Class of 1983: A Young Adult Time Travel Romance

by Victoria Maxwell

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I won't.”

  “I'm not good at this stuff,” he said, hitting the steering wheel lightly.

  “What stuff?” she asked.

  “Talking about stuff.”

  “What, like feelings?” she joked.

  He rolled his eyes at himself. “Even the thought of it... just...”

  “You don't have to talk about your feelings,” she said. “You said you needed time, I'll give you whatever you need Sammy, time, space, whatever you need. I will wait for you. I'd wait thirty-three years for you.”

  He seemed to be considering this fact for some time before saying, “Is that all? What about thirty-four?” he smirked tiredly at her. It was the same smirk she'd seen him do on that first day. Her body reacted like it always did. Racing heart, clumsy fingers, awkward words.

  “How about sixty?” she asked.

  “How about we just take it a day at a time,” he said, pulling up outside her house. “I can’t think too far into the future right now.”

  He leaned over towards her, the scent of his aftershave, pizza and car grease was intoxicating. Her heart pounded, and she was so sure in that moment that he was going to kiss her. Just like that night in the kitchen. Wild, passionate, out of control, because they loved each other that much they could get through anything.

  But he only kissed her on the cheek.

  She walked towards the door and felt a stinging behind her eyes. Why wouldn't he kiss her? Would she really have to wait thirty-three years for him? He was waiting for her to go inside, and so she turned back and gave a little wave, trying to compose herself and act cool. But when she walked into the house, she kicked her shoes off so hard they left marks on the door frame.

  “Everything OK?” Janet called from the kitchen.

  “No!” Peggy called back before stomping into the kitchen, sitting at the bar stool and telling Janet everything.

  * * *

  But by the time she got into her bed with her magazine after falling asleep on the couch watching Laverne and Shirley with Janet, she felt happier than she had in a long time.

  Because even though she had some work to do on getting everyone to forgive her, she was home.

  Fifty-Five

  The Permanent Circle

  “We will be persecuted again, thrown in jail again, we cannot continue to live like this,” Helena cried. She was done with this desert, done with this life.

  “There, there,” Catherine said putting her hand on the girl's shoulder.

  Helena shook her off.

  “We will make a permanent circle,” Maria declared.

  “A permanent circle would leave way to accidents Sister Maria,” said Catherine. “Someone may stumble by this place and step into the circle unknowingly.”

  “We will keep it hidden, keep it safe. Only allow it to open for those like us. Those who face persecution. Those who need help. No one will be able to pass into the circle unless they are of pure heart and good intent and need our help. And for extra protection, we will hide it within the walls of an abbey built around it.”

  “And what will we call this abbey?” Helena asked, slumping down onto to the brown-orange dust next to the circle drawn in the dirt.

  “Saint Christopher’s,” said Maria.

  “Saint Christopher?” asked Helena, squinting into the evening sun.

  “Yes, my child,” said Maria. “For he is the patron saint of time travelers.”

  Fifty-Six

  Dee’s Diner

  His jaw almost dropped right onto the sticky diner table. This was really happening. She was here. It wasn't her, but it was her. She was still the same person, just thirty-three years older. His heart skipped a beat as they made eye contact. She grinned and began to rush towards him. He stood up, arms slack by his sides, mouth hanging open.

  “Jack!” she said as she took him in her arms and squashed him like a long-lost aunt probably would. She pulled back to take a good look at him, holding his shoulders in a strong grip. She had never been this strong before. Her hugs had always been limp and kind of pathetic and here she was squeezing him and gripping him and, quite frankly scaring the hell out of him.

  “You're so young,” she said, touching his face as water began to well up in the corners of her slightly wrinkled eyes. “I’m sorry, this is… maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.” She shook her head, blinked her eyes dry and let him go. “But here we are, and the universe still exists.” She laughed nervously, just like she used to. The high-pitched awkward giggle she always did when she felt like a dork.

  Her hair was different, lighter, straighter. Last time he'd seen her she was wearing it a lot bigger.

  “Should we sit down?” She threw her purse onto the seat and sat down. Jack sat back down opposite.

  “What can I getcha?” asked a waitress.

  “Just a tea please,” she said.

  “And for you sir?” the waitress asked him.

  “Just a coffee,” he said, unable to take his eyes off Peggy.

  “You know the coffee here is terrible,” Peggy said when the waitress was out of earshot.

  Jack shrugged.

  “So how do I look?” she asked nervously.

  She looked amazing. She still looked beautiful and it made Jack feel nervous. He did not want to feel this way about her. Not now. Not with her looking like this, like his mom's age.

  Jack shrugged.

  “I’m totally a cougar, right?” She winked. She was winking? She’d never winked at a boy before in her life. Why the hell was she so confident? What had happened to her?

  Jack shrugged.

  “Are you going to speak?” she asked.

  Jack shrugged.

  “You can’t try to work it all out in your head. When you start trying to work it all out, that’s when you get the headaches.”

  Jack nodded as she kept rambling and nodded at the waitress as she poured his coffee and put down Peggy’s tea. He had no idea why he ordered coffee, he hated the coffee here, or why he was still nodding, or why she was drinking tea.

  “The thing is with destiny, is that you just have to trust your own choices,” she said, sipping on her tea. “I just had to trust that turning up here was going to be OK.”

