Chapter 17. Tessa
Tessa
In a flash, Reed appears on the bed beside me. I jump. “That didn’t take long.”
He shakes his head, dropping it into his hands. Is he okay?
He doesn’t say anything more. So I give him some space. After a moment, I gently touch his arm. “It’s harder to do than you think. That’s what I was trying to tell you …”
He nods.
“I couldn’t even go inside last night,” I confess.
“I watched my father through the window sobbing as he washed dishes, and I lost it, too. He looked so much older. Haggard. And I realized I couldn’t hug him or comfort him.
I could only stand there and know I did this to him.
I stuck the knife in his back when he was already lost and in pain, barely hanging on after his job vanished.
” I hug my knees to my chest. “Otherwise, the house looked exactly the same, which surprised me because somehow, I expected things to seem different … because …” I sniffle. “Because …”
“Because you’re different,” he finishes for me, finally meeting my gaze.
“How did it go for you?” I ask.
“It was … a lot.” His eyes go shiny, and I reach out a comforting hand.
He grabs it like a lifeline. “My stepdad’s drinking again and not showing up for my mom at all—which should surprise no one. I hope she leaves him. She deserves so much better.” Then, before I can process what’s happening, he leans his head on my shoulder and quietly goes to pieces.
Reed has always seemed so impenetrable, like he enjoys mocking the world from his carefully crafted perch on high. But now I’m wondering if that was all a defense, a cover-up for the things happening at home. His life wasn’t as perfect as I thought. He’s been hurting. He’s hurting still.
I slide my arm around his shoulder and pull him closer. He gives over, trembling against my side. I’m overwhelmed, knowing he feels safe enough to show me the deep dark parts of himself he keeps partitioned off from the world. The great Reed Walker. Just as lost and alone as the rest of us.
“I got you,” I murmur into his hair, glad to return the favor after he helped me through my panic attack.
“I know.” It’s all he gets out while he clings to me.
We sit like this for a while, in the golden evening light. I stare, transfixed, as the shadows of the candlesticks glide slowly along the mantel. Until, at last, Reed breathes against my skin, barely above a whisper, “Thank you.”
I hold him closer.
In the quiet that follows, the phone pings.
Reed’s body tenses against mine. My fingers dig into his shoulders. We pull apart, eyes wide. “You heard that, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He reaches into his pocket.
“Did we get a text?” My heart picks up speed over what that might mean.
Instead of the usual countdown timer on the phone screen, there’s a tiny, old-school icon of an hourglass.
“What? Where’d the timer go?” I ask.
Using the center button, Reed toggles between two screens, one with the timer still ticking away and the other with the little hourglass symbol. It’s a relief to know we can still track our remaining days here: Nineteen and counting.
“An hourglass.” Reeds eyes narrow at the small pixelated image. “As in … the sands of time? Is it a reminder that our time is almost up? Because we have the timer for that, and we’re already freaking out about it, so I don’t think we needed the reminder.”
“Could it be an app?” I peek closer at the small gray icon. “Did old phones have those?”
“The APPterlife.” He snickers, then catches the look I’m giving him. “Sorry. The dad jokes spill out of me when I’m nervous.”
“Reed! This is huge.” I pull the phone closer to inspect it. “Something must have changed. Why did this suddenly appear?”
“Maybe it appears when you have nineteen days left,” he guesses. “Otherwise … I don’t know what’s changed, except we both had a good cry.” I can still feel the searing touch of his fingers pressing into my skin as he clung to me, body shaking in quiet sobs.
Then it hits me—what we were crying about. “We both went home.”
Our eyes lock. Could that be it?
“We did. But why would going home make an app appear?” He uses the buttons to highlight the small icon. “I’m clicking it.” With a deep breath he selects the hourglass.
We both gasp as today’s date and time appear: Thursday, June 29, 7:22 p.m.
His eyes snap to mine. “I wonder …” He fiddles with the settings.
Suddenly the world goes pitch-black. “What did you do?” I startle forward. How is the phone controlling the light outside?
“Whoa …” He stands up.
Wind howls against the shutters as a crack of thunder rumbles in the distance. Seconds ago, it was a lazy summer evening; now it’s a stormy night. “I’m kind of freaking out here, Reed. What is going on?”
