The Future of Us

17://Emma

I ARRIVE AT SCHOOL early and head to the newspaper office. Kellan’s editorials are due on Tuesdays and she always reviews last-minute changes with Tamika West, who’s the editor in chief. When I enter, Kellan and Tamika are marking up papers spread out on a long table.

“Hey, Emma,” Tamika says.

Kellan looks up. “What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” This morning, I blew my hair straight and even put on makeup, which I rarely do for school. But I just needed the ego boost today.

“You look fried,” Kellan says.

“I’m fine… just a little tired.”

“Can you hang on for a second?” Kellan asks. “We’re almost done.”

I settle into a stained armchair at the corner of the office. It’s a cluttered room, with newspaper clippings, gum wrappers, and flattened soda cans everywhere. For several weeks after Tyson broke up with her, we ate lunch at that long table.

I listen as Kellan and Tamika discuss Kellan’s editorial. I read an early draft of it. It’s about a school policy prohibiting girls from wearing shirts that reveal their midriffs, and whether that violates their First Amendment rights. It makes me think about Graham lusting after my belly button in the dugout yesterday. On my way here, I slipped a note through the vents in his locker, saying I wouldn’t see him until band. That way he won’t hunt me down for a make out session before class. Eventually we need to have the breakup talk, just not this morning.

Kellan picks up her backpack. “Ready?”

We walk into the hallway, and people are starting to arrive at their lockers. I have no idea what I’ll say to Josh if I run into him. It was dark when we returned home from Photomat and said good night. But now, under the bright florescent lights of school, my emotions are too exposed.

“Did you hear about Rick’s bonfire on Friday night?” Kellan asks as we walk up the stairs. “Tamika told me about it. It’s at the end of Senior Skip Day, but the party isn’t just for seniors. It’s on the beach behind his house, and he’s inviting anyone who wants to come.”

Rick Rolland is a senior who plays football and throws parties and always has a beautiful girlfriend. He actually went out with Sydney Mills last year, but word is that he cheated on her with a ninth grader.

“Rick lives on the lake?” I ask, thinking about Josh and Sydney’s future house.

“Yeah. Want to go?”

“I guess,” I say, though it’s hard planning for the end of the week when all I can think about is fifteen years in the future. As we head down the foreign language corridor, I turn to Kellan. “Do you think it’s too late to sign up for that college biology course?”

Kellan claps her hands together. “You changed your mind?”

“I think so,” I say.

I woke up this morning feeling sad for myself. But telling people I’m taking a college class while still in high school sounds worthy of respect. Also, I liked biology this year, especially the units on genetics and DNA.

“It’ll be much harder than high school bio, but you’ll do great,” Kellan says. “And you’ve already got the grades, so you’ll definitely get in.”

“I hope so,” I say.

Kellan links arms with me and squeals. “This is our first step on the way to med school!”

“We’re going to med school now?”

“We can even live together. And do our residency at the same hospital!”

When she says this, I realize that I can try looking up Kellan on Facebook. Maybe I’ll even see if she actually does go to med school. It’s such a powerful thought that Facebook isn’t limited to Josh and me. I might be able to look up anyone and see what their future holds.

18://Josh

TYSON AND I HAVE GYM third period. If we played a sport, we wouldn’t need to take gym, but the sacrifice is worth it. With the time it takes to change and walk to the volleyball courts, class only lasts thirty minutes.

I wipe my towel beneath each arm, and then toss it back in my locker. In the next row, someone’s beeper goes off.

Tyson’s towel is wrapped tight around his waist. He reaches beneath it to pull off his gym shorts. “I tried getting my dad to buy me a beeper for my birthday,” he says, “but he thinks only doctors and drug dealers need them.”

I sniff my armpits and reach into my locker for deodorant. “Why do you want one?”

“So people can reach me if they need to,” he says.

“Are you really that in demand?” I ask. “I know you’re not a drug dealer, so are you secretly a doctor?”

Kyle Simpson saunters around the corner, naked as usual. He holds up his little black beeper and presses a button to make the seven digits glow. “My girlfriend’s paging me,” he tells us. “Anyone got a quarter for the pay phone?”

Kyle’s girlfriend goes to the college, and we all know what it means when she beeps him during gym. He’ll be cutting fourth period and won’t return until the end of lunch.

Kyle is one of Emma’s exes. They dated for a while last year, and she used to talk about how hot he was when he took off his shirt. Guys seem to love doing that if they’re ripped. Needless to say, I’m a shirt-on kind of guy. I’m just thankful I didn’t have gym with Kyle while they were dating. The last thing I needed was to hear him talk about Emma while parading around buck naked.

I pretend to feel around for change on my towel. “Sorry, dude.”

Tyson pulls his bunched-up pants out of his locker, reaches into one of the pockets, and tosses over a quarter. Kyle slaps him on the back, then swaggers back down the aisle. When he’s gone, Tyson and I look at each other and shudder.

“Why does he do that?” I whisper. “Either get dressed or wrap a towel around yourself.”

“Exactly,” Tyson says. “I don’t need to see his schlong five days a week.”

I pull my shirt over my head. “Maybe that’s why you and Kellan broke up. You call it a ‘schlong.’”

“If I’d had a beeper,” Tyson says, “I bet we’d still be together.”

“If you had a beeper, she’d be calling it nonstop. You’d spend half your life running to the nearest payphone to call her back.”

The bell rings and I finish tying my sneakers. Then I yank my backpack from my locker and set it on the bench. From the front pocket, I remove a pen and a sheet of paper, which I smooth against my thigh. During first period, I began a list called “I wonder what becomes of…?” So far I’ve written the names of eighteen people I want to search for on Emma’s computer. The list includes a few of the smartest people in my grade. Maybe one of them finds a cure for AIDS or designs a car that doesn’t run on gas. Maybe the president of drama club makes it to Broadway. And my first girlfriend, Rebecca Alvarez. What’s she doing fifteen years from now?

There are also the people too bizarre to ignore, like Kyle Simpson. Future male stripper.

19://Emma

KELLAN AND I are spending study hall in the library. Kellan, who will ace finals no problem, is taking a quiz in YM called “What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?” I’m trying to remember key events in the Spanish-American War for the history final, but what I’m really thinking about is my future.

I close my eyes and massage my forehead. It’s hard to tell much when the future is given out a few random sentences at a time. Also, my life has changed every time we’ve looked, so I can’t even predict what’s going to make my future self miserable today.

“‘You’re having a girls’ night in,’” Kellan reads, “‘when your boyfriend calls and invites you to the movies. Do you, (A), say you can’t make it but you’ll be free tomorrow; (B), invite him over to join your gal pals; or (C)—’”

“None of the above,” I say. “Call him on the fact that he doesn’t really want to see a movie. It’s just a booty call.”

“You’re right,” Kellan says, shaking her head. “Guys are such horndogs.”

