The Future of Us

6://Josh

AS I SQUEEZE OUT a line of toothpaste, I hear Emma’s car door shut and the engine start. When I woke up this morning, I considered hitching a ride so we could have a chance to talk, but it’s better if I still keep some distance. Rejection always hurts, but having it come from my best friend was the worst.

Emma shuts off her car engine. I look out the window. She’s heading back into her house. Her bedroom window is across from my upstairs bathroom, so I can see her pull her saxophone case from the closet. When I was younger, I used to write notes with markers and hold them to this window for Emma to read with her pink binoculars. I still keep that can of markers on my desk, but I’m sure she sold her binoculars at one of the yard sales the Nelsons are always having.

I rinse and spit, listening to Emma start her engine again. Seconds later, it stops. This time, she slams the car door. I feel bad for Emma, but I can’t help laughing. She’s convinced that what we saw on the computer is her life in fifteen years. As much as I’d like to believe something like that is possible, one of us needs to remain skeptical.

I turn off the faucet and look outside. Now Emma’s trunk is open and she’s tossing her silver sneakers on top of her saxophone case. She slams the trunk, but it pops back open as soon as she walks away.

I KNOCK ON the passenger window of Emma’s car. “Can I get a ride?”

She reaches across and unlocks the door. I lower my head to climb in, something I didn’t have to do when Emma first got her license. I position my skateboard between my knees and click the seatbelt into the buckle.

Emma puts the car in reverse. “Thanks for coming down.”

“Rough night?”

Emma nods. “I’m not in the mood to face certain people today.”

I wonder if she means Graham. His locker is near mine, so I get to see him pull Emma into a groping session every morning.

It always fills me with so much joy.

“Want to swing by Sunshine Donuts?” I ask.

Emma turns on her blinker. “Absolutely.”

A mile past Wagner Park, Emma pulls up to the orange speaker-box and orders herself coffee with cream and sugar and a cinnamon donut. I ask for a glazed donut and chocolate milk.

“I don’t get it,” Emma says as she pulls forward. We’re still two cars back from the pickup window. “How did this happen to me?”

“Not that I’m buying into the future stuff,” I say, “but I have no idea why anyone would even joke about your future sucking. You’re really smart and—”

“Thanks for bringing that up,” Emma says. “But I wasn’t talking about my future sucking. I was talking about the whole website in general. How is it possible to read about something that hasn’t happened yet?”

The car in front of us pulls up to the window. I reach into my back pocket and offer Emma a few crumpled dollar bills, but she pushes my money away.

“At first I thought it was the CD-ROM,” she says, “but maybe it’s the phone jack that made something happen during the download. Remember that electrician who rewired the house?”

“You think he accidently wired you into the future?” I say, trying not to laugh. “Anyway, that was months ago.”

“But I didn’t have a computer yet. Maybe we should move the computer to your house to see if the website works there.”

No way. We can’t start running back and forth between our houses again.

“But that still wouldn’t explain how it happened,” Emma says. “Or how we can read about things that occur fifteen years from now.”

I point out the window at the cars driving by. “If you want me to play along, here’s a theory. You know how Vice President Gore calls the Internet the ‘Information Superhighway’? Let’s say everyone’s going the same direction on this superhighway. Time travel would be about finding a way to jump to a different spot.”

The car ahead of us pulls away. Emma drives up to the window and then passes her money to the Sunshine woman. “So you think this website jumps us ahead somehow?”

The woman hands our drinks to Emma, who passes them to me. I place her Styrofoam cup of coffee in the drink holder so she can grab the donut bag.

“Honestly, I’m just playing along,” I say. “I still think it’s all a prank.”

We don’t say much for the drive to school. When we pull into the student parking lot, I check my watch. The bell is set to ring in three minutes.

“I know I dragged you into this,” she says, turning in her seat to face me, “but I’m a little hurt that you’re not taking it more seriously. If you saw your future and it looked terrible, I don’t think you’d be so quick to blow this off.”

“But it’s not real,” I say. I crumple up the donut bag and stuff it into my empty cup. “How about after your track meet, let’s try to figure it out? Maybe whoever made it misspelled your name somewhere or got a date wrong. We’ll find something.”

“Why do you need to prove it’s a prank so badly?” Emma asks.

“So you can stop worrying. Your life is going to turn out fine.”

Emma looks into the rearview mirror, and then turns to me. “Josh, before you came back over last night, I found something else on that website.”

The way she’s staring at me gives me the chills.

“If someone’s pulling a prank on me,” she adds, “then they’re also pulling a prank on you.”

7://Emma

“ME?” Josh’s eyes squint in confusion.

His webpage was one of the many things that kept me awake last night. I should have told him about it the instant he came up to my room.

“Emma.” Josh waves a hand in front of my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Last night,” I say, “before you came over, I was looking at the Facebook website. Remember where it says I have three hundred and twenty friends.” I pause and exhale slowly. “It showed you as one of them.”

There’s silence in the car.

“It said ‘Josh Templeton,’” I add, “along with a picture of you. An older you.”

Josh taps the Sunshine Donuts cup against his knee. He didn’t want to believe any of this. He wanted to prove it was a prank.

“You have short hair like David,” I say. “And you wear glasses.”

“My eyes are fine,” Josh says.

“Not in the future, apparently.”

Josh presses his thumbnail into the Styrofoam cup, making half-moon marks up one side. “Did you see anything else? When you clicked on Emma Nelson Jones’s picture, it took you to another webpage. Could you do that with mine?”

I nod. “It has your birthday as April fifth, and it says you went to the University of Washington.”

“Like David,” Josh says.

“And now you live back here again.”

“In Lake Forest?”

I wonder how he feels about that. Personally, I’m determined to move away someday. There’s no actual forest in town and Crown Lake is nine miles down the highway, surrounded by expensive houses. The downtown is only three streets long, and you can’t do anything without everyone knowing about it. But Josh is more laid back than I am. He seems to think Lake Forest is perfectly fine.

“Where’s my house?” Josh asks. “They don’t have me living with my parents when I’m in my thirties, do they?”

I shake my head. “I think you’re out by the lake. There was a picture of you in your yard, and you could see a dock in the background with a motorboat hitched to it.”

