Yesterday Is History Read online

Blake waves me off. “It’s fine, really.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m not…” I pause, thinking over the right word. “Not interested?”

  “Is that a question or a statement?”

  “Statement.”

  Blake adjusts his jacket, fiddling with the collar before folding it and opening his door. He signals for me to wait, walks around the car, and opens my door for me. It’s a simple gesture, but it makes the inside of my chest turn warm and my cheeks burn.

  “Then what is it?”

  My mouth suddenly grows dry. Blake deserves to know the truth, doesn’t he? Of course he does. Everyone deserves the truth. How did I feel when Claire lied to me? Blake doesn’t deserve that. No one does.

  So I take a deep breath and explain.

  “There’s someone else,” I say, speaking quickly enough that he doesn’t have time to interrupt me. “In nineteen seventy. Michael, I’ve told you about him. He’s the one I’m tethered to.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “And…I don’t know,” I mutter. “I just… We’ve been talking a lot. He’s a musician, and he challenges me. He helped me understand that maybe I don’t want to be a doctor, and that’s huge, you know? And—”

  “And you like him.” Blake cuts me off before I have to say it. “Except it’s a total fantasy, because you guys could never really be together.”

  “That’s not fair,” I say slowly.

  “Not fair? You’re the one who’s not being fair.” Blake lets out a hurried breath and steps back, pacing. “You know what the funny thing is?” he asks, his voice getting louder. “I thought we were connecting. I thought I challenged you. But actually, I was just training you to get to him faster.”

  Our block isn’t the quietest block on this street. It’s firmly middle class, and there are always people outside, late arrivals, music playing when there shouldn’t be—but arguing in the street this late at night will attract attention.

  There’s more distance between us now, physically and metaphorically, than ever before. Blake stands several feet away, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “I was going to kiss you tonight. I was going to kiss you so good that you would forget about time travel, about college, about everything.

  “But now I see that it wouldn’t be good enough for you to forget him,” he says, moving past me and walking around to the other side of the car. I stand there, listening to the sharp sounds of the door opening and slamming shut. He rolls his window down, looking at me with hurt, dark eyes.

  “I’ll see you at my house for training.”

  “You still want to train me after this?”

  “Unlike you, I can separate my feelings and do the right thing. You need a trainer. We work well together. I’m going to keep doing it. If you have a problem with that, talk to my mom.”

  Blake doesn’t pull away immediately. He sits there, his hand on the console, staring at me. “You know you can’t be with him, right?” he asks. “He’s in the past, fifty-one years in the past. There’s no future there.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “And you know there’s a future with me, right? I’m right here, Dre.”

  Logically, I know that. Deep down, I know that. The safe answer—and the easy answer—is Blake.

  So why can’t I say so?

  He shakes his head, pulls back, and starts the car. “You know what, never mind. Good night.”

  I step back just in time as he peels off, driving rapidly away. My body feels heavy, rooted in place, forcing me to watch as his taillights disappear and the street falls silent, the only sound the thumping in my head.

  By the time I step into the house, he’s halfway down the street, and Dad’s halfway finished with his first question.

  “Absolutely not,” I reply.

  “But—”

  “No.”

  “Andre, I’m your father.”

  “Right, and not my PO,” I remind him, heading up the stairs two at a time. “I’m not talking about my date with my dad.”

  “So, it was a date!”

  “You knew that!”

  “Right, but him thinking it’s a date and you thinking it’s a date are two very different things.”

  Standing at the top of the steps, I scoff at him, audibly. “I’m going to call Isobel.”

  “Oh, so you want to talk—”

  “Yes, I do,” I say, closing the door and leaning against it, like putting my weight on it will keep him out if he decides to enter.

  But Isobel isn’t the person I want to talk to.

  “Michael,” I whisper.

  I look down at my hands, the front sides and the back. There’s nothing different about them. No blurring at the corner of my eyes, just a vibration that makes me feel like I’m a living, breathing tuning fork.