  Jack didn't even know you could get tea at Dee's. Here she was talking about destiny, drinking tea and she was fifty freaking years old. Destiny was a fine thing indeed! It had ripped the girl he loved from him and left him to be bullied and beaten at school and all alone on the weekends. Jayne wasn’t talking to him since he’d cancelled so many of their plans and he couldn’t even show his face at the coffee shop since Mindy had started working there. He didn’t believe in stupid crap like destiny, especially if this was the sort of thing that it brought him. A fifty-year-old version of the girl he loved. Wearing a wedding ring no less. Jesus, when was he going to get a break?

  “Do you want to know what your destiny is?” she asked.

  Jack shrugged.

  “Oh yeah, you don’t believe in stupid crap like destiny,” she said, teasing.

  Jack added some more sugars to the disgusting coffee.

  “I told you,” she said.

  Jack took a sip and although it was better, she was right, it was still horrible. He made a face and pushed the cup into the middle of the table.

  “Are you going to talk now?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Stop shrugging,” she demanded in a motherly tone that weirded him out.

  Jack shrugged and shrugged and then shrugged again.

  “Stop,” she said.

  He shrugged again.

  “Stop it!”

  He didn’t stop shrugging until they were both laughing hysterically.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said laughing. It was good to see her. Damn good.

  “It’s good to see you too,” she said.

  “Why am I here?” he asked.

  He'd received her email early this morning, six months aft
er she'd left, asking him to come see her at Dee's Diner for lunch. The email had told him she would be old and not to freak out, but she wanted to see him and talk to him about his destiny. She said it was his choice to turn up or not. Well, of course, he was going to turn up. She knew he'd turn up.

  “I have something for you,” she said.

  “More Twinkies?”

  “Do I still need Twinkies to prove this to you?” She waved her hands around her face.

  “I have so much I want to say to you,” he said.

  “Then say it.”

  “So many questions.” He shook his head and ran his hand through the back of his hair.

  “Then ask them.”

  Jack had thought of so many things over the last few months that he wanted to say and wanted to know, but in that moment, he couldn’t think of any of them.

  They sat in silence for a moment until she reached into her bag and pulled out a plain white envelope.

  Jack had never expected his destiny to come in a plain white envelope. Jack had never expected his destiny to come at all.

  She pushed it across the table like a secret document. He looked at it blankly.

  “Finished with that?” asked the waitress as she pointed at the cold coffee. He nodded. Then he watched her as she picked up the cup and whisked the envelope into her hand, thinking it was trash.

  “No,” Peggy said, panicking and grabbing the envelope off the waitress. Jack watched as something fell from the envelope and landed right in front of him on the streaky table. He stared at it. If he believed in signs, he would’ve thought that this was a pretty good one.

  “Is this…?” he asked, touching it with his finger and looking up at her.

  “Yes.”

  His mind was running in all sorts of directions he didn’t even know his mind could go in. Did he have a destiny after all? Was this his destiny? He looked again at the ring on her finger and allowed himself for the tiniest briefest smallest moment, to wonder if he was the man who put it there.

  “It’s up to you what you do with it,” she said.

  Jack looked up at her.

  “Maybe I’ll see you soon,” she said, her bottom lip quivering only ever so slightly. She held up a hand and gave him a dorky wave.

  Jack watched as she walked away and then looked back down at the key on the table. It was nothing special, just a regular brass key, like any other regular door key.

  And then he grabbed it and shoved it into the pocket of his faded black jeans.

  * * *

  To be continued…

  Author’s Note

  It has been an absolute honor to share the world of Santolsa with you and travel through time together.

  If you didn’t want Class of 1983 to end, good news! You can continue your journey with the sequel Summer of 1984 which follows Jack’s adventures from this point onwards!

  As an indie author, I have no agent, publisher, publicity or marketing team to help get the word out about these books, so if you enjoyed it, it would mean the world to me if you could share a review on Amazon, Goodreads and hey, take it back to the eighties and lend someone your copy!

  If you would like to receive occasional love letters and updates from me about books I’m writing and books, movies and music I’m loving, head to: www.magicpizza.press and sign up for the newsletter.

  And if you want to be friends on Instagram you can hang with me at: @victoriamaxwellauthor or drop me a line at: hello@magicpizza.press

  Acknowledgments

  This book is by no means a perfect work of fiction. As a self-published indie author, I have no editor, no agent, no publisher or fancy people to thank. But I have been very blessed with some incredibly talented and supportive people in my life who helped me to get this story out into the world. Thank you, Emma Lloyd, for being one of my first readers. Your kind words about this work supported me so much. Thank you, Helen Comerford, for reading this thing and helping me iron it out a little, it’s nice to have a fellow traveler on this indie path! Thank you, Amy Morgenstern, for fixing up my American English and laughing at the bits that are meant to be funny. Thank you, Heather Blanchard, for helping me with my scrappy commas, terrible capitalization and my attempted overuse of the word “boredly”. Thank you, Ian, for all the evenings sat in the pub or in bed late at night talking about time travel plot problems. Thank you for helping me to believe in myself, and for reminding me daily that the only way to really fail is not to try. Thank you, Mum, for giving me your love of words and stories and for paving the self-publishing path ahead of me! And thank you Dad, for always believing in me and my dreams. I wish you were here to hold this book in your hands, but I know you’ve been reading it over my shoulder. And finally, thank you for reading this book. You have helped my dream come true. I hope all yours come true too and that we all find our place in this world.

  About the Author

  Victoria is an indie author, tarot reader, ex-high school English, Drama and Autism teacher and a lifelong lover of magic and stories. Her interests include road trips, stone circles, book stores, pizza, sweet potato fries, rainy days, eighties movies and talking to cats. Class of 1983 is her first novel.