I laugh, thinking of a remote-control car chasing a dog around.
“You know what the worst part is?” Ben asks, his eyes bloodshot and watery. “I can’t remember what they look like. I mean, I think I can. I have a vague idea of them. I remember my mom was wearing a pink blouse at the birthday party. And Derek was wearing a T-shirt with some kind of cartoon robot on it. But I can’t remember their faces.”
I don’t even think. I just grab him and pull him into me and wrap my arms around him. Because I can’t imagine anything worse than that.
“Sometimes I even start to second-guess my memories, or I mix them up, like I can’t remember what happened there and what happened here,” he whispers into my hair.
I put my hands on the sides of his face, and I turn him so we’re nose to nose, our foreheads touching. We’re both breathing heavily, and I wonder what he’s thinking. If his heart is beating so fast it’s ready to explode out of his skin. If he’s glad that truck came barreling through from another universe and hit me because it brought us together. If he realizes the smell of mint, soap, and gasoline now drives me crazy—in the best possible way.
“You’re my anchor,” he whispers, and I can feel his breath against my lips. “You were the first thing I saw when I got here. You pulled me out of the water, and I knew that we’d be okay. Even if we were stuck here.”
The memory—vision—of me, backlit by the sun, pulling a boy—Ben—out of the water.
What if I hadn’t been in that exact spot? I press my forehead against his—closer—because at this moment, he’s the only thing that seems to make sense anymore.
I lean forward and kiss him.
He kisses me back.
And I feel like I’m on fire and my insides are exploding. Only this time, it’s amazing.
“S
top,” Ben whispers against my lips. “Janelle, stop.”
But his hands don’t leave my body—his fingers press tightly into my skin as he holds my hips and lower back in place, tightly against him. His lips are back on mine, his tongue in my mouth.
As I nibble on his bottom lip, he moans and jerks me against him tighter.
Then abruptly, he pushes me away.
“Stop.”
I’m left gasping for air, my body aching with the loss of him next to me.
“Stop, Janelle, we can’t.”
“We can’t?” I ask with a laugh to cover up the gnawing feeling of rejection eating my insides. “Because it seems pretty obvious that actually we
can
. It seems to me like we were doing just fine.”
“We can’t be together. I mean, I want to, and I thought we could, but with all of … this…” He waves a hand. “We’re from different worlds—literally. And look what’s happening. People are dying. I have to focus on fixing that.”
I don’t say anything—because I just stare at him. This can’t possibly make sense.
Ben shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have broken up with Nick for me.”
“What?” Hot rage flows through me, and I curl my hands into fists. “I didn’t break up with Nick
for you
. That had nothing to do with you.”
“Wait, that’s not what I meant. I—”
“Then what? Did I misinterpret something? Did you not mean what you just said to me?”
“No, of course not.” Ben takes a step toward me, but then backpedals and reaches up and grabs his hair with both hands. “But that’s not the point. How I feel, that doesn’t matter, because we can’t be together.”
“Why?”
“I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t be this close to you after wanting it so long, only to have it all ripped away.”
“What are you talking about?”
He closes his eyes, and his voice comes out strained and barely above a whisper. “Janelle, we all might die in eight days, but even if we don’t, I’m… I’m not from here.” His eyes flick open again, and his face looks pained. “Don’t you get what that means?”
I don’t say anything.
Ben reaches out and grabs my shoulders. “I’ve spent every waking moment of the past seven years trying to get back home.”
“Back…,” I say, and I can’t get anything else out, because of course I know that. All the experiments, the quantum physics, the open portals, and the bodies coming through. “Home to your universe. You’re leaving.”
Ben nods.
“But when?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he answers. “Whether it’s tomorrow, the next day, or seven days from now, or ever. My goal is always going to be to get home.”
Home
. For him, it’s a place I don’t belong.
“W
here the hell have you been?” Struz says when I open the front door to my house and slip inside.
