Time Lifts the Light

I woke up at four a.m. on the morning of December 4th with a jolt, feeling anxious and queasy.

The significance of the date struck me and I almost felt like I wanted to cry. I panicked briefly, wondering if I'd somehow messed up the future and aching to grab my phone and dial D.B.'s number. I settled for about another hour of uneasy sleep, suffering through many dreams that involved D.B.'s golden pocket watch, the whirling, stretching, pulling sensation of the warp, and this one where Mikey was a merman.

My eyes felt cold and itchy and my body held that sort of pudding-y ache near my chest that one gets after waking from nightmares. I knew I would never get back to sleep so I calmly got up, walked around my room for a few minutes, slowly laid out my uniform, and then snatched the frozen pocket watch from under my mattress. I would have laughed at the ridiculousness if I hadn't been feeling so uneasy... Where normal teenagers stored pot and Playboy, I hid the secret to the fourth dimension.

And, in my first interaction with D.B. since the "I Love You" Incident, I said the following words:

"I think I've messed up the space time continuum."

He stopped in his sketch of the skeleton of a small bird, but didn't look up.

"Is that an established thing? The continuum? Anyway, something went wrong and I'm pretty sure we busted it because look." I pressed the pocket watch onto the table, sliding it into his lowered line of vision. "It's not ticking. The... thing... where you were supposed to travel into my room and... you know. And I was supposed to hit you. That thing. We haven't made up..." Here I resisted the urge to add yet "...so the thing won't be happening. Right? What does this mean?"

D.B. pushed the pocket watch back toward me, still unable to lift his head.

"It means nothing."
"W-what? But it happened!"
"Take the watch away, Indy, don't flaunt it."
"I was there! You traveled into my room, you climbed into my bed. It was completely real!"
"Shhh!"
"It was going to happen tonight, you realize that, don't you? And now you're telling me it's just... that it's not? How does that even work? I saw it happen, how can it just not come true?"

D.B. seemed to be shrinking away from me, like a small plant shrinks from darkness. It was this desperate, shaking need to be somewhere else that I could practically feel.

"Well," he began, speaking very carefully, very softly. "It seems as if, when we first met, we were set on a certain... uh... path. Of, uh, time."
"Path... of time?"
"Y-yes. Um. And then something happened. Well, I happened. Georgia. Uh, punching."
"And it changed the future?"
"Shh!" he hissed, almost morosely, as if it were the words that bothered him, not the volume. "Scream it, why don't you?"
"I can't believe it..."
He was doodling on the corner of his paper. "Yeah, well. There it is." He sighed. "Look, Indy, no offense... but I'm really trying to... to... g-get over you. Kim and Mikey are staring to ask questions. They know I broke up with Georgia and that I hurt Jack Lewinski and... I don't know. I don't want..." His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. "Um. Anyway. I just don't think I should be spending time with you right now. I kind of need to... you know... force myself to move on."
"Oh. Oh. Okay, I..."

He bent over his sketch again and I took that as a signal that the conversation was over.

I waited up past midnight, just in case.

"Indy!"
"What?"
"I've been talking to you for the past twenty minutes!"
"Oh..."
Kim huffed and blew her bangs from her face. "Something's wrong. I hate that I know something's wrong and nobody will tell me."
Mikey swallowed a particularly large bite of cold pasta. "Something's wrong?"
"No!" I protested loudly.
"Are you going to throw up?"
"Don't be a dumbass, Mikey."
"Well, she's acting like it's something embarrassing! I just thought maybe she might want to go somewhere else and... you know..."
"I'm not going to throw up."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, actually."
"So then you're definitely going to eat that apple?"
"Here, take it."
"I love you! Kim, I'm dumping you for Indy."

I would have laughed if Kim hadn't been glaring at something across the courtyard like a hawk marking it's prey. There was something cold and feral in her eyes that surprised me. I'd known Kim to be quite abrasive (which, I decided, was probably just my own personal euphemism for complete bitch) but this was something different. Calculating. And when she turned the stare on me, I instantly felt my stomach turn over. I shoved more food at Mikey, this time actually feeling as if I was about to throw up and endured his squeals of excitement.

Kim turned away and I realized what she had been looking at. D.B. was trying to casually make his way over to our table, shifting his backpack from shoulder to shoulder and attempting a friendly smile. Mikey's mouth dropped open. Kim turned to me, then back to D.B., then me again. She knew everything. She had to have at least guessed close to correct or else she wouldn't have been staring at me with an annoying mixture of secrets, secrets are no fun and I told you so.

