Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
He takes a few more minutes to calm down, and we sip our coffees together, side by side on the couch. It’s nice. For a moment, I forget that we’re from two different times. Instead, we’re just two people, hanging out, without any other cares in the world.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
“I do have one more thing I want to talk to you about,” I say as I place my empty cup down on the coffee table. He does the same, and I pull my legs up to cross them underneath me and face him on the couch.
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Are you getting ready to tell me you came to your senses about what year it is?”
Iris, you better not be full of shit. I can’t unsay these next things.
“So, yes. You’re right. In here, for you and me, it’s 1993.”
“That’s a strange way to word it.” He scratches at some scruff on his jaw while he waits for me to continue. Normally, he’s clean-shaven, but today, he has a very light dusting of scruff on his face, like he didn’t shave this morning.
I’m distracted once again by him.
“Okay.” I shake my head, getting back to the present. Ha, present! “This is the part that’s going to sound a bit unbelievable. But I need you to promise me you’ll let me get all of this out. And please keep an open mind.”
“Okay… I promise.”
“So yes, in here, it’s the year 1993. But for me, I am actually from the year 2025.”
I snap my eyes shut at that last sentence, wishing I could hide from his reaction. I crack them open the tiniest bit and watch as his mouth forms an O to interject, but then he remembers his promise and clamps it shut. Okay, keep going.
“The first day we met, I stumbled upon this abandoned lighthouse accidentally and watched as a bolt of lightning came out of a clear sky and struck it. A bolt from the sky, or something like that, I think it’s called?’
“Bolt from the blue,” he says quietly.
My hazel eyes light up. “Yes! That.” I smile and take another breath.
“Once that happened, I heard a voice and noises coming from the otherwise silent lighthouse. That’s when I went inside, because I was worried someone was hurt, and we met.
You had said it was about to storm. I was so confused because on my side, it was a calm, sunny day. ”
“Mhm,” is all I’m met with.
“Okay, this is where it gets strange,” I tell him. “Somehow, that bolt of lightning opened up some sort of portal with the red door of the lighthouse. And when I come through the door, I’m transported from my year, 2025, to your year, 1993.”
He’s silent. Silent and staring at me with an inquisitive look on his face. “And you know all of this because?”
“Do you know Iris Fable? She lives in town,” I ask.
His eyebrows rise a touch, as if he recognizes the name. “Everyone knows everyone in a town as small as mine. She mostly keeps to herself. Why?”
“Well, she told me all of this.”
“And you believed her?” Fair question.
“I-I think so,” I respond after taking a minute to really think over the question. “She came to me and shared a similar story that happened to her at this lighthouse. It started the same, with a lightning bolt that came out of a blue sky and hit the lighthouse—”
“So, she just travelled back and forth in time through a magical red door?” he asks, one eyebrow raised and his arms crossed in front of him.
“I know how it sounds, but it all adds up. Why else do you think I’ve been so adamant that it’s 2025?”
“Because you hit your head and are suffering from a concussion?”
“I could say the same thing about you.” I laugh.
“But now that she said it, things make a lot more sense to me. Almost like puzzle pieces coming together to create a picture. The decor here.” I motion to the surrounding space.
“The fact that you don’t text or have a cellphone. You didn’t know what Wi-Fi was—”
“I still don’t,” he retorts with a light chuckle.
“You kept thinking my outfits were strange—”
“I’m used to them now, though.” A smile curves on his lips, and he takes in my outfit, pausing on my toned legs, which are now stretched out in front of him as we’ve been talking.
“Nothing I tried to bring over for you or from here passed through. The notebook, the piece of paper with your phone number. I thought I was being forgetful, but Iris said that was true for her too.”
“Okay.”
“And when we went into Killick Bay together, the town felt so strange to me. Like we had gone back in time. And turns out, I think that’s the case.”
He stands up and walks around the living room, pacing back and forth. His hand runs through his long, wet hair. “You have to know how this all sounds, Lucy,” he finally says.
“I know. Trust me, I know. Think about it, though. Doesn’t it all seem a bit strange?”
“But we’ve gone outside together.”
“Yes, through the back door. Not the red door in the entryway. I don’t know why, but that makes a difference.”
“And if we both went through the red door now? Will I end up in 2025?”
“Yes, I think so. But according to Iris, it only works one way for you. If you come into 2025, that’s it. You don’t go back.”
“I’m sorry, Lucy, but this is ridiculous.” He looks frustrated right now. I get it. It makes absolutely no sense. “So you’re telling me I can’t just walk through that red door right now with you.”