I study my fingernails. “Do you ever think about who you’re going to marry someday?”

“Funny you should ask.” Kellan grins and folds down a corner of her magazine page. “This morning I was telling Tamika about a Husband Theory I came up with.”

“You have a Husband Theory?”

“I thought of it while I was waiting at a stoplight yesterday,” she says. “Okay, imagine you’re about to die in a head-on collision. There you are, driving down the street, when a Ford Bronco comes hurtling toward you. You know this is it, the end. So you glance in the passenger seat and… who do you see?”

“That’s terrible, Kel!”

“Quick, who do you see? That’s your future husband.”

I pick some coral polish off my thumbnail. “I’m the one driving?”

“Yes, and you’re both about to die. Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “You, maybe.”

“Impossible” she says. “We just learned in sociology that they don’t allow same-sex marriage anywhere in the world. That’s what my next editorial is about. But come on! Who’s in your passenger seat?”

“No one,” I say, shaking my head. “I see a tabby cat. Or maybe one of those cockatoos like that woman downtown carries on her shoulder.”

Kellan pushes out her lower lip. “You’re not even playing along.”

“Sorry. Okay, I’ll envision Cody. What about you? Who do you see?”

“Tyson,” she says, and then she opens her magazine again.

“Tyson?” I look over my shoulder to make sure the librarian hasn’t noticed us talking. She’s sitting at the front desk, reading School Library Journal. “He broke your heart. Twice! Why do you always forget that?”

“That’s who I see,” Kellan says. “I can’t help it. But do you want to hear something cute? Tyson’s helping some senior skaters get the wood for the bonfire on Friday night. That’s so Paul Bunyan of him, isn’t it?”

When Kellan goes back to her YM quiz, I think about my real future husband, Jordan Jones Jr. He didn’t have much on his webpage, though he obviously enjoys fishing. But I don’t know enough about him to envision him in my passenger seat.

Then it hits me. I jump out of my chair and hurry across the library. He’s what’s making my future suck. If I can get rid of him, then maybe I’ll have a shot at happiness.

“Ms. Nesbit?” I say. The librarian has a pink streak in her hair and two silver hoops at the top of one ear. “Does the library have any phone books?”

She sets down her magazine, open to an article on book censorship. She’s definitely one of the cooler teachers at Lake Forest High.

“Is it an emergency?” she asks, heaving out the local white pages. “I can let you use the phone in back if you need to make a call.”

“Actually, I’m looking for phone books from other states.”

Ms. Nesbit fidgets with one of her earrings. “Any state in particular?”

My pulse quickens. “California?”

“You should try the public library,” Ms. Nesbit says. “They have phone books from all over the country. I’m sure they have some from California.”

20://Josh

AFTER TAKING ATTENDANCE, Mrs. Tuttle leads our class down the hall toward the auditorium, where we’ll join another Peer Issues class on the stage. Whatever we’re doing, that’s the only space big enough for everyone.

At the far end of the hall are the double doors to the theater. Mr. Fritz’s class is already filing in. I remember David’s advice about not letting moments pass me by, so I hurry to catch up with Sydney Mills. As I approach, her coconut scent washes over me and I’m reminded of suntan lotion and bikinis. And Waikiki! I mean, Acapulco.

I don’t want to force a moment between us, but I need to talk to her at least once to get it over with. Otherwise, I’ll keep agonizing about when she’ll ever acknowledge me. Just yesterday, the two of us falling in love never would have occurred to me. But after seeing that photo of Emma at the lake, and the one of Sydney and me with our kids, there’s no way this could be a hoax.

I slide up beside Sydney and walk next to her down the hall. I need to say something clever. Something she’ll always remember as the first words I ever said to her. We’ll write those words on Valentine’s Day cards and retell the story to our grandchildren someday.

Sydney looks over at me and smiles. Here’s my moment!

“I… I like this auditorium we’re going to.”

Really? That’s the ice-breaker that seals our fate?

“That’s good,” she says, her smile fading. “Because that’s where we’re going.”

To get through the doors, our class shrinks into a compact mass of bodies. I let Sydney pull ahead while my face burns with embarrassment. “I like this auditorium we’re going to” will not be appearing on any Valentine’s cards.

The other class is standing near the edge of the stage with their teacher. Mr. Fritz is overweight, yet he always wears tight polyester shirts. Apparently, whenever he talks about sex he gets crescent-moon sweat marks beneath his man-breasts.

“Let’s gather round,” Mrs. Tuttle says. She walks close to Mr. Fritz and we form a semicircle around them.

Sydney settles at one end of the semicircle while I hang near the center.

“We are here to do a group exercise,” Mr. Fritz explains. “Hopefully it will allow you to see outside of your own lives.”

Next to me, a guy from the other class whispers, “A dollar says Fritz and Tuttle do the wild thing in the teachers’ lounge.”

Mrs. Tuttle takes a step forward. “We thought it would be enlightening to learn how many different perspectives there can be on relationships just within our two classes.” She places a hand on Mr. Fritz’s shoulder.

“What’d I tell you?” the guy asks, grinning at me.

“One of the things we’ve been trying to get across all semester,” Mr. Fritz says, “is that your well-being is affected by the relationships you have.”

I glance over at Sydney. She’s paying close attention as she twists back her hair. I take in her long hair and smooth skin. Everything about her is so beautiful.

Mr. Fritz points to the four corners of the stage. “Each corner will represent a different relationship philosophy. We’ll give you a scenario and present you with four options, then you’ll move to the corner you most agree with.” He hands his clipboard to Mrs. Tuttle.

“We’ll start with an easy one,” she says. “Imagine that you want to go on a date with someone at our school. Would you ask them out… wait as long as it takes for them to ask you out… tell your friend to find out what that person thinks of you… or are you simply too busy to date?”

“People don’t really call it dating anymore,” Abby Law says.

A few people giggle, and Ms. Tuttle says, “Well, whatever you call it.”

The guy next to me shouts, “Hooking up!” and now the whole class is laughing.

Mr. Fritz points to the front of the stage. “Come downstage-left if you’d ask that person out. But if you’d rather—”

Abby Law cuts in again. “Actually, you’re pointing upstage-right.”

After the four options are sorted out, I walk to the corner where you ask a friend for help. Last fall, I should’ve asked Tyson to find out what Emma thought about our relationship. It would’ve saved me so much humiliation.

“No one’s too busy to date?” Mrs. Tuttle asks, pointing toward the empty corner.

Shana Roy raises her hand. Any guy in this room would give his left nut to be asked out by her.

“I almost went over there,” she says. “But if the right person asked, I’m sure I’d find the time.”

“That wasn’t the question,” another girl says. “What would you do if you wanted to date someone?”

“You’re right,” Shana says. “I’d ask them out.”

