Deceptive Cadence (2 page)

“Get out!” I reached for my button and pressed it.

He came up beside me and sat on the chair. “Does that help?”

“Yes! The nurses will come in any moment and take you away.”

“Will they?” He gestured toward the open door.

I looked out. The nurse at the desk stood motionless.

“Why don’t we go for a walk around the ward?” He motioned beside him, and I saw a wheelchair.

“Was that there before?”

He smiled. I blinked and found myself in the wheelchair. I glanced around in alarm, but then I sighed. “I’m dreaming.”

“No, you’re not.” The man pushed me into the corridor. “This is very real. If it wasn’t, would this hurt?” He reached down and pushed at the pin in my leg.

I screeched and slapped his hand. “You freak! Who are you? What do you want from me?”

He didn’t answer. As we moved down the corridor, I stared at the frozen people as I passed, and even touched the night doctor’s coat. The man leaned closer to me. “They’re all frozen in time. I made it happen so we could talk.”

A knot formed in my stomach. “Talk about what, exactly?”

“Your options.” He turned me around, and we headed back to the room. “Hospitals are much nicer than I remember.”

As soon as we passed through the door, I found myself in bed again as he sat beside me, making himself comfortable. The photo of Melody and Austin now rested on top of my belly.

My eyes narrowed on him as I slid the photo protectively under my thigh. “What are you?”

A wide smile spread across his face as he met my gaze. “Now you’re getting the idea, sweet Cadence.” He paused and leaned closer to me. “I’m a guardian angel, of sorts, here to give you some options on where you are to proceed from here.”

“Options?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. Your first option is to continue your life as you’re currently leading it, unaltered. The next option is a chance for you to change certain events.”

I sat up. “Change events?”

He beamed. “I knew that would interest you. Would you like to go back and redo events you regret?”

He had my complete attention. “Of course.”

“Well, then, here’s your chance.” He gestured toward the bathroom door. “All you need to do is pass through and you’ll go back to the year in which the course of your life changed to head you down this particular path.” He pulled out a notepad. “I believe you will find yourself in the second term of your ninth grade year.”

“Ninth grade?”

He nodded. “You will be allowed to live your life normally, but with the knowledge and memories you currently have. The memories will often feel like a dream, and sometimes they will blur, but you will never lose them.”

I stared at the door. “What’s the con?”

“The con?” He grinned. “Good question. The only limitation you will have is that you will not be allowed to warn of natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks, and so on, that determine and shape human history. Those things are what we call ‘fixed in time.’ These are events like 9/11, the Bali bombing, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, and Hurricane Katrina. Events that are fixed are unchangeable. If you try to prevent or change them, you will be brought back here to this moment and everything will return to how it is.”

I took a deep breath. It sounded too good to be true. To go back and be able to prevent my husband and child from dying was incomprehensible. I couldn’t refuse such an offer. Although, I knew I had to be cautious all the same.

“Do I need to sell you my soul or something in exchange for this trip?”

He stood and I found us both standing beside the door, me with a crutch under my arm. I held tightly to the photo.

“No, no soul selling,” he said. “I’m not one of the devil’s angels. This is an honest offer and a chance for you to change your life, save the innocent life of a child, and possibly many more. You have regrets just like everyone else, and this is the opportunity for you to change them for the better and even help some people along the way. You’ve lived a good life, Cadence Jones―or should I say Anderson, if you go back?―and you did the best you could, which no one can fault you for. But just imagine the possibilities. Friendships wouldn’t be broken . . .”

The image of my best friend from seventh through tenth grades flashed through my mind.

“Painful moments could be avoided . . .”

I remembered a few breakups that left me humiliated and wishing they’d never happened.

“You could even save someone you didn’t know.”

I turned to face him. “Austin, he would be alive again. I wouldn’t know him for a few years, but he’d be alive.”

He nodded.

“And Melody, I could save her. My little angel.” Tears burned in my eyes as I clung to the photo. “She didn’t deserve to die. She’d only just begun living.”

“Yes, Cadence, you could change whatever you wanted. But remember, events will start to change from the moment you arrive. The choices you make will be different, but some things will surprise you when they stay the same. Other people make their own choices too, so not everything you do will alter the events of your life.”

