. “I vaguely remember him drinking enough to take down a sailor.” Without another word, she pulled the bedroom door shut.

  “I want to see Jenny again,” I said without thinking. I obviously knew nothing about the night before, but somehow I knew in my gut that seeing her again was wha
t I needed to do.

  “And you should. I’m just being honest here—you’re never going to do better than that, so we should definitely find her.”

  “After we clean the carpet for your mom.” I got hit by a flying turtle in Mario and died. The game played its 8-bit sounds.

  “Whatever. I’ll do it later. Want to go to 7-11?” Roger tossed his controller aside. “I’m hungry.”

  “Didn’t you just eat everything in your fridge?”

  “I’m a growing man. I need a Big Bite.” Roger laced up a pair of white high-top Converse and then slipped a large, boxy Walkman into the pocket of his jacket and set the headphones around his neck. “Let’s do this.”

  We walked down the street past the other houses that I’d known my whole life. Three blocks away was the 7-11, only it sat alone in a field on the corner, whereas the 7-11 I was used to seeing there was sandwiched between a Little Caesar’s and an AT&T store. Instinctively, I put my hand into my pocket and felt for my iPhone. With no AT&T store, I’d have no way of going in and buying a charger to keep it from dying. I hadn’t even really contemplated what would happen to my phone in 1986. Were there even cell towers? Would I be able to use it? Was it my only tie to 2016, and when it died, would the 2016 me die and leave me hanging in 1986 forever? It seemed like a ridiculous thought, but at this point, anything was possible.

  “Heather told us to come by some time today,” Roger said, stepping over a curb and scuffing his toes in a patch of weeds after getting his Big Bite at 7-11.

  “So, you and Heather are…?” I floated the question with raised eyebrows, hoping Roger would confirm whether or not Heather was his girl.

  “Cousins,” Roger said, speaking slowly like I had just fallen and hit my head. “Heather is my cousin, dude.”

  “No, I know,” I said quickly, trying to cover. “I just meant, like, are you first cousins.”

  Roger pressed the doorbell and stood there, frowning at me suspiciously. It felt like when my mom was grossly disappointed in me for something but couldn’t find the right words to properly express her disgust. I swallowed hard.