She walks across the stage, and I’m mesmerized by the strip of tan bare skin swiveling above her jeans.

At lunch, Kellan talked about the school’s new midriff rule, and how she thinks it violates student rights. Tyson and I laughed, and he told her that every guy is passionately against the rule, but not because of any rights. It’s the view! That pissed Kellan off and she chucked a handful of fries at him.

“This one might be tougher,” Mrs. Tuttle says. She looks at her clipboard and reads, “If things are moving too fast sexually, and a girl is visibly upset, should the boy stop even if the girl hasn’t said the word no?”

The four corners represent “yes,” “no,” “the boy should ask if everything’s okay,” and “I don’t have enough information.” People begin shuffling around until we’re almost equally divided between “yes” and “ask if everything’s okay.” Surprisingly, three girls think it’s fine to keep going.

Ruby Jenkins defends her point of view. “I know girls who’ve been in that situation. And I’m sorry, but you need to say something.”

“Understood,” Mrs. Tuttle says. “Now, Ruby, what if even one boy stood in your corner?”

Ruby smirks. “I’d kick his you-know-what.”

The other girls in her corner laugh and give her high fives.

“That’s stupid,” a guy says. He’s the same person who thinks Fritz and Tuttle are doing the wild thing. “That’s female sexism. The girl needs to speak up.”

Mr. Wild Thing is a senior who plays varsity football. Whenever I pass him in the hall, I get the urge to drop and do fifty push-ups.

“That’s wasn’t the question, Rick,” Sydney says. “If a guy is pushing a girl too far and she’s visibly upset, then he needs to back off.”

A couple girls behind me laugh and one whispers, “I didn’t know Sydney Mills had a ‘too far.’”

I keep my eyes on Sydney. I don’t think she could’ve heard that comment from the opposite end of the stage, but for a brief moment I see her bite her lip.

“I’m just saying,” she says, her voice quieter, “she shouldn’t have to spell everything out for him.”

“So he needs to be a mind reader?” Rick asks.

“I’m just—” Sydney stops midsentence and shakes her head.

Mr. Fritz opens his mouth, but before I know it, I blurt out, “She’s right. It’s human decency.”

Did I actually just say that? It’s true, but why did I say it out loud? And “human decency”? I could’ve come up with something better than that!

“Well put,” Mr. Fritz says, tapping a pencil against the clipboard. “Okay, the next question is about premarital sex, and I’m sure there will be plenty of strong opinions here, too.”

“Human decency?” Abby Law whispers to me. “That sounds like something my dad would say.”

I stare straight ahead, pretending I didn’t hear her. But then, from across the stage, I notice something unusual.

Sydney Mills is looking right at me.

21://Emma

AFTER THE LAST BELL RINGS, I store my saxophone in my band locker and rush to the student parking lot. Even though a trip to the public library sounds innocent, I know I shouldn’t be doing what I’m about to do. And since I’m also skipping track, it’s best to leave the school grounds quickly.

“Emma! Wait up!”

Josh jogs across the parking lot, waving me down. I haven’t seen him since lunch, when I let him stash his skateboard in my backseat.

“I need to get my board,” he says. “Tyson and I are heading over to Chris McKellar’s half-pipe.”

“That sounds like a good thing to do,” I say, trying to keep my nerves calm.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine.” I open the driver’s side door and get in, avoiding eye contact. I hate being dishonest with Josh, but I can’t tell him what I’m about to do. My future husband didn’t come home for three nights. Three nights! And now he’s using my money to buy some gadget. Meanwhile, I can’t even afford a therapist, which I most likely need in the future so I can talk about him!

I have to get rid of this guy.

“Where are you headed?” Josh asks. He pops the passenger seat forward and leans into the back.

“Nowhere,” I say. Then, because that sounded too guilty, I add, “Just the public library to research something.”

Josh glances covertly around and then whispers, “After dinner, we should go to that website again.”

“Fine,” I say.

“Also, I was thinking we should have a code word for it so people don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“How about ‘Facebook’?” I say, starting my engine. “No one’s heard of that.”

AS I’M HEADING toward the library entrance, I run into Dylan Portman. We went out at the beginning of tenth grade. We’d been counselors-in-training at the YMCA day camp that summer. By the time school started, we were a couple. We didn’t have much of a connection beyond camp, though, so when he broke up with me, I didn’t take it too hard. That’s why it’s never weird when we see each other.

“How’s it going?” Dylan asks. He’s carrying a huge stack of hardcover books, so I grab the door and hold it open for him. He grins at me, flashing that sexy dimple on his left cheek. Dylan knows he’s hot, and he can work it.

“School lets out and you go straight to the library?” he says, walking next to me.

“Well, look at you with that massive pile of books.”

“I’m returning them for my little sister.” Dylan grins and adds, “I’m that kind of guy.”

Generally, I wouldn’t mind flirting with Dylan, but I’m on a mission and I can’t let anyone get in my way, even if that person has a sexy dimple and tousled brown hair.

“I have a lot of research to do,” I say. Then, to make sure Dylan doesn’t come along while I look for the phone books, I add, “I might be meeting Graham later.”

“Graham Wilde? Awesome how he buzzed his hair.” Dylan points his chin in the direction of the returns desk and then says, “Don’t work too hard.”

The air conditioner is blasting in the library, and it makes me shiver. Or maybe the shiver comes from knowing that I’m about to find my future husband’s phone number. I head straight to the reference desk. The guy working there is chewing on a pencil as he stares at a computer screen.

“Excuse me?” I ask. “My school librarian said you might have phone books from other states.”

He taps at his keyboard and then rises from his chair, sliding the pencil behind his ear. I follow him around a corner and down a flight of stairs, finally arriving at a long shelf crammed with phone books.

The librarian crosses his arms. “Is there a particular state you’re looking for?”

“California,” I say. “Chico, California.”

“That’s in Butte County, I believe.” He plucks the pencil from behind his ear, studies the bite marks, and then retrieves a medium-sized phone book. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

When he disappears back into the stairwell, I sit cross-legged on the floor and hurriedly flip to the Js. There are hundreds of Joneses in Chico, California. I focus my eyes on the tiny print. Jones, Adam. Jones, Anthony. Jones, Anthony C. Jones, Arthur. They go on forever! But if my husband’s name is Jordan Jones Junior, then his dad must be a Jordan, too. I flip the page, and with a stab of disappointment, I see there’s no one named Jordan Jones.

If there isn’t a Jordan, maybe his dad is listed by his first initial. I glance at the beginning of the Joneses where they list the single letters, but there are tons of Js there. Clutching the phone book against my chest, I run upstairs to find a photocopy machine.

I give the librarian a dollar and he hands me ten dimes. I spread the phone book across the smooth glass of the copy machine, close the top, and drop a coin in the slot. It lands with a tinny plink, and I hit the green start button.

