Stephanie closed her locker with a firm shove. She wore a short plaid skirt and a dark red sweater with matching tights. Instead of boots she wore comfy flats. Always comfortable and in control.
I nodded towards her and Ren obliged me, “A successful attorney who becomes a stay-at-home mom. Happily married and all that. She takes care of her mother when she gets cancer, so she’s pretty busy.”
“Huh.” I watched her enter our biology class. “It’s like she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
Ren shrugged. “I doubt that. I’m sure she isn’t planning right now on her mother getting sick. Maybe she just knows what to do when things happen.”
“I’m a little jealous. I wish I were that confident,” I confessed, looking up at him.
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You’re perfect the way you are. Sweet, beautiful. Naively believing I can see the future without any proof. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I laughed. “See? I’m made for you. Gullible and everything.”
His dark eyes deepened and he grinned wickedly. “Yep.”
The moment was broken when Burke flew by and then stopped, skidding to a halt in front of us. His red hair flew into his face, his green eyes wild. Ren blinked at him.
Burke handed me a flyer, winking at Ren. “Hey, handsome,” he leered.
The flyer said “Anonymous for President!”
“Rock the vote!!” he shouted at us as he ran away, a legendary rebellion leader of a zero interest cause. The crowds parted for him, catching the flyers that he tossed over his shoulder.
I spun around and grabbed Ren.
“This may be the most important future you ever tell me,” I said solemnly. “I would walk on broken glass to know this guy’s future.”
He stared after him, perplexed. “You’re not going to believe this…but he’s got like, five different
Yurei
following him. Seriously, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like even the universe doesn’t know what he’s going to do.”
“Ren !” I pleaded.
He shook his head, still watching the disappearing figure. “Okay, here’s what I got---game show host, convict, inventor, physicist and…Dad? Who is this guy?”
“Burke!”
Understanding dawned. “Oh….right. Maybe he’s…all of them.”
“Wow.” Why was I surprised? I expected nothing less of the crazy nut.
“Okay, we’re running out of time,” he said and began again. It was like an endless string of bedtimes stories—some of them heartbreaking and others inspiring. Even the teachers had stories. He couldn’t see their pasts, but he saw their futures.
“Mr. Leitner retires in fifteen years or so. He likes to sail on the Chesapeake—his boat capsizes and he…” He paused, frowning. “Well, I don’t like this one. He dies out there.”
“That’s really sad,” I said.
“I see some sad stories,” he agreed, his hands still around my shoulders. “Sometimes it feels like there’s a lot more I’ll never see. There is so much I don’t know.”
Kyle and Noah walked by. I didn’t have to say anything; Ren knew what I wanted to know. He watched them for a moment and then he put his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t know if it was to comfort me or if he needed comfort, but I leaned into him.
“What about Kyle?” I asked quietly.
He was still watching them when he answered, “He’s going to struggle, but I think he’s going to be okay. His
Yurei
seems happy.”
“I wish I could see the
Yurei
. I’d like to see him in the future.”
He bumped his forehead to mine. “You don’t have to. I’ll tell you everything I see. Let’s keep going.”
He continued until the very last minute, whispering the tragic and beautiful stories to me. He left me right before the bell rang, standing at the door of my next class, my head filled with everything he’d told me.
Though he wanted to, he couldn’t even tell me half of what he knew, I realized as I sat down in Biology. I looked over at Burke.
He was thumbing through the textbook, his unruly red hair pulled back demurely, as if he hadn’t been running through the halls thirty seconds ago. His long, bony fingers flipped around from chapter to chapter, scanning far ahead from Chapter Five, where we were supposed to be. His eyes jumped over the pages. Maybe he did learn what the rest of us learned in school, only he did it the way he wanted to, not the way he was supposed to.
Mr. Leitner asked us for our homework and I realized I’d forgotten about it. Yikes. I was getting so behind. Then he passed out a test—something else I’d forgotten about.
Stephanie adjusted her headband like a samurai preparing for battle and dove into it. Burke drew a rocket ship with his left hand, so it looked like a third-grader’s drawing, instead of writing his name at the top. He answered some of the questions, although I have no idea if his answers had anything to do with the test. I made it through, probably failing the test miserably.
In English my luck with being prepared continued and Miss Cubben announced a vocabulary quiz I hadn’t studied for. Everyone took out their notebooks and started numbering from one to twenty. I did as well, sighing in resignation. I stared at the blue lines on the white paper, wondering if I would get lucky.
As she called out the words I was relieved to realize I already knew them. Every word I wrote down made me think of a story.
Soldier.
Katie’s true love.
Commitment
. People who kept them and others who didn’t.
Volatile.
Qualify. Transition
. Everyone would go through some transition—that just seemed to be the nature of life in general.
Retrieve. Dissent. Prowess.
Those who would take on the world and succeed. I loved those stories.
Assassinate.
I shuddered. What if Ren found out a future that would change the world?
I got stuck on that thought and messed up the word after that. What if Ren’s gift put him in danger? What was he supposed to do with all that knowledge?
No doubt he had thought of all these things already, and was trying to figure it out. It must be overwhelming.
When we met again two classes later I grabbed his shirt and looked up at him. “Ren, it’s so much.” People stepped around us, some of them unsuccessfully because we were in the center of the hall.
He stepped playfully on my foot, his lips turned in a knowing smile. “I know.”