“I don’t care. As long as Austin’s alive and I can save Melody, I’ll be happy.”

I reached across and opened the bathroom door. On the other side, I saw my bedroom at my parents’ house in Sydney, set up like when I was a teenager. Everything was the same: the pale blue walls, my desk straight in front of me with my clunky old desktop computer on it, and piles of school books and paper junking it up. Clothes, mostly my school uniform, lay strewn across the floor, with my two navy pleated skirts hanging over the back of my desk chair, and several light blue blouses scrunched up on the carpet. My closet doors hung open, with shoes and clothes spewing out of it. I’d forgotten how much of a slob I was.

As I passed through, a numbness took the edge off my grief. I paused, surprised by such an odd sensation, by the relief. I knew I felt sad, but the intensity had gone. I glanced at the angel.

“What happened?”

“You can’t live this life properly if you are carrying around overwhelming grief,” he said in a deep, soothing voice. “So to assist you, the emotions will be dimmed.”

Taking a deep breath to regain my composure, I stepped through the door and found it was night. My leg was no longer broken, and my arm was free of the cast. The hospital robe had gone in exchange for an old set of teddy bear pajamas I hadn’t seen in years. But the photo remained in my hand.

I rushed to the mirror on the wall beside my desk, and stared at my fourteen-year-old self. I had thought myself chubby, but after school, my participation in sports ceased and I gained some weight. Then, after having a baby, my body had become completely altered. I stared at myself in awe. Setting the photo on the desk, I lifted my shirt and ran my hand over my stretchmark-free belly and sag-free abdomen. My waist was tiny and my boobs two bra sizes smaller, and probably a comfortable C-cup.

I glanced up to see my face. I looked so young! I’d never noticed how different I’d looked from photos, but as I stared at my youthful face with my clear skin and dark blue shining eyes, I couldn’t help touching my cheekbones and feeling the plump, soft skin. My mouth felt odd, so I pulled back my lips to see braces. I ran my tongue over them, remembering the relief I felt to have them taken off. I turned my attention upward, running my hand through my long hair and admiring the foils that appeared to be recently done. I’d always loved the golden blonde foils in my hair; they lifted the drab sandy color.

“I look amazing! How did I not know how incredible I looked?”

The man appeared in the mirror behind me and smiled.

“You were always humble, not to mention that the world around you told you that you needed to look like this.” He gestured at a teen magazine on my desk. A skinny, blonde celebrity with a sexy pout and smoldering eyes graced the cover.

I dropped it in the trash. “I’m not going to fall for that crap this time.”

He chuckled. “So you agree to this journey?”

I looked him steadily in the eyes. “I do.”

He waved his hand, causing a contract to appear. “Read it carefully. You don’t want any surprises.”

I took it, grabbed a pen, and sank into my chair. I read it through, seeing the terms he told me about, like the fixed events, and also reading that I couldn’t tell anyone about what would happen to them in their lives. I continued on until I paused over a section. “I get one item to help me remember?”

He sat on the edge of my bed. “Oh, yes. Here.”

He reached down behind him, and, as if out of thin air, procured a thick, spiral-bound black book.

I took it, opening it to the first page. It had my name in my handwriting, and the year: 2001. “What is this?”

“I guess you could call it a record, or a journal.”

I flicked through the pages and photos appeared. My school photos, photos with my old high school friends, all alongside journal entries. “It looks like a scrapbook of my life.”

Then, I flipped over to a picture of Austin at fourteen. “Or not . . .”

“Usually, it will show your life, but if you really want to see someone, it will show them, too.”

“Austin.” I ran my fingers over the image of his chubby cheeks. “All of this . . . is it real? I’m not dreaming? Why me?”

He bowed his head. “Sometimes we don’t see how we affect the people around us. Sometimes people need second chances to improve the lives of those around them. You are one of those people. But most importantly, a child needs you to save her, to give her the chance she was denied.”

“Melody.”

He nodded. “Good luck, Cadence Anderson. Make the most of this second chance. Not many people have this kind of opportunity.”