22://Josh

I’M SITTING ON TOP of the half-pipe in Chris McKellar’s backyard. My legs dangle over the lip while Tyson skates up one side and back down to the other. Chris graduated last year, but his parents still let us use the ramp. As usual, almost everyone else on the half-pipe is a senior. They’re okay with us being here, though, because we always bring pizza.

Sitting beside me, a non-skater guy is full of questions. “Why do they call it a half-pipe?”

He’s here with his girlfriend, who just stepped off on the deck at the opposite end.

“Really? You don’t know?” I ask.

“It looks to me like a U-shaped ramp,” he says.

His eyelids are half-mast and he nods slowly to himself. I wonder how much weed he’s smoked today. For whatever reason, I feel compelled to answer him. “If you took another half-pipe, flipped it upside down, then placed it on top of this one, you’d have a full circle, like a pipe,” I say. “Actually, I guess it’d be more of an oval.”

“You know what you should call it then?” His face goes completely serious. “A half-oval.”

I’m tempted to slide down the ramp, grab my backpack, and add this guy to my “I wonder what becomes of…?” list, which is now up to thirty-seven names. It starts with Tyson, then my brother, my parents, and all the way down to this kid in my grade, Frank Wheeler, who once told us that if he’s not a millionaire by the time he’s thirty he’ll jump in front of a bus.

Tyson roars up beside me, rocks the middle of his board against the lip, then rolls back down again. Across the ramp, the stoner guy’s girlfriend adjusts her helmet. When she first showed up last month, no one wanted to give her a chance. But on her first drop she put most of us to shame.

“You should ask your girlfriend to teach you to skate,” I say.

“No way,” he says. “It requires too much balance.”

Tyson skates up close, locking his rear truck against the lip. He extends his arm and I pull him onto the deck.

“Ready?” he asks. “I need to get to work and prep for a party.”

Fifteen years in the future, I wonder if Tyson’s running GoodTimez Pizza. It wouldn’t be a bad job. Free pizza for life sounds like a sweet deal to me. In fact, Sydney and I probably take our kids there on their birthdays.

I drop down the ramp, twisting halfway and ending in a knee-slide.

“What time’s the birthday party?” I ask as Tyson and I push through the side gate.

“Five thirty,” he says. “But I told Kellan I’d meet up for a few minutes before I start. She has a break in her college class and wants to talk.”

I tap the tail of my board against the sidewalk. “What about?”

“Who knows,” he says. “She’s probably pissed at me about something. I can do no right by that woman.”

“You don’t have to meet her,” I say. “Not if she’s just going to chew you out.”

We pause at an intersection and Tyson turns to me with a grin. “But she’s so hot when she’s mad.”

We cross the street and Tyson nods toward the road leading to the cemetery. “Are you up for a quick detour?”

We lean our boards against the cemetery gate and walk along the winding gravel path. It’s odd to think that only a few rows over, near Clarence and Millicent’s final resting place, Emma and I began to pull apart. It was cold that night, so she snuggled against me. It’s not that she hadn’t done that before, but it felt different that time. She asked about the upcoming winter formal and whether I was thinking of going. I wasn’t, but I said that if no one asked her, maybe we should go together. I said it with a half-smile so she could take it as a joke if she wanted. She remained quiet as we walked through the shadow of gravestones, and then finally said, “Maybe.”

I liked “maybe.” I pictured her in the shiny blue dress she modeled for me after a trip into Pittsburgh with her mom. I imagined slow-dancing with her. With that thought in mind, I finally told her I liked her. My heart pounded, and I did what I’d wanted to do for a long time. I leaned down to kiss her.

But Emma pulled back. “What are you doing?”

“I thought maybe—”

She shook her head. “Oh, no.”

“I thought we—”

“We weren’t,” she said. “I couldn’t. You’re… Josh.”

And that’s when everything changed.

It’s been six months since that night, and things are definitely changing again. In fact, they’re changing in ways I never could’ve—

Oh, no.

After school, when I got my skateboard from Emma’s car, something was up. Maybe it was the way she didn’t make eye contact. Or how she said she was going to the library to look something up. Emma is always more specific than that. And if she’s hiding something, there’s only one thing it could be. It’s about her future.

But if Emma’s sneaking around changing her future, she could unintentionally mess up mine. And I love my future! One little ripple started today could create a typhoon fifteen years from now.

I look over at Tyson. His eyes are on the gravestone:

“I need to head out,” I tell him. “I forgot, but I have to check on something. I can try to swing by GoodTimez later.”

“That’s cool,” Tyson says, nodding at me. “I’m going to be a few more minutes.”

I run back up the gravel path. Once I hit the parking lot, I throw my board in front of me and jump on. When I get to the sidewalk, I dip at the knees to make the sharp turn, then push hard down the street, mentally mapping the fastest route to the library.

23://Emma

I TUCK THE PHOTOCOPIED PAGES in my backpack and hurry out to my car. Now that I have a list of numbers to try, I need to buy a phone card and get home as quickly as possible.

Dylan catches up to me in the parking lot. “You must be in some deep thought,” he says. “I was calling your name since you walked out the door.”

I tuck my hair behind my ear. Even though I blew it straight this morning, the warm weather’s making it spring up again.

I normally wouldn’t mind hanging out with Dylan for a few minutes, but I’m in a rush. I know that what I’m about to do is wrong. The ripples throughout my entire life will be huge. So I need to track down Jordan Jones Jr. before my conscience takes over, or before I run into Josh and he tries to stop me.

“Where are you headed?” Dylan asks as we approach my car.

“I need to grab something at 7-Eleven.”

“Any chance you can give me a ride?”

“That’s fine,” I say. “But I’m in a hurry.”

“I can hop out at 7-Eleven and walk from there.”

I unlock my car and we both climb in. As Dylan pulls around his seatbelt, I notice the three books on his lap. Weetzie Bat and two more from the Dangerous Angels series.

“You’re into Francesca Lia Block now?” I ask. “Because I’m pretty sure those aren’t for your little sister.”

“These are for Callie. She’s obsessed with this author. Have you read them?”

I drive across the parking lot. “Who’s Callie?”

“My girlfriend. She lives in Pittsburgh, but she was at the prom with me.”

“Oh,” I say.

“We’ve been together since Christmas. You should see her snowboard. That’s how we met.”

The way he’s talking about this girl sounds serious. I can’t help being a little annoyed, though. The summer Dylan and I were camp counselors, I was reading all the Francesca Lia Block books whenever we had a break. The fact that he doesn’t seem to remember that stings for some reason.

DYLAN HOLDS OPEN the door to 7-Eleven for me. As we say goodbye, I double-check the parking lot to make sure Josh isn’t one of the skaters out there.

At the counter, I debate between a five- and a ten-dollar phone card. I choose the cheaper one, pay the guy, and then walk back to my car.

