Chapter 27
MYLES
We drive along the river, following it upstream.
Emma is crying, head whipping around in all directions as she sits next to me. She’s trying to look out her window, in front of us, and behind us all at the same time.
Ahead of us is the Oakland bridge and my heart leaps out of my chest when I spot someone standing on the stone wall.
“Stop the car!” Emma yells. “That’s her!”
Mallory’s hair blows behind her and her bright white shirt is untucked. She stares forward.
The second the car stops, Emma practically kicks the door open, yelling her sister’s name.
I jump out of the car, running after Emma as the world starts moving in slow motion.
Mallory doesn’t turn. It’s like she can’t hear us, and she steps forward. Her body disappears off the edge.
My stomach twists in on itself as the horror sets in. Mallory jumped off the bridge. Mallory wanted to die.
I can’t help but feel guilty because I should’ve seen this coming. I knew something was wrong with Mallory, and I ignored it.
Emma’s scream pierces the air and she runs to the wall. She’s shaking as tears stream down her face. Her chest heaves from breathing so quickly. There’s terror in her eyes and she leans over the wall to look down.
The water ripples where Mallory fell.
Emma’s mouth hangs open as she breathes in shock until her trembling hands cover it. “Mallory!”
I don’t know what to do. My body is frozen in time, forced to watch Emma fall apart when I was so confident I could fix it for her.
Emma steps back, head shaking. “She jumped,” she says, voice cracking. She grabs me, shaking me by the shoulders. Her eyes are wide and scared. “We need to do something! We need to get help!”
She takes off running but I speed up to her, grabbing her wrist. I force her to look at me. “Emma, stop!”
She tries to shake me off. “I have to get down there! I need to help her!”
“She’s not here.”
Her mouth falls open and she catches her breath. “What are you talking about?”
“Look.” I point at the water. “She’s not there.”
She practically throws herself over the side, peering down at the water. There’s no sign of Mallory even though the water is shallow.
I’m shaking because I know this is the same bridge Emma fell off, and this only confirms what Emma told me. When she fell off the bridge, she traveled through time. She disappeared.
“We never found her body,” she cries.
How could she have left that part out? The answer is so obvious. If Mallory isn’t here, she has to be somewhere else. “What if the reason you never found her body is because she traveled in time too?”
Emma slowly turns. “What?”
“You told me this is where you fell, right?”
She nods, face so pale I think she might faint.
“If Mallory ended up in the past, wouldn’t someone have found her?” My words spill out all at once because I have to make this all okay.
She kicks the ground. “What are you trying to say? Spit it out already.”
“You ended up a year in the past. What if she ended up a year in the future?”
She covers her mouth, looking at me like I suddenly have all the answers, and I wish I did, but I’m purely guessing.
“Maybe she’s there right now.”
“You’re right,” she says. Then she swallows, looking down at the water again. “I have to jump.”
I grab her, scared if I let go, she’ll do something she shouldn’t. “What are you talking about? You can’t do that.”
“I have to! What if she’s drowning? I have to save her!”
My grip tightens. “No. There has to be another way.” There has to be a way for me to keep Emma next to me and save Mallory at the same time. A way that doesn’t involve Emma possibly jumping to her death.
“Let me go,” she says. “I won’t let her drown!”
“But what if you get hurt?” I ask, stating the obvious fact she’s somehow forgotten. “Do you see the rocks?”
“I won’t. I promise.” She struggles to free herself from me.
“What if it doesn’t work? You didn’t change the past, so what makes you think this will work?”
She stops fighting and looks at me like I just smacked her. “What are you talking about? You didn’t hurt Mallory. We did change the past.”
I know she’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I can’t let her go. “What if we’re wrong?”
“I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t try.” The edge to her voice shakes me to the core. There’s a sour feeling in my stomach gnawing away at me because how am I supposed to let her jump off this bridge like it’s a normal thing someone does?
My head is spinning from the shock of the moment. Mallory jumped. Emma is about to jump, but something doesn’t feel right. It’s too simple. Too obvious.
I stare into her tear-filled eyes. I know I have to let her go, but I don’t want to. I just got her back, and I need her in my life. It’s where she belongs. “What am I supposed to do without you?”
“I’ll still be here,” she says. “When you see me, show me the note, okay?”
I’d almost forgotten that there’s another version of Emma running around. I don’t know how to explain it, but it doesn’t comfort me. She might be the same person, but she didn’t spend the day with me.
