Take Me Back to Yesterday

Chapter 1

EMMA

Myles Green was my best friend.

Myles Green killed my sister.

But I broke Myles Green’s heart long before that.

I was never a good child. Even at my best I was hard to love, always managing to fall into trouble at every turn like I was addicted to it.

My sister, on the other hand, was everything I wasn’t.

She was the one my parents bragged about to all their friends, and I knew I’d never be able to compete with her.

It used to bother me that I was different from my family, but when I met Myles it didn’t seem to matter as much.

I found him when I was eight and playing by my tree house.

I spotted him through my binoculars while I was hanging upside down from a branch.

He had just moved in next door with his mother, into the big white house that looked like it belonged in a Regency novel instead of being on the same street as us.

His mother was pretty as if she was straight out of a movie, but he didn’t have a father or any other siblings.

It was just the two of them in that big house.

Myles stood at the base of the tree and his little face was scrunched up like a puffer fish, almost making his eyes disappear behind his swollen cheeks. His curly dark hair was gelled to the point each curl stood up like a stiff meringue peak.

“What’s wrong?” I called out.

“My dog. I can’t find him.”

My curiosity was immediately spiked. I loved animals, but we couldn’t have any because my mom was allergic. “What’s his name?”

“Duke,” he said, sniffling.

“That’s a fun name.” I pulled myself right side up and balanced on the branch with my bare feet as I walked back to the tree house. I poked my head out of the window. “Climb up, and let’s see if we can spot him.”

He wiped his eyes on his shirt, leaving wet splotches on the front. “Do I really have to come up? What if I fall and get hurt?”

I bent down by the opening of the tree house and stared at the funny boy in Bermuda shorts. “You want to find Duke, don’t you?”

I’ll admit, I knew there were numerous other ways to go about finding his dog, but I wanted him to come up. I wanted a friend, and I thought if I could convince him to come up once, maybe, just maybe, he’d come back and play with me.

He gulped and closed his eyes before he grabbed the rope ladder. His hands shook and his grip was way too loose.

“You should probably open your eyes,” I said.

He bit his lip, looking around. “What if I look down and get scared?”

This boy was, as I’d soon learn, afraid of everything.

I tilted my head, smiling at him with my crooked teeth and messy brown hair. “Don’t look down then. Look at me.”

He opened his eyes and craned his neck up. That was the first time I noticed the way Myles smiled. He didn’t smile big. It was a shy smile lifting the corner of his mouth in the slightest way possible, but it was there. He tucked his lips in as if smiling was a crime, and he nodded. “Okay.”

He reached for the next rung, watching me with each movement up.

I liked being watched as if I was important. I liked that this boy smiled when I talked to him because I was used to being told to be quiet. And I liked that he believed me when I told him we could find his dog if he came up. My idea wasn’t silly, and him listening was proof.

His fingers wrapped around the wooden floorboards of the tree house, knuckles white. He pushed himself up, but then looked down at his feet and began to wobble just as he brought his foot up.

“Help me!” His arms flailed like a windmill, and he swayed back.

I grabbed his shirt with both hands and pulled him toward me, crashing onto the oak floor. I stared into his giant scared eyes. “I got you.”

He scrambled to his feet, huffing for breath.

I froze because I was afraid he’d start crying again, but instead his tiny smile came back. He looked down at his clothes and his arms and legs. “I’m okay.”

“Of course you’re okay.” I knew right then and there I wanted him to keep coming back. “I won’t let you get hurt.”

His gaze softened, falling on me. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” I said, like I had the power to stop anything bad from ever happening to him, and he believed me.

Maybe if he hadn’t, things would be different.

I helped him find his dog—a large, puffy golden retriever who licked my face as I giggled—and took him back to his house.

The next day, I showed up at his house, but his mom told me he couldn’t play. He was studying.

He was only a year older than me and I couldn’t understand why a nine-year-old needed to be studying on a Friday. He should’ve been exploring his new backyard and soaking up the sun.

Instead of walking back to my house, I wandered through their yard, searching for the silly boy in Bermuda shorts. In typical Emma fashion I began to explore, peering into the windows while hiding from his mom in the process.

I spotted him in their large dining room, sitting at the table with a pencil in hand. I walked up to the patio doors that took up the entire wall in front of him and knocked on the glass, swinging my arms wildly to get his attention.

His eyes grew big, darting around the room before he tiptoed toward me. He cracked the patio door open.

“Hi,” I said with a smile much too big for my face.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered, eyebrow raised, making him seem way older than he was.

I grabbed his hand. “Saving you.”

He hesitated, pulling back. “I don’t need saving. I’m learning about moon cycles.”

I cringed, dramatically straining my frown. “That means you definitely need saving.” I pointed to the hills of green grass in his backyard and the bright blue sky with sunshine warming my back. “Look at this. I know what we should do.”

“What?”

“Trust me.” I tugged on his hand. “It’ll be fun.”

