The Long Wait for Tomorrow (36 page)

“Why?”

The gnarled mess in his abdomen only worsened. “Same reason I couldn’t go to graduation.”

Kelly chuffed without any serious offense taken. “And here I thought you came to see me.”

“I get this image in my head,” Patrick said quietly. Head bowed as though confessing to all the world’s atrocities. “This image that looks all sunny. That football field, filled with folding chairs. Folding chairs filled with ghosts in caps and gowns.
A proud milestone
, I imagine Sedgwick saying that. Standing before the graduating class of 2008. He’s got that mushy expression on his face; working so hard to make sure everyone knows just how he’s feeling.

“And then he starts talking about Edmund, and I see the graduates looking all sad. I know they mean it, and I know that the principal means it, because Sedgwick isn’t a monster. None of them are…. But then I hear Sedgwick talk about Kelly McDermott. Bowing his head. Talking about the need for a strong community, even as the rest of the football team watches from the stands or in their chairs, bowing their own heads. I see the tassels dangling from their caps, brushing against their faces. Every last one of them absolved, while Kelly …”

Patrick paused, hands bundled in his lap.

“I see Sedgwick regretting every last thing that led up to this, but I can see his thoughts, too. I can see him crying tears of relief over the bullet Wellspring Academy managed to dodge. That the ‘steroids’ turned out to be legal, that Cody’s dealer was just running a scam, passing legal performance-enhancers as something more. I hear him blessing the skies that Edmund had a gun, that his killer acted in self-defense. And that this killer now sits here as a shining example of how a stronger community will stop such things from ever happening again….

“And still, even behind
that
, I see real regret. I
know
that he
cared. But then, behind that, more opportunistic thoughts. Then actual love, then cynical manipulation, and so on, until I can’t tell what’s what. And I can’t be there, because if that wheel stops spinning, and my thoughts settle on all the inexcusable things they did to you, I might end up right here with you….

“And then I wonder if that’s not where I belong.”

“Patrick …”

Patrick looked up, well aware that there were tears in his eyes.

“It’s just Wellspring Academy …,” Kelly said with a heartbroken smile. “They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. Forget about them.”

A sob caught in Patrick’s throat, choking him. “Kelly …”

“Forget about them … and forget about me.”

Jenna glanced up, stunned.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Kelly told them. “Maybe it won’t happen the way I think. After all, I’ve got memories past these walls. I know my parents aren’t going to be of any help, I know that I’m going to end up working in a bakery. In Louisville, someday. I know I’m going to develop a taste for alcohol and cigarettes. But maybe, come twenty years from now, I won’t be drifting off to sleep in some other asylum for God knows whatever reason I ended up there. Maybe I won’t wake up twenty years in the past, or just a couple of weeks ago, if you want to look at it from our present position. Maybe it won’t all happen again.”

Kelly looked at Patrick, looked at Jenna.

Both knowing what was next.

“But I don’t think I am wrong,” Kelly lamented. “It’s like
that common thread Edmund told us about. Moments when there’s nothing that can change, where things are simply set. And I just happened upon that path, going along for the ride…. There’s a Kelly-shaped hole in the universe that needs to be filled, that’s been hollowed out specifically for me to fill. And twenty years from now, I’m going to end up right back where this whole thing started.”

Kelly took in the dismal faces of his friends.

“I was going to draw you a diagram,” he said. “But I think you’ve got the gist of it, don’t you?”

Patrick shook his head violently, unabashed. “I don’t believe we’re stuck. I don’t believe we don’t have a choice.
I refuse to believe it’s all been decided
.”

“I don’t think it
is
the same for everyone …,” Kelly mused. “After all, if you two stay away from me, very far away from me, if you can just move forward without me … well, there’s a good chance every decision you make is going to be your own.”

Patrick began to panic.

Looked over at Jenna, horrified to find her sitting with a defeated complacency.

“Jenna, you can’t seriously sit there and let him
say
this!”

With a quick glance out the window, Jenna swallowed and asked: “Why?”

Kelly looked genuinely confused. Not by the question, it turned out, but by the mere fact that they hadn’t figured it out. “Well, for you two, obviously.”

