Jay Asher - The Future of Us

WE WALK UP THE STAIRS to my bedroom, and Kellan asks if she can borrow my red bathing suit. “You should definitely wear your tan bikini,” she says. “Guys love it.”

“How do you know?”

Kellan opens my bedroom door. “Not that we care what Josh thinks, but when you wore it at the lake, he was checking you out.”

My mind flashes to that photo on Facebook. The good ole days. Josh said he took the picture by accident. Well, if he was checking me out, he’s definitely over me now. Now he’s got his pick of girls at school, and it’s only a matter of time before he permanently picks Sydney Mills.

I locate Green Day’s Dookie in my stack of CDs, slide it into my stereo, and click fast-forward until I get to “When I Come Around.” I’ve always liked this song, and Cody definitely put me in the mood for it.

“Is that your new computer?” Kellan asks, unclasping her bra beneath her shirt. “Look at that monitor!”

I wonder what would happen if I showed her Facebook. She said she wouldn’t want to time travel, but how would she feel about reading her future… reading about Lindsay? Would her future self want her to know? And what would my future self want me to know? And Josh’s?

Do they remember that, during this week in May, we’ve discovered a way to read Facebook? Maybe when they’re writing this stuff, they’re encoding what they say with subtle messages, guiding us into making different decisions. Maybe Kellan’s future self knows she’ll be in my bedroom today, inching closer to my computer. If that’s true, then adult Kellan can tweak what she says to reflect whether or not she wants seventeen-year-old Kellan to know about the baby.

“Can I check my email?” Kellan asks, pressing the power button on my monitor.

Or maybe Josh and I are the only ones who are supposed to know about this.

Or maybe time doesn’t even allow us to remember because it’d rip a massive hole in the universe.

“No!” I push Kellan’s hand away from the computer.

She steps back, confused. “I’m not going to break it. Remember, I’m the one who showed you how to use the Internet.”

“It’s just that Martin’s getting home soon,” I say. “He and my mom have been touchy about how much time I’ve been spending online.”

There’s no way I can bring Kellan into this, too. I throw our bathing suits and flip-flops into a beach bag and send her down the hall in search of towels.

DAD PICKS UP his office phone and dials Mom’s extension. She’s only two doors down, so I can hear it ring.

“He’s here,” Dad says into the receiver.

Dad’s office looks the same as the last time I was here. Mind-numbingly dull. Some of their best friends teach history, and their offices have powerful posters with cool quotes like “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and “History is written by the victors.” The only poster on Dad’s wall is a black and white photo of a bald sociologist inspecting his glasses.

Mom eases the door shut, and then sits in the chair beside me.

“Why were you late for school this morning?” Dad asks.

I knew this would happen. When Emma and I finally arrived at school, we were already ten minutes late. I was hoping if the school left a message on our answering machine, I could erase it before my parents got home. But apparently their work numbers are at the top of the contact list.

“Dad and I give you a lot of freedom,” Mom says. “We don’t make you take the bus, but we expect you to get yourself there on time.”

“We know you didn’t oversleep,” Dad says. “Your music was playing when we left for work.”

“I caught a ride with Emma,” I say. “We lost track of time. It won’t happen again.”

Dad taps his finger against his desk. “Did you forget to look at the clock?”

“Why did you lose track of time?” Mom asks. “Was Emma in your bedroom?”

This is what David was talking about. Before leaving for college, he warned me that Mom and Dad get way too overprotective about the opposite sex. But apparently, it wasn’t the opposite sex they had to worry about with him.

“She wasn’t in my bedroom,” I say, which isn’t a total lie. I don’t think Emma actually made it through the doorway once she began laughing at my tighty-whities.

“Were you in her bedroom?” Mom asks.

I shouldn’t have to answer that question. I’ve never given them any reason not to trust me, yet they’re acting like I need to report back on everything I do. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a little kid anymore. I can even cross the street all by myself.”

“That’s right,” Dad says. “And when you were a kid, we let you and Emma have sleepovers. The difference is, we know you’re not a kid anymore.”