I drive home slowly, watching a father in his driveway lift up his young son so he can dunk a basket. Sprinklers quietly arch across front lawns. These neighborhoods feel so serene, almost frozen in time.

Meanwhile, Josh and I are hurtling into our futures.

I hit the power button on my radio, and turn the volume high. “Wonderwall” by Oasis is playing. That’s Kellan’s new favorite. She was humming it as we left study hall earlier.

I turn off the radio. I don’t need to feel any guiltier for going home, locking my bedroom door, and permanently blocking one of those winding roads.

24://Josh

I’M SWEATY when I arrive at the library, and the cold air is a shock. I don’t know what Emma’s looking for in here, so I have no idea where to find her. I race across the carpeted floor, looking through the aisles of fiction. No Emma. She’s not at the magazines or in the children’s room, either. Finally, I go to the reference desk. The man working there is staring at a computer screen.

“Excuse me?” I ask. “Was there a girl in here, probably not too long ago? She would’ve been looking for… something.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” The man removes a pencil from behind his ear. “What does she look like?”

“She’s shorter than me,” I say. “She’s pretty. Her hair is curly and comes down to here.” I touch behind my shoulder.

The man writes something on a yellow legal pad and then nods. “I meant to ask if she’s going to college in Chico, because there’s a—”

Shit!

“Why would you ask her about Chico?” I say.

His eyes notice something behind me, and then he tosses up his hands in exasperation. “I told the interns not to leave empty carts near the copy machine. People set their books there and don’t return them to the shelves.”

“Why Chico?” I ask again.

The man walks out from behind the desk and I follow him to the copier. “The last time I saw her,” he says, lifting a phone book from the cart, “your friend was over here making copies.”

He’s holding a phone book from California. Emma, what are you doing?

I glance into the blue recycling bin next to the copier and notice a single sheet of paper in there. I pull it out. The copy is dark, but I can make out enough. Someone copied a two-page spread of phone numbers for people named Jones.

“Is your friend thinking of going to California for college?” the man asks. “Because my daughter—”

“I highly doubt it,” I say, folding up the paper and stuffing it into my back pocket. “But thanks.”

I hurry to the front door of the library. Once outside, I hop on my board and skate toward home as fast as I can.

25://Emma

THERE’S NO ONE AT HOME. Even so, I lock my bedroom door before pulling the two sheets of paper from my backpack. I unfold them onto my desk, pressing my fingers along the creases.

After punching in the toll-free activation number on the back of the phone card, I start by calling J.B. Jones. An answering machine picks up, saying it’s the home of Janice and Bobby. I quickly hang up and cross out Jones, J.B. with a pencil.

The next number I try is an old lady who’s convinced I’m her granddaughter. It takes almost five minutes before she lets me hang up. I should have gotten the ten-dollar phone card.

Next up is Jones, J.D. I follow the steps on the card and dial the number.

A woman with a singsong voice answers. “Hello?”

“Hi,” I say, “is Jordan there?”

“Junior or Senior?” she asks.

I clutch the phone against my shoulder, wipe my sweaty hands on my shorts, and clear my throat. “Junior, please.”

“My nephew’s living with his mom now.”

Think fast, Emma.

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “I couldn’t find his number, but I thought this might have been it.”

There’s silence on the other end.

“What’d you say your name was?” the woman asks.

I consider making up a name, but I feel nervous enough as is. “My name is Emma. We’re friends from school.”

“Jordan certainly had plenty of those. You got a pen?”

As she recites the number, I scribble it in a margin of my photocopy. We say goodbye and I hang up, staring at the phone number of my future husband.

Some people would wait. Josh, for example, would think this through carefully. He’d weigh the options, and then call David to get his brother’s opinion. I, on the other hand, just flip over the phone card and start dialing.

“Hello?” It’s a guy’s voice.

“Jordan?”

“No, it’s Mike. Hang on.”

The phone gets set down. There’s a television on in the background, and something that might be a blender. Mike, who I’m guessing is my future brother-in-law, shouts for Jordan and then says, “How should I know?”

The blender stops. Footsteps approach the phone, and then a guy’s voice says, “What’s up?”

“Is this Jordan?” I ask.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Emma,” I say, smiling broadly. “We met at that party… recently?”

I hold my breath, hoping Jordan went to a party at some point in the past month.

“Jenny Fulton’s?” he asks.

I exhale. “Yeah. Jenny’s.”

There wasn’t much to go on when I looked up Jordan on Facebook. It had his name, his picture, and his hometown. Even so, my goal is to keep him on the phone long enough to figure out how, at some point in the future, our lives intersect.

“So what’s up?” he asks.

“Not much,” I say. “What have you been up to?”

“Just hanging out.”

Silence.

“Have you been… fishing recently?” I ask.

“Uh, no,” he says. “I’ve never been fishing.”

Dead silence.

“So what have you been doing?” I ask.

“Mostly looking for a summer job.”

“Cool,” I say.

The blender starts up again. “Listen, was there something you wanted?” he asks. “Because I should probably get back to—”

“Oh, right,” I say, picking up speed. “Anyway, I was thinking about our conversation at the party.”

“Are you sure you’re not talking about Jordan Nicholson?” he asks. “I think he was there, too. People always get us mixed up.”

It’s strange, but Jordan doesn’t sound like an asshole. He almost seems nice. So how is it possible that someday he becomes the kind of person who ends up staying out for three nights, most likely cheating on me? Would he believe that was possible if I told him right now?

“It was definitely you,” I say. “We were talking about where we’re applying to college and you—”

“Hang on,” Jordan says.

I hear a screen door slam and a girl’s voice say, “You ready?”

Jordan tells her it’ll be a second. “Sorry,” he says to me. “No, I really think you’re talking about Nicholson because I’m already in college. I just got home for the summer.”

“Really?” My voice catches. “Where do you go?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe this is where Jordan and I meet. I have a rough list of where I want to apply next year, all out of state, and all near an ocean.

“Tampa State,” he says. “I just finished my first year.”

I open my eyes and force a laugh. “You’re right. It was Jordan Nicholson. I am so sorry.”

“Do you need his number?” he asks. “I think Mike has it.”

“No, that’s fine. I’ve got it.”

“Okay, well…” Someone shuts off the TV and I can hear the girl laugh in the background.

As I hold the phone against my ear, I actually feel sad. In the future, Jordan and I were supposed to meet at college and get married. Now, we’ll probably never even know each other.

We say goodbye. When the line disconnects, I continue listening to the silence in the receiver. An automated voice eventually comes on, saying I have ninety-three cents remaining on my card. I hang up and walk over to my dresser.

In my top drawer, beneath my socks and underwear, I keep a journal. I don’t write in it a lot, maybe a few times a year. I flip to an entry I wrote back in March. It’s a list I made after a college counselor talked to us about the application process.

