Chapter 37
No.
I drop my book bag in the middle of the hall, hands grasping at stray papers, heart beating wildly as I shove past books in search of one I won’t find.
My dad’s journal isn’t here.
Tension gnaws at me. I dump everything from my bag onto the ground, combing through it all, hoping I’ve missed something.
But it’s no use. And I know what this means.
If I am slowly fading from this reality piece by piece, he wouldn’t have had a daughter to pass these items onto.
None of us would exist. Not in this branch of time.
What happens if we can’t get everything in order to send William back tomorrow? Does he keep existing here until there’s nothing left of him? Of me? Do I become a giant void of nothing somewhere in the universe? If time continues to fold, to take and take and disappear, what then?
I lunge for my phone and open my group chat with Jared and Madelene.
Proof of their existence is here, in these messages and in our old photos, and this solid fact coaxes a relieved exhale from my lungs, though it doesn’t fully stop the devastation from crashing down.
Even after telling my mom everything, I still couldn’t tell her my biggest fear.
That maybe she’ll forget. That she could wake up in a different life, one where everything’s rearranged and her past is no longer tangled with her present.
I close my eyes. Please, I think. I don’t want to lose everything.
“Carmichael?”
When I open my eyes, Sumner’s moving beside me, kneeling into the mess I’ve made, brows furrowed. “Whoa, what’s wrong?”
“His journal,” I whisper. “His ring—they’re gone.”
His face dims. “Shit.” He pinches the skin above his nose, his knuckles bumping his frames. “This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go.”
And in the softness of his words, I hear the crumpled defeat of any hope we’d tried so hard to grasp. I slump against the wall, head tipped back. “What if we’re too late?”
His teeth graze his lower lip. “I won’t give up without trying—and neither will you. Because that’s not who you are, okay? I know you.”
There’s a raw determination in the way he says it, intentional weight in those words.
Almost like a confession. And then he’s collecting my scattered belongings, mechanical pencils and loose erasers and various textbooks, and shoving them in my bag.
I thread my hands through my hair as he gets to his feet, offering me a hand.
“Give me five minutes,” he says, passing me my bag. “Trust me.”
William and Lionel are bickering over gear alignment when I step into the Forgotten Lounge. I try to keep my face neutral as they explain the problem, and true to his word, Sumner’s quick to rejoin us.
But he’s not alone. Sabine and Inessa walk in behind him.
“We got the SparkNotes version,” Inessa says, flinging her coat onto the nearest chair and rubbing her hands together. “I have so many questions.”
“But we’re here to help,” Sabine adds off my confused expression. “Don’t worry. We don’t plan on saying anything.”
Sumner catches my eye. “I figured we needed to expand the team.”
My panic fades. Inessa has a sharp eye for detail when it comes to coding, and Sabine’s one of the strongest engineering brains in our grade. How had I not thought of it before? I’d been playing it too safe.
They jump in straightaway. Lionel shows Inessa the road map on his laptop and explains what we’ve accomplished so far while Sumner walks Sabine through the mechanics, tucking a pencil behind his ear as he talks with his hands.
The focus is taut, the thoughtful silence interrupted by the occasional “Are you sure you set that rotator correctly?” and “Let’s test the armature speed one more time. ”
We’re an hour into assembling when Inessa turns to William.
“Okay, no offense, but I thought it was kinda weird you’d never heard of Oprah. Everyone’s heard of Oprah.”
“Who’s Oprah?” Sumner deadpans.
I crack a smile for the first time this evening.
“I get it now,” Inessa goes on. Then her face lights up. “Wait—does this mean you have no idea what a booty call is?”
“Oh no, Delaney taught me that one.” At this, Sumner raises his eyebrows, but William only continues. “Which is why I do not place my phone in my back pocket.”
Inessa falls to the ground cackling.
“All right, you lot have a laugh at my expense,” William says good-naturedly, “but you can’t blame me.”
Sabine’s eyes grow wide. “Now I understand why you were so excited to show me all those pre-programmed ringtones.”
“There was one time when he unplugged everything in our room,” Sumner offers. “For fun.”
Later, when I step into the hall to refill my water bottle, Sumner follows me. He waits for the door to shut before speaking.
“I didn’t tell them everything,” he says, voice low. I understand what he’s not saying. He omitted what could happen if we fail tomorrow. “Figured the truth about William was enough to process.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” I say. It feels unfair to unleash that panic on them right now. “Do you think we’re close?”
He nods. “We’re close.”
He wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. Even though this situation could not be further from normal, Sabine and Inessa’s additional support helps pull focus on this monumental task.
We work through dinner. We solidify measurements and triple-check internal placements down to the millimeter.
A hush falls over the room once everything is in place.
Inessa is the first to break the silence. “Can you run a test?”
“Only in the software,” Lionel says. “We don’t have the energy source to run a physical test. We’ll need a really powerful solar flare tomorrow in order to try.”
We decide to take it as a win. It’s all we can do.