26
When Liam is asleep, I sneak out of bed and onto the balcony with my phone.
I look up Ben’s Instagram page but am shocked to see it doesn’t exist. What does that mean? Instant dread slinks through my body as I assume the worst. What if, in this life, the cancer won? Anxious, I try Wren’s
old number. She answers on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Wren, thank God.” I lower my voice in case Liam can hear me. “What have you done to me?”
I wait for her to make a joke, but she’s silent. “I’m sorry, who is this?” she finally asks.
“It’s Harper Swanson Foster, one of your best friends and also the woman you did an insane full moon ritual on last night so that today I have woken up on another planet, also known as
Brooklyn.”
She mumbles something and then a door closes. “Say that again?”
“Was that Jenna? Get her on the phone too. I’m serious. I need to know what is happening, and I need to know right now.”
“You know Jenna?” Her voice trembles, but I can clock the excitement there. “Wait, you’re that artist who owns Rita Clementine’s gallery in Brooklyn, right? I’ve been trying to get a meeting with her forever.”
“Wren, please. Focus. This is not about art.”
“Okay then, what’s it about?”
“It’s about me being stuck in some weird parallel life because you put me here! You have to believe me.” I think of ways I can prove it. “Look, I know you. You and Jenna are two of my closest
friends. You have two hairless cats, Gremlin and Pickles.” I recite the layout of their apartment, their most annoying habits,
and some personal details. Then I dig a little deeper. “You didn’t come out until you were thirteen, though you knew you were
gay at five.” I recite the story she’s only told to a few close people in her life and then try to drum up as many other intimate
details as I can remember. It’s enough, I realize, as she sucks in a sharp breath. She believes me.
“Okay,” she says after a few moments of contemplation. “Tell me exactly what happened to you last night.”
I start before that, with going to her house, the card reading, and then the ritual. I tell her exactly which book she pulled
from her shelf.
“Oh my God! I have that book. Let me grab it.” I hear one of the cats meow as she passes it, her dreads rough against the
phone. “Where are you, where are you... Ah, here you are.” Pages rustle through the phone until she finds the right one.
Thoughts tumble through my mind while I wait. Images of worst-case scenarios flicker through my head. Being stuck here forever.
Never finding Ben. I don’t know much, but I know I have to get back.
“Got it. Okay.” She recites the ritual and then whistles.
“What? What is it?”
“This says that in order to reverse the spell, if you do happen to time-hop, you do the inverse of the ritual.”
For the first time since I woke up in this strange reality, I exhale. “Okay, great. What do I need?” Already I’m standing
up, eager to grab supplies.
“There’s, um, just a little hitch,” she says.
“A hitch? What hitch?” My voice is the only thing hitching up as I worry about what she’s going to say next.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just that you can’t do the ritual, er, until the next full moon.”
Silence blooms between us as her words sink in. “You mean I’m going to be stuck here for an entire month ?” My voice echoes across the dark void of my balcony, and I don’t even care who I’ve disturbed. “Wren, I cannot be here for
a month. Look in your book. There has to be another way. I have to get back. Like, today .” There are so many things I don’t say. Ben could die in a month, and I’d never get to say goodbye. I could get hit by a
train. I could do something really stupid, like kiss Liam or accidentally fall onto his naked body. I could screw the entire
future of mankind by being somewhere I am not supposed to be.
“This isn’t really happening, right?” I say. “It’s just some sort of blip, or glimpse of another life, or a weird hallucination.
It must be.”
Wren’s voice shakes slightly. “I’d like to say no, but I’ve heard about things like this happening... just never this close
to home.” The phone is muffled as she whispers what’s happening to Jenna. I miss my two closest friends. I miss Ben and our
tiny apartment and our complicated, beautiful life. I need to get back to all of it. Right now. If something happens to Ben
while I’m gone, I will never forgive myself.
“Do you both still know Ben?” This gives me a little jolt of promise.
“Who?”
The disappointment is swift and cruel. That means Ben must not live in Chattanooga. Where is he? I ask Wren a few more questions
about my time here. Do I have to do anything or complete some weird life lesson like in all the time traveling movies in order
to get back? She thumbs through the book a bit more but says she can’t find anything. I hang up after she promises to keep
me updated on anything else she discovers.
I close my eyes and rest my head back on the hard outdoor chair. The city still hisses below me, always alive, even this late.
Reality sets in. I cannot get back to my life for a month. A month ! How am I possibly going to fake my way through this version of my life for thirty days?
Eager to escape my own thoughts, I reenter the loft and plug in my phone, staring down at Liam. I play a game with myself
and wonder if I can focus on what I have in this life instead of thinking about ways to get back to my old one. Isn’t that
the point of a glimpse? To be here now, not thinking about my other world?
As I slip into bed, I’m racked with guilt. Liam moves in his sleep and rolls toward me. I study his features. Despite how
much I love and miss Ben, being here with Liam isn’t entirely awful. I miss my life, but here I’m a successful artist. Isn’t
that what I wrote down on that piece of paper? Suddenly I sit up.
Yes, I asked to be a successful artist, but I also asked for Ben to be cancer-free. Which means he really could be out there
somewhere, healthy. A small spasm of hope rips through all this uncertainty. I steady my breathing, but it’s all I can think
about before another realization dawns on me. My wish to pursue art means I haven’t met Ben. Maybe it means I never will?
The guilt consumes me once again as I close my eyes and demand my brain to settle, to stop pinging all over the place like a pinball machine.
None of this makes sense, but it will soon. It has to. One way or another, the thirty days will come and go. I will do the
ritual, and then everything will go back to normal.
I will find my way back to my real life. Back to Ben.