Jay Asher - The Future of Us

Josh Templeton

Good things come to those who wait.

16 hours ago · Like · Comment

Dennis Holloway What are you, a fortune

cookie?

14 hours ago · Like

The next isn’t much better.

Josh Templeton

The countdown has begun.

Yesterday at 11:01pm · Like · Comment

I swivel to face Emma. “I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

Emma shrugs as she bites the nail of her pinky finger.

I turn back to the computer and scroll down, scanning through more entries. “Promise me if I ever get this boring you’ll—”

And then I freeze.

Emma catapults out of the chair. “What is it?”

We both stare at a photo near the bottom of the page. It’s a picture of Sydney standing sideways. She’s holding her stomach, and it’s huge!

Josh Templeton

My baby’s having my first baby any day now.

May 16 at 9:17am · Like · Comment

“That’s cheesy,” Emma says, but then she gets it. “Wait, your first baby?”

I stand up so fast I nearly pass out. I told her. I told her! This future stuff is dangerous. We can’t tinker with things, plucking out details we don’t like. I sit on the edge of Emma’s bed and stare vacantly at the mirror hanging on her door. If changing her husband also changes my children, the future’s even more fragile than I thought. The repercussions are impossible to predict.

“If what I did caused this, I’m so sorry,” Emma says. Three of my future children have been erased from existence before they had a chance to exist at all. I’ll never build a model solar system with that boy, or take those twin girls to have their birthday party at GoodTimez.

Emma sits behind me on the bed. She rubs her hands together to warm them up. My mind tells me to pull away, but I can’t.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

She presses her fingers along the muscles at the back of my neck. “I think we need to realize there’s no way to control these particular types of changes.”

“What do you mean, ‘these particular types’?”

“Your children. My children,” she says. “When you took health last semester, how much do you remember about sperm?”

I turn and glare at Emma. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Emma squeezes both of my shoulders. “No matter how small the ripple, the most vulnerable part of the future is going to be our children. If we keep looking at Facebook, we shouldn’t get too attached to—”

“It altered my sperm?” I say. “What are you talking about?”

Emma kneads her thumbs in small circles down the sides of my spine. “All of this stuff occurs years from now. Think of how many billions of tiny details need to line up between now and then to make everything exactly the same. It’s impossible. Even this massage, which wouldn’t have happened yesterday, makes whatever happens next a little different.”

“What does that have to do with my sperm?”

Emma slides her fingers behind my ears. “Do you remember when your teacher talked about how many sperm you guys let loose every time you—”

“On second thought, can we not talk about this?” I say, my eyes rolling back at her touch.

She rubs her fingertips down my arms. Man, I love that so much.

“Every time you ejaculate,” she continues, “you release something like four hundred million sperm. Each one totally unique.”

“I seriously don’t want to talk about this.”

With her fingers running back up my arms, and all this sperm talk, things are getting a little too intense down below. I lean slightly forward, conveniently placing my forearms across my lap.

“Will you just do my shoulders?” I ask.

As Emma moves her hands back up to my shoulders, there’s a ping at the computer, like digital fairy dust.

“An instant message!” Emma scrambles off the bed. “I’ve never gotten one of these before.”

I cross my legs and turn toward the computer.

“The screen name says it’s from DontCallMeCindy,” Emma says. “I have no idea who that is, but she’s asking if I’m the Emma Nelson who goes to Lake Forest.” As she taps at the keys, Emma tells me what she’s writing. “‘Tell me who you are first.’”

I want to watch the screen myself, but there’s no way I can stand up just yet.

Another instant message appears. Emma reads it to herself, and then narrows her eyes at me. “You are in so much trouble.”

“What? Why?”

She types some more words and then hits Enter. “Five minutes ago,” she says, “you were lecturing me about changing the future. But it looks like you’ve been tinkering with it yourself.”

I laugh. “What are you talking about?”