I grab a black marker from my desk and draw a line through “Tampa State.” If I don’t go to college there, I won’t meet Jordan. And if I don’t meet Jordan—

There’s a knock on the door. I bury my journal back in my drawer. “Who is it?”

The handle turns, but the door is locked.

“Emma,” Josh says. “I need to talk to you.”

When I open the door, Josh’s hair is sweaty, with several strands matted to his forehead. He’s holding the Scooby-Doo keychain in one hand, and a folded-up sheet of paper in the other.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

He wipes his brow. “I skated here from the public library.”

I glance nervously at the paper in his hand. “I guess we just missed each other.”

Josh frowns as he unfolds his paper. It’s the first photocopy I made from the phone book. It came out too dark and I tossed it in the recycling bin.

“I know what you’re about to do,” Josh says, “but you can’t unmarry your future husband.”

The way he says “unmarry your future husband” makes my stomach lurch.

“You can’t go around changing what’s supposed to happen,” he says. “I know you’re upset because you’re married to this jerk, but according to Facebook, we’re still friends. I promise I’ll be there for you. If you end up going through a divorce, maybe I can loan you money for a lawyer, or I can let you move into my guest room for a while.”

Loan me money? Anger pulses through me. Right, because he and Sydney are so rich!

Josh notices my phone card on the desk, with the silver scratched off the back to reveal the activation code.

His voice is hushed. “You did it?”

I nod slowly.

“You talked to Jordan?”

“It’s over,” I say. “We’re never going to meet.”

The color drains from Josh’s face.

26://Josh

JUST LIKE THAT, the future is changed forever.

Fifteen years of history—future history—is changed because Emma didn’t like the guy she married. But she only had a few sentences from fifteen years in the future to work with. That’s not nearly enough information to make such a drastic decision about her life. And his life! Come to think of it, any person who was impacted by their relationship, even in the slightest way, will be twisted in countless new directions.

I want to both scream and laugh hysterically. Instead, I crumple the photocopy in my hand and throw it across the room. The paper barely makes a sound when it hits the wall.

“You can’t do that!” I shout.

“Actually,” Emma says, crossing her arms, “it was easy. He goes to Tampa State, so I’m not applying there. North Carolina is now my top choice.”

I collapse onto her bed and press my hands over my eyes. She doesn’t get it! She knows that even the smallest change to our present will ripple into the future. On that first day, Emma was unemployed. The next day she had a job, but we have no idea what she changed to make that happen. One time we looked, Jordan had gone fishing. But later, he mysteriously hadn’t come home for three days. Then macaroni and cheese became lasagna. Maybe Emma doesn’t think it’s important that her dinner was different, but what if next time she cooks, something causes her to make meatloaf and she gets mad cow disease and dies because one little ripple changes her dinner plans in fifteen years?

But to change her future husband? On purpose? Those consequences are immeasurable!

“Admit it,” Emma says. “You would’ve done the same thing if your life looked as bad as mine.”

“No.” I sit up. “I wouldn’t have. You have no idea what else you’ve changed. This is dangerous stuff, Emma.”

“Look who’s talking,” Emma says. “You made a face at Sydney yesterday. Would you have done that if you didn’t know you were going to marry her?”

“I’m talking about changing the future,” I say.

Emma laughs. “Well, what do you think happens when you do something different in the present? It changes the future! You did the same thing as me.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” I say. “Mine was a reaction, but you intentionally made a humongous change. You really wanted to go to Tampa State. I saw you and Kellan researching it in that college-ranking book, and you were saying how close it was to where your dad lives. But now you won’t go there? We need to do things exactly as we would’ve done them before Facebook.”

“Why?” Emma says, and I can see she’s on the verge of crying. “So I can end up unemployed at thirty-one like the first time we checked? Or angry that my husband spends all my money when I do have a job?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I say. “What if, when you were unemployed, you were just one day away from finding your perfect job? Or maybe, when your husband realized you were angry about him buying that iPad thing, he returned it the next day. Emma, all you saw were tiny snippets of the future.”

“I don’t care,” she says. “I know I wasn’t happy, and that needed to change.”

This is making me nervous. The future seems so fragile. For instance, I already saw that I’m going to the University of Washington like my brother. And I definitely want that to happen, but what if knowing I’ll get in makes me slack on the application, and then I get rejected?

“You’re making that face,” Emma says as she types in her email address.

“What face?”

“Like you’re judging me.”

Emma types her password to get into Facebook, and then turns to me with deliberate slowness. “I’m going to speak as calmly as I can,” she says. “The way you’re judging me means you’re not even trying to understand what that life felt like for me.”

“It’s not that I’m not trying. I’m just—”

“You’re being extremely selfish and cruel.”

“How am I being cruel?”

“You know why you don’t care?” Emma’s getting more pissed by the second. “Because you’ve got your perfect wife. You’ve got your beautiful children. And you’ve got me living in your guest room! Do I even have a window in there?”

When Emma says that, I force myself to keep a straight face. “I get it,” I say.

“You don’t get it! You’re acting superior, but what if the roles were reversed?” Emma raises an eyebrow. “That’s right. What if I married Cody and got everything I wanted, and you didn’t get shit? Actually, no, what if you did get shit? Because that’s what I got with Junior!”

“I get it,” I say, quieter this time. “I do.”

“Good.” Emma turns back to her computer and clicks on the tiny picture in the corner.

“Wait!” I jump off the bed and spin Emma around. “Before you look, we need to set some ground rules. This is getting way too big to figure out as we go along.”

Over her shoulder, Emma’s page has mostly loaded. The picture in the corner is different than yesterday. Grown-up Emma’s eyes are closed. Her face is snuggled close to a baby wearing a floppy pink hat.

“What kind of rules?” she asks.

“We can’t be overly picky,” I say. The baby has a small spit bubble between her lips. “If your new life appears relatively happy, we leave it alone.”

Emma turns her head slightly. “You see something on the screen, I can tell.”

“Before you look,” I say, holding tight to her chair, “you have to promise not to tweak the future unless it’s absolutely terrible. Even then, we need to discuss it first.”

“Fine. Now will you let me see if I got rid of him? That’s all I care about.”

I turn her chair around.

Emma squeals. “A baby! I have a baby!” She touches the girl’s face, and then moves her finger across the screen.

Emma slowly lowers her hand into her lap.

“You did it,” I say. “You threw Junior to the curb.” I look again at the name of her new husband. Kevin Storm. It sounds like the alias of a superhero.

“I just wanted to be happy,” she says quietly. “But I also want Jordan Jones to be happy. Is that weird?”

“Think of it this way,” I say. “Now that you’ve taken yourself out of the picture, you’re letting him find the person he was meant to be with.”

“Like that bitch he’s been sleeping with the past three nights?” Emma leans in close to the monitor, and then taps the screen with her finger. “Look! I’m a marine biologist now!”

