But what if I knew back then what I know now, and it wasn’t Angotti’s restaurant but some other restaurant somewhere else? If I knew that the visions would get worse and become insane, but I knew that it would end as soon as the crash was over, would I still risk my life to save those people?
I don’t think I know the answer. In the evening, while everybody’s still down in the restaurant and I’m stuck doing mountains of worksheets and make-up quizzes that didn’t come home with one of the sibs, my mind wanders to it again. I pull out the cell phone, wondering if Sawyer is working, wondering if he’s slammed or if he maybe has time to talk.
I start pressing the numbers I know by heart but hardly ever get to use thanks to my father, and the phone’s address book recognizes them and brings up Sawyer’s name with a <3 next to it. I smile and look at it for a minute, and then I press the call button. It rings a few times, and I cringe. He’s probably busy.
“Hey,” comes his breathless voice. Why is it that every time I talk to him I feel like my brain won’t work? It takes me a full second to form the word “hi” in response. “Are you slammed?”
“Nope,” he says. “I just got back to the car. Delivered my last pizza for the night. How’s your new phone?”
“Love it,” I say. Love you. “Everybody else is still downstairs, but if I hang up quickly you’ll know why.”
“I will always assume a quick click means the proprietors are coming, and not that you’re mad or something,” he teases.
“Oh, I’ll let you know if I’m mad.”
There’s a smile in his voice. “I do not doubt that. As long as every now and then you still drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to tell me you’re sorry I’m going to die, and tell me that you . . .”
He doesn’t say it.
I don’t know what to say.
When you tell a guy you love him before you’re in a relationship with him, does it mean love love? Or just love? And what words do you use after you start the relationship? You can’t say “I love you” after a first kiss, I don’t care who it’s with. That screams of one of those crash-andburn relationships half the school is in. I think I have to go back to saying “like.” For a while at least.
“Anyway,” he says in the awkward pause.
“Anyway,” I agree. “So, um, I thought about your question.”
“Me too.”
“I guess all I can say is that I don’t think you have to risk your life for strangers.” And I stop there, even though there’s so much more I have to say. And want to say.
He’s quiet for a long moment. “What do you think will happen if I don’t try to save them?”
“The vision will get stronger and more frequent, and you’ll see it everywhere. You might not be able to drive—I was really struggling there at the end.”
“I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t. It’s really okay. I never expected you to believe me.” I pause, listening for footsteps on the stairs, but all is quiet. “The main thing you need to get you through it is to remember it’ll end eventually.”
“How do you know that for sure—that it’ll end?”
His question stops me. “Um . . . because it ended for me?” I say weakly.
“Yeah, but you did what it wanted you to do,” he says. “Will my vision still end if I don’t do what it wants?”
“I—I guess I don’t actually know.” I think about it, wondering if I’d still be tormented by the vision today if I hadn’t stopped the crash. If I’d have to look at Sawyer’s dead face in the body bag until the end of time. And for whatever reason, I think about my dad, and his own apparently tormented life. But Sawyer interrupts my thoughts.
“It’s getting worse,” he says. “As I’m driving around doing deliveries, it’s showing up on street signs.”
I frown. “Any new scenes?”
“Not so far. I’m going to try to watch some TV tonight to see if the vision shows up there. Try the rewind/ slow motion thing like you said.”
I feel helpless. I sigh heavily and say, “I’m just so sorry about this.”
“Yeah, well, I blame you, of course.”
I afford a small smile, but I can’t help it. I feel responsible. This is happening because of me, and it’s like bodies and bodies—eleven gunshots? Holy shit. “So . . . are you going to try stop the shooting, then?” The words come out strained, because I’ve already made my decision on what has to happen if he decides not to save anyone. I’m going to have to save them myself.
He’s quiet. “Jules,” he says finally, sounding a little hurt. “Do you really think I could do that? I volunteer at the freaking Humane Society, you know. How could I possibly not try to save eleven people from some crazy gunman?”
My heart floods with relief. “I didn’t think you would—or could. I just didn’t want you to think I’d blame you for hoping to try and make it go away.”
“Well,” he says. “Whatever controls this vision thing sure knows how to pick the right people to get the job done.”
I hear a door shut at the bottom of the stairs and my heart races. “Gotta go,” I say in a hushed whisper. “But I’m with you on this.”
“Thank dog for that,” he says, and we hang up.