I didn’t hold her hand.
She isn’t the person I kissed.
I want to be selfish, but it’s not fair for me to keep Emma here because I need her. Her sister needs her more, so I let go. “Okay.”
She touches my face for a moment, and even though she doesn’t say it, I can see the goodbye in her eyes.
I stumble backwards, forcing myself not to wrap my arms around her.
Emma puts her hands on the wall, ready to pull herself up, when she grimaces. She covers her chest like it hurts and her shoulders slump forward.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
I reach for her to try and help, but the second my hand lands on her shoulder, my fingers feel nothing but air. My hand goes right through her.
Her body flickers in front of me, and my eyes widen because I have no idea what’s going on. It’s like she’s nothing more than a hologram or a figment of my imagination.
My hand shakes as I jerk it away from her. I close it in a tight fist to try and settle my nerves, but it doesn’t help.
Her frown deepens as she gasps for air. “I can’t breathe.” Her eyes meet mine with a terror I’ve never seen before. She knows something is very wrong.
I’m frozen, shaking, and my mind feels like it’s exploding. What did we do? Is this because we’re trying to change the future?
Emma staggers, losing her balance, and her weight falls forward.
I put both hands out to catch her, but she passes through them, falling to the ground in front of me.
“Emma!” I scream, dropping to my knees. Emma has to jump to save Mallory, and I don’t think it’s possible. With every second, she fades more.
I run my useless hand down my face, nails scratching my skin.
This has to be happening because of something we did. Mallory jumped instead of me pushing her off the bridge. That’s the difference, but that isn’t something I can change now.
My heartbeat skyrockets and my eyes sting with tears as Emma chokes in front of me. Whatever we changed is somehow killing her, and I can’t just stand and watch.
Everything was fine up until . . .
The note.
I pull it out of my pocket and hold it in front of her face. “What would happen if you saw this note?”
She looks at the note and shakes her head.
“Tell me!”
“I’d—” She gasps for air. “I’d hate myself.”
That’s when I know what I have to do.
Emma never mentioned a note before.
This was the first time Emma ever saw the note.
In haste I unfold it, eyes running over the painful words. Emma would never forgive herself if she read this.
I can’t show her this. I can’t tell her Mallory jumped because it would crush her. I know Emma. She’ll blame herself, and it will break her heart.
I wouldn’t just be losing her now. I’d be losing every version of her because the way she’s fading in front of me has me worried she won’t exist in the future if I show her the note.
I tear the paper, shredding it to bits, and hurl the pieces off the bridge. They flutter down to the water.
“What are you doing?” Emma yells, scrambling up to her feet.
My chest heaves as I take a look at her. The fading stops and the fullness of her body returns to normal.
I wrap my hand around her wrist, pulling her into a hug. A hug of desperation and fear.
My skin is on fire and my ears are ringing, but I know what I have to do. I can’t let Emma, my Emma, hate herself. It all makes sense now—everything she told me about the past and the future. I understand what happened that night. “I’m sorry.”
I’ll give her something to hate.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
I gulp and push her toward the wall.
“Myles, stop! What are you doing?”
“What I have to.” I shake my head, every limb shaking because I’m so terrified of what I’m doing. “Go save your sister.”
She pushes back, but I’m too strong. I shove her closer to the wall and she screams as her body hangs over the ledge.
I take a deep breath and push her body off.
My heart races as her scream fills the air, cracking and sending goosebumps up my arms. I lean over the wall, afraid I’ve made a terrible decision, but my heart calms when she’s nowhere in sight.
“What did you do?” a voice shrieks behind me.
My heart leaps into my throat and I whip my head around to see Emma, again. She’s running toward me dressed in the same clothes I saw her wearing at the gas station.
My heart won’t slow down as I rip my gaze from her to my hands, in pure disbelief that I pushed her off the bridge.
“What did you do?” Emma runs into me, screaming. Her fists beat against my chest and her hands slap my face, but it doesn’t matter.
My nerves began to ease. It guts me to see the pain on her face, but this is the way things are supposed to be.
I want nothing more than to console her. To tell her she’ll be okay, but letting her hit me will have to do.
Relief floods through me because I know the truth.
I never threw Mallory over the bridge. This whole time, it was Emma, and I let the world believe it was Mallory to save them both.
Emma needed something to hate, so I gave her the only thing I could.
Me.