“That’s random,” I say.

“No it’s not,” she says. “I love the ocean. Remember when I visited my dad in Florida over Christmas? We took a scuba diving class together.”

“It takes more than loving the ocean to become a marine biologist,” I say. Also, I don’t want to crush her excitement, but I bet a lot of people work at that lab who aren’t biologists.

Emma looks at me dismissively. “I’ll have you know, I’m going to take advanced biology at the college with Kellan next year.”

“Since when?”

Emma walks to her papasan chair and folds her legs in front of her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I had to tell you everything.”

I take Emma’s place at the computer. “Well, now that you’re happy, I’m going to make sure your bliss didn’t screw things up with Sydney.”

I’m about to look through Emma’s list of friends to find myself when I notice my name and something I wrote right there on Emma’s page.

“Listen to this,” I say, and then I read it aloud.

“See?” Emma says. “I make my new man ecstatic!”

The photo yesterday had me with a bunch of balloons. Now it’s just a close-up of an eyeball. I click on the eye, and while my page slowly loads I drum my fingers against the desk.

“Yes!” I jump up and bat excitedly at one of her paper lanterns.

“Easy on the décor,” Emma says, but she’s smiling.

As she should! Our futures are looking awesome. Even with Emma changing husbands, Sydney couldn’t stay away from me. This relationship is meant to be and nothing can stop it.

Settling back in the chair, I read my entries out loud. The first one is dull.

The next isn’t much better.

I swivel to face Emma. “I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

Emma shrugs as she bites the nail of her pinky finger.

I turn back to the computer and scroll down, scanning through more entries. “Promise me if I ever get this boring you’ll—”

And then I freeze.

Emma catapults out of the chair. “What is it?”

We both stare at a photo near the bottom of the page. It’s a picture of Sydney standing sideways. She’s holding her stomach, and it’s huge!

“That’s cheesy,” Emma says, but then she gets it. “Wait, your first baby?”

I stand up so fast I nearly pass out. I told her. I told her! This future stuff is dangerous. We can’t tinker with things, plucking out details we don’t like. I sit on the edge of Emma’s bed and stare vacantly at the mirror hanging on her door. If changing her husband also changes my children, the future’s even more fragile than I thought. The repercussions are impossible to predict.

“If what I did caused this, I’m so sorry,” Emma says. Three of my future children have been erased from existence before they had a chance to exist at all. I’ll never build a model solar system with that boy, or take those twin girls to have their birthday party at GoodTimez.

Emma sits behind me on the bed. She rubs her hands together to warm them up. My mind tells me to pull away, but I can’t.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

She presses her fingers along the muscles at the back of my neck. “I think we need to realize there’s no way to control these particular types of changes.”

“What do you mean, ‘these particular types’?”

“Your children. My children,” she says. “When you took health last semester, how much do you remember about sperm?”

I turn and glare at Emma. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Emma squeezes both of my shoulders. “No matter how small the ripple, the most vulnerable part of the future is going to be our children. If we keep looking at Facebook, we shouldn’t get too attached to—”

“It altered my sperm?” I say. “What are you talking about?”

Emma kneads her thumbs in small circles down the sides of my spine. “All of this stuff occurs years from now. Think of how many billions of tiny details need to line up between now and then to make everything exactly the same. It’s impossible. Even this massage, which wouldn’t have happened yesterday, makes whatever happens next a little different.”

“What does that have to do with my sperm?”

Emma slides her fingers behind my ears. “Do you remember when your teacher talked about how many sperm you guys let loose every time you—”

“On second thought, can we not talk about this?” I say, my eyes rolling back at her touch.

She rubs her fingertips down my arms. Man, I love that so much.

“Every time you ejaculate,” she continues, “you release something like four hundred million sperm. Each one totally unique.”

“I seriously don’t want to talk about this.”

With her fingers running back up my arms, and all this sperm talk, things are getting a little too intense down below. I lean slightly forward, conveniently placing my forearms across my lap.

“Will you just do my shoulders?” I ask.

As Emma moves her hands back up to my shoulders, there’s a ping at the computer, like digital fairy dust.

“An instant message!” Emma scrambles off the bed. “I’ve never gotten one of these before.”

I cross my legs and turn toward the computer.

“The screen name says it’s from DontCallMeCindy,” Emma says. “I have no idea who that is, but she’s asking if I’m the Emma Nelson who goes to Lake Forest.” As she taps at the keys, Emma tells me what she’s writing. “‘Tell me who you are first.’”

I want to watch the screen myself, but there’s no way I can stand up just yet.

Another instant message appears. Emma reads it to herself, and then narrows her eyes at me. “You are in so much trouble.”

“What? Why?”

She types some more words and then hits Enter. “Five minutes ago,” she says, “you were lecturing me about changing the future. But it looks like you’ve been tinkering with it yourself.”

I laugh. “What are you talking about?”

“You are such a hypocrite! Why else would Sydney Mills be asking for your phone number?”

27://Emma

JOSH LEANS FORWARD on my bed, one leg crossed over the other. “You gave it to her, right?”

I grin and tap my chin. “Well, I had to think about whether or not—”

“Emma! Did you give my number to Sydney Mills?”

“Of course I did.”

“What did she say?”

I glance at the screen. I closed the instant message box once Sydney signed out. All that’s left is Josh’s Facebook page with Sydney’s massive belly.

That comment annoys me. It’s cheesier than anything Josh would say now. I guess that’s the kind of guy he becomes, all mushy and wrapped up in Sydney like he has no life of his own.

Josh looks at me with a pained sort of hope. “I need to know exactly what she said.”

“What did you want to her to say? That she’s driving over in her convertible to whisk you into the sunset?” That wasn’t fair. I don’t know why I’m being so bitchy. “She said she got my screen name from Graham. So I gave her your number and she said thanks.”

Josh stares at me. “I thought you were happy now that you’re married to Kevin Storm.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I say. “You were so mad at me for calling Jordan, but then here comes Sydney Mills, asking for your number. You must have done more than just make a face in class yesterday.”

Josh raises his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did?”

“We were in Peer Issues today, talking about relationships, and this senior guy gave her a hard time. So I stood up for her. What was I supposed to do?”

“You stood up for Sydney about relationship issues? Who was giving her a hard time?”

“Rick something. He’s in Mr. Fritz’s class.”

“Does he play football?”

“Do you know him?”

I can’t help laughing. “You defended Sydney to Rick Rolland?”

Josh doesn’t care about who’s popular at school, or who has a history together, and that’s all great. But Rick Rolland is the guy having the bonfire Kellan was excited about. He and Sydney used to date, and Josh should not be involving himself with that.

“He was being a dick,” Josh says. “And besides, what I said wasn’t a big deal.”

But we both know it was. This ripple is going to affect Josh’s future in a major way.