“You’re a teenage boy,” Mom says.

“Really?” I ask. “Wow.”

Dad leans forward. “Why were the two of you late for school?”

I lean back in my chair and chuckle. “You want to know if we were having sex, right?”

Dad’s voice is tight. “That’s not what I said.”

Mom lifts a hand to her chest. “Were you?”

I stand up and pull my backpack over my shoulder. “No, we weren’t having sex. And I’m only telling you that so you don’t have a heart attack. But you’re assuming an awful lot just because I was a few minutes late to school.”

“David was never late to school,” Dad says.

“And yet,” I say, my voice rising, “he chose to go to college over two thousand miles from Lake Forest!”

Mom and Dad turn to each other. There’s nothing left to say, so I grab my skateboard and leave.

THE MAN IN A WHITE PAPER HAT passes me a sugar cone with two scoops of rocky road. Holding the ice cream in one hand, I drop a quarter in the tip jar and put the rest of the change in my pocket. I carry my board outside and sit on a wooden bench, working my way around the edges of the cone.

I’m dreading seeing Mom and Dad later. Even though they brought David’s name into the discussion, I didn’t need to imply that he moved to Seattle to get away from them. I don’t even know if that’s true.

Across the four-lane road, there’s a small shopping center with a comic book store, a hair salon, and a record shop. I watch a white convertible pull into the parking lot.

That’s Sydney’s car! She looks at herself in the rearview mirror and tugs her hair into a ponytail as the top electronically closes around her.

In one of my pockets is Sydney’s phone number written across a torn piece of paper. Her cell phone is probably in her car right now. In my other pocket are enough coins to make a call. And beside this bench is a pay phone.

No, this is ridiculous.

I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. If I call Sydney and tell her I can see her, she’ll think I’m a stalker. Besides, if Emma’s right and Sydney is playing hard to get, then she won’t answer her phone. She’ll wait to hear whatever message I leave, but I have no idea what I’d say.

I watch Sydney walk past the hair salon and open the door of the comic book store. She’s into comics? Nice!

She gave me her cell number because she wants me to call, but what if this is too much too soon? Calling her right now could ruin everything. If we’re meant to be together, it needs to happen naturally. I step onto my board and skate away, licking my ice cream to distract myself.

Or maybe I’m just being chicken.

At the first corner, I bend my knees and take a right.

If I was heading home, I would’ve gone straight.

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND why you’re forcing me to eat ice cream,” Kellan says, staring at the menu above the concession stand at the lake. “I’m craving a slushie.”

“Because I’m the one with the money.” I lift my sunglasses so I can read the flavors. “Besides, ice cream is healthier.”

“Healthier how?”

“It’s high in calcium,” I say. When my stepmom was pregnant, she talked about needing a lot of calcium.

“What’ll it be, girls?” asks the woman behind the counter.

“I’ll have strawberry,” I say, grabbing a handful of napkins, “with rainbow sprinkles.”

Kellan turns to me. “Pretty please, slushie?”

I shake my head.

“Fine,” she says. “Then cookie dough.”

While the woman leans into the ice cream tubs, Kellan says, “I don’t get why everyone’s so concerned about my eating habits. First Tyson, now you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Since when are you and Tyson on good enough terms to discuss how you eat?”

Kellan waves off my question. “We’ve always been on good terms.”

“Do I have to remind you how much he irritates you? Or about those two weeks you missed school?”

Kellan reaches for her cookie dough cone. “Did you know love and hate share the same nervous circuits in the brain?”

“So now you love him again?”

“I didn’t say that. I was just stating a fact.”

We walk across the sand, licking our ice creams.

“I feel like you’re keeping things from me,” I say.

“Like what?” Kellan asks.

I step around some little boys building a sand castle. I watch them fill the moat with a small bucket of lake water and I wonder if Kevin Storm and I will still have two sons tonight.

“You wouldn’t tell me why you went to the doctor today.”

“I know,” Kellan says. “It’s just that I feel weird talking about it.”