He takes the seat across from me and points to the phone hanging to my right.
I pick it up and hold it to my ear.
Myles does the same.
“Are you okay?” I ask, voice cracking.
There’s nothing okay about this. He shouldn’t be in there, and it’s tearing me up inside because I know I’m the reason. I am the reason he threw his life away and gave up on his dreams, and for what?
He puts his hand on the glass like he’s trying to touch me. “It’s good to see you.”
The way he’s looking makes me want to throw up. How can he be so content sitting there? It’s been an entire year of taking the blame for something he didn’t do. He let me yell at him. Hit him.
“Why?” I say, choking on the word. I put my hand in the same spot on the glass as I cry. “Why did you do it? Why did you push me over?”
I know he did it for me, but how could he do something so careless? Who cares if I was disappearing from history? He wasted his life on me for nothing. Mallory wasn’t even here like we thought. We didn’t save her.
“Tell me!” I yell.
He takes a breath before his soft eyes lock with mine. “I needed you to hate me more than yourself.”
I shake my head as a tear falls down my face. I think about how useless I feel right now and wonder if this is the way I would’ve felt if he’d shown me the note instead of pushing me. I’d never forgive myself for running away that night. I’d hate myself.
I know it.
Heknewit.
He was trying to protect me like he had my entire life. His need to protect me always outweighed everything else. It never mattered whether or not he got hurt in the process. It’s like that never crossed his mind. If I was hurting, he jumped into action, doing whatever he could to make me happy like making me smile was the most important thing in the world.
Look what good that did.
I’m not happy.
What he did only makes me hate myself more because I didn’t just fail to save Mallory. I ruined his life in the process, and I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for that. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be living his life the way he should. He wouldn’t be trapped here, letting his life rot away.
I pull my hand off the glass because it hurts. I can’t shake the truth: I put him here.
“You were wrong,” I say.
A little crease forms around his eyes and he narrows them like he’s confused. “What do you mean?”
I blink away my tears. “Mallory isn’t here.”
He nods and his confusion melts away. “I know.”
“How do you know?” He’s the one who told me Mallory had to be here. He told me to find her.
“Someone would’ve told me if she was found.”
He’s probably right. It would’ve destroyed the case against him since he couldn’t possibly have killed her that night if she showed up a year in the future. It would’ve been unexplainable and every reporter would be covering the story. It would’ve been plastered all over the news. Instead, the only thing to report was Emma Adler, a missing teen, was found alive just days after she went missing.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I choke out.
He leans forward like he’s forgotten about the glass. All I want is for him to reach through it and engulf me in a hug. I want him to tell me everything is going to be okay and for him to come up with another plan to save Mallory.
She’s still missing, and somehow that’s worse than finding her body because there are no answers. What good is time travel when I don’t know where she is? It’s like time swallowed her whole and is taunting me.
It gave me a taste of a second chance just to rip it away from me.