Josh takes in a deep breath. “So I was thinking about Facebook today. Remember last summer at the lake when Frank Wheeler said he was going to become a millionaire, and everyone laughed?”

I’m not sure where Josh is going with this, but I’m relieved to be moving on from Sydney and my husbands. “He said he’d jump in front of a bus if he doesn’t make a million by the time he’s thirty.”

“Exactly.” Josh reaches into his backpack and pulls out a folded up piece of paper. “I made a list of people we should look up on Facebook. Like my mom and dad, David, Tyson—”

“And Kellan!” I add. “I was thinking the same thing today. I want to see if she makes it into med school.”

I swivel toward my computer, and jiggle the mouse. The brick wall screensaver disappears and I get another chance to witness Sydney’s pregnant belly. “First, we should refresh your page,” I say. “Since you were Sydney’s superhero today, and now she’s going to call you, I bet everything’s different. You probably weren’t supposed to get together until much later, and—”

“Wait.” Josh stands up.

The arrow hovers over the Refresh button, but his tone is so serious I don’t click it.

Josh wriggles his feet into his sneakers and then grabs his skateboard and backpack. “I’ll try to come back later. Don’t look anyone up without me, okay?”

As he barrels downstairs, I shout, “I know where you’re going! Don’t you think babysitting your telephone is kind of—?”

Before I can finish, the latch on my front door clicks shut.

28://Josh

SYDNEY MILLS ASKED for my number!

I sprint through my front door, then up the stairs to my bedroom.

Sydney Mills asked for my number!

It still makes no sense, but I need to accept this reality. It’ll start with a phone call, which will lead to marriage, children, and a house on Crown Lake. I’ll have a fancy graphic-design job, and I’ll probably drive a nice car, too. A BMW or, since we’ll be out in the country, a Chevy Tahoe. Or both! In fifteen years, maybe I’ll drive something so insane I can’t even imagine it now.

My bed is unmade and T-shirts are strewn all over the floor. This does not look like the room of someone Sydney Mills would be calling. But it is! And she could be calling any second now.

Where is the phone?

I turn in a slow circle around my room. If the phone rings, I could kick piles around until I find it, but what if I answer too late? What if, because she couldn’t reach me, Sydney chats with some other guy and they start going out? Maybe they’ll end up getting married, and he’ll be taking my tropical vacations.

I lift the gray phone cord with my index finger and follow it down the length of my mattress, picking up stray socks and shirts. Finally, I toss aside an issue of Thrasher magazine and unveil the glorious telephone.

Now ring, damn it!

I shake out the tension in my arms. Tonight, before bed, I’m going to add ten push-ups to my usual twenty. I want to look like the kind of guy Sydney is used to calling.

I sit on the edge of my mattress and stare at the phone. If my parents come home early I don’t want them eavesdropping on this call. I’m nervous enough already. So I run to their room, grab the cordless phone from the nightstand, and then head downstairs.

I walk across my lawn toward the street. Every time Sydney comes into Peer Issues, she turns off her cell phone and slips it into her pocket. It always looks so casual and cool. I try shoving the cordless phone into my back pocket, but it’s too chunky to fit.

When I reach the sidewalk, a FedEx truck speeds across the street. I carefully look both ways before crossing. Today is definitely not the day to get hit by a truck. Today is a day to enjoy being alive! Wagner Park is full of maple trees with bright green leaves, lilac bushes, and the shouts of children playing.

I know exactly how far I can go before the phone loses contact with the cradle in my parents’ room. Over spring break, while visiting my brother, I met a girl at a music festival in Seattle. We stayed in touch for a few weeks, but I never told my parents about her. Whenever I talked to her on the phone, I called from the park. As long as I didn’t walk past the swings, I was okay.

I was hoping to visit her again this summer. David even offered to help pay for my flight. I think he was happy to hear me talking about someone other than Emma. But the Seattle girl didn’t want a long-distance relationship. After I left a few messages that she didn’t return, she mailed me a letter saying it was fun at the concert, but what was the point if it wasn’t going to last?

I hear a door shut, and turn to see Emma crouched at her stoop, tying the laces on her silver running shoes. When she adjusts the Discman on her arm, I move behind a tree. If Emma walks over here and Sydney calls, she’ll either roll her eyes at everything I say or coach me along in the background.

Emma crosses the street, jogs toward the running trail, and then disappears from view. I continue to the knee-high concrete barrier surrounding the swings and set the phone on the wall.

Even if I try to do everything right, the ripple effect is unavoidable. Everything changed the moment Emma discovered Facebook. If I didn’t know Sydney and I would eventually get married, I may not have defended her in Peer Issues. And she wouldn’t have asked for my number.

On the wall beside me, the phone remains silent.

29://Emma

MY MOM AND MARTIN are down in the den watching TV, so I go through their room to take a shower. The downstairs bathroom is usually mine, but until the construction is done I have to share with them.

My dad once asked me how I felt about Martin. We were walking on the beach over Christmas break, a few months after he moved to Florida. He was collecting shells in a mesh bag, and I was splashing my feet in the surf. I didn’t want to complain about Martin to my dad because that would make my mom look bad, especially since my dad and Cynthia have been happily married since I was eleven. But I also wasn’t about to sing Martin’s praises.

“He’s okay,” I said. “They don’t fight like Mom and Erik.” My mom and Erik used to have loud screaming matches with doors slamming, and ending with one of them sleeping on the couch. Come to think of it, my mom and dad fought that way, too. But so far my mom and Martin hardly argue at all.

“That’s good,” my dad said. “It sounds like she’s happy.”

I could feel a lump in my throat. “Can we not talk about this?” I asked, looking out at the bay.

I take a long shower, shave my legs, and then tie my robe around my waist. As I’m walking back through their bedroom, I pause in front of the framed baby picture my mom keeps on her dresser. It was taken in a kiddie pool when I was one. I’m wearing an embroidered hat, and I’ve got chubby cheeks, round eyes, and tiny heart-shaped lips.

Just like my own baby on Facebook.

When I get back to my room, I snuggle deep under my covers and think about Kevin Storm. His name is perfect. I wonder if we name our daughter Olivia. I’ve always loved that name, and Olivia Storm sounds like she’ll grow to be a confident woman. I know I told Josh we can’t get attached to our future children because there’s no way every detail will line up so the same sperm will impregnate the same egg on the same day. But I can’t help it.

I roll onto my side.

Tomorrow, I’m going to end things with Graham. For real this time. It was fun while it lasted, but I can’t imagine letting him kiss me anymore. Not since Josh saw us together. Not when Kevin Storm is waiting in my future.

I’ve always said I don’t believe in true love, but that I’d leave the door open for Cody Grainger to one day prove me wrong. Since I don’t end up marrying Cody, maybe I should open the door a little wider so Kevin Storm can have a chance, too.