A cruiser’s parked beside the door, but I don’t care.
I hurry through the door and crash into a human wall.
“I got him,” the officer mumbles into the walkie holstered on his shoulder. “Back outside, you,” he orders me, pushing open the door, his other hand hugging his gun grip. “Come on. Let’s go.”
And I’ve failed.
It doesn’t matter what I do, what I try—definitely not what I want—everything is doomed from the start.
Franny’s hurt.
Kate’s dying.
I broke into Dr. Sowunmi’s office, and for what?
To come up short, again. Again.
I try to push past the officer and bolt for the stairs but his grip just tightens. “Don’t make me lay you out,” he barks.
“Maybe that’s for the best,” I tell him.
They order my legs spread apart, my cheek mashed against the back of their cruiser.
“Please,” I beg them, “my girlfriend’s dying. Please. Just five minutes. Please. A heart, have a heart. Just let me see her for five minutes and then you can haul me away to prison, throw away the key, whatever. Please. Please.”
I try dropping to my knees to beg, but that’s tricky when you’re physically restrained. The officer who put the cuffs on me looks over to the other officer, a dirty-blond woman with bloodshot eyes, and she sighs but nods.
The cuffs come off.
The elevator turtles its way to Kate’s floor.
We detour because the floor’s wet.
And then Kate’s nurse tells us visiting hours are over, but the woman officer intervenes, and the nurse rolls her eyes but steps aside.
It’s almost too late. Kate’s barely there.
“Kate,” I say softly.
She opens her eyes, a flash of panic. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Hopefully saving you this time,” I say. “I’ve never told you this, but I love you, Kate.”
“What are you—”
But before she can finish I reach into my shoe, pull out the syringe, and fire it into her thigh. Her body quivers, like I’ve just hit her with a million amps.
The police tackle me, shouting curses into my ear, into the room.
As I fall to the ground, my nose crunching against the linoleum in a way that I know it’s broken, lots of feet dash into the room. There’s more shouting and people keep shaking me, blood dripping from my nostrils, asking me what I injected her with, what was in the syringe, and the truth is I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to.
This is the only thing that I could do. The only thing left.
I shut my eyes and I wait.
Five-ever
What Would Bill Murray Do?
“Excuse me, man, but you’re sort of damming up the steps.”
I turn to Kate and smile my heart out.
Because seeing her here on these steps means I have failed yet again.
But more importantly it means I get another chance.
I watch Groundhog Day for what I believe to be two sound reasons: 1) Bill Murray and 2) because while we are not exactly in the same shoes, I figure there is something to learn from watching a man relive the same day.
And I do learn. What not to do. How not to live.
I don’t want to spend my time perfecting myself in the eyes of other people. I’m not out to be the wittiest, the coolest, the most brilliant. Some Jack 5.0. Sure, if I can avoid some costly mistakes along the way, specifically on how to avoid hurting the people I love, then yes, absolutely sign me up. But I’m not going to use my power (or whatever you wanna call it) to study the right combination of words and memories to make Kate fall helplessly in love with me.
Because I believe our love is the only thing that’s for certain in these rewinds.
That no matter what happens, we are destined to love each other.
Maybe I’m a romantic. Maybe I’m a fool.
But I don’t need to wake up on the same day a thousand times to know that I love Kate and that I would do anything to wake up beside her for the rest of our days.
No matter how many. And no matter how few.
Whatever put me on these goddamn stairs is bigger than me, bigger than anything I’ve ever known. I’m supposed to be here. With Kate. Nowhere else. I’m going to keep showing up on these stairs, waiting for her to say excuse me for as many times as it takes.
Some Good Advice Amid Grocery Store Grossness
I tell Dad that maybe instead of a writer, I’ll be a scientist, a researcher, and dedicate myself to finding cures to especially crappy diseases.
Dad appears genuinely happy at this possibility. This is confirmed when he launches a throat-clearing monologue. Which I don’t mind, even though we’re in the grocery store, an endless row of milk cartons and jugs stretching before us.
“Is it safe to presume this has something to do with Kate?” he asks.
I nod. “Meeting her has made me reexamine a lot of things, I guess.”
“Jack, I happen to think it’s a great thing you’re considering. Sometimes you have to reinvent yourself. Decide what you really want to do in life. People always say you have to be happy with yourself first before you can find happiness with someone else. There’s truth to that, Jackie. But honestly, there’s something to be said for finding that person who reminds you how happy life can be. You find that person, boy or girl, and you never let them go. Your mom has opinions for days, and it can get tiring . . . for other people . . . me, it doesn’t bother me. That’s who she is, that’s who she was when I met her. But she’s also the person who makes me better. So if I have to choose between someone opining about which cereal actually has the most beneficial fiber and being some miserable fecally impacted poor lonely bastard, guess what I’m choosing—I’m choosing to crap regularly and be happy, Jackie boy. Every damn time, and each day I wake up new, I choose your mom.”
Which is when Mom, who apparently is not back in the car looking for coupons but instead eavesdropping around the corner, coos, “Oooooh, Abe, I choose you, too!”
“Kiss me, dollface,” Dad says.