“You are such a hypocrite! Why else would Sydney Mills be asking for your phone number?”

JOSH LEANS FORWARD on my bed, one leg crossed over the other. “You gave it to her, right?”

I grin and tap my chin. “Well, I had to think about whether or not—”

“Emma! Did you give my number to Sydney Mills?”

“Of course I did.”

“What did she say?”

I glance at the screen. I closed the instant message box once Sydney signed out. All that’s left is Josh’s Facebook page with Sydney’s massive belly.

Josh Templeton

My baby’s having my first baby any day now.

May 16 at 9:17am · Like · Comment

That comment annoys me. It’s cheesier than anything Josh would say now. I guess that’s the kind of guy he becomes, all mushy and wrapped up in Sydney like he has no life of his own.

Josh looks at me with a pained sort of hope. “I need to know exactly what she said.”

“What did you want to her to say? That she’s driving over in her convertible to whisk you into the sunset?” That wasn’t fair. I don’t know why I’m being so bitchy. “She said she got my screen name from Graham. So I gave her your number and she said thanks.”

Josh stares at me. “I thought you were happy now that you’re married to Kevin Storm.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I say. “You were so mad at me for calling Jordan, but then here comes Sydney Mills, asking for your number. You must have done more than just make a face in class yesterday.”

Josh raises his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did?”

“We were in Peer Issues today, talking about relationships, and this senior guy gave her a hard time. So I stood up for her. What was I supposed to do?”

“You stood up for Sydney about relationship issues? Who was giving her a hard time?”

“Rick something. He’s in Mr. Fritz’s class.”

“Does he play football?”

“Do you know him?”

I can’t help laughing. “You defended Sydney to Rick Rolland?”

Josh doesn’t care about who’s popular at school, or who has a history together, and that’s all great. But Rick Rolland is the guy having the bonfire Kellan was excited about. He and Sydney used to date, and Josh should not be involving himself with that.

“He was being a dick,” Josh says. “And besides, what I said wasn’t a big deal.”

But we both know it was. This ripple is going to affect Josh’s future in a major way.

Josh takes in a deep breath. “So I was thinking about Facebook today. Remember last summer at the lake when Frank Wheeler said he was going to become a millionaire, and everyone laughed?”

I’m not sure where Josh is going with this, but I’m relieved to be moving on from Sydney and my husbands. “He said he’d jump in front of a bus if he doesn’t make a million by the time he’s thirty.”

“Exactly.” Josh reaches into his backpack and pulls out a folded up piece of paper. “I made a list of people we should look up on Facebook. Like my mom and dad, David, Tyson—”

“And Kellan!” I add. “I was thinking the same thing today. I want to see if she makes it into med school.”

I swivel toward my computer, and jiggle the mouse. The brick wall screensaver disappears and I get another chance to witness Sydney’s pregnant belly. “First, we should refresh your page,” I say. “Since you were Sydney’s superhero today, and now she’s going to call you, I bet everything’s different. You probably weren’t supposed to get together until much later, and—”

“Wait.” Josh stands up.

The arrow hovers over the Refresh button, but his tone is so serious I don’t click it.

Josh wriggles his feet into his sneakers and then grabs his skateboard and backpack. “I’ll try to come back later. Don’t look anyone up without me, okay?”

As he barrels downstairs, I shout, “I know where you’re going! Don’t you think babysitting your telephone is kind of—?”

Before I can finish, the latch on my front door clicks shut.

SYDNEY MILLS ASKED for my number!

I sprint through my front door, then up the stairs to my bedroom.

Sydney Mills asked for my number!

It still makes no sense, but I need to accept this reality. It’ll start with a phone call, which will lead to marriage, children, and a house on Crown Lake. I’ll have a fancy graphic-design job, and I’ll probably drive a nice car, too. A BMW or, since we’ll be out in the country, a Chevy Tahoe. Or both! In fifteen years, maybe I’ll drive something so insane I can’t even imagine it now.