EIGHTEEN
T he moment Manal is out of the café, Gracie turns to me, eyes full of betrayal. “What the hell, Aleeza? You told me when we met that you didn’t know Jay. Don’t tell me you actually did hook up with him.”
I sigh, looking out the window at Manal walking away. “No, I didn’t know him ... then.”
“That’s not what Manal said.”
I turn back to Gracie. She looks furious. Can I tell her the truth? It would honestly be nice to have someone out there who knows what I’m going through. And Gracie is my friend. Friends should be open with each other. I trust her. “I can explain. But ... back in my room. In private.”
Gracie stares at me for a long time before exhaling. “Okay, girl. Let’s go home.”
On the short subway ride home, Gracie is silent, which is good. I need to think. Will she even believe what I’m about to tell her? Or will she think I’m nuttier than a squirrel in the fall? And if she does believe me, will she tell anyone? I don’t want my connection with Jay to turn into a freak show. I don’t want people to think I’ve lost my mind, and I definitely don’t want strangers intruding on what we have. Especially now—we’re only days away from his disappearance. I can’t do anything that could make me lose him before we solve this.
When we get back to my room, Gracie sits on my bed and looks at me pointedly. “Okay. Talk. Did you know Jay before you moved in here? Have you been lying to me this whole time?” Her eyes are narrowed with accusation.
I sigh. “Okay, but ... it’s not only my story to tell. I need to ask someone first.”
I sit on Jay’s bed and check the ResConnect app on my phone, and thankfully, Jay’s name is there. He’s home. I quickly message him that Gracie found out that he and I know each other, and I want to explain everything to her. I ask him if he’s okay with that. I say it might be easier for us to get to the bottom of it all if Gracie has all the cards.
“It’s Jay you’re texting, isn’t it?” Gracie asks, eyes wide. “He’s not dead and you know where he is, don’t you? Why the hell are we doing all this if you can just text him like that? You need to go to the police!”
I sigh, hoping Jay writes back soon. Thankfully he does.
Jay: Do it. Tell her. I trust Gracie.
I exhale and look up at her.
“Okay. This is really complicated. And I’ll tell you all of it, only if you promise to keep this here. What I’m going to tell you can never leave this room ... okay?”
She looks suspicious. “If what you tell me is illegal or is hurting someone in any way, I’m not going to keep it to myself. If that’s Jay you’re talking to, I’m telling the police unless you give me a good reason not to.”
Fair. This is one of the things I like about Gracie—her ethics. She’s going to be an amazing journalist one day. “It’s not illegal or hurting anyone, as far as I know. You asked if I know where Jay is right now, and the answer is no. I don’t. I don’t even know if he’s alive. But yes, it’s Jay I’m messaging.”
“What?”
I take a breath. “When I’m in this room, I can text Jay using ResConnect. But it’s Jay from five months ago. Before he disappeared.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I can’t explain it, but that’s what’s happening. The Jay I am texting is Jay from five months ago.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, which seems about right. But I plow ahead, sitting next to her on my bed and showing her ResConnect, pointing out Jay’s name on the list of occupants in room 225. And I show her the message he just sent me. I even message him again.
Aleeza: Say hi to Gracie.
Jay: Hi, Gracie. I just saw you in the hallway half an hour ago.
Gracie looks at me. “You’re being scammed. This can’t be real.”
“It’s real. We’ve done all sorts of tests.” I tell her about the sports scores, Kegan in the housing office, and Jay finding me on campus. Plus, of course, she heard Manal say Jay told her he knew me well. Still, I feel like she doesn’t believe me.
Aleeza: Jay, text something only Gracie would know.
The chat is silent for a while. Finally, a message appears.
Jay: Has she admitted that she’s in love with Aster yet?
I snort and write back.
Aleeza: No, and she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Jay: Okay. Tell her thank you so much for the time she lent me a cardigan after the ketchup dispenser in the Tower food hall squirted on my shirt.
I look at Gracie, who’s next to me, reading my phone. Her face turns as white as the walls.
“Shit,” she says. “I don’t understand how this is possible.”
“It’s not possible,” I say. “But it’s happening.”
Jay: Does she believe us?
Gracie takes the phone from my hand and writes back to Jay.
Aleeza: This is Gracie. I BARELY believe you ... what’s the date for you right now?
Jay: November 2.
Aleeza: What was I wearing when you saw me in the hallway just now?
Jay: A dark orange sweater and jeans. I remember because I commented on the color of the sweater.
“Is that true?” I ask Gracie. “Is that what you were wearing?”
“How the fuck should I know ... I don’t remember what I was wearing on a random day five months ago.” Her shoulders slump. “Actually, I remember that. He said my sweater was the exact shade of the library carpet.”
I take the phone back from Gracie.
Aleeza: What did you say when you saw her sweater?
Jay: I said it matched the carpet in the library.
I show the message to Gracie. She stares at it.
“So now do you believe us?” I ask. “And are you going to keep this a secret?”