“Very cool,” Josh says. “So they made me rich.”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you keep saying ‘they’? Who are you talking about?”

“The people who created this joke of a website. I’m going to go to the tech lab today and see if anyone’s been scanning pictures of—”

“When you say ‘the people who created this,’ don’t you get it? At some point in the future, we created it. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it looks like interconnected websites where people show their photos and write about everything going on in their lives, like whether they found a parking spot or what they ate for breakfast.”

“But why?” Josh asks.

The first bell rings for homeroom. Graham’s going to wonder where I was this morning. We usually meet at his locker and walk to band together.

I grab my bag and then reach for the door.

“Hang on,” Josh says as he spins a wheel on his skateboard. “That Facebook thing, did it say whether or not I’m married?”

I flip through my keys so I can unlock the trunk. “Yeah, you’re married.”

“What does it say about… her?” Josh asks, his face pale. “My… you know… wife?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in this,” I say.

“But I still want to know. It’s my future, right?”

“Here’s the thing,” I say, taking in a breath. “In the future, you’re married to Sydney Mills.”

Josh’s mouth hangs open.

I open my car door. “We’re going to be late.”

8://Josh

I IMAGINE Sydney Mills standing in front of me. Her long brown hair is held back by a white headband, and her eyes are the color of sweet caramel. She opens her arms and I pull her into a kiss, the fullness of her breasts pressing into my chest.

Then I open my eyes, grab my skateboard, and meet Emma at the trunk.

“Sydney Mills?” I say. “That’s ridiculous!”

Emma stuffs her silver running shoes into her backpack. “But now you want this to be true, right?”

“Why would I want to believe something that’s a hoax?” I say. Even so, I’m tempted to make Emma drive us home so I can see for myself. But if we’re late to school, the secretary will leave a message on our home answering machines.

Sydney Mills is a year ahead of me. She’s insanely hot, she’s one of the best athletes in school, and she comes from a wealthy family. I have no idea why anyone would match us up even as a joke. We’ve been in Peer Issues together since January and we’ve never said a word to each other.

“Look at you,” Emma teases, bumping her arm against mine. “You’re in love.”

Emma reaches up to ruffle my hair, but I pull away. I sling my backpack over one shoulder and start walking toward school.

“Wait up, Mr. Mills,” Emma calls.

I stop and turn around.

Emma shifts her saxophone case to her other hand. “It’s okay. I’d be walking like a maniac, too, if I discovered Cody and I were married and vacationing in Waikiki.”

Waikiki?

“I wasn’t walking fast because I’m excited,” I say. “I just hate it when you… you know… touch my hair and stuff.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says, and I know she gets it. She doesn’t want to hurt our friendship either. That’s why she let me put distance between us for the past six months.

Emma points at a white convertible with its top up. “There’s Sydney’s car. Maybe you should leave a love sonnet beneath her windshield wiper. Or a haiku! It’s probably best if you don’t try to rhyme.”

For the junior high talent show, I bombed with my rap act. I thought I could be the first redheaded rapper. I called myself RedSauce. A few times a year, Emma brings it up to torture me. But that’s better than my brother, who mentions it almost every time we talk.

“So, Sydney and I go to Waikiki?” I ask.

As we push through the double doors of the school, Emma leans in close. “Your future self isn’t as revealing as I am,” she says, her breath sweet with cinnamon. “You don’t give juicy details about whether you and Sydney do it on the beach, so don’t get all hot and bothered.”

Emma waves goodbye, and then gets swallowed by the mob of students.

“You’re just jealous!” I say, but I don’t think she hears me.

9://Emma

I’M COMPLETELY DISTRACTED in band. After I miss my cue for the fourth time, Mr. Markowitz points his baton at the horn section and says, “How about everyone take a five-minute break? Flutes, come see me to talk about solos.”

I glance toward percussion, but Graham isn’t here yet. Sometimes he gets held up meeting with the swim coach, which is fine by me. I’m still dreading seeing him. I set my instrument on my seat and head to the water fountain. As I lean over the arc of water, I think about what happened on my computer. It all seems less real today, especially the part about Josh marrying Sydney Mills. That’s like matching me with Leonardo DiCaprio.

“Guess who?” Graham covers my eyes with one hand and wraps the other around my waist.

I wipe my mouth and then turn to face him. As soon as I do, my breath catches. He shaved off his hair! All that beautiful blond hair is gone, and now his scalp is prickly and pale.

“What did you do?” I ask.

He grins and rubs his hands over his head. “Greg and Matt came over after Ultimate Frisbee and we buzzed our heads. Do you like it?”

All I can do is stare.

“Admit it,” Graham says, lacing his fingers into mine. “You want to run your hands over my big, smooth head.”

I’m not in the mood for this. When he presses against me, I back away.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Neither of us says anything more. Sometimes it feels like if it weren’t for making out, we’d have nothing to do with each other.

“IT’S TIME TO END it with Graham,” I say, looking into my paper lunch bag.

We’re in the cafeteria so Kellan can load up on her daily special, french fries and Sprite. Kellan is an inch shorter than me, with shiny black hair and perfect skin. And she can put away fries without gaining a pound.

“Weren’t you going to break up with him in the park yesterday?” she asks.

I smile at a few girls who walk by us. “I never ended up seeing him.”

“Well, what’s stopping you from doing it today?” Kellan pays the cashier and heads to the condiment station. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not stopping you.”

“Did you see his hair yet?”

Kellan shakes her head.

“It’s shaved,” I say. “He and Greg and the swim team guys did it yesterday. I swear, guys in groups are capable of the stupidest things.”

“Like war,” Kellan says, heaping napkins and ketchup packets onto her tray.

“And jumping off rooftops.”

“And lighting their farts on fire,” she says.

I laugh. “Do you know anyone who’s done that?”

“Tyson,” she says. “Next to the Dumpster behind GoodTimez, while you were visiting your dad last winter.”

Tyson’s father owns GoodTimez Pizza, a restaurant that specializes in birthday parties and cheesy deep-dish pies. Because of the arcade and the prime parking-lot skating, Josh and Tyson spend many hours there.

