The Time is Now, Cassidy Shay [best way to read ebooks txt] 📗

I take a deep breath and look into my mirror. At first, I see my mother, young and beautiful. Her long, dark hair and bright, excited eyes. When I blink, the image in the glass changes. I now see myself, with my short hair and dull, lifeless eyes. People used to say that I looked exactly like her. But now that she’s gone, my eyes are no longer radiant, my smile is almost nonexistent. The past two years without my mother have been hard. I never imagined that I’d be graduating, getting married, or doing anything without her by my side.
I go over to the bedside table. Look at the old, yellowing newspaper clipping. It’s taped to the back of a frame with a picture of my mom, taken a couple of weeks before she died. That was when life still made sense. On the article, there is a picture of my mom’s old car, upside down in a ditch on the side of the road. Her body isn’t in the picture, but I remember what it looked like, in the blue and red flashing lights. Cold and lifeless. Gone.
There is a knock on the door and Michael pokes his head through the door. He’s been my best friend since we were toddlers. I wouldn’t have made it through the last couple years without him.
“My mom and your aunt are ready to take our pictures now.” He watches me place the picture frame back on my bedside table and his voice softens. “Are you alright?”
I nod and put on my best smile. “Let’s do this.” We link arms as we descend the stairs into the living room. My aunt and Michael’s mom wait for us, cameras at the ready. His mom’s face is streaked with tears, and my aunt looks as proud as any mom.
We take many pictures, some goofy and some more formal. Some together, some separate. After almost half an hour of snapping pictures, we pile into the car and drive to the school. Michael and I stand with our classmates, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
Finally, we are instructed to start walking towards our chairs. Throughout the ceremony, there are many speeches that all drag on, boring words after hundreds of other boring words.
And then, for a minute, everything is silent. The crowd stops talking amongst themselves, the students hush. Our principal stands at the podium, clears his throat. My hands get cold, just like they always do when I’m nervous.
“Now, it’s time for the letters,” says the principal. “Twenty-one years ago, a high school Chemistry teacher named Walter Thomas discovered how to create a portal through time. On each of these students’ fortieth birthdays, they will write a letter and send it back in time to this date.” He continues speaking, but I tune him out. This is the same speech that I’ve heard a million times, recycled words repeated every year. Finally, he clears his throat. “When I call your name, please come up to receive your letter.” He starts calling names. My hands get even colder.
After a few minutes, Michael and I are the only ones left. My hands are completely numb. He skipped us, I think. Our last names are in the middle of the alphabet. We should have been called up.
Our principal moves on, avoids looking at us. He continues with the rest of the ceremony. I turn to Michael, and he’s just as confused as I am. “What’s going to happen to us?”
~ ~ ~
Five years later, I’m sitting in a large room, sorting letters. I work at the town hall, separating letters into piles, depending on which high school the writers graduated from.
Since I never got my letter, I have a growing curiosity concerning the letters that others receive. I study the handwriting on the envelopes, feel how heavy the contents are, try to discover what is written.
At lunch time, I meet Michael outside. We walk down the street to my favorite restaurant. I’ve lived here in Stanley my whole life, and my mom used to take me here every Saturday night.
Michael and I sit in the booth in the corner, the same one that we always sit in. He has a large smile on his face, which is unusual. Michael isn’t a sad or depressed person, but his face usually lacks a smile. He tells me that he has an idea, and judging by his grin, it must be something exciting.
“Okay. Spill it,” I command, after we order our meals. “What great idea do you have?”
He looks down at the table for a few seconds, making me wait. After what seems like forever, he looks up at me. “We’re going to get your mom back.”
I snort at the ridiculous idea. “My mom has been buried in the Stanley Cemetery for seven years. Even if they invented something that can bring people back to life, there’s nothing left of her.”
He shakes his head, and I get the feeling that I completely misunderstood what he was saying. “You have to think outside the box,” he tells me. “We don’t have to bring her back to life. We just have to make sure she never dies.”
He leans back and waits for this to sink in. “What do you mean?” Instead of telling me, he just smiles and waits for me to figure it out on my own. When I get it, I sigh. “Okay. I’m leaving now.” I stand up. “There’s no way it would work. Can you move on? I’ve tried to, but this idea of yours isn’t going to help anything.”
