Chapter 49
Kyle
I woke up without Lily by my side and a bunch of missed calls from several of my friends, so I panicked. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. I should have made sure Lily got home safely, but now I was scared of what could have happened.
The exhaustion from all the adrenaline I experienced last night has left me feeling deeply exhausted.
Lying there in the darkness, holding Lily as she finally found peace in sleep, had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
For those few hours, we'd existed in a bubble where the past couldn't touch us, where the future was just a distant concern.
I'd felt her breathing even out against my chest, felt the tension leave her body as exhaustion claimed her, and I'd thought foolishly that we'd weathered the worst of it.
Now, staring at my phone's relentless notifications, I realized how naive that had been.
I sat on the edge of the bed and forced myself to take a deep breath. "Everything's okay," I told myself, "you made sure of it." Then I picked up my phone and started reading the messages one by one, beginning with Lily's text that told me she'd gone home so her parents wouldn't worry.
But everything wasn't okay, and I began to confirm this fear as I scrolled through the other messages.
"Did you know what happened last night?" This message was Mike's.
"Oliver's parents are contacting us all. They need answers about what happened. What did you do last night?" This was Tom.
"Make sure you don't have Oliver's cell phone in your possession when they start searching your belongings. I can back you up on that." This one was from Jared.
What the hell were they talking about? The more I read, the more confused I got.
I finally read a message I wish I had never read.
"Oliver is dead. Someone crashed into him last night."
No. No. No. No.
My phone slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.
This wasn't supposed to happen. We'd changed things.
We'd prevented the original timeline. Oliver should be alive, beaten and humiliated, but alive.
Lily should have walked away free and in peace.
But somewhere between leaving my arms and going to her home, everything had gone wrong again.
Lily. What did you do? Why did you have to leave last night?
I scrambled off the bed, pulling on yesterday's clothes with shaking hands. My keys were on the nightstand where I'd left them, but when I rushed outside to my car, the driveway was empty. My car was nowhere to be found.
Of course, I'd drive Lily's parents' car home, leaving mine at Oliver's house, where anyone could see it.
The situation was spiraling beyond my control, beyond anything I'd prepared for. Without wasting another second, I took off running, with my thoughts making all kinds of scenarios.
When I got to Oliver's house, the scene that greeted me was like something out of a nightmare. There was yellow tape blocking everyone's path, and a bunch of police officers and paramedics.
There were a lot of people looking around, but no one was allowed in.
Oliver's body was no longer there, thankfully, but the air around us felt heavy regardless.
I scanned the crowd desperately for any sign of Lily or Leo. When I didn't see them, relief and terror warred in my chest. Relief that they weren't here to be questioned by police. Terror that I didn't know where they were or what they might be doing.
My friends stood huddled near the edge of the tape, and when they spotted me, they waved me over with urgent gestures. Jared looked shocked, as if he couldn't believe what was happening. Tom was hugging him. And Mike stood slightly apart, like he was trying to recreate everything.
I wished I had prepared them better for this possibility, but this situation wasn't supposed to happen. I'd thought I had everything under control. We were supposed to break the cycle, not repeat it with minor variations.
But apparently, some pasts are bound to happen, no matter how much we try to prevent them.
Sometimes we torture ourselves, wondering what would have happened if we'd made different choices, without realizing that we might have had the same outcome as always.
And it seemed Oliver's death was going to be one of those things that no matter how hard we fought against it, we'd never be able to avoid.
"Does anyone know what happened?" I said when I got closer to them.
"Not yet," Mike responded, his eyes never leaving the crime scene. "All we know is that Oliver had several fights throughout the night, according to neighbors. He was pretty beaten up when they found him."
I remained silent at that statement. If the neighbors know there was a fight, then they might be able to identify me.
And Lily. But if people had heard Oliver fighting, had seen him being beaten, why hadn't they intervened when Lily was screaming?
Why hadn't anyone called for help when I was pummeling him in the street?
I had a lot of questions, but no single answer. And it seemed I wasn't going to get them here.
I looked around again to see if I could spot any familiar faces that might give me answers.
That's when I noticed Florence standing on the far side of the police tape, her gaze fixed directly on me.
When our eyes met, she turned and disappeared into the crowd before I could even think to approach her.
Maybe she thought I was guilty, too, after all, she saw me threaten Oliver in the classroom.
But what was she doing here? Who had told her?
Oliver didn’t even have his phone. Maybe she came looking for him because he wasn’t answering his messages.
Perhaps the teacher would even tell the police that I had his cell phone.
I was definitely screwed, and I didn't know how I was going to resolve the situation, but the first priority now was to see Lily and see how she was doing.
I couldn't leave her alone right now, especially since I knew beforehand that these were the moments she needed me most ten years ago.
This time, I wasn't going to abandon her, no matter what her actions had been.
"I need to go," I told my friends, clapping Jared on the shoulder. "You guys should head home, get some rest. We might have some difficult days ahead of us."
When I turned around to leave, I spotted my car parked just outside the police tape's perimeter, exactly where I'd left it the night before, with the camera still recording everything.
I had all the evidence I needed.
The question now was whether that evidence would save us or damn us both.