“Was Josh with him?” I ask.

Kellan considers it for a moment. “Actually, he filmed it. But he didn’t light anything.”

“Good. Because I would never let him forget that.”

As we push through the side doors of the cafeteria, Kellan asks, “So how does Graham look without his golden tresses?”

“Truthfully, his hair was the only thing that made him hot,” I say. “Now he looks like a peach lollipop.”

It’s sunny outside, even warmer than yesterday. We start across the campus to our usual lunch spot, and I turn to Kellan. “Can I ask you a physics question?”

Her face brightens at the mention of physics. She’s currently taking physics at Hemlock State on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It’s part of the same enrichment program that she tried to get me to apply to, so we could take college biology next fall.

I shift my paper bag to the other hand and say, as casually as possible, “What do scientists think about time travel?”

She lifts her tray up to her chin and pinches a fry with her teeth. “Why?”

“I’m just curious,” I say. “Back to the Future was on cable last night.”

Kellan pauses in front of a muddy patch in the grass and launches into an explanation of time dilation and special relativity. I try to follow, but I get lost somewhere around wormholes.

“Nothing’s proven,” Kellan says. “But nothing’s ruled out, either. My personal opinion is that it’s possible, but I wouldn’t want to do it.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “The past is over. We can read about it in history books. And what if in the future we’re at war again, or we still haven’t elected a non-white or non-male president, or the Rolling Stones are still dragging their tired old butts on stage? That would depress me way too much.”

“I hope the future’s better than now,” I say, though I’m not sure it will be.

“You know that cute guy I told you about in my physics class?” Kellan asks. “I ran into him downtown yesterday. Seriously, Emma, you’ve got to take biology with me there. You won’t believe the guys at Hemlock. They’re men.”

“So you’re saying I should take college bio for the guys?”

Kellan shakes her head. “You should take college biology because you’re smart and there aren’t enough women working in science. But you and I can help change that. The guys are the icing on the cake.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I’m more concerned with what Kellan said about time travel. If it was definitely not possible, she would have told me. But that’s not what she said.

“Besides improving the gender ratio in science,” Kellan says, “I want you to fall in love before we graduate. That’s a personal goal of mine.”

“You know how I feel about love,” I say. “It was invented to sell wedding cakes. And vacations to Waikiki.”

“My parents have been in love for nineteen years,” Kellan says. “And look at Tyson and me. We were probably the two most—”

“He broke your heart! How can you call it love when he hurt you so badly?”

Kellan pops another fry into her mouth. “It was love because it was worth it.”

10://Josh

I’M THE FIRST ONE to the oak tree, our usual lunch spot at the far end of the campus. I set my lunch bag at my feet, pull my sweatshirt over my head, and cram it into my backpack. Then I prop it behind me as a cushion against the tree.

My peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are squished after spending hours buried in my backpack. But I’m not tasting much today. All of Emma’s talk about that website has me nervous about Peer Issues, my last class of the day. It’ll be impossible to look at Sydney Mills without visualizing her emerging from the warm Hawaiian ocean in a skimpy bikini.

That’s not the kind of thing you tease a guy with!

Sydney Mills and I are in completely different orbits. She’s a Mercury, with the full hotness of the sun beating down on her. I’m a Pluto. Sure, my friends appreciate me, but I’m barely holding on to the far reaches of the galaxy.

“Incoming!”

A Subway sandwich shoots through the air, smacking the ground near my feet. Every day, Tyson tosses his lunch like a bomb, though I’ve never understood why. Kellan says it’s because his dad raised him without a female around to civilize him.

“You’re a dork,” I say.

“Have you seen her yet?” Tyson asks, tearing through his plastic bag.

My heart races. Did Emma tell him about Sydney?

“I know she’s been talking crap behind my back,” he continues. “When she’s around me, she acts all cool. But when I’m not around—”

He’s talking about Kellan. “No, I haven’t seen her.”

Tyson and Kellan are such opposites that Emma and I never imagined they’d get together. The four of us have always hung out, but last July, an intense flirtation sprouted out of nowhere. They kept it up for the rest of the summer, but on the first day of school Tyson called it off. Then they got back together, but eventually Tyson dumped her again. They were like two magnets who couldn’t decide whether to attract or repel. After the last break up, Kellan was so crushed she didn’t come to school for two weeks. Yet somehow, bizarrely, we all remain friends.

“She’s never said anything bad to me,” I say, reaching in for my second sandwich.

Tyson pulls a slice of turkey out of his sub and pops it in his mouth. “That’s because she knows you’ll tell me.”

I spot Emma and Kellan walking toward us, their heads leaning in close.

“See,” Tyson says. “They’re talking about me.”

The girls smile as they get closer, and then sit down. Kellan squeezes ketchup over her fries while Emma peels back the lid of her Tupperware.

“Aloha,” Emma says, grinning mischievously at me. She stabs a cucumber slice with her plastic fork. “Have you seen her yet?”

“Seen who?” Kellan asks.

“Apparently Josh has a crush on Sydney Mills,” Emma says.

Why is she doing this?

“Who doesn’t?” Tyson says, his mouth churning with turkey and cheese.

“I never said I have a crush on her,” I say.

Kellan glares at Tyson. “Everyone has a crush on her? Really? That is so cliché. Sydney Mills is a skanky rich bitch.”

“Guys, chill,” Emma says. “I wasn’t trying to start anything.”

“I don’t even know her,” I say. “I know who she is, but I wouldn’t—”

Tyson ignores me and looks at Kellan. “Yes, Miss Judgmental, I absolutely have a crush on Sydney Mills. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s hot.”

“Only if you like skank,” Kellan says. She drops a straw in her Sprite and takes a long sip.

Emma catches my eye and mouths that she’s very sorry.

I bite into my sandwich, pretending not to care. After all, that website is just a prank.

I WALK PAST the open door of Peer Issues and glance anxiously inside. Sydney Mills isn’t here yet.

I go straight to my seat. My fingertips drum against my desktop while students pour through the doorway. Each time someone enters, my hands and my heart beat faster.

Rebecca Alvarez walks in and I give her a quick smile. Rebecca and I went out for five months our freshman year, my longest relationship ever. We still talk at school sometimes, but never on the phone or anything.

