Page 73 of Meet Me on Greenwood

They were holding on by a thread. I pulled off my shoes and rubbed my feet tenderly.

Shouts sounded from a side street as sirens began to follow cars that were attempting to flee. We sat in the dark as people ran by screaming.

"Should we help them?"

Houston shook his head and grabbed my hand. "If we do, they’ll find us. It won’t last long."

I knew I should pull away, but I needed something to hold onto. I thought back to one of my first board meetings when Ben had asked what happened if a traveler was injured or killed inside the ORI?

My answer had been measured. I explained that we had protocols, and we’d done our due diligence by testing on field mice first, then chimpanzees, then human volunteers under controlled conditions. I stated that we hadn’t had any serious incidents since the early trials with mice, and the board nodded. I had moved to the next slide inside the climate-controlled conference room with catered lunch and people who went home to their families afterward. But the truth was buried in the details. We’d done our very best to only select participants who wanted to focus on scenarios in mostly safe environments. That is because I feared that if the tether to current time was lost and I died here, I wouldn't come back. It was written into the consent forms, filed in the risk assessment, and disclosed in our liability insurance—but for the first time, it felt real.

I’d told myself the benefits outweighed the risks, that I was helping people who were suffering. I reasoned that this project wasn’t about me and my relationship with my mother, it was about them—and yet I often wondered if the ORI existed years prior, whether she’d still be alive.

I could no longer lie to myself. I’d wasted so much of my life chasing the phantom of my mother instead of living and enjoying my life, I’d spent all my days chasing something I couldn’t quite grasp.

"I’m very curious about what you are thinking," Houston said, pulling me from my thoughts.

I hesitated, unsure how much of it I was willing to offer. "I—was thinking about my mother," I admitted. That was at least part of the truth. "And yours."

His hand stiffened slightly. "Since our last talk, I’ve been thinking a lot about her too," he confessed. "Not why she did it, but why the thought of me wasn’t enough to stop her. In all my life, I cannot remember a time where she wasn’t sad. I always assumed it had something to do with my father, but maybe she resented me."

I reached out to touch his shoulder. "I’ve worked with a lot of depressed patients and from my experience it isn’t typically tied to a particular person or event. It is a misfiring of neurotransmitters in the brain. There is no cure for it…yet." I closed my mouth, worried I’d said too much.

His eyes met mine in surprise. "I think you are the smartest person I have ever come across."

The words seemed genuine, which made me blush. "No, I’m not truly. I just have an advantage… living up north."

"It is strange—you can’t remember the names of your parents, but here you are telling me about," he paused. "What did you call them—misfiring neurotransmitters?"

I nodded uneasily. "It is."

"You're shaking," Houston said quietly. "Are you cold?"

"I'm fine."

He shrugged off his jacket without discussion and settled it around my shoulders. It was wet on the outside, but the inside was surprisingly warm from his body heat. The coat smelled of cedar and something underneath it that was simply him. It swallowed me, larger than a typical jacket, a signature of the time. I pulled it closer without meaning to.

"Better?"

"Yes."

We sat in silence. I wasn’t sure what to say, but I felt that something profound was happening whether we wanted it to or not.

After some time, the sirens grew distant. The sound of footsteps thinned, but the rain continued drumming its indifferent rhythm on the canopy above us. Houston held my hand as we sat in the small space, neither of us reaching for an excuse to let go.

"Houston."

"Gema," he answered, like he was equally caught up in the moment and was as perplexed as I was about what was happening between us.

"Rita will be looking for me," I said.

"She will," he said, leaning closer. Water dripped from the ends of his hair.

"Do you want to share the jacket? I think we could both fit under here."

He watched me carefully, as if measuring my response. "If I’m honest," he began. "I’m pretty jealous of that jacket."

The air shifted beneath the canopy. Suddenly, my breath quickened. "So, you do want to share it?" I asked.