“Not without getting stuck in my time, no.”
He turns and heads toward the stairs, climbing down them as I scramble off the couch and follow behind him. “Dylan, be careful,” I call out.
When we both make it downstairs and into the entry room where the red door stands, he’s already about to open it. I’m right behind him as his hand goes to grab the metal doorknob, when suddenly, he jerks it away.
“What the—” is all he says as he jerks backward, looking at his hand and back to the door.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I-I can’t explain it. Not a shock, but more like this weird pull or something when my hand tried to grab the doorknob. Like a… a magnet. I’ve never felt that before.” He looks at me. “Is that what it feels like for you?”
I shake my head. “Nothing that severe. Only a mild shock.”
“This is insane, Lucy,” he says, staring at the door and his hand in disbelief.
“I know. Do you believe me now?”
“I want to.”
“Here, look at this. Hold on.” I run upstairs and grab my phone out of my purse, and come back down to meet him. “Remember this? My cellphone. It’s called an iPhone.” I show him the black screen of my iPhone and give it to him to hold and look over.
“Okay.”
“This is the 2024 model. I got it last year. It doesn’t work here.
It was fully charged when I arrived, and once I came inside the lighthouse, it shut off.
It does this every time.” That gives me another idea.
“Oh. Watch me leave. Stand back a bit and watch me leave the lighthouse. I’ll wait outside for a few minutes.
I want you to go out the back door and see if you can find me.
You won’t be able to because I won’t be in your time anymore. ”
“Okay.” He hands my phone back and then backs up a few feet. I give him one last small smile and walk out through the red door.
Outside, it’s cool and overcast. There’s a slight chill in the air from the wind. I look at my phone; it’s turned on and displaying a few texts and emails that have come in since I’ve been gone. I walk back to the rusted red door and open it. A mild shock courses through my hand and up my arm.
Then I’m back inside.
I don’t see Dylan.
“Dylan,” I call out. Panicking and thinking I’ve done something to mess up the portal, I leave the entry room and enter the main section of the lighthouse. I open the back door and call out for him again once I’m outside.
“Lucy,” he calls back. He runs over to me and grabs my shoulders. “You were gone. I lost you.” I can see the panic in his bright green eyes. “You left, and you were gone. I came out here, and I couldn’t find you.”
“I was here the whole time. Right here.” I lead him to the front where the red door stands. “I stood outside here for a few minutes and then came back inside. Do you believe me now?”
He swallows. “Yeah. I think I do.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. I had no idea how this conversation was going to go. “Okay, thank you.”
“So why do you think this happened? There’s got to be some greater purpose or mystery to solve, no?”
My mind drifts to the impending storm and what happens, but I lock that away for now. He almost died today, and then I went and dropped a bomb on him. It doesn’t feel right to share this. Not yet.
“No idea,” I laugh hesitantly.
We head inside and back up to the living room. He grabs us both a glass of water before putting another log on the fire.
“So, are you going to keep coming back?” he finally asks after closing the door to the wood stove and locking it shut.
“Do you want me to?” is all I can respond with. I bite the inside of my cheek, honestly unsure of what he’s going to say after everything we discussed today. I know what I want him to say…
“Of course,” he says quickly. He comes over and sits down beside me and reaches for my hand. I take it, and he gives it a squeeze before releasing it. “As friends.”
“Yes, friends,” I agree as my heart cracks from the word. There’s no way we can be anything more, not when we’re from two different times. And when I know what his fate is. Even though I feel that pull, it wouldn’t be right to act on it. No matter how badly I want to.
“Of course,” he says again. His face falls the slightest bit, but he picks it back up and resumes a smile. “Friends is good.”
I peek over at the clock on his stove and note that it’s getting late. I can’t believe I’ve been here all day. “I should go. I work in the morning.”
“Okay.” He gets up to stand with me. “When do you think you’ll come back?” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes darting from me to the floor and back up again. “Only asking since I can’t really come to you or contact you at all.”
I stifle a giggle at the hilarity of it all. “Hmm, well, I work Monday to Friday at the coffee shop. How about Saturday?”
“Saturday works for me.” He offers a wide grin, showcasing those sharp teeth that make him look even sexier. Stop it, Lucy. We don’t think about friends that way.
“Okay, see ya, Dylan,” I say as I make my way back down the stairs.
I open the door and am brought back to 2025.
I ignore the instant pull I feel to go right back to 1993 with him.