From her seat across the room, Rebecca mouths, Why are you staring?

I turn back to the door. And there’s Sydney!

I grip the sides of my desk, unable to look away. Her chestnut brown hair flows over her shoulders and down her back. A green knit sweater hugs her chest, the top two buttons left open. She wears a gold necklace dotted with tiny diamonds. She moves up my aisle, sliding her cell phone into a pocket of her tight jeans. My palms sweat just watching her.

Sydney looks at me and it feels like she might smile, but then she lifts her eyebrows. My face must be rearranged into something goofy.

After she passes, a backdraft of coconut floats by my nose, snipping the threads holding my heart in my chest.

TYSON AND I set our skateboards on the lowest bleacher facing the track. I suck down a cherry Slurpee while Tyson freezes his brain on blue raspberry. The cardboard pizza box at our feet is now empty. Because Tyson’s dad owns GoodTimez, we get all the pizza we want for free. In exchange, sometimes I help with the birthday parties, which can mean anything from monitoring the ball pit to dressing as a smiling slice of pizza and handing out goodie bags.

Last year, Tyson and I brought pizza to every home meet. We never paid much attention to the events, but it meant a lot to Emma knowing we were there. When the first meet came around this year, I told Tyson I had too much homework. At the next meet, I said I had to help my dad clean the gutters. Eventually Tyson stopped asking. But today I need to make sure Emma drives me home after the meet and shows me what she saw on that website.

The team walks out to the field. Tyson and I shout, “Go, Emma!” Once she waves, we grab our skateboards and head to the parking lot. Next to the bike racks are two parking spaces with a couple of loose concrete blocks. Tyson grabs one end of a block, and I grab the other.

“Lift!” I say.

We drag both blocks, one after the other, to the center of a parking space, and then Tyson pulls a chunk of Sex Wax from his backpack and tosses it to me. Surfers use this to keep their feet from slipping off their boards, but skaters love it, too. Especially Tyson, who laughs at the name every time we use it. I rub the sticky wax across the top of both blocks and then step back. Tyson lands his board sideways and slides the entire length, then skates to the next block and grinds across it on his trucks.

“Speaking of Sex Wax,” Tyson says, grinning, “are you really thinking of asking out Sydney Mills?”

I walk my board a few feet out of the parking space and set it down. “I don’t know why Emma brought that up.”

I skate up to the first block and grind its length with only my rear truck. On the next I try a nosegrind, but I can’t keep up the momentum.

“You have Peer Issues with her, right?” Tyson asks.

“With Sydney Mills? Why?”

Tyson pushes his board a few feet ahead, jogs after it, and then jumps on. “So when you talk about sexual issues, you’ve probably heard her say ‘vagina.’”

I laugh. “What does that have to do with anything?”

He skates up to the block and stops. “It’s cute when girls use proper words like that.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say, kicking my board into my hand, “but I’ve never heard her say ‘vagina.’”

Tyson raises his eyebrows suggestively. “Maybe you would if you asked her out.”

On the track, someone must’ve crossed the finish line because the crowd on the bleachers applauds.

11://Emma

CODY SET A SCHOOL RECORD in the hundred-yard dash today, leading the Lake Forest Cheetahs to victory. I, on the other hand, placed fourth in the sixteen hundred and was the second slowest leg of my relay. I’m usually a stronger link, but I’m going on practically no sleep, and my brain is scattered. Before last night I’d never heard of Jordan Jones Jr., and suddenly I’m in a bad marriage to him.

It made me feel better to see Josh and Tyson in the stands, clapping and waving as we took the field. I know they don’t actually stay to watch the meets, but I’m still glad they came. They’re probably skating over those concrete blocks in the parking lot.

The meet is over and the visiting team is heading toward their buses. I’m sitting on the grass, sipping Gatorade and watching Cody chat with a girl from the other team. She’s tall and tan and they’re standing close, laughing and touching each other’s arms. I wonder if they’ve ever hooked up, or if that’s coming soon. The word on the team is that Cody can be quite the stud.

I personally have never had sex. It’s not like I’m waiting for love because who knows if that will ever happen, but it always felt like I would be giving too much of myself to a guy. Like Graham. I definitely wouldn’t want him to be the one I lose my virginity to. Cody, though, is in a different category. If he and I ever got together, I can imagine myself not wanting to stop. The guy is seriously gorgeous.

“Is the meet over?” Graham asks, plopping down next to me. He has on the blue gym shorts and white T-shirt he always wears when he goes to the weight room. And he’s sweaty, which makes his newly shorn head shiny and slick.

“It just ended,” I say. I stretch my legs in front of me and lean forward until my forehead touches my knees. “We won.”

“You’re very flexible,” he says. “It could give a guy some ideas.”

Maybe he caught me in the wrong mood, but I sit up and snap at him. “Why do you always go there?”

“Where?”

“You know where.”

Graham shrugs. “Hey, my buddies are hanging out on the baseball diamond. Do you want to go?”

I look around for Josh and Tyson, hoping they’ll rescue me. Josh and I didn’t make specific plans, but I figured we’d meet up here and drive home to check out my computer.

I look over at Cody again. He’s still with that girl, but now he’s jotting something in a notebook. He tears out a page and hands it to her. She smiles and hugs him goodbye, her hand lingering on the small of his back. They are definitely going to have sex.

“Sure,” I say to Graham. I grab my gym bag and hoist myself to my feet. “Let’s go.”

GRAHAM’S FRIENDS ARE GONE by the time we get to the baseball field, so we settle on a wooden bench in the dugout. My head is resting in his lap and he’s running his fingers under my shirt, trying to reach up my jog bra. I keep swatting away his hand.

“I’m too sweaty,” I say.

“I don’t mind. You always look hot after your meets.”

I push his hand away again. I’m wearing my orange mesh tank top with the cheetah on the front, and my black shorts. They’re faded and wrinkled from years of Cheetah girls before me.

Nothing about me feels sexy right now. Maybe I’m just tired from last night. Or maybe it’s because I can’t stop thinking about Emma Nelson Jones, and whether I really become an unhappy person with a husband who doesn’t come home.