Gracie’s eyes are still wide. “Yeah, I don’t get it, but clearly there is something weird going on. November second is only—”
“Four days before Jay disappears. That’s why I need to figure out what happened ... so it doesn’t happen to him.”
“So you’re trying to save him.”
I nod.
“You think you can bring him back to life?”
“No.” I sigh. “If the Jay from our time is dead, there’s nothing I can do about that. Like I explained earlier, we discovered that we’re in parallel and almost-the-same universes, not at different points in the same timeline. Things he does don’t necessarily always affect this time.”
“But sometimes it does. Like what he told his cousin about you.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I can save Jay from the present, but I am determined to save this Jay.” I tap my phone with my fingernail. “The Jay from months ago who’s still living in this room.”
Gracie says nothing for a while, fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. I get it—this is a lot to process. Finally, she looks at me. “But we don’t know if current Jay is dead or not. If he’s not, then solving this means we can find him. Alive.”
I nod. It seems like a long shot, but yeah, we could. But each day I’m more and more sure that current-day Jay is gone. Because past Jay and I have become so close. He said he wanted to hold me. He said he wanted to ask me out. He wanted to kiss me. We’ve both admitted our feelings for each other. Hell, he even admitted it to his cousin. And if all that is true, and if the Jay from this timeline is out there somewhere, why hasn’t he tried to contact me? Why hasn’t he shown up so he could give me that hug? Or get a message to me somehow?
But maybe he’s out there, and he can’t. Or maybe he’s out there, and he doesn’t remember any of it. Because it didn’t happen to him. It happened to the Jay I know from five months ago. Not today’s Jay.
I get up from my bed and walk over to the bulletin board over Jay’s desk, where I pinned that picture of him from the school paper. I doubt I’ll ever see Jay again in person. We’re doomed. But it’s still important for me to save him. For Salma, for Manal, for Ausma—even for his aunt and uncle. And most of all, for Jay. And who knows, maybe if I can prevent his disappearance, past Jay— my Jay—will ask out past Aleeza like he wants to, and they can be happy.
Lucky past Aleeza.
Gracie looks at Jay’s empty bed for a while, then up at me. “Okay. We have four days. Let’s find Jay.”
With Gracie sitting next to me watching our messages, I fill Jay in on everything that happened today. And as expected, he freaks out about his mother being missing.
Jay: Where the hell is my mother?
Aleeza: Good question. I don’t know. Ausma at the shawarma shop doesn’t know either. And Manal didn’t tell us much.
Jay: Let me call them—I’ll tell them to talk to you in five months, like I’ll tell Ausma in four days.
“Don’t,” Gracie says. She looks at me. “Tell him not to do that. For all we know, the fact that he told Manal about you is why she won’t talk to us now.”
I type out what Gracie says, and he reluctantly agrees. We are seriously fucking up the timelines. Doc Brown from Back to the Future would be so disappointed in us.
Aleeza: Why do you have a letter here from a law office? Choi, Patel, and Associates. Do you recognize the office?
Jay: No, I have no idea what it’s about. No clue at all. When am I supposed to get it?
Aleeza: Postmarked for ... December 13.
About a month after his disappearance. Was Salma gone by then?
Jay: Open it.
I look at Gracie. “Is it a federal offense to open someone’s mail if they tell you to open it in the past?”
She shrugs. “No clue. Open it anyway.”
I open the letter. Gracie takes the phone from me and quickly types out the letter into the chat. She’s a much faster phone typist than me.
The letter is short, and it’s from a lawyer named Rebecca Guerre. It states that there’s an anonymous trust being held for Jayesh Hoque, which he can access only on, or after, his twentieth birthday. It says he must bring government-issued ID and proof of enrollment in an accredited university (unless extenuating circumstances don’t allow him to be in school), as the trust is intended to offset his education expenses. There’s an expiry date—the letter says if he doesn’t claim the fund within six months of his birthday, he’ll forfeit it.
“Here’s our motive,” I say. Money. I take the phone back from Gracie.
Aleeza: Did you know about this?
Jay: No, not at all. Should I ask my mother? She might know.
Aleeza: You’re not supposed to have the letter yet. You can’t ask.
“When’s his birthday?” Gracie asks.
“April 10.” That’s less than two weeks away for us. But Jay won’t be able to claim this trust because he’s gone. He was already gone when this letter was mailed. I wonder if the lawyer was aware of that.
“We should call the law office,” Gracie says. “Maybe there’s something the lawyer can tell us.”
I look at the time. It’s past seven now. “Tomorrow?”
Gracie nods. “Shit. I have plans with Aster tonight.” She smiles, her eyes full of sympathy. “Should I cancel? Do you need me tonight? Or maybe you want to come with us? We’re going for noodles.”
I shake my head. “No, you go. I’ll grab dinner next door and stay here with Jay.”
She chuckles. “Now I get why you never want to leave this room. Tell Jay we got him. We’ll figure this out.”
I nod. It’s been a long day. I’m tired and drained. But more determined than ever to get to the bottom of it. And also, it’s a huge relief to have a friend who knows what’s going on. I’m feeling a little bit less alone tonight.