“What?” Patrick was almost outraged at the gross oversimplification. “All this so that Jenna and I would get together—”

Kelly laughed, halting Patrick in mid-rant. “Oh no, Patrick. No. That’s not important. I mean, it’s great. It’s wonderful, and I do have a great feeling about you two as a couple, sure….”

Jenna looked away, but she wasn’t blushing, and she wasn’t smiling.

“This didn’t happen for you two as a couple,” Kelly told them with a soft, reassuring tone. “It just happened for you two. Patrick. Jenna. Look at where you-all were headed before all this happened, how you both, all of us, lived our lives.”

At the very thought of such a pure outcome, Patrick felt himself preparing to fight it.

“Stop,” Kelly told him. “You both know you’re not the same people you were.”

“That can’t be the reason,” Patrick whispered.

“It is.”

“But how do you
know
?” Patrick whispered harshly.

“We don’t get to know about this….” Kelly’s face was calm and penitent. “We will never know if anything good came out of this. Just like we don’t really know whether I’m simply stark, raving bonkers. The question isn’t whether you can deny the change all this brought about. It’s obvious the both of you have changed, and only for the better. The real question is … do you
believe
me?”

Patrick couldn’t bring himself to look at Kelly’s face any longer. Lowered his head down and to the left, a baby refusing that last spoonful of strained peas.

“Jenna?” Patrick heard Kelly say. “Do you believe me?”

The quiet, reluctant word was almost buried under its own weight. “Yes.”

“Patrick, do you believe me?”

“No …” Patrick raised his chin. Not in defiance, not with any intent to surrender. He simply thought he’d give Kelly the respect of looking him right in those blue, eternal eyes. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

“Well, hell …” Kelly’s smile was wide and honest. Taken aback by how serious he’d allowed things to get. “You can come back to visit me tomorrow. And tomorrow there’s no need for a sudden goodbye. If you really want something to look forward to, look me up in twenty years. Come and see me. See what ever did happen to that older McDermott before he jumped back through time…. You can hold on to that. Though sooner or later, I suspect you’ll get around to knowing what’s best for you.”

It was powerful stuff, what Kelly McDermott was capable of, because with that small bit of homespun wisdom, the shroud lifted from them.

Leaving its mark, that much was certain, but gone long enough for Kelly to hug Jenna. Long enough for Patrick to feel at home in his own parting embrace with Kelly McDermott. Long enough to allow them both to leave him standing by the sunlit window, gracing them with a final, unassuming wave.

Long enough for Patrick’s angels to wake up, and whisper:
We’re still here.

Patrick and Jenna were seated on the swings. The sun had long since turned orange, with plans for a glorious setting. The trees were full and green. Birds sang. From some unseen corner of
the world came the soft sound of music grazing blades of grass. A pair of children ran along the grass, parents watching from a cautious distance. A cyclist breezed down the street, bell ringing. Right past a sad, uninhabited house, the word SOLD was plastered over a now debunked FOR SALE sign in the front yard.

Train whistle in the distance, and Patrick let it all soak in.

“I love you,” he told Jenna.

Jenna tilted her head to one side with a demure smile. “I know.”

There it was.

Jenna stood up from the swing and faced Patrick.

“We can go and visit him tomorrow,” she said, extending her hand.

He took hold of it, not a second thought as to whether that would be the case.

“Tomorrow,” Patrick agreed, and the two of them took slow steps across the park, wandering with open eyes and great reluctance into the arms of another life.

was born in February of 1979, and since then, very little has changed. He is a film-school dropout, and graduated from New York University with a degree in synchronicity. Soon after, he made New York his home for several years. Once the money went away, he retreated to his hometown of Durham, North Carolina, where he currently resides.

He is the author of
Playing It Cool
, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and, with his father, Ariel,
Burning City.

His best friend is a cat.

Visit Joaquin at
www.joaquindorfman.com
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Joaquin Dorfman

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dorfman, Joaquin.
The long wait for tomorrow / by Joaquin Dorfman. — 1st ed.
p.   cm.
Summary: North Carolina high school senior Patrick’s life is a mess, but when
his best friend, star quarterback Kelly McDermott, suddenly begins behaving very strangely,
Patrick must do what he can to try to save everyone in the present and the future.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89297-4
[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Family problems—Fiction. 4. Mentally ill—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction. 6. Time travel—Fiction. 7. Steroids—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D727477Lo 2009
[Fic]—dc22       
2008027273

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