Graham runs his hand back under my shirt. “You have an awesome stomach. Your belly button is so sexy.”

Maybe this is the best it gets.

This time, when Graham’s fingers touch my bra, I don’t push him away. I sit up and lean into him and we start kissing. His hand slides beneath my bra, and I turn to make sure no one can see us.

That’s when I notice Josh. He’s standing frozen near second base. I pull back from Graham and tug down on my top, but Josh is already sprinting away.

12://Josh

IT’S ALL TYSON’S FAULT! He went on and on about Sydney Mills, which made me want to hurry up and get back to Emma’s computer. So I left my board with Tyson and went to find Emma. She wasn’t on the track, but Ruby Jenkins told me she saw Emma heading toward the baseball fields.

Ruby didn’t say Emma was with Graham. If she told me that, I never would’ve gone up there.

Instead, I casually walked to the baseball fields, looking around. And then I saw Emma in the dugout. She was resting her head in Graham’s lap. His face was slung low like he was talking to her, and I fooled myself into thinking she was finally dumping him.

But then Emma sat up and started kissing him, and Graham’s hand shot up her shirt.

What the hell was that? Is that how she rejects a guy? Because it’s not how she rejected me.

Before I had a chance to turn around, Emma saw me. For a brief second, we looked right at each other. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I was feeling disgust and revulsion.

I’m sprinting back across the field, wanting to kick something or scream or beat the hell out of Graham.

“Did you find her?” Ruby asks as I pass the track.

“She’s not there!” I shout.

Out of breath, I make it back to the parking lot. Tyson is sitting on a concrete block, admiring my latest skateboard sketch of Marvin the Martian.

“Is Emma giving us a ride home?” he asks.

“No. Let’s just go,” I say.

Tyson holds out a hand and I pull him up. “Can you draw something like this on my board?” he asks. “Maybe Yosemite Sam?”

I grab one of the concrete blocks and begin dragging it toward the metal rods. “Can you help me with this?”

Tyson lifts the other end of the block. We position the concrete over the rods and shimmy it down to the asphalt.

“I’ve got a question for you,” Tyson says. “And maybe one day you’ll be in a position to answer it.”

“Just help me put this other one back, okay?”

We carry opposite ends of the next concrete block and stagger over to the metal rods, then lower it down.

“My question is,” Tyson says as he claps the dust from his hands, “and I want you to find out the answer for me: are Sydney’s tits real, or did her parents buy them for her? I’ll appreciate them either way. I just want to know.”

If the block hadn’t already been on the ground, I would’ve dropped it on Tyson’s foot.

13://Emma

AS I’M DRIVING HOME, I blast the new Dave Matthews album. My car doesn’t have a CD player, so I bought the cassette tape when it came out last month. But even with Dave singing “Crash Into Me,” I can’t drown out what just happened on the baseball field. Josh saw Graham feeling me up. And Graham didn’t even get it. He ran his palm over his scalp and said, “It’s not like he’s never seen two people kiss before.”

I pushed him off me and ran to the locker room to get my backpack and clothes, then out to the parking lot to search for Josh and Tyson.

But they were gone.

When I pull into my driveway, I glance toward Josh’s house. Even if he’s home, there’s no way I’m knocking on his door. I know we said we’d look at my computer after track, but now everything is screwed up.

I set my saxophone case in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs and head to the kitchen to splash water on my face. My mom left a Post-it note next to the sink telling me to preheat the oven and put in the casserole dish of macaroni and cheese. When I turn the dial on the oven, I spot another Post-it on the counter in my mom’s handwriting. “MrsMartinNichols@aol.com.” I guess that’s the email address she wants. The password she picked is “EmmaMarie.”

I slide the macaroni pan into the oven and head upstairs. After I sign on, I add my mom as MrsMartinNichols. Then I check to see if she can get onto the Facebook website from her account, but there’s no sign of it in her Favorite Places.

Relieved, I sign out and collapse back in my chair. Our secret is safe. But I still don’t know what this thing is, or how I’m going to figure it out if Josh doesn’t come over.

Which he’s never going to do.

I sink into my papasan chair to do homework. I can smell the food cooking downstairs. My mom and Martin arrive home. A few minutes later, she calls me down for dinner.

I’ve always considered mac and cheese the ultimate comfort food. It looks like I still do fifteen years from now. But today the noodles clump in my throat. Maybe it’s because they’re whole wheat, as my mom proudly explains to Martin. Or maybe it’s because nothing could comfort me right now.

AFTER WE FINISH the dishes, my mom and Martin continue their demolition of the downstairs bathroom. They’re blasting Led Zeppelin and using a hammer and chisel to remove old tiles. I pour a glass of water, head upstairs, and lie on my bed.

I’m sorry that Josh saw Graham feeling me up, but I’m allowed to kiss whoever I want. And Graham and I are going out, so it’s not like Josh can call me a slut. Even so, I feel terrible about it. Especially after what happened last November.

It was the opening night of Toy Story. A bunch of us went to see it, taking up a whole row. I sat next to Josh, and during the scenes with Sid’s creepy toys, I buried my face in his shoulder. I’ve always loved Josh’s smell. It reminds me of tree forts and the lake. Most people went home after the movie, but Kellan, Tyson, Josh, and I went to the graveyard to visit Tyson’s mom. She died when he was a baby and, as long as I’ve known him, he’s stopped by to drop off flowers or just say hi. Kellan and Tyson took a walk while Josh and I went in search of Clarence and Millicent. They’re the names we once discovered on two gravestones that belonged to a married couple. Clarence and Millicent died on the same date when they were both in their nineties. We loved the idea that they never had to live a day without the other. That’s how we got the names for our Hamburger Helper couple, and also how I picked my password.

We were standing right next to Clarence and Millicent when Josh said, “I really like you, Emma.”

I smiled. “I really like you, too.”

“I’m glad,” he said, and then he stepped close like he was about to kiss me.

I stumbled back. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re… Josh.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I could see how much I hurt him.

But I meant it. For my whole life, Josh had been the one person I could always count on. If something happened between us and it didn’t work out, I knew I would lose him. But in trying to protect us, I ended up losing him anyway.

