Time Lifts the Light

At the end of the night, D.B. drove us home. It was almost strange, being in the car alone with him. We didn't talk (or really even look at each other) the entire time, we just stared out of our respective windows. The streetlights made everything orange and black, throwing D.B.'s profile into sharp relief as he passed under them to turn into my driveway.

I felt awkward and slightly sick. My eyes were trained on a moth who was repeatedly flying into the bulb of the porch light.

"So..." D.B. finally said.
"So," I replied.
He tapped the steering wheel idly and sighed. "This was... fun. I had fun."
"Yeah, me too."
"So, uh... G'night."
"Oh. Okay, bye."

He drove away before I'd even gotten to the front door, his worn tires squealing on the sharp turn out of my driveway. For some reason, I felt angry. Where did he get off building this night up into some great big to-do and then leaving me with "Uh... G'night" as he sped away?

My parents were up, waiting for me to come home. They were surprised, though. My father told me that he'd been expecting me to come crawling home at six a.m., begging for sleep and a glass of water. I deflected their questions with short answers (I'm fine, it was fun, I didn't dance, I just didn't feel like it, D.B. drove me home) and climbed the stairs to my room. I tugged off the black dress and left it in an unceremonious pile on the floor. It looked sort of forlorn and plain, just lying there. It had seemed elegant and almost royal before, but now it just looked like a scrap of black fabric. So pretty, such promise... but, in reality, just a dress.

I got ready for bed, stripping off the makeup that Kim had expertly applied and nearly laughing at myself for how upset I was getting. So D.B. and I didn't magically acquire dancing skills and waltz cheek to cheek in the center of the floor. So he didn't kiss me goodnight. So he didn't take me time traveling. So what? I couldn't expect the world from D.B., he was just a boy. And a pretty stubborn one, at that.

I contemplated taking a shower, but I found that I was too tired and decided to sleep instead. I stared at my ceiling, letting the lazy cycle of the fan lull me into a sort of stupor. I closed my eyes and breathed a long, deep sigh into the air. I was still and silent for a very long time, forcing myself to clear my mind and focus on relaxing into sleep. But soon I began to feel restless. I started to think of things I had to do the next day (call Kim because I accidentally left my phone at her house, help my dad clean out the garage) and dwell over them with the sort of intensity that one can only muster after one in the morning.

Twenty minutes later found me on my side, staring at the clock on my bedside table. I was glaring, convinced that time was lying to me, playing a cruel prank on my worn-out brain.

At first, I thought it was the sleep-deprivation getting to me. But the pulse of light coming from the center of my room struck a familiar chord in my memory. It forcefully brought me back to the night, nearly three months ago, when a strange boy had crash-landed into my bedroom and seemed to know who I was. A luminescent hole ripped through the middle of my room. I was so shocked that my scream turned silent, my panicked breathing muffled into the palm of my hand.

D.B.'s outline stretched through the rip, which closed around him. He was glowing dull and white and, for some reason, he was floating horizontally in mid-air. The rift snapped shut behind him and, as the light burning under his pores died out, he had time to cry, "What the -" before he fell about three feet onto my carpet.

"Daniel!" I screeched, then thought of my parents sleeping on the lower floor and altered my voice to a shaky hiss. "Daniel, what the hell?"
"Ow..."

D.B. rolled onto his back, groaning and rubbing his head. I couldn't see much for lack of light, but I could tell that he was shirtless, wearing only a pair of some sort of dark shorts. I quickly got over my initial shock, shifted in my bed and clicked on my bedside lamp, filling the room with a yellow light.

This was the first time that D.B. seemed to realize I was in the room. He blinked, looked around, and sheepishly grabbed the black dress I had left on the floor to cover his bare chest. He looked sort of comical, like a very embarrassed cross-dresser caught in a pair of headlights. His hair was slightly damp and tangled, as if he'd taken a shower before bed.

"Indigo... You know me, right?" he asked hesitantly. "I mean..."
"No, no, you're good," I said on the verge of a sort of half-crazed laughter. "Where are you coming from?"
"Don't you mean when?" he chuckled.

He propped himself up on his elbow, looking at me through his crop of wet hair and fidgeting when he accidentally let go of the dress and his chest was exposed. I rolled my eyes and tossed him a blanket, kicking back my own covers and sitting cross-leged on the edge of my bed.

"Whatever," I sighed. "Same difference."
"Same as you," he said, inclining his head to my black dress. "Homecoming night." He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and let out a small groan of embarrassment. "Had to sleep in my underwear, didn't I..."
"Sleep?" I asked. "You were asleep when you traveled?"
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, picking at a band-aid on his knee. "Sometimes it... That is, when I haven't traveled in a while, I come unstuck."
"Oh," I cried. "We've had this conversation before, haven't we? Unstuck in time."
"Yeah. Don't know why I'm here. Guess I was thinking about you."

I furrowed my brow and pursed my lips. Either D.B. was leading me on... or he was just clueless. But still, whatever the reason, he had been thinking about me. Thinking about me enough to transport himself through time and space and land in my room.

I began chipping the clear polish off my right thumbnail and working up the courage to say something to him - anything. I tried planning something, but I ended up blushing at anything past hey, Daniel. He had gotten up, draping my blanket around him like a sort of blue fuzzy toga and was now examining things around my room.

"Indy?" he asked, using one hand to hold the blanket to his chest and another to hold up a small Pikachu figurine. "Gotta catch 'em all, huh?" he teased. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were an eight-year-old boy."
"Shut up," I groaned. "You might want to go... I don't know how my parents would feel if they knew you were in my room right now."
He grinned evilly and shook his hips. "And in my undies, at that! I've come to ruin your innocence!"
"Wow, you're a dork."

He replaced the Pikachu and hesitated with the blanket around his shoulders.

"Uh," he said. "Here you go."
I yelped as he flung the blanket from his shoulders and threw it to me. "Daniel!"
"What?"

He was standing in the middle of my room wearing only a pair of black boxer-briefs. He hunched over, covering his crotch and trying to angle himself away from me.

"Well, don't look!" he yelled.
"Sorry! You've got to warn me before you - "
"Yeah, yeah."

I averted my eyes, looking down into my lap as he mumbled. "Okay, I'm going now. Bye, Indy."

I saw a white light pulsing from the corner of my eye, reflecting around the room and illuminating the darkest corners. When I looked up again, D.B. was gone.

I flopped back into my pillows and suddenly felt very, very tired.