"Hey guys!" D.B. said brightly, dropping his bag onto the table and digging his lunch out of it. "What's up?"

Nobody said anything. Mikey looked like he was about to have a seizure.

D.B. shuffled his feet in the leaves under the table. "So..." he continued. "Thank God it's, uh, Tuesday, right? T.G.I.T."
"What are you doing?" Mikey asked, point-blank. He seemed a bit confused, but mostly hurt and a little betrayed. His best friend had, after all, abandoned him for a girl. And then, after breaking up with said girl, still hadn't resumed speaking to him.
"I'm sitting with my three best friends, what's it look like I'm doing?"
"But you haven't been sitting with us for like... a month."
"So?"
"So," Mikey spat, looking quite disgusted and digging his fingers into the table. "What's different about today? Finally got bored enough to grace us with your presence?"

I lowered my head, not knowing what to think, not knowing what to say.

"What's that supposed to mean?" D.B. challenged, hurt and stubborn and so many other contradictions that somehow made him infuriating to me.
"Just go away, D.B." Mikey said, seeming surprised at himself. "I don't want to deal with you right now."

Daniel swallowed with a measured amount of difficulty. His eyes were pleading as he looked first at Mikey, then to Kim, then at a point somewhere over my left shoulder, unable to look me in the eyes. He lowered his head and snatched his backpack from the table.

"Right. Okay."
"D.B.," Kim began in a sort of worn out voice. "Hang on for a second."
"No, I can see when I'm not wanted." He dug his black ear-flap hat out of his deep pocket and picked a bit of fluff from it, flicking it to the ground. "I'll go."

"Go after him," Kim ordered as D.B. began trudging across the courtyard.
"Why me?"
"Yeah, why her?" Mikey asked. "Why anyone? Let him go."
"No!" she hissed. "Indy is going after him because they're all goo-goo for each other and Daniel is depressed."
"Daniel is not -- wait, goo-goo?"
"D.B. and Indigo."
"What? No!" Mikey's face started getting red. "Indy, this is all your fault!"

I stood so abruptly from my seat that I grew lightheaded for a moment. I shot a glare at Mikey that contained all the anger I'd been repressing over the past few weeks and literally felt him turn pale. The fight left his body and fizzed into the air around us.

"I'm going to go hit him."
"Don't! Indy, don't!" Kim's voice was frightened, something I hadn't expected. "Seriously, you can't do that!"
"Too bad."

My face was flushed and I couldn't force myself to calm down. My entire body was tensed and I actually felt like smashing things. It was strange, a rush. I had this really strong urge to kick something and pour some sort of liquid over D.B.'s head.

"No!" Kim hissed after me. "He's probably stressed out and -- Indy! Indy, wait! You could trigger something!"

I caught his shoulder and spun him around. Hard.

"Hey, ouch! Get off me! What now?"
"What was that?"
"Nothing. I'm going to -"
"First it's oh, I need time to get over you! And then a few days later you try and come make nice again?"
"I thought this fight thing was over. Just leave me alone, Indy."
"D.B.!"
"What?" he cried. "What do you want from me?" He looked desperate, his honey hair jutting out from underneath his hat. His eyes were wild and sad. "What do you want me to say? That I'm over you? Fine! I am! Happy?"
"Daniel, I didn't..."
"I just wanted my friends back."
"You... I..."
"That turned out nicely," he said, sarcastic. "It's a good feeling to know that you've done a thorough job of screwing up your life. Wouldn't want to half-ass it or anything."
"Don't."
"Don't what?" he asked bitterly.
"D-don't be over me."

He was shocked, frozen in the winter air.

"I don't even... I've... Since the first time I ever saw you..." I reached out to touch his cheek but he ducked away from me.
"I don't understand."
"I'm really sorry about everything..." My throat felt impossibly tight. "I never meant to hurt you... Okay, I did. But only for a while. And now I feel terrible, like someone ran over my stomach."
"Are you trying to... to..." He took another hasty step away from me. "What are you doing?"

I didn't care that people were watching. It was killing me that he was trying to get away... I only wanted to hold on to him, even if it was only for a second. I needed to make him understand that I regretted everything that had occurred over this past month.

I reached out and snatched his hand, holding it tight. D.B. was horrified. The second our skin made contact, I felt my stomach lurch. I suddenly had the feeling as if I was moving slowly through water... I couldn't release D.B.'s hand, no matter how hard I tried.

White light burned at my eyes and I heard someone screaming, "No! No! No!"

And we were gone.