He looked over his shoulder like he was afraid he’d get in trouble for following me.

And to be honest, I knew he would, but I also knew he’d never experience any fun while sitting in that room.

He needed to know there was more to the world than just reading books and learning about moon cycles.

He needed a friend, and I so badly wanted to be the one he chose.

“Look at me, remember? It’ll be okay. I promise.”

He brought his eyes back to me, and his little smile returned.

I liked it just as much as the day before. I didn’t want him to ever look away.

We ran off the patio as I led him to the spot where his yard dipped down, angled like a hill, and I stopped at the top.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

My hands flew to my face, patting my cheeks with excitement. “We’re going to roll.”

He gasped. “On the grass?”

“Where else?” I lowered myself to the ground, stretching my arms up above my head to make myself as long and narrow as possible, and rolled down the hill.

The wind blew over me as the warm blades of grass tickled my arms and legs. My body slowed at the bottom of the hill.

“Are you okay?” Myles asked from the top of the hill, voice a little shaky.

I hopped up, cupping my hands around my mouth like a megaphone. “You have to try it! It’s fun!”

“I don’t know about this.”

“Just try it one time. If you don’t like it we can do something else.”

“Okay,” he said. He copied me by lowering himself to the ground and stretching his arms above his head. Then he slammed his eyes shut and dipped over the hill. His body turned over and over as he rolled toward me until he bumped into my legs.

His eyes flew open and he stared up at me.

“How was it?” I asked, leaning over him.

I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me he’d hated it.

He was a quiet boy, but his shy smile did all the talking. “Can we do it again?”

My heart swelled, and I nodded, blades of grass falling from my hair. “I’ll race you!” I jumped up and ran with all my might up the hill.

He scrambled to his feet. “Not fair! You had a head start!”

“It is too fair! Your legs are longer!”

We laughed and played until we were discovered and Myles was forced to go back inside. His mother ran out, agitated, grabbing his hand and pulling him away because she was convinced he’d get stung by a bee sitting in the grass.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Do you even have your EpiPen?”

He shook his head and looked down at his feet.

She sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

I chased after them. “Can we play tomorrow?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“No,” his mother said.

But what our families would soon find out is they couldn’t keep us apart. For the next five years Myles and I would go through life joined at the hip.

We were together for the good times, like when he won his fifth-grade spelling bee or when I lost my two front teeth and insisted on going to a diner so I could drink a milkshake with a straw poked through the gap.

And we were there for each other during the bad times too. He signed my cast when I broke my arm at nine, and two years later, I snuck into his room when he had an allergic reaction. His face swelled up so much I couldn’t see his eyes anymore, and I cried when his mom took him to the hospital.

I stayed up well into the night, watching their house through my window for him to come back home. When he did, it was well past my bedtime, so I climbed out of my window and ran across our yard. I climbed the trellis that led to his second-story bedroom window and knocked until he let me in.

I sat beside his bed with my legs tucked in against my chest and rested my head on my knees.

“How long are you going to stare at me?”

“Forever.”

His little smile pulled at his lips. “That’s impossible.”

I widened my eyes, staring right at him. “Not for me.”

He took his pillow and set it beside me on the floor.

“What’s that for?”

“You’re tired.” He grabbed a throw blanket and held it out to me. “You should sleep.”

“No. I want to stay up and make sure you’re okay.”

He laughed in that goofy way where he tried to hide it. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“I’m not tired.” Even as I said it, my eyes were becoming heavy.

“I’ll tell my mom you’re in here and she’ll make you go home—”

I plopped down on the ground, head on the pillow and legs stretched out underneath the blanket. “I’m asleep.”

“Okay,” he whispered, lying down on the edge of the bed so I could still see his face.

But I didn’t want to close my eyes because I was afraid if I did, I’d see his swollen face again. That scared me.

“Myles?”

“What?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

He didn’t argue or ask me why I needed it, he just lowered his hand.

That was us. It’s how we were.

He’d follow me around, doing everything I asked him to. He didn’t care that I was weird. It didn’t matter how silly my ideas were. He was at my side.

Until he wasn’t.

My mom left when I was thirteen, and that was the same year Myles stopped talking to me because I was the reason Duke died.

We melted into strangers who didn’t speak, but that’s what I wanted. It’s what I deserved after what I did to him. His teary eyes burned their way permanently into my mind. I knew there was nothing I could do to make up for it so I let him hate me.

When I started high school, our paths never crossed because he avoided me at every turn, and I didn’t seek him out. Yet, somehow I’d always hear his voice or laugh in the distance, and each time it stabbed my heart. I knew Myles would never be mine again.

That’s what hurt the most.

But after three years he changed. I didn’t know him anymore. He had been kind and gentle. He was the type of boy who cried the first time he watched Bambi and held my hands in winter in case they were cold.

He was not a killer.

If someone had told me what he’d done, I wouldn’t have believed them. The only reason I believe it happened is because I saw him do it.

I saw him push my sister off the bridge.