I close my eyes and, for the first time all day, let exhaustion overcome me.

A short while later, my mom startles me awake.

“Emma?” she calls from downstairs. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” I say. I sit up and rub my eyes.

“Josh is here. I’m sending him up.”

14://Josh

BEFORE ENTERING EMMA’S ROOM, I take a deep breath to calm down, but my fingers are clenched. The last time I saw Emma, she was getting felt up. While I considered not coming over tonight, I need to see what she read about me. I want to prove this is a hoax, tell Emma to get over it, and then go back to acting like I don’t live next door to her.

Emma is sitting on the edge of her bed, still in her orange and black track uniform. Her hair is matted, and her cheek is creased like she just woke up. She smiles weakly, but she’s having trouble making eye contact.

Emma shakes her head. “I’m sorry if—”

“I don’t care,” I say, looking at her computer. “Let’s just forget it.”

“I’m sure it hurt, so I want you to know—”

“It didn’t hurt,” I say. “I was just surprised because I thought you were breaking up with him.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Emma says, “but I am going to break up with him soon.”

“Oh, I see. You just needed your tits grabbed one more time.”

Emma’s eyes flash with anger, and I know I’ve gone too far.

“You’re lucky I’m a nice person,” she says, “because I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. I know why you said it, but—”

“Why did I say it?” I ask. I want her to tell me that I’m jealous of Graham so I can laugh in her face.

“Josh, if you want me to show you that website, then you really need to shut up.”

Emma stomps to her desk. It feels good to know I’m not the only one pissed off right now.

The brick wall screensaver is running. Emma jiggles the mouse. I can see her enter “EmmaNelson4ever@aol.com,” then begin typing “M-i-l-l-i-c”

“Is your password seriously Millicent?” I ask.

Emma looks up at me. “How did you guess that?”

“I saw the first several letters and… do you want to hear something weird?”

Emma shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.

“On the school email accounts they gave us,” I say, “I chose Clarence for my password.”

“No way!” Emma says. “Our Hamburger Helper eating—”

“Ice-cream-truck driving—”

“Middle-aged married couple.”

“That’s them,” I say, and for the briefest moment we exchange a look as if we can both remember what it felt like to be best friends.

Emma hits Enter and the computer beeps and crackles as it dials up to AOL.

“Did you see Sydney today?” she asks, swinging her chair around.

“We have Peer Issues together.”

Emma smiles. “Did you say anything to her?”

“I didn’t need to. My stupid face did all the talking.”

Emma points a finger at me as if looking down the barrel of a gun. “But you didn’t think this was real.”

“I still don’t,” I say. “While being able to see my future—especially that future—would be unbelievably awesome, it’s also unbelievable.”

“Welcome!” the electronic voice says.

Emma turns back to her computer and continues typing. “It’s funny hearing you act skeptical. You used to believe in Bigfoot and UFOs. And remember the Goatman?”

“I never believed in the Goatman,” I say. “I just thought he was interesting.”

Emma double-clicks where it says “Facebook,” and a white box opens in the middle of the screen. She retypes her email address and password, but instead of pressing Enter, she looks at me.

“I always imagined time travel would be so big and life-changing,” she says. “Like A Wrinkle in Time or Back to the Future. But here, all most people care about are lame vacation photos and trivial things.”

I almost say: Or marrying the hottest chick in school.

“So why do you think people write all this stuff about cupcakes or whatever?” I ask.

“It’s not everyone,” Emma says. “I talk about real issues, but only because I’m not afraid to admit when life sucks.” She laughs bitterly. “And my life sucks.”

At the top of the screen, it says “Emma Nelson Jones.” Her picture is small, but I can tell it’s different from the one that was here yesterday. Emma clicks the photo and it enlarges. Now Ms. Jones is standing in front of a white stucco wall, her hands clasped by her waist. She’s wearing a yellow sweater and a gold necklace with the letter E.

“That’s odd,” Emma says. “Yesterday, it said I made macaroni and cheese. I wonder why it…” Emma turns to me, her eyes wide. “I bet the mac and cheese at dinner tonight turned me off to it… even in the future.”

I try to suppress a smirk. She’s taking this too far.

I look back at the monitor. “If work is stressing you out, that means you have a job. Weren’t you unemployed yesterday? This is a cause for celebration!”

“You’re right.” Emma touches her finger to the screen and scans down. “It’s all different. None of this was here yesterday.”

“I was teasing,” I say. “It’s a prank, Emma.”

“No, now you’re wrong,” she says. “If it was a prank, nothing would’ve changed between yesterday and today. But everything I did differently today sent little ripples of change into the future. Being in a bad mood this morning, because of this, changed the way I interacted with people when I got to school. And that, fifteen years down the line—”

I laugh. “Ripples of change?”

“It’s something Kellan told me.”

“You told Kellan?”

“Of course not,” Emma says. “I just asked her about time travel from a physics perspective.”

“So something you did today kept you from losing your job in the future. It also made you cook lasagna instead of mac and cheese. Got it.” I wave my hand toward the screen. “Then maybe you’re not married to what’s-his-face anymore either.”

Emma looks at the screen and reads:

“Unfortunately,” she says, “those ripples didn’t develop into a typhoon.”

“Hurricane Emma. That could do some damage.”

“I know you’re trying to pretend there’s no difference between this and the Goatman,” Emma says, “but didn’t you say you made a stupid face at Sydney Mills today?”

“So?” I ask.

Emma raises one eyebrow. “You wouldn’t have made any face at all if I hadn’t told you about your future. I wonder what damage Hurricane Joshua inflicted.”

Emma points the arrow at a group of pictures labeled “Friends.” “Now I’m at four hundred and six friends. Cool! I guess I’ve made a lot of new friends at my job.”

I crouch down beside her. “Am I in there?”

Emma smiles smugly. “I thought you weren’t a believer.”

“I’m just having fun.”

Emma moves the arrow over “Friends (406)” and clicks it. Anew page appears with more tiny pictures and names. I resist the urge to ask Emma to hurry up and find me. I don’t want to seem like I think it’s even a possibility that I’ll marry Sydney Mills. Because it’s not.