My heart rate skyrockets and I lean against the door for a second, reminding myself that I left the backpack at Ben’s, and the approaching interrogation is more about the fact that I’m coming in at one in the morning on a school night.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I say.
“Damn straight,” Struz answers. He’s in the kitchen, putting dishes away from the dishwasher. “You gonna tell me now where the hell you’ve been? And don’t even say Alex’s. I saw his car pull in almost an hour ago.”
“Did you hear his mother yelling from here?” I ask with a laugh.
“As a matter of fact I did, but answer the question.”
“I was up at a friend’s house on Black Mountain Road,” I say. I’m not exactly lying to him. I’m just withholding some of the truth. “Alex was there for a while too. We were talking about physics.”
“Next time, could it occur to you to call, maybe, and let me know?” he says, and I instantly feel guilty. I just did to Struz what my dad used to do to us all the time.
“You’re right, I should have called.” I nod.
“Okay, well, now that I made you feel bad, I have something for you.”
I love that he’s like that. “What is it?”
He pulls something from his pocket—square and black—and immediately my eyes water, because I know it’s my dad’s wallet. The one I bought him for Christmas a few years ago. The leather is already starting to wear, but he wouldn’t buy a new one, because this was the one I’d given him.
“Thank you,” I say, forcing the words through the tightness in my throat. I know my mother was fine when I left, but I still feel compelled to ask, “How did tonight go?”
Struz shakes his head. “It was a quiet night. She’s sleeping now, I guess. She took some food into her room but I don’t know if she ate anything.”
I nod and turn to head up the stairs. “Good night, Struz,” I call, knowing he’ll either crash on the couch or let himself out, depending on how tired he is and how early he has to get up in the morning.
In my room, I throw my purse on my dresser, kick off my shoes, and fall into bed. I’ll change my clothes tomorrow. I open up the wallet and pull out everything that’s inside. There’s a picture of Jared and me from Comic-Con three years ago, a twenty-dollar bill, my dad’s driver’s license, a couple of credit cards, a gift card to Target, and a slip of paper with the numbers 3278 on it. I want that to be a clue, but I know it’s probably his locker number at the gym.
Even though I know he’s probably asleep and that it’ll go straight to voice mail, I call the number for Barclay’s FBI phone and listen to it ring. I need information, and I’m hoping he can get it for me without asking too many questions. He doesn’t care about me like Struz does, which means he won’t be worrying about what I’m up to. When the generic voice mail picks up, I leave a message, asking him to call me back tomorrow. I even tell him we need to meet, exchange information.
As I’m hanging up, there’s a knock on my door.
Instinctively I throw the phone down and leap off the bed, wondering if whoever’s knocking just heard me leave that message.
I crack open the door, and Struz is there. He’s got his sweatshirt on and his car keys in his hand.
“What’s up?” I ask, trying to pretend he didn’t almost just catch me calling an analyst so I could illegally involve myself in a federal investigation.
“I just want to say…” He coughs into his hand and shifts uncomfortably. “You know you can come to me, with whatever you’re into?”
“Of course,” I say, probably too quickly for it to be believable.
I start to shut the door again, but then his hand comes out and stops me. My heart beats faster. What does he think I’m into—what does he know?
I almost tell him. I almost let Ben’s seven-year secret just pour out of my mouth, but I can’t do it. Even if Struz did believe me, I don’t know how the FBI would really help. I know someone like Elijah isn’t going to talk to them.
Instead I just look up at Struz and wait.
He clears his throat. “Whatever you’re doing with the backup gun and the files that were in your dad’s safe, be careful.”
I nod, but I can’t help but wonder why so many people seem to have so much trust in me to do the right thing.
I hope I don’t let them down.
B
arclay calls me back when I’m at lunch. I see his name on my caller ID and practically jump up from my seat next to Cecily and answer the phone.
“It’s Janelle,” I say, because
hello
seems just a little too social for the two of us.
“What do you need, Tenner?” he asks. “I only do designated-driver runs after midnight.”