“How do you know what to do?” I asked.
He moved his foot off mine, shrugging. “I don’t. It’s too much information. Kyle was the first one I ever tried to help—at least the only one I felt like I could reach. It’s like people and events came together so I could at least try. If it happens again, I’ll help if I can.”
What if he couldn’t help them? I didn’t want him to be devastated because he couldn’t do the impossible. “You can only do so much. You don’t have to save the world.”
“Yeah. It’s hard to know when I’m being apathetic or just realistic, you know? I’ll just do the best I can.”
I twined my fingers in his. “Maybe you could surf a lot to get away from it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Definitely. But you’ll have to come with me. How do you feel about lots of sun and the beach?”
Remembering the bone chilling cold of this morning. I smiled. “Sounds horrible. When can we go?”
“In two years. When we graduate.”
“That’s forever,” I complained.
“Not to me. It seems like the blink of an eye, and I’m going to love every minute.”
He squeezed my hand, and then we had to go. I turned back to watch him walk through everyone in the crowded hall, ignoring their
Yurei
, I knew. He moved easily past them, somehow comfortable with knowing too much about them, their lives and his own. I watched him until he disappeared.
I couldn’t see the future like he could and I knew there was more he wouldn’t tell me. The future wasn’t made of far off decisions and exotic circumstances, though. It was made up of moments. Whatever Ren and I went through, hopefully we’d take it one moment at a time. We already knew it was going to be good, and that gift should help us handle anything unexpected. Then again, life is supposed to be unexpected. We were up for the challenge.
TWO YEARS LATER
MacKenzie
I sat under the shade of the massive oak tree in the middle of the campus green, watching other students pass by. I was wearing a t-shirt and my favorite jeans and flip-flops. Pretty much what I wore everyday now. The rings on my finger sparkled—the tiny diamond on the engagement ring Ren had given me on our high school graduation and the simple wedding band. We were only nineteen and married, going to college.
I loved the weather here in California. I had a permanent tan and my hair was bleaching to a white gold color. It was mid-summer, and would have been sweltering hot back home. Here it was warm with cool breezes. No wonder he missed it so much.
It seemed like an eternity since he walked me through the high school revealing all the
Yurei
that surrounded us. Some of what he saw was already starting to happen, like an iceberg breaking off and the pieces floating out to sea.
Katie and Noah went to different colleges and eventually called it quits. Katie was dating a guy in the Air Force who wanted to be a pilot. I hadn’t met him, but they looked cute together in the pictures she put online.
Crystal was still dating BJ, but I think they were having problems. He drank a lot and probably did other stuff. She was pretty cheerful about it when I talked to her online every now and then. I wasn’t too worried about her because I knew she was going to be okay. She was going to need her friends, though, so I made sure we kept in touch.
Steve was at MIT, complaining about the food and his smelly roommate. His first year he flunked two classes because he was assisting his professor with a project that kind of sucked him in. He tried to explain it to me but as soon as he said stuff like freeing electrons and electrically conductive channels I asked about his calculator. He still loves that thing.
Noriko was at Stanford. She’s really enjoying college and started partying her first semester. She pulled herself back in line, though. She hates to be mediocre in anything, especially school.
Everyone seems to be doing okay. Kyle is in therapy and on anti-depressants. He’s going to Juilliard right now but says someday he wants to help kids that are like he was.
An unexpectedly cold wind hit me and I looked up. The happy California sky was clouding over for a thunderstorm. I closed up my books and took one last bite of my apple.
Everyone thought Ren and I were crazy. Too young to marry, won’t finish school, get divorced in six months…blah blah blah.
Well, I say everyone but I really mean people we hardly knew that decided to give their two cents. Our friends were thrilled.
My parents weren’t that shocked when we told them we wanted to get married after graduation. My mom, at least, was expecting it. My dad had to go mow the lawn before he could be full-hearted about it.
Ren’s parents were surprised but they’ve gotten used to it. They can’t wait until Christmas when we go back for a visit.
Derek is back in school. He’s regained his ability to read and write, but it’s been an uphill climb. He’ll always have trouble with words, but we’re so amazed by how far he’s come
it doesn’t matter. He wants to come out here and live with us after he graduates, which we would love. He and Ren have been like brothers the past two years.
Derek hatched up the plan on our wedding day, of all things. Mom was adjusting my veil as I stood in front of a big mirror in the hotel room we’d rented for the reception. The dress was everything I’d ever imagined—a fitted silk bodice with crystal beads and a long train that swirled behind me when I walked. My hair was swept up into a knot at the back of my neck and I wore a pearl necklace. The girl in the mirror was a dream come true. I was so magnificent my mom was just about to cry. Then Derek burst through the door.
At seventeen he was tall and handsome, his dark hair curling because he liked it a little long. He looked good in the black tux, his white shirt crisp against the silver-gray tie and vest.
“How did you get in?” I asked him as Mom blinked away her tears.
“Wow,” he said, staring at me in my wedding dress. “That’s beautiful.”
I took it to mean that he thought I was beautiful, not just the dress. His words would always come out a little askew.
“Why, thank you. How did you get in?” I repeated.
He flipped the door card up in his fingers. “I have it.”
Mom hurried to the door and opened it, peeking out. “Dad gave you that? Where is Ren? He’s not supposed to see her yet.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “I won’t let him in. I know.”