The list is organized alphabetically by first name. When she gets to the Js, she slows down. And there it is.

My heart beats faster. I don’t know what to say. In the very off-chance that this is real, I don’t know how to feel about what I’m going to see.

Emma moves the arrow over my name. “Josh, here you are,” she says dramatically, “fifteen years in the future.”

A new page slowly appears. The small picture contains a cluster of colorful balloons. At the very bottom of the photo is the face of a man with reddish hair and glasses. I don’t need to ask if that’s supposed to be me. Beside the photo, it says his birthday is April 5. He went to the University of Washington, and works somewhere called Electra Design.

“What’s a blog?” I ask.

“No idea,” Emma says. “But I wonder why your vacation changed. It has to be more than that face you made at Sydney. Maybe it’s because you knew you were going to Waikiki, but you really wanted to go to Acapulco, so when you and Sydney began planning the vacation you made sure to change it.”

I flinch. “What the hell happens to Pluto?”

Emma shrugs. “That, I’m guessing, wasn’t our fault.”

I rock back on my sneakers. “How can you tell who my… you know… wife is?”

Emma points to the top of the screen.

“But how do you know that’s supposed to be Sydney Mills?” I ask.

Emma looks straight at me. “You need to stop saying things like ‘supposed to be.’ It’s annoying.”

“Fine. How can you tell that person is Sydney Mills?”

Emma clicks on “Sydney Templeton.”

The webpage is slowly replaced by another one. This time, the photo is of a family with three kids sitting on a lawn. The oldest son has red hair. The girls look like identical twin sisters with the same brown hair as their ridiculously beautiful mom.

I back up to Emma’s papasan chair and sink into it.

“Are you still skeptical?” Emma asks.

“I’m just… I want to…” I want to be skeptical. I need to be skeptical. But this rush of impossible information is almost too much.

“Jordan Jones Junior,” Emma says. “I hate him just for that stupid name. Now I have a job, but it looks like Jordan spends everything I make. Listen… here I wrote, ‘Got my paycheck on Thursday and JJJ borrowed every last dollar to buy an iPad. Men and toys!’ I put quotes around ‘borrowed,’ so I’m guessing he’s not giving the money back.”

“What’s an iPad?” I ask.

“That’s not the point! Whatever it is, I gave my husband enough money to buy one.” She clicks around on the webpage. “We live in Florida, but he’s from Chico, California. Where’s Chico?”

“No idea,” I say. “How do you know where he’s from?”

“I clicked on his name. There’s not much here, but he seems like a real asshole.”

“You don’t even know him and you’re calling him an asshole?”

“Some things you can just tell,” Emma says.

I feel ridiculous for even entertaining the idea that this could be real, but there’s no way that wasn’t Sydney Mills and me in that photo. They were older versions of us, but the resemblance was unreal.

“Check this out!” Emma says.

I push myself out of her chair.

“These pictures were attached to my website,” Emma says, pointing to the screen. “It looks like each one leads to more photos, kind of like albums.”

I point at the screen. “‘High School Memories.’ Let’s see what you find so important fifteen years from now. I bet they’re all of me.”

Emma laughs. “Only because I don’t have any of Cody yet.”

She clicks that photo album and we stare at the screen as the photos materialize.

The first is a close-up of Emma holding her driver’s license. That’s currently on one of her corkboards. Someone could’ve stolen it for a day and scanned it in the tech lab at school. The next photo shows Tyson and me using our skateboards as battle swords. That one’s taped in her locker. Then there’s Tyson, Kellan, Emma, and me buried up to our necks in the rainbow ball pit at GoodTimez Pizza. That’s also on her corkboard. Whoever is pulling this prank could have borrowed Emma’s photos and put them back without her noticing.

Emma touches her finger to the last photo, a shot of her butt in a light tan bikini. “What’s this?”

She clicks on the image and a larger version begins to appear in the center of the screen.

“Is that Crown Lake in the background?” I manage to keep my voice innocent, but I know exactly where that photo was taken. I snapped it a few weeks ago when we all drove to the lake before it officially opened for the season. I thought it’d be funny to have her develop the film and wonder who took it.

The caption below the picture says, “The good ole days.”

“I just bought that bikini a month ago,” Emma says.

“You know,” I mumble, “I think I accidentally took that picture. I was trying to move your camera out of the sand and I may have hit the button.”

“Josh.” Emma looks me straight in the eye. “This Facebook thing is not a joke. There’s no way anyone could be pranking us.”

“Someone could’ve stolen your pictures. I wouldn’t say there’s no way.”

She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a yellow disposable camera. “I haven’t developed the lake photos yet.”

15://Emma

SO IT ALL comes down to a yellow disposable camera left over from my mom’s wedding. If the lake photos are still inside, undeveloped, then Josh will have to admit that this Facebook thing is real.

We stare at the image on the screen, at the bathing suit bottom I recently bought at the Lake Forest Mall. And then, at the same moment, we shift our attention to the camera on my desk.

“Do you think we should—?” Josh begins.

“What time does Photomat close?”

“Ten,” Josh says. “It’s in the SkateRats plaza.”

It’s 8:53pm. Photomat guarantees one-hour prints.

“Let’s take your car,” he says.

“Too risky,” I say, gesturing downstairs. If my mom heard us leave she’d tell us it’s too late for a school night.

“Blade and skate?” he asks.

I nod, reaching for my orange Cheetahs fleece on the back of my chair. I’m still wearing my track uniform because I haven’t had the energy to change.

“I have to grab my board from the garage,” Josh says. The screen is still open to “High School Memories.” “Should we close this?”

“Definitely,” Josh says.

The way he says it, so clear and direct, gives me the chills. Josh is starting to believe this is real.

WE MAKE IT TO PHOTOMAT at ten after nine. The guy behind the counter has thin hair and tired eyes. I fill out my name and a fake phone number, then slide the film into an envelope.

“Can you develop this before closing?” I ask, rolling my skates back and forth.

The guy glances wearily at me. “We’ll see.”

I clomp out to the sidewalk. “I don’t think he gets the urgency of this.”

“He said he’d try,” Josh says.

“No, he said ‘we’ll see.’ ‘We’ll see’ means he’s leaving it up to the universe. And it’s not up to the universe. It’s up to him!”