  It doesn’t scare me. If anything, it’s welcome. The faint sound of the CNN report Dad’s watching downstairs blends with sounds of the 1970s and echoes in my ears. It feels like I’m walking from one room to the next but stopping at the doorway, waiting to decide if I’m going to make the jump.

  And though there’s no fear, there’s pain. Sharp, warm, hot pain in the center of my gut.

  “Shit,” I hiss, doubling over and falling to the floor on my knees. When they make contact, it’s like a ripple is sent out. The room morphs, shifting in phases between my room and what looks like a party in a house that’s not my own. They flicker back and forth—2021, 1970, 1969—like I can see Michael’s timeline washing over me in blurred images. The pain continues to grow, spooling out and taking over my whole body.

  Focus, I tell myself. Focus on this room. Focus on Michael. Focus only on that. Push through the pain.

  Seconds feel like hours before the pain, like a rubber band, snaps back and disappears. When I open my eyes, though, I’m no longer in my bedroom; I’m in Michael’s. He’s in bed, shirtless, sitting up, his hair a mess.

  “Nineteen seventy,” he says, without me asking. “Only a few months later than the last time you were here.”

  I nod, saying nothing, and pull the covers back, sliding into bed. I turn my back to him and hug a pillow, focusing on the cracked etchings on the wall, wondering what shape I can make out of them. Neither of us speak, but I feel him shift, spoon against me, and wrap his arms around me tightly.

  And right now, that’s enough.

  Part Three

  Twenty-Five

  “You’ve been quiet.”

  Michael and I have been lying in his bed for almost a day and a half now. Well, that’s not quite true. I’ve been in bed for almost a day and a half. Michael went to get us food and played a three-hour gig on the other side of town that he said he couldn’t ignore. But besides that, we’ve been in bed.

  And I’ve been thinking.

  This has become our safe space. Away from the rest of the world, away from the future. Away from Blake. Just me and Michael. No one else. It’s a soothing feeling. One of the best. But right now, that feeling is distant, and I barely notice his touch. I thought I had been good at hiding it.

  “Hmm?” I ask, looking up. “Sorry, mind’s somewhere else.”

  “I can tell,” he muses. A record of the Beatles plays in the background. He’s humming along to it softly, with perfect pitch, of course. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes,” I say, far too quickly. It’s not even convincing to me. “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Slowly, he sits up. He’s shirtless and only wearing a pair of boxers. His short hair is messy, and there’s an aura of sleepiness surrounding him.

  “Well, wanna talk about it?” he asks, reaching out and grabbing his cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray. I’ve given up on trying to stop him from smoking. But at the very least, he moves over to the other side of the bed. I’ve already jumped back once and had Mom accuse
me of smoking, thanks to the scent. It seems even nicotine can travel through time and space.

  How do I explain to him what I’m thinking? On the one hand, it’s not like he hasn’t heard off-the-wall things. He’s still around me—a time traveler—so he has to know that nothing about me is normal and that there are plenty of situations where the logical explanation goes out the window when I’m involved.

  But what I’ve been thinking? What I’ve really been thinking? It’s risky. It’s bold. It’s terrifying.

  He lights his cigarette, resting the ashtray on his abs. As usual, he offers it to me to take a drag of. I refuse.

  “Figures,” he teases. “You had to have some flaw.”

  “Not smoking is a flaw?”

  “Not being cool is a flaw,” he says, though his voice is heavy with jest. “But back to your problem. You going to spill? I think I’ve proven that I’m a pretty good listener.”

  “That you have.”

  I pull myself up to a sitting position, my back against the warped wall of his apartment. It’s not a great hovel, but it’s his own, and Michael’s proud of it. Gone is the house we both shared through time and space. Now, we’re in a place where the water is constantly cold, it’s drafty, and the stairs creak so badly that whenever we take them, I swear I’m going to fall through the five-floor walk-up.