“I don’t believe it.” He hops off the bed. “I randomly set the date and time stamp back to Sunday, June twenty-fifth, and here we are.”
“What do you mean, ‘Here we are’?”
He flips the phone around and waves it at me. “It’s now 11:20 p.m. on Sunday. I think we just went back in time.” He lets out a shocked bark of a laugh.
Stunned, I grab the phone out of Reed’s hands. The minute ticks over to 11:21 p.m. I’d think it was a joke, but it’s definitely nighttime.
“We’re fucking time travelers!” he shouts at the ceiling.
“How is … wait … do you hear that?” I strain my ears against the wind whistling through the window cracks. There’s a faint sound of voices and something else. “Laughter. Someone is outside laughing.”
We race out of my bedroom to the windows overlooking the front lawn. I catch some shadows slipping along the mossy path below. I can’t remember what happened here four nights ago, but then it hits me.
“The séance,” we say together.
“We were in the ballroom. That’s why we didn’t hear them outside.” Reed points down below and sure enough, I can see Santiago step into a patch of moonlight, a six-pack of beer tucked under each arm.
“So does that mean we’re skating through the ballroom in our socks right now?” I ask.
His eyes go wide. “I think so. Oh God, is this going to be one of those time paradoxes where if we see ourselves we’ll—”
“Die?” I interrupt. “I think we’re good there.”
“I was going to say, ‘go insane.’ ”
I’m about to respond, but then Tilly steps into view and my heart squeezes so hard I can hardly bear the ache.
She looks sad, even from up here. She’s standing away from the group and fiddling with the hem of her dress.
It’s her discomfort tell: fidgeting. Tilly is the bubbliest, most happy-go-lucky person I know.
Usually. It was rough last year when her mom went through chemo.
But thankfully she’s in remission, and Tilly was finally getting back to her old self. To see her sad again is gut-wrenching.
“I’m going out there.” Without waiting for Reed to answer, I close my eyes and picture the lawn. When I open them again, I’m standing out front, surrounded by my friends, exactly where I imagined. In a blink, Reed is beside me. We shake our heads at each other. That trick is amazing.
Jenny and Yannick are stealing a kiss in the shadows, even with their arms overloaded with candles.
Kevin, my VP from student government, is taking selfies with the mansion behind him.
Brandon is by the gate showing the commemorative plaque on the van der Born estate to Kira, who seems genuinely interested.
Only Santiago looks as uneasy as Tilly. “It’s strange being back here,” he says.
“There’s the wreath we laid before.” She points to the house. It’s still lying on the porch, where our moms placed it after the funeral. The wind has now blown it flush against the siding, Tilly’s letter to me swept off into the night somewhere.
“You okay coming here?” Santiago asks.
“I think so.” She nods, but the shiver that runs over her skin says otherwise.
Santiago sets his six-packs down, shrugs out of his black hoodie, and hands it to her. “If you’re cold …” He tugs on his long sleeves. “I have these.”
“Oh … um … thanks,” Tilly mumbles as she takes the sweatshirt from his outstretched hands, their smiles lingering. She slyly leans her head to the side to catch the scent as she pulls it on.
It takes me a moment to close my mouth. So that’s where her new sweatshirt came from. Reed’s eyebrows are raised beside me. He’s clocked the exchange, too, and seems just as taken aback.
“If you can’t handle being here, Tilly, you don’t have to stay.” Jenny saunters over. “You’ve been acting weird all night.” Leave it to Jenny to ruin the moment.
“Back off, Jenny, her best friend just died.” I can see why Reed likes Santiago.
I always wrote him off as a stoner musician with no ambition and never understood why he and Reed were friends.
Reed is one of the most ambitious people I know.
But now I wonder if I misread Santiago. He’s loyal.
And fearless. He’s a good friend. He’d be so much better for Tilly than the trash she usually dates.
And if I’ve been wrong about Santiago, maybe I’ve been wrong about … a lot of people.
Reed’s smiling, proud to see his friend standing up for Tilly.
Jenny sighs. “I know. That’s why I’m saying she can leave. We don’t want negative energy interfering with tonight’s plans.”