Remember Yesterday

56

I run. My feet fly over the ground, and my arms whip against the bramble and brush of the woods. The air whistles in and out of my lungs, and a stray branch slashes my forehead. I don’t bother to stop or even wince. I have to find Logan.

Dear Fates. Don’t let me be too late.

Logan wasn’t at his house. He left Mikey’s—where he confided his intention to propose—hours ago. But I know him. There’s one place to which we both escape when we need to think. A place where the sky is our ceiling and the water is our floor. The place where we both feel closest to Callie.

I have to believe that for a decision this big, he would come here first.

Please. Let me be right.

I crash through the woods, heading toward the cove where the lake juts into the land and the trees spread their leafy fingers overhead. I skirt around a fallen moss-covered trunk, and there he is. Sitting on one of two side-by-side stumps that always seemed tailor-made for us.

The sun is warm on my skin, and the air smells of fresh pine and damp earth. This is what the outdoors—what home—always smells like. And yet, my hands are slick with sweat, and my heart thumps in my throat.

I walk to the stumps. My shoes crunch on small sticks, and Logan looks up. Deep circles rim his eyes, and the lines on his face seem to have multiplied. I may have traveled a decade into the past, but in that same time, Logan looks like he’s jumped forward ten years.

“You did it, didn’t you?” I say, my knees weak. “You ejected Callie from your heart.”

He drops his head. “I guess you heard. Every day, Angela and Mikey were on my case. To move on. To let go. To live. This is me, trying to do that.”

I close my eyes. This is my fault. I should’ve told him as soon as I learned about my sister. I shouldn’t have listened to Mikey. I shouldn’t have waited. Because now, we can’t go back to yesterday. Even if Callie wakes up, what’s done is done.

Oh, engagements can be broken. But not for someone like Logan—someone whose word means everything. He’s loyal, steadfast, unflappable. That’s why he is so loved. That’s what makes him who he is.

Everything inside me compresses into a tight, dark ball. I’m too late.

I open my eyes, just in time to see his face change. The lines smooth out; his expression turns calm and placid. There’s nothing he can do about the bags under his eyes, but right in front of me, he mutates from a man plagued by tragedy to one who is solid and steady—to the Logan I’ve known all my life.

The transformation is subtle, and I might’ve missed it if I hadn’t watched him from a certain air shaft in the past. But I recognize the shift now. I see how, all of his life, he puts on a mask for me. To protect me.

“I love you, Logan,” I say quietly. “I always have, and that will never change. You were my savior, my protector. You were the only one who loved Callie as much as I did. But I never appreciated what you went through. How hard it must’ve been for you to keep it together and take care of me, when you were just a kid yourself. How you had to put your own despair below mine. But you did it.”

He traces the tip of his shoe in the dirt. “In the beginning, I did it for Callie. All she wanted was for you to be safe. When she couldn’t protect you anymore, I took the reins. Because I loved her.” He tilts his face to the leaf-covered sky. The one that’s always there, always whole, no matter how broken we are underneath. “But pretty soon, you wormed your way into my heart, too. You were a cute kid, you know. It’s easy to see why she loved you so much.”

“I never talked,” I say, flushing. “Remember how you would all be laughing and joking, and I’d be in the corner, sulking?”

“Not sulking.” He picks up my fingers and squeezes them. “You were just taking it all in. Besides, you didn’t have to talk or tell jokes for me to accept you. I love you simply because you’re Jessa. The sister of my heart.”

I take a deep breath and then another one. The tears line my lungs, and every breath brings a little more moisture to the surface. This man. He’s done so much for me. Given me so much. Cruel or not, he deserves the truth.

Haltingly, I tell him everything. How I discovered Callie was still alive. How Mikey convinced me to stay quiet. Our wild plan to save Callie and our journey to the past. How I saw a younger him save a younger me.

When I finish, it’s so quiet I can hear the wind rustling the leaves. The crickets chirping their beginning-of-summer song.

“Say something,” I beg. “Are you mad?”

His eyes flash. “Am I mad? Ten years ago, my life was destroyed. My heart was ripped out, and every time I hoped it could be put back, I was shot down. Encouraged to forget about Callie and move on. Now you’re telling me there’s a possibility she might come back to us?” He shakes his head wonderingly. “I should want to tear time apart that you kept this a secret for so long. But all I can feel is amazed. I might get to listen to her laugh again. To hold her hand. To see in her eyes how my touch affects her.”

“But isn’t it too late? You’re engaged. You’re no longer free to love her.”

“No,” he says. “I’m not.”

My heart—and time itself—stops. “You told Mikey this morning you were going to propose to Ainsley. When I got here, you said it was a done deal.”

“I meant I made the decision to propose,” he says. “I didn’t actually go through with it.”

He takes something out of his pocket. At first, I think it’s a ring, but then I see it is a plant bracelet. Thin green stalks woven together and preserved in some kind of sealant so that it holds, even after one year—or ten. “I had every intention of proposing to Ainsley today. But as I was leaving my house, something caught my eye. Something bright and red. The corner of a leaf.”

He slips the bracelet on his wrist. “I don’t know if you know this, but when we moved back to civilization, your mom gave me Callie’s old books. The physical ones. There weren’t many, just a few cookbooks and a thin volume of poems by Emily Brontë. I kept them on a shelf, and today, as I walked past, I saw a bit of red sticking out of the book of poems. I don’t know why I never noticed it before. When I opened the book, a bright red leaf came fluttering out. Just like the ones I used to give her when we were kids.”

I can hardly breathe. That was me. Logan never noticed the corner of the leaf before because it wasn’t sticking out before. When I went to the past, I put the slim volume back where it belonged, but I left a corner of a leaf poking out. Tanner was so worried that my one small action would change the future—and it did.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason. Maybe our paths roll out exactly the way they’re supposed to unfurl.

“I knew right then that I couldn’t go through with the proposal.” The mask slips from Logan’s face, and he shows me exactly who he is when he’s not trying to protect me. A man who hurts…and loves. “I knew this was a sign telling me to wait for something, anything.” He swipes his hand over his eyes. “Maybe I have more precognition than I thought.”

“Maybe so.” I stand and hold my hand out to him. “Come on. Let’s go wake up my sister.”