  “There’s a boy, back in my time.”

  “Oh? Is he good-looking?”

  I jab his arm hard but don’t answer. Because, yes, yes, he is hot. But Michael doesn’t need to know that.

  “His brother is the one who gave me, you know.” I tap my liver gently—it still hurts from the jump.

  “The dead boy? That must be awkward. Being friends with the brother of the guy who gave you his liver.”

  I nod, and the words I’ve been thinking come out like a whisper. “But that’s not what I’m thinking about. Well, it is, but…”

  I sigh, running my fingers through my hair in frustration. I feel Michael grip my shoulder and give me just one soft squeeze to remind me that he’s here.

  “I broke his heart,” I mutter. “Or, at least, I hurt him. How doesn’t matter…” I don’t have the courage to tell Michael how anyway.

  “I’m sure you didn’t mean to,” Michael reassures me, stroking my arm with two fingers. His light touches feel like electricity on my body, shocking me back to life. “You’re a good person, you know? I don’t say that about many people.”

  “I wasn’t a good person. I was…selfish.” I sigh. “I’m not sure who I am anymore.”

  Michael’s hand keeps moving, but he doesn’t speak. It’s an old psychology trick—giving the other person space and letting the silence become deafening until they feel like they have to speak.

  It works.

  “I’m lying to my parents about how I’m spending my time. I’m ignoring my best friend. And don’t even get me started on school. I used to be someone who cared about things. Someone who had goals and priorities and was more than just…”

  The words evaporate before I can speak them, and maybe that’s a good thing. Because there’s no answer I can think of that doesn’t come back to blaming Michael, directly or indirectly. And this isn’t his fault. It isn’t his fault that I’m here. It isn’t his fault that I gained the ability to time travel. He’s unlucky, that’s all. And he doesn’t deserve the brunt of my existential crisis.

  “But I can fix it. I can make it all better,” I say. “This all started when Dave, the guy who gave me his organ, died. I can stop that from happening.”

  This time, Michael’s hand stops. He freezes like a statue, his cigarette about two inches from his face. Slowly, he turns to face me, his features twisting into confusion and mild apprehension.

  “What are you talking about, Dre?”

  I’ve never said it out loud, this plan. It’s been brewing in the back of my mind.

  But once I start talking, I can’t stop.

  “I’m a time traveler. I can use that. I know when and where he died; it’s public record. I can…go back and stop this boy’s brother—this boy I care about—I can stop his brother from dying. It wouldn’t be hard. I can just…I don’t know, just stop the car from T-boning him. Hold him up for a few minutes, or, if worse comes to worse, tell him what I intend to do. He’ll understand; he’s a time traveler. It’s not like he won’t believe me.”

  “And what about you?” Michael asks.

  “What about me?”

  He sighs, putting the ashtray on the table by his bed, the cigarette stomped out in the glass. “You need that liver, don’t you? Not just to time travel, but to live, right? If he doesn’t die, then you don’t get the liver. If you don’t get the liver, you’re back in the hospital.”

  “I’ll convince him to give it to me. Part of it, anyway; the liver regenerates.”

  Michael arches his brow. “You expect him to do that for you? You’re not going to remember him, right? That’s how time travel works, all of this—you’ll forget him because it never happened, because you didn’t get the liver to be able to do these things.”

  He’s beating around the bush, but I know where he’s going. He’s worried that I’m going to forget him as well. And I will. And maybe he’ll forget me too.

  “I’ve thought about that too.”

  “And? You’ve realized that this is a stupid idea and can never work?”

  “No, I’ve realized that, if what everyone in his family says about Dave is true, he’s a good person. He’ll give me part of his liver, and my life can become a little more normal again. His family’s life could become normal again.”

  “How?” Michael pushes back. “You’re a smart guy, Dre, but really? This is stupid. It’s a half-cocked plan, it doesn’t make any sense, and it hinges on the most unreliable of factors: people.”