“Oh, come on, guys. In the dairy section? This is a bit cheesy.” But I don’t really mean it. Because if there’s one thing I appreciate after all this time, it’s expressing your love while you can. Never take time, or love, for granted.
But Mom ignores me anyway, planting a sloppy wet kiss onto Dad’s face. “You haven’t lost a step, Abe.”
Dad grins. “You keep me young, baby. Jackie boy, we’re gonna need cleanup in aisle five.”
And I watch in semihorror as they press against the milk fridge in a blur of middle-aged body parts.
All the Things
I ask Franny if it’s okay to talk to his dad.
“About what?”
“Honestly, I need him to do me a favor.”
“A favor? From The Coupon?” Franny shrugs. “Knock yourself out, if you like disappointment.”
“You sure it’s okay?”
“What’s it for?”
“I’m betting.”
“Betting on what?”
“On love.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“How are you so corny?”
I put all my money on Mandrake—
“You sure about this, Jack?” Franny’s dad asks. “This is a lot of money to lose. I won’t be able to get it back. It’ll be out of my hands, kid.”
And Mandrake—
. . . Oh my goodness, are you kidding me? Mandrake has just taken their first lead of the game with twenty seconds left . . . This is the greatest comeback in the history of sports, people . . . You are witnessing history tonight . . . History, with a capital H!—
Well, the Potbelly Pigs come through yet again.
I schedule the evaluation with Dr. Sowunmi—
“Jack, there are no promises. This treatment may not work for Kate. Do you understand that?”
“I believe in you, Doctor,” I
assure him.
“Well, then, I hope to God I don’t let you down,” he says, reaching across the desk to shake my hand.
Kate gets the first injection.
She’s sick for a few days, mostly nauseous, but she starts to rebound by week’s end. “I don’t know if it’s working, or if it’s just in my head,” she says, beaming. “But I feel better, Jack. Better than I can remember feeling in a long, long time.”
Band practice is better than ever.
Kate and I go to prom together. We kiss. The kiss is as magical as our first first time. And we dance our ugly dances with unrelenting gusto, as if we’ve just discovered that ugly dancing saves lives, and we are determined to save every life that we can.
Leave no life behind, we say, doing our best-worst Runaway Rodeo Bull in a China Shop dance.
“Please, please, tell me you guys are high,” Franny pleads.
“Off life, my friend,” Kate yells, jumping higher still. “Off life!”
I lay the guilt trip on extra-thick, and then, just to make sure, I drive over to Franny’s house and pick his dad up.
“You’re sure about this, Jack,” he says. “Because I’m sure as hell not.”
“Franny knows you’re coming. He wants to see you. He’s been wanting to see you. All this time he’s just been waiting for you to finally show up.”
Franny pretends like he’s only mildly excited, but anyone who knows him knows he’s ecstatic. I’ve known him since sandbox days and I can’t remember him smiling so hard, so much.
“You came,” Franny says.
His dad nods. “I never want to miss another game. I just hope it’s not too late.”
I graduate high school, high-five all the on-stage faculty as I dance across the stage. Dad makes the family take lots of pictures, Kate included.
Jillian delivers The Mic-Drop Commencement Speech of All Time. “And so when all’s said and done, the time we’ve spent here at Elytown High is not about the number of hours we’ve spent in class, or not in class.”
The audience chuckles.
“It’s not how many touchdowns we’ve scored, or free throws we’ve missed,” Jillian continues. “It’s not even about this school, really. Not the building, anyway. These last four years, if we lived them right, are about growing up, about learning to battle, about trying our best and still failing, about picking ourselves up again and again. These years were picking each other up. About friendship. The type of friends that show up when you need them the most. That text you and call you when you don’t want to talk. That show up and keep showing up, day in and day out, every week, every semester, again and again. The type of friendship that doesn’t end with graduation. The type of friendship, like the very best type of love, that never ends.”
When she’s finished, we erupt in applause, Franny and I exploding out of our seats, several aisles apart, pumping our fists, whooping and hollering Jillian’s name. She blows kisses to us, then takes a bow.
Kate’s baby brother Reggie still gives me a hard time—
Except this time around I don’t meet him at family dinner, where his parents can rein him in, if necessary. Nope. This time he goes with Kate and me to the movies and proceeds to 1) sit between us, 2) hog the popcorn that I bought, and 3) spoil virtually every scene, which initially I thought made him some sort of plot-guessing film savant, only to later learn, no, he’d already seen the movie and was just being a grade-A asshole.
“So, uh, Jack, tell me what your intentions are toward my sister.”
“Easy,” I say. “I intend to be with her for a long, long time.”
And this doesn’t come close to shutting him up. He piles on the I don’t like you liking my sister routine, but it doesn’t bother me so much, because that’s what little brothers are for. I respect him for it.
Franny scores a gazillion points in the playoff game and leads Elytown to victory. He gives his dad his game jersey, and his dad pulls off the T-shirt he’s wearing and slips Franny’s jersey on, half a size too small and sweat-drenched, but he doesn’t take it off or make a face. He struts around the gym, singing, That’s right, that’s my boy to anyone who looks at him. Abuela even shows up on time.
