We Will Go

The last few days of my life have been so much of a blur that I started to think that it was all a dream. Being able to time travel–going to both the past and the future–and then meeting another time traveler just seems like some really bad Hollywood movie. But here I am, able to travel in time to wherever I want to go.

I keep replaying in my head what Penelope said about this whole thing being controllable, but I'm still holding out hope that it'll just magically disappear. I wouldn't mind just staying in chronological order for the rest of my life, to be completely honest. Penelope just looked like she loved being able to time travel, but she doesn't have a fiancee that currently hates her because of this. At least that I know of.

I come home from meeting with Penelope, and I'm so overjoyed by the news that I'm not crazy and that this time travel nonsense can go away that I immediately call Lily. It goes straight to voicemail, which I expected, and I say, "Hey, it's me. Listen, I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking that day, maybe it's nerves or something but what I do know for sure is that I love you, Lily. So, please, call me back."

Just as I'm about to crash on my couch and close my eyes for a bit, finally feeling as though I can take a proper nap, my phone starts ringing. I look at it, surprised, because it's Lily. I immediately answer it.

"Lily!" I exclaim.

"Zev, please for the love of the God, stop calling me," she says.

"Lily, wait–"

"I need a minute, okay? Can you just give me some time to myself before I let you explain why you ruined our wedding? And I mean a real explanation too, not the bogus time traveling bullshit you spewed earlier."

I open my mouth to speak but I find myself unable to say what I want to say.

"Okay," I say, finally.

"Thank you," she huffs, hanging up.

I sigh and throw my phone onto the couch. I want to show everyone that I'm not lying, that I really can travel in time, but I'm not entirely sure how that works. God, this thing is ruining my life.

Suddenly, there's a pounding on my door and I groan; I would really like to be alone right now. But I walk over to the door and look through the peephole. I resist the urge to groan again because it's my mum and she's holding paper bags full of groceries in her hands. She pounds on the door again. I open it.

"Zev, beta," she says, waltzing in. Right as I'm about to close the door, I see that someone else is behind her, holding more groceries. "I remember you didn't have anything in your fridge last time I was here, so I did your shopping for you."

"Uh," is all I can say.

"Oh, right," Ma says. She takes the bags from the woman and I freeze because I recognize her. "This is Penelope. Come in, please, Penelope. She saw me at the grocery store when I almost dropped all my bags and she offered to help. Very sweet girl..."

Penelope stares at me in confusion, taking a step back. I can understand her shock because I'm feeling it too. She looks around my apartment before focusing back on me and smiling, like we hadn't just met twenty minutes ago.

"Hi," she says, holding out her hand.

"Hello," I nod, taking it.

Ma heads into the kitchen and Penelope says, in a low voice, "I swear I didn't know she was your mother. I try not to assume every Indian person I meet is related to one another."

"I thought you'd have gone back to LA by now or something," I comment, my tone coming out a bit more annoyed than I intended.

"I tried!" she whispers.

"What do you mean you tried?"

Before she can say anything, Ma yells from the kitchen, "Zev, should I make you some dinner? I can make korma!"

"It's okay, Ma–"

"Penelope, would you like to stay for dinner? I'm making korma. Do you know what that is? It's chicken. Do you eat chicken? I can make vegetable korma if you're a vegetarian..."

"Uh–" Penelope starts, glancing at me, confused.

I stare at my mother, unamused. This really isn't the time.

"Ma, we're okay. You don't need to make korma."

"Thank you, though," Penelope adds, kindly.

There's an awkward silence between us as Ma continues to do what she's doing in the kitchen. I look around, accepting the fact that there's no way to get rid of her and Penelope. I can see Penelope glancing around out of the corner of my eye.

"Do you want to sit down?" I say, gesturing to the couch.

"Sure," she says.

We both sit. My mum starts humming some Hindi song as she continues to make the korma that I don't want. All I want is peace and quiet. I haven't had that since before the wedding with all the preparations and having our families fly in from all over the world. Now with this time traveling thing and the fact that I ruined my wedding, my life hasn't calmed down once.

"Hey, do you mind if I use your phone?" Penelope asks, suddenly. "I, uh, forgot to bring mine."

I nod my head and hand her my phone.

"I'll just go outside for a bit," she mutters, standing up.

I look over to kitchen when she leaves and say, "Ma, please, you don't have to do this. I don't even like korma that much."

"Shush," she says. "Where's your skillet? I bought you that iron skillet for your birthday. Where is it?"

I exhale, standing up, and walk over to the closet by my room. I can hear her say, "Why is it in your closet?"

"Ma–" I stop suddenly.

I feel it. My heart starts to pound and my breathing becomes heavy. It's happening, I'm about to travel in time. My environment is starting to become blurry as I move farther and farther away from it. Where the hell am I going now?

It stops and I look around. I'm somewhere dark and I'm confused, feeling around my surroundings. I can feel a door handle and press down on it, opening it and stepping outside. It's another dark room but it looks like a restaurant that's closed. All the chairs are placed on top of the tables and there was a 'closed' sign in the window.