  “I have to do something,” I argue.

  “You are doing something! You’re here, you’re learning how to time travel. It’s not like you’re wasting away and drinking his liver to death.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I have to do something to help him. To fix this.”

  “Why?!” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Michael yell, and it makes me jump. His voice drips with urgency, and his body is shaking slightly with desperation. “Why do you have to do anything? Why do you have to try to save someone who…?”

  And then he stops, his face shifting from anguish to smoothness, like everything has clicked into place.

  “It’s not just about him,” he says under his breath.

  “What?”

  “This Dave guy, it’s not only about him. It’s not only about righting some cosmic wrong. It’s about…what’s his name? His brother’s name?”

  “Blake?”

  “Yeah, Blake. Are you doing this for him? Is he putting you up to this?”

  “What?” I shake my head. “No, absolutely not. Blake’s not like that.”

  “Is he forcing you to do this?”

  “No, Michael. Again, you don’t know him, but he would never ask me to do this. He understands time travel; he knows how dangerous it is. He’d probably punch me for doing this.”

  “Then I really don’t understand,” he says, looking away from me, like he’ll find the answer in the twisted pattern of fabric and blankets.

  His gaze moves up, settling on my eyes. Deep within his face, etched like it’s been there since the dawn of time, is something that makes my stomach churn.

  Hurt.

  “You like him. And, clearly, it’s more than you like me, because you’re willing to risk us never knowing each other to help him,” he says.

  “Oh my God, Michael, you’re…”

  “Stop. I think that’s why you’re really doing this. Maybe you don’t realize it yet, maybe you think it’s because you’re doing it out of the goodness of yo
ur heart, but all of that comes back to one thing. You want to make him feel better, to fix him and his family.”

  Something hot and heavy burns inside of me.

  “Michael, I get it. This is a big risk. But my life has totally flipped around. I love that I get to be with you… But I don’t know if this is the life I want, especially when it came at the cost of someone else’s life. I can’t explain it, but I know you’re wrong when you say I care more about Blake than I do about you.”

  “Am I?” Michael asks. “Look at me right now and tell me that you’re not doing this only because of him. Because he misses his brother. Because you have the power to make him feel better.”

  “That’s part of it!” I yell, turning to him. “That’s what a good person does, Michael! They try to fix people. They try to help!”

  “There you go again, with your whole ‘try to help’ and ‘be a saint’ bullshit! Before, you mentioned everyone you love. Your parents, your best friend…Blake. But you didn’t mention me. Or what this is going to do to me. And maybe I’m wrong—God, I freakin’ hope I’m wrong. Maybe you don’t love him the way I think you do. But if you do this, you’re making a choice.”

  “Wait,” I say. “Slow down. What are you saying right now?”

  “I think I’m being pretty clear.”

  “No, what are you trying to say about us?”

  Michael pauses again, and this time, it’s not to think. He pauses like a breath that’s being held or a moment that’s being skipped, as if he’s trying to decide whether what he wants to say is truly what he wants to say.

  “I’m saying that I would do anything for you, really. I’d wait for you. I’d live a life where we only have these fleeting moments together. For me, this is enough. But it’s not enough for you. I can tell. I—”

  “Please, Michael, stop,” I whisper as I get up. “I’m going. Because… Well, because of how I feel about you. I don’t want the last memory that I have of you to be of this.”

  December 22, 2020. That’s the date I have in my mind. I know the location, too: the coffee shop where Isobel and I often go for late-night study sessions. A lot of high school and college students go there. And I know that when I leave, my heart will break. But unlike Michael, this isn’t enough for me. I love him, but we don’t make sense. I can’t live half a life. I thought maybe I could, but this last day with him has proven that I’d get lost here with him. Lost in the past, when I should be moving toward my future. And if I don’t leave now, I’ll never want to leave. I hope he understands.