“I’m sure most girls find your humor tantalizing. But actually I was hoping you’d meet me after work,” I say, trying not to let my voice show how desperate I am for him to agree. “I have some information about a case that I think would be of interest to you, and I have some questions.”
“You think you’re going to get me to give you information?” he asks with a laugh.
“I know I will,” I say. “After all, I know you violated a direct order and brought a civilian—and minor—to a crime scene that’s been kept under wraps.”
“I’ll just get a slap on the wrist from Struz.”
“Maybe, but what will happen to you if this gets leaked to the press?” I say, even though I’m not a hundred percent sure where that threat is coming from. Too many bad Mafia movies? “I’m sure they’d be shocked and appalled to hear how traumatized I am.”
Barclay must be trying to digest that, because he doesn’t say anything.
“I have information for you too, you know,” I offer. I don’t want to scare him off too much.
“Information?” he asks. “What could you possibly have?”
“Just all my dad’s files.”
I swear I can hear the intake of breath through the phone.
“All right,” Barclay says. “I get off around five. Where do you want to meet?”
I tell him the address of the Chili’s in Mira Mesa, the location Alex and I agreed on. I’ll get information from Barclay, and Alex and Ben will drive around and compare gas stations to the photo my dad had of alias Mike Cooper.
When I hang up, I head back to my table. Alex is eating with Cecily and a few friends—people we’ve had classes with the past two years. They’re still talking about the upcoming calculus test and whether we’ll be prepared for the AP test in May—the same thing they were talking about when I got up. They have no idea how little that will matter if the world ends.
I pretend to listen, but glance around the quad, looking for Ben.
He and Elijah are in their usual spot on the grass, with girls like Roxy and Alicia, and laughing loudly.
Ben looks casually disinterested, the way he always does, and for some reason this time I feel insanely jealous and wish he were eating lunch with me.
“So Ben Michaels…,” Cecily says suddenly, and when I turn back to our table, she’s smiling at me.
A couple of people laugh, like they’re waiting to be let in on some joke, but Cecily just keeps looking at me with her big smile. “He
is
cute,” she giggles.
I shrug. “If you like that mysterious bad boy kind of thing.”
She smiles wider and looks in Ben and Elijah’s direction. “I do, actually.”
“I’m not sure I understand the whole allure of the bad boy,” Alex says. “Frankly, I’ve always thought the intelligent and hardworking valedictorian type should be more appealing.”
“Oh, Alex, how little you understand girls,” I say with a laugh.
Cecily turns back to us. “Ben Michaels seems pretty damn smart in physics. I seem to recall a recent lab where he told one of those intelligent and hardworking valedictorian types what he was doing wrong.”
Alex nods. “I suppose this means I need a new wardrobe.”
Which springboards an entirely too long conversation about what Cecily would do to make over Alex in order to make him look like a bad boy.
My eyes wander back to Ben.
Until Alex bumps my shoulder.
“What?” I say, turning my attention to him.
He nods his head at something, but he’s terrible at it, and I have no idea what direction he actually wants me to look.
After a few seconds of me blankly staring, he rolls his eyes. “Kate,” he says. “She’s eating lunch by herself?”
I turn to look at the tables by the gym where Kate and her friends always eat, and sure enough, Alex is right. Kate is eating at a table by herself, while the girls she always eats with are several tables away. As I’m watching, Brooke gets up from her table and practically bounces over to Kate and says something.
But Kate just shakes her head and looks down until Brooke walks away.
“I wonder what that’s all about,” Alex says.
“Does it matter?” I ask, turning back to my food. And wishing it didn’t.
“S
o you’re now more than halfway through the novel,” Poblete says, “and you just hit a major turning point. Based on your reading last night, what new revelation have we learned about Gatsby?”
I should be relieved to be in school. It’s the only time of the day I can actually forget about the countdown, alternate universes, and alias Mike Cooper and pretend to be normal. Except when I realize how behind I am, how little I know about what’s going on in class, panic wells up in my chest, because with everything else going on, I didn’t do my reading last night, or the night before.