“What,” she says, incredulously. “I’ve been on time before.”
But none of us can remember when.
We all go out to eat to celebrate and somewhere between appetizers and entrees, Franny clinks his glass.
“Attention, family and friends. I have an announcement to make,” he says, standing up. We all look over.
“You are now looking at a Whittier enrollee,” he says, his smile with extra Franny wattage.
Jillian jumps from her seat, throwing her arms around his neck and nearly taking out our appetizers in the process. “Oh my God, are you serious? Baby, I knew you’d get in. I knew it!”
Franny doesn’t get shot, unless you count from Jillian, courtesy of Cupid’s pointy arrow. (I know, I know, so achingly cheesy, but give me a pass here. I’m happy.)
Turns out Kate’s sister Kira is pregnant, which excites Franny the most because he envisions lifetime front-row seats at every Mighty Moat concert.
Meanwhile, our band keeps practicing.
My parents’ anniversary party is killer. Kate, Jillian, Franny, and I barely leave each other’s sides. After four summers of practice (condensed into one), I still find a way to flub a few notes in the beginning, but no one seems to notice.
“Mom, are you crying?” I ask, not because it’s not obvious that she is, but to distract everyone from the fact that I’m crying, too.
We share a bottle of wine. We all clean up.
“We’re going to take off now,” Franny says, taking my hand into his and pulling me into a bro hug. Jillian wraps her arms around Kate, and then turns to kiss me on my cheek. “Love you, man,” she says.
“Love you more,” I say.
Kate and I walk them to the driveway, to their car, and we watch them drive off into the starry night.
“You wanna take off, too, or,” I say, letting the or hang there.
“Or,” she says, taking my hand. “Definitely or.”
Kate leans into me on the basement couch, her body warm perfection. We kiss, but she pulls away.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Huh?”
“Earth to Jack,” she sings. “Where are you right now?”
I kiss her cheek and hop off the couch.
“Come on,” I say, extending my hand to her. “We’ve gotta go.”
“Where are we going?”
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Why are we at the hospital?”
“Because you’re sick, Kate.”
She shakes her head. “I feel fine. Actually, no. I feel better than fine. I feel better than I can remember ever feeling. The treatment is working, Jack.”
“Do you trust me?”
She scrunches her face.
“Just trust me, please.”
The nurse in the ER makes the same what are you talking about face when I explain to her that even though Kate isn’t showing outward signs just yet, she’s going to have a crisis. The nurses and the doctor on duty aren’t buying it. They won’t even run tests.
“We appreciate your concern, young man,” they all say, and you can hear the but coming from a mile away.
“I don’t think that you do. If you truly appreciated my concern, you’d run the tests. You’d keep her here and you’d—”
“Jack, I’m okay,” Kate says not for the first time. “Really, I am.”
But I’m not above pleading. I’m not too proud to beg. “Please, please, just run the tests. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Young man—”
“Please! I have money.”
“That’s not what this is about—”
“I can pay for the tests. I can write you a check right now. I just need a pen.”
“We’re going to have to ask you to leave now.”
�
�You’re not hearing me! She’s going to die! If you don’t do something, she will die. It’s not a question. It’s not a possibility. It’s reality! It will happen!”
They turn to Kate. “Is your boyfriend currently undergoing any treatment? Are there any medications that he’s been prescribed that he’s stopped taking?”
“He’s not crazy,” Kate insists.
“No one’s saying anyone’s crazy, but—”
“I’m not crazy. I just know because . . .” This is the part where I can tell the truth. I can say I know because I’m from the future. I know because I’ve already lived this. But I know that I can’t tell the truth without landing an overnight suite on the psych ward.
“Jack,” Kate says, turning to me, her hand clasping mine, her body turned to walk us both out from behind the exam room curtain, back through the ER waiting room, and back out into the cold, dark night. “Let’s go.”
Now there are tears in my eyes that I can’t do anything about, least of all stop them. “I can’t go. We can’t go, Kate. Please. Listen to me. I’m not crazy.”
“I know you aren’t. But I don’t understand any of this.”
“I wish I could explain how I know . . .”
“How do you know?”
I look over, the nurse’s face as hard as rock, her arms still crossed. “I can’t say . . . I’m sorry . . . But I can’t.”
“Well, then I’m afraid you’re out of time, young man,” the nurse says, calling out into the hallway for help.
And I’m going to fail again.
I’ve exhausted every option.
Maybe I just have to accept the truth. That there’s nothing I can do to change anything.
Except I refuse to believe that.
“Jack, what are you doing?” Kate asks.
“Whatever I have to,” I tell her.
“Security, security,” the nurse yells into the corridor.
I won’t be stopped.
“Jack, what are you doing?” Kate asks again. “I don’t understand.”
“Trust me, I don’t either. But we’ve got to try anyway.”
By the time two security guards show up, I’m barricading the exam room with all the hospital equipment that I can move: IV poles, cardiac monitors, an ultrasound machine. But the larger of the two guards forces his way inside, lifts me off my feet, and carries me out into the hallway. I reach for the curtain. “Let go of that,” he says, trying to bat away my hand.
Opposite of Always Page 27
