I promised her. Even though I knew the risk, I promised her.
And now I’m proving to her that it’s too risky to accept my promises.
I am proving to her that I won’t be able to come through.
Dana’s mother brings me dinner on a tray, as if I’m an invalid. I thank her for it. And then I find the words I should have been using all along.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m really, really sorry.”
She nods, but I can tell it’s not enough.
I must have told her I was sorry too many times before. At some point—maybe last night—she must have stopped believing it.
When I ask her where my father is, she tells me he’s getting the car fixed.
They decide that I will have to go to school tomorrow, and that I will have to make amends to my friends then. They say I can use the computer for my homework, but then sit there behind me as I make up things to research.
Emailing Rhiannon is out of the question.
And they show no signs of giving me back my phone.
The previous night’s events never come back to me. I spend the rest of the night staring into that blank space. And I can’t help but feel it staring right back.
Day 6022
My plan is to wake up early—around six—and email Rhiannon with a full explanation. I expect she gave up on me after a while.
But my plan is foiled when I’m shaken awake a little before five.
“Michael, it’s time to get up.”
It’s my mother—Michael’s mother—and unlike with Dana’s mother, there’s only apology in her voice.
I figure it’s time for swim practice, or something else I have to do before school. But when I get out of bed, my foot hits a suitcase.
I hear my mom in the other room, waking up my sisters.
“It’s time to go to Hawaii!” she says cheerily.
Hawaii.
I access and find that, yes, we are leaving for Hawaii this morning. Michael’s older sister is getting married there. And Michael’s family has decided to take a weeklong vacation.
Only for me it won’t be a week. Because in order to get back, I’d have to wake up in the body of a sixteen-year-old who was heading home to Maryland that day. It could take weeks. Months.
It might never happen.
“The car’s coming in forty-five minutes!” Michael’s dad calls up.
Under no circumstances can I go.
Michael’s wardrobe consists mostly of T-shirts for heavy metal bands. I throw one on, as well as jeans.
“You’re just asking Homeland Security to give you a full cavity search,” one of my sisters says as I pass her in the hall.
I am still trying to figure out what to do.
Michael doesn’t have his license, and I don’t think it would help for me to steal one of his parents’ cars. His older sister’s wedding isn’t until Friday, so at least I’m not jeopardizing his attendance there. But who am I kidding? Even if the wedding were this evening, I wouldn’t get on that plane.
I know I am going to get Michael in a huge amount of trouble. I apologize to him profusely as I write my note and leave it on the kitchen table.
I can’t go today. I am so sorry. I will be back later tonight. Go without me. I’ll get there somehow by Thursday.
While everyone else is upstairs, I walk out the back door.
I could call a cab, but I’m afraid his parents will call the local cab companies to see if they’ve picked up any metalhead teens lately. I am at least two hours away from Rhiannon. I take the nearest bus I can find, and ask the driver the best way to get to her town. He laughs and says, “By car.” I tell him that’s not an option, and in return he tells me I’ll probably have to head to Baltimore and then back out again.
It takes about seven hours.
School isn’t out yet when I get there, having walked about a mile from the center of town. Again, nobody stops me, even though I’m a big, hairy, sweaty guy in a Metallica T-shirt storming up the steps.
I try to remember Rhiannon’s schedule from when I was inside her head, and have a vague recollection that this period is gym. I check the gymnasium and find it empty. The natural next stop is the fields, which are behind the school. When I walk out, I find a softball game in action. Rhiannon is at third base.
She sees me out of the corner of her eye. I wave. It’s unclear whether she recognizes me as me or not. I feel too out in the open, too much in the line of the gym teacher’s sight. So I retreat back to the school, by the door. Just another slacker, taking a smokeless smoke break.
Rhiannon walks over to one of the teachers and says something. The teacher looks sympathetic, and puts another student on third base. Rhiannon starts heading toward the school. I step back inside, and wait for her in the empty gym.
“Hey,” I say once she steps inside.
“Where the hell were you?” she replies.
I’ve never seen her this angry before. It’s the kind of anger that comes when you feel betrayed by not just a single person, but the universe.
“I was locked in my room,” I tell her. “It was awful. There wasn’t even a computer.”
“I waited for you,” she tells me. “I got up. Made the bed. Had some breakfast. And then I waited. The reception on my phone went on and off, so I figured that had to be it. I started reading old issues of Field & Stream, because that’s the only reading material up there. Then I heard footsteps. I was so excited. When I heard someone at the door, I ran to it.