I start to walk away, but he grabs my arm. “Think about it, Anna. All we have to do is go back to the night that she died. She died in a car crash. So we just have to make sure she doesn’t get in the car that night. It’s simple.”
I sit back down and he releases my arm. “Michael, nothing about that plan is simple. Do you know how much of the future we could change just by stepping on the wrong blade of grass?”
He slaps the table and leans in towards me. “Of course I know what could be changed!” he hisses. “Your mom could live! She could see you graduate, see you get married and have kids. She doesn’t have to die.”
His hands start shaking, so I know he’s mad at me. I reach out to steady them, then speak in a calm voice. “It’s impossible. I’ve worked there for almost five years, and I’ve never seen the time machine. I don’t even know what room it’s in! How are we supposed to just waltz on in and travel through time?”
He nods, acknowledging the problem. “I didn’t think about that.” He thinks for a moment, and then becomes optimistic once again. “But I’m sure we could find a way around it.”
“Ugh!” I stand up and walk away, and this time he lets me. “You’re impossible!” I shout as I stomp out the door.
That night, despite my doubts, I find myself thinking about his plan. Of course, it would take a lot of preparation. And it’s just about as far from simple as you can get. But do I need simple? Or do I need my mom?
After pacing around my kitchen for hours, I pick up the phone and call Michael. It rings twice, and then he answers. “Tell me why you want her back,” I say. “Why is it so important to you?”
He waits before answering. When he does speak, his voice is soft. “She was my mom too. We’ve been best friends since we were three. I practically lived at your house when we were growing up. I was there to help comfort her when your dad left.” He takes a couple deep breaths. “I miss her just as much as you do. I want her back.” I’m a little surprised at this. I knew that Michael was sad when my mom died. But he had been too busy comforting me all the time that I hadn’t thought about how much he had really loved my mom.
“Okay. I’m in. I’ll do it.” There’s a pause as I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t. “But we have to plan it right. If one single thing goes wrong, we’re dead. We’re done. Understand?”
Even though I can’t see him, I know that he nods. “Here’s what I was thinking.”
~ ~ ~
Eight months later we have our plan. Michael now works at the town hall as a security guard. Last week, he was officially promoted, and he is now allowed to guard the time machine. Yesterday, he actually got the chance to send letters back into the past. He knows how the machine works, so we’ll be ready to go. We’re leaving today during the lunch break.
All morning, I’ve been worrying and wondering about what will happen after today. I try not to think too much about it, try to make my last day at work count.
As I wait, I look up at the clock. With each glance, my thoughts stay mostly the same. Ten minutes. Five minutes. Three minutes until I can fix my life.
The last three minutes before lunch, I go over the plan in my head.
We’re going back to a day before the crash, and going to Redfish Lake, only a few miles away from Stanley. We’ll hitch a ride into town. Once we get to Stanley, we’ll find my house. We’ll pose as salesmen, and Michael will have a suitcase full of stuff that we’ll “sell” to my mom.
The plan is to get to the house around seven, before my mom gets in the car that night. Out of politeness, she will listen to the whole speech, and she won’t get into the car until after the danger has passed.
Lunch time creeps up on me, while I’m working in silence. The loud beep signaling lunch startles me out of my trance. Conversation starts to grow, filling the hallway as everyone exits their offices. I separate myself from them, head in the opposite direction toward where Michael will meet me, and then take me to the time machine.
When we see each other, we both smile. “Excited?” he asks. I can’t speak, because of how nervous I am. So I just nod my head. I’m finally going to see the time machine. Finally going to save my mom. On our way through the back hallways, he keeps talking.
“I figured out why we never got our letters,” he tells me. “We have made a decision to go into the past. We can never come back. And we never got a death certificate because we didn’t die. We just couldn’t get back to the future.”
I nod my head. “I never put the pieces together. But you’re right, I guess.” On the night of our graduation, some students had received partial death certificates. They did not list the date or the cause, only that they had actually died. Michael and I received nothing.
By now, Michael and I are at the door to the room with the time machine. He stops and looks at me, takes a dramatic pause. “Are you ready?”
He opens the door and walks in. I follow, and am amazed by the simplicity of the machine.
All I see is a large metal box that’s hooked up to a computer. I go over and touch the