"Don't you see? This is our chance to fix everything! We can change all the mistakes we made, avoid all the terrible things that happened." Her eyes were bright with excitement. "I can warn my mom about her cancer before it's too late. I can take a different college path and avoid?—"
"Lily, stop," I interrupted, a chill running down my spine. "You can't just start changing major events. We have no idea what the consequences might be."
"That's exactly what I want, consequences! Different ones than what we got the first time around."
I stood up, too, facing her. "You don't understand. Haven't you ever heard of the butterfly effect? Small changes can have enormous, unpredictable impacts. If you start interfering with the timeline, you could make things worse, not better."
"How could things possibly be worse?" she demanded. "My mother died. The party..." She stopped abruptly, drowning in her thoughts.
The party. Those memories hung between us, impossible to ignore. In our original timeline, someone would be dead in a few weeks.
The tragedy that tore us apart.
"I know," I said quietly. "I know you want to save everyone. So do I. But we have to be careful. We have to think thisthrough. If we change things too drastically, we might not even recognize the future we create."
"Good! I don't want that future. My present, our present," she pointed at us, "sucked because of everything that happened in the past." She took a step closer, her eyes fierce. "Now we have another chance to make things different."
I could see the determination on her face, and I knew I would not be able to change her mind. "What exactly do you want to do, Lily?"
Her answer was immediate and chilling.
"Revenge."
CHAPTER 11
Lily
I knewwhat I wanted to do ever since my mind processed that I was actually in the past with my teenage body. I wanted to fix everything. Every mistake, every misstep, every moment I did nothing. Everything could be different.
Revenge was only part of it. What I really wanted was justice. Justice for all the people who couldn't defend themselves. Justice for all the things that happened because we didn't have the knowledge. Justice for me and the years I spent blaming myself, and justice for everyone who suffered because of what happened this year.
I started walking back to the hospital while my mind made lists of everything I remembered went wrong and how I was going to make it different. It was still surreal. The weight of my younger body, the sensation of having all these extra years of knowledge, the strangeness of being somewhere I'd left behind long ago.
I felt a touch on my hand and turned to see Kyle visibly stressed.
He had followed me.
"Lily, please," he said with a deep voice I had only heard in my dreams, and I almost forgot how my legs worked.
He was everything I had ever loved. The only person I had truly given my heart to. The boy who made me feel safe when everything around us was falling apart. The one who taught me what it meant to trust someone completely, only to have that trust shattered. This boy, this man in a boy's body, had been my first in all the ways that mattered, and standing here now, with ten years of hurt and longing between us, I felt that same magnetic pull that had drawn me to him from the very beginning.
But I had to remember he was no longer that person. We weren't those people anymore. Although he physically looked like my first love, mentally, he was a completely different person. I just needed my brain to process it.
"We can't ignore everything that will happen," I finally answered. "Even if the logical part of my brain says that what you're saying is the right thing to do, my heart won't ignore it. I'm sorry."
He squeezed my hand tighter and held it to his heart. I could feel it beating, strong and sure, beneath my palm.
"Promise me that we'll first find a way to return to our present, that we'll try to understand why we're here, and then you'll do everything you want to do."
What he asked of me sounded reasonable. I was so immersed in everything I could do that I hadn't stopped to think that we didn't belong here and that we'd eventually need to find a way back. "Of course, I promise."
I didn't add that I had my fingers metaphorically crossed. That some things couldn't wait for us to figure out the mechanics of time travel. Many things happened in this period that ruined the beautiful person I was. And this time, I couldn't stand with my arms crossed and watch my mother and brother's lives fall apart. Now, I had the power to dosomething for them. And I wasn't going to waste it. Even if it drastically changed the future, as Kyle said.
I couldn’t, and I wouldn't lose them again.
I was discharged from the hospital later that day. Before we left, I heard the doctors tell my parents that if I ever mentioned being from the future again, they should bring me back immediately, so I promised myself I wouldn't mention it anymore. No one was going to believe me anyway, so there was no point in mentioning it.
The doctor gave my parents strict instructions about watching for signs of concussion, and then we were free to go. My dad kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror as he drove, with evident concern.
