I pulled up the Yahoo search page and typed in Emma’s name, then I pressed search and waited, holding my breath.
There she was. Emma Vickers, age twenty-one, at the opening night of a play at a theatre a few towns away. I clicked on the photo and her young, carefree face filled my screen. I stared at it, taking in her sparkling green eyes, her cloud of red hair, her beautiful porcelain skin. She looked radiant, and carefree. And so young.
With shaking hands, I closed the window, and shut the computer down, sitting in the dark for a moment with the image of Emma stamped onto my retinas. And in that moment I knew that Andy was right.
No good would come from looking for her. I had to stay away.
I was about to walk out of the room and go to bed when another thought occurred to me and I sat back down again.
In all the films I’d watched and books I’d read about time travel, people who go back in time try to change the past, and that affects the future. And while I knew that going to find Emma would be a terrible idea, there was something I knew about her future that could be within my power to change.
In 2017, Greg was going to fall from a tree and die. Although that was still thirteen years away, I couldn’t ignore the niggling idea that I should try to warn him. I turned over the implications in my mind – if Greg didn’t fall from that tree, then he and Emma would still be together, and that might mean that Emma and I would never meet. I had no idea what that might mean for me – would the memories of everything that had happened between us these last few years be wiped from my mind because they had never happened? Or would I still remember what could have happened anyway?
I had no idea. But I did know that I would be a terrible person if I didn’t at least try to stop it.
I spent a few hours trying to find Greg, and eventually, I did. There had been a news story in the local paper last year about his football team winning their semi-final. Greg was the captain and, alongside a photo of the team was a photo of him, beaming out at the camera.
He was handsome, with dark blond surfer hair and bright blue eyes in a tanned, rugged face. Of course he wasn’t a tree surgeon yet, but he looked like the perfect candidate to become one.
I stared at him for a long time, trying to work out ways that I could warn this man about a tragedy that was going to befall him many, many years in his future. I pictured going to the football club and walking into the bar after a match, approaching him and striking up a conversation. How would that conversation go, exactly? ‘Lovely to meet you, and by the way, don’t become a tree surgeon in case you fall from a tree and die one day’?
Clearly not. But there didn’t seem any other obvious way of making him listen either. A letter? Too easy to ignore. A phone call? Too easy to trace.
In the end I closed the computer and stared at my warped reflection in the blank screen for ages, thinking it through.
And finally it hit me that what I was contemplating was exactly what I’d begged Emma not to do to me: telling someone about future events. Of course I couldn’t go and warn Greg. Because even if he did listen, I could be ruining his life.
No. I’d just have to let destiny play out and hope that things might still change.
For Greg, and for me.
27
EMMA
I was going on a date.
These were not words I ever thought I’d say again, but here I was.
I stood in the middle of my room, staring into my wardrobe trying to decide whether anything in there was suitable. What did people wear on dates these days? It had been a long time since the thought had even crossed my mind that I might need to impress someone.
Oh God, what was I doing?
I could hear Flynn’s giggle from downstairs, followed by the rumble of Rachel’s voice pretending to be a monster. She’d offered to babysit tonight – in fact she’d insisted, telling me to stop looking for excuses not to go.
‘You can’t sit around waiting for Nick for the rest of your life,’ she said. ‘You need to start living. Plus, Oliver ishot.’
‘Okay, okay,’ I’d said, mostly just to get her off my back.
And although she was right that Oliver was hot, I was already regretting giving in to her. What was I thinking?
Oliver and I had got chatting at the school gates on the day that Flynn started reception class. Flynn had looked so smartin his little uniform of red jumper and grey shorts and I’d been busy taking photos of him with his bookbag when he’d suddenly run off.
‘Flynn!’ I’d called. I watched as he flung his arms round a girl who was holding hands with a man – presumably her dad – then he turned back to me, his face lit up.
‘Mummy, this is Annabelle,’ he said, as I approached.
Flynn had been talking about Annabelle all summer after they’d been to a holiday drama club together. ‘Annabelle was the princess and I was the prince,’ he’d told me one day, and ‘Annabelle wants me to go to hers for tea,’ another day. I’d hoped I’d meet his new friend once they started school, so was pleased to have done so already.