Josh pushes off on his board, and I blade after him across the parking lot. We settle on a raised patch of grass under the rotating time-and-temperature clock. It’s dark over here and fireflies are flickering around the lawn. I loosen my blades and lay back on the grass, looking up at the sky.

“Remember when we used to play T-ball over there?” Josh asks.

I lift up onto my elbows and look at the stretch of Wagner Park across the street from the plaza. One year, my dad coached our Little League team. My half-sister, Rachel, is only five weeks old, but I wonder if he’ll coach her when she gets old enough to play.

I gesture toward a trim white house in the middle of a row of single-story homes. “That’s where Cody lives,” I say.

“I know,” Josh says.

“You do?”

“David used to hang out with Cody’s older brother. We went over there for pool parties. His brother, oddly enough, isn’t such a prick.”

“Cody’s not a prick!” I say. “You just don’t know him.”

“And you do?”

I decide not to tell Josh that for several months leading up to the prom I had a fantasy that Cody would approach me in the hall and ask me to be his date. He went with Meredith Adams, who wore a teeny silver dress. They came late and left early. I went with Graham, even though I was pretty much over the relationship by that point. We sat with his group of friends, mostly people I didn’t know. Kellan, Tamika, Ruby, and some other girls went together, sharing a limo and dancing barefoot in a big group the whole time. I joined them for a few songs, until Graham sauntered over and pulled me into a slow dance. Josh and Tyson didn’t even go. They went to Tyson’s house and drooled over Tony Hawk skating videos all night.

After a few minutes of watching fireflies, Josh positions a blade of grass between his thumbs and leans in to blow.

“Don’t!” I shriek. “You know that freaks me out.” Josh drops the grass and turns toward me. “I’m sorry about before,” he says quietly. “What I said about Graham grabbing your… you know. I was being a dick.”

“It’s okay,” I say, spinning a wheel on my rollerblade.

I lean back in the grass and look up at the sky. Venus is out, and a sliver of moon. As I stare up at the stars, I wonder what becomes of Pluto. Does it get hit by a meteor?

“We should get going,” Josh says, pointing at the clock. “Photomat closes in five minutes.”

“NELSON?” I ASK, pushing through the door.

The guy thumbs through the Ns and fishes out my envelope. When he hands us the packet, Josh’s earlobes turn pink. I give the guy a ten-dollar bill and he counts back my change.

We exit and move down a few shops until we’re directly beneath a street lamp. I tear open the packet. With my blades on, I’m almost as tall as Josh. For a second, his leg brushes against mine, but he quickly pulls it away.

The first few photos are of my mom and me in the kitchen. Josh touches the stack as if to say, faster, faster. But now I’m not sure I want to find out. If that really is my future, and I’m not happy, maybe it would be better not to know until I get there.

Josh grabs the photos from me. He flips to the next picture, and there we all are at the lake. Tyson throwing Kellan into the ice-cold water. A close-up of Josh crossing his eyes. Kellan and me with our arms flung around each other’s waists. And the bottom half of my new tan bikini with the lake stretched out in the distance.

The good ole days.

16://Josh

I’M GOING TO MARRY SYDNEY MILLS.

I’m going to marry Sydney Mills.

Sydney Mills is going to be my wife.

I stand in the hot shower for ten minutes. When it becomes obvious I’m not going to figure anything out by staring at the drain, I turn off the water and grab my green towel.

The porcelain sink feels cool against my palms. In the steamed bathroom mirror, I can see my scattershot red hair, thin arms, and the towel around my waist. Somehow, in fifteen years, I morph from this into the guy who marries Sydney Mills.

I take a step back, flex my biceps, and suck air into my chest. The hazy reflection helps me imagine stacking on some muscle. And it looks good!

I wink at myself. “Yeah, baby!”

A few more pushups and sit-ups every night and maybe I can become that guy even faster. I turn sideways and flex into the mirror, but from this angle there’s no denying I’m still a skinny kid with two years of high school left to go.

I slide open the bathroom window to let out some steam. Across the lawn, the lights are off in Emma’s room. She must have gone to bed early.

IT’S GETTING CLOSE to midnight. I glance around my bedroom, but I can’t see my phone. I walk downstairs, turn on the small light in the hallway, and dial my brother. It’s three hours earlier in Seattle, so I’m not worried about waking him up.

On the second ring, David answers. In the background, there’s a TV audience laughing.

“Hey, it’s Josh,” I say. “Are you busy?”

“I’m in college,” he says. “I’m eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and watching the final episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” I guarantee, if David calls home tomorrow, he’ll tell our parents he was studying in the library all night.

“Mom and Dad watched that tonight,” I say. “Doesn’t it scare you to know you have the same sense of humor as them?”

“A little,” he says. “But it’s Will Smith! Have I ever told you that every time he starts rapping the theme song, it reminds me of the time you tried rapping in the junior high—”

“I remember,” I say, cutting him off. “But that’s not why I called.”

“Of course not,” he says. “So what’s going on, RedSauce?”

“There’s this girl,” I say.

I hear the TV shutting off. “Is she cute?”

“She’s gorgeous. Any guy in school would die to go out with her.”

“And she’s interested in you?” David asks. “That’s my brother!”

“No, she’s not interested… yet.” I take a breath. “It’s hard to explain, but I think she could be interested in me… eventually.”

“How do you know her?”

“I don’t. Not really. We have Peer Issues together, but she’s a year ahead of me.”

“Have you ever talked to her?”

“No.”

“Never?” he asks.

“No.”

“So she’s more like your fantasy girl,” he says. “That’s okay. You just need to break the ice.”

“That’s the part I suck at.”

“Whatever you do,” he says, “don’t walk up and ask her out. If you don’t have any sort of a relationship yet, that can seem creepy.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Hang back and play it cool,” he says. “When the right moment appears, the key is not to let it pass.”

That’s always been my problem. I let moments pass, and then I kick myself endlessly.

I twist the phone cord around my finger. “What if it feels like the perfect moment is happening, but I’m misreading things?”

“You mean like what happened with Emma?” David asks. “No, definitely don’t let that happen again.”