"Zev!"

I spin around and Penelope is standing in front of me. She looks like she just came from the women's toilets.

"Penelope? What are you doing here?"

"I didn't come here of my own accord," she says, giving me a look like I did this.

"You think I just wanted to up and come here, wherever we are?" I glare.

"Well, you're clearly the one that came here. I'm confused as to why I'm here..."

"I haven't a clue," I snap.

Penelope rolls her eyes and brushes past me. "Come on," she mutters.

I follow her and we step outside of the closed restaurant. It's bright outside, so bright that I'm blinded for a few seconds. I look up to see the name of this restaurant–Eddie's Diner–before looking around. It's a city, much like London, but hotter and sunnier.

"We're in LA!" Penelope exclaims, suddenly, pulling out my phone from her pocket. She turns on the screen and it says December 19 on it. She hands it to me and says, "Check the weather." I do as she says and it says Los Angeles.

"Oh," is all I can say. Well, that's helpful.

"Also, this is where I live," she says, pointing to a tall building. She starts walking and is already half-way across the street by the time I realize where's she's going. I follow her as she steps inside the building. I'm unsure of what's going on.

The man at the front desk smiles and says, "Afternoon, Miss Carver."

"Hey, Johnny," Penelope says, beaming. We head straight to the elevator and she presses the '15' button.

"Wait, would using your phone to check where you are work in places like the year 3000?"

"No. The year 3000 is too far away for phones in our age to process. It's like Y2K all over again," she replies. "I usually use other cues, like fashion trends or something, especially in the past."

The elevator stops and the door opens. I find myself a little impressed that she does this with so much ease. We step into the hallway and Penelope stops in front of apartment 1527. She reaches up and pulls down a key from the top of the doorframe.

"What are you doing?"

"This is my apartment," she says, jabbing the key in and unlocking it.

"Aren't you afraid you'll be in there?"

"No, I'm at work right now." She opens it.

"Oh, right. What do you do?"

We step inside and I look around. It's a nice place, albeit a little messy. There's dirty dishes in the sink and empty glasses on the coffee table. There's even a blanket strewn across the floor by the couch.

"I own a pet hotel," she replies.

"A pet hotel?"

"What?" she asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Nothing, that's just not what I expected," I shrug.

"I don't get paid to time travel," she says.

"I never thought that you did." I roll my eyes.

"Well, what do you do then?"

"I'm a financial analyst," I reply. Penelope doesn't say anything, she just makes a kind of face, like she expected it.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's fitting," she says, shrugging.

"Thanks, I guess," I furrow my eyebrows. There's a small silence and I look around again before saying, "Okay, what do we do now?"

"I have to get some stuff as a precaution before I try to go back to four days from now, since I seem to be having trouble traveling," she says. "You actually didn't have to come with me, since you're going back to London in four days, while I'm coming back here." She heads into her bedroom and I stand outside, awkwardly.

"So I followed you for no reason?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Penelope returns and I see her pocket a wad of cash and an extra iPhone into her jacket. She sees the look on my face and explains, shrugging, "I have extra stuff on hand in case I end up in a situation, such as this one, where I don't have anything on me."

"Right...so, what do I do?"

"You can hang out here and wait for the universe to take you back, since I won't come home for another few hours, or I can help you do it yourself," she suggests.

"Definitely the latter. No offense, but I'd rather get back to the current time," I say a bit too quickly.

Penelope lets out a chuckle and says, "Okay, time traveling uses a lot of concentration and mind power. You have to not think of anything whatsoever except your destination. Can you do that?"

I give her a look. "I'm not a child."

"Okay, then do it," she snaps back. "Focus on your apartment, the little details, the time of day, your mother in the kitchen. Don't think about anything else but your home..."

I close my eyes and I start imagining it. The decorations on the walls (insistence from Lily), my bedroom, the couch in the living room, all of it. I can see Mum making korma and the aroma–one that is all too familiar to me–filling up my home. The clouds are obstructing the sun but light is still shining through the windows I usually keep open.

My heart starts to beat very fast and I can hear myself say, "I think it's working!" but Penelope doesn't respond. I keep my eyes closed as I can feel myself move and then it stops again. My feet land on the ground and I open my eyes, the familiar hallway to my place appearing into view. I did it! I was in bloody control of myself!

"What the hell?"

I turn around and Penelope is standing next to me and looking around. My excitement diminishes but it's nothing compared to the look on her face. Why did she come with me?

"This isn't right," she says, looking around. "Why am I, like, linked to you? Wherever you go, I seem to go. This isn't right."

"Why does this keep happening?" I ask, irritated.

"If I knew that, do you really think I'd be here right now?" Penelope snaps. I scowl at her. We both look at the door and can smell korma coming from it.

"So, what?" I say.

"We go inside." I can't hide my distaste for this situation and Penelope glares at me and says, "I don't want to go in there either, especially since I need to figure out what on earth is going on, but we kind of have to since, hopefully, nothing has changed in the last four days. Your mother expects both of us."

I exhale, "Fine," and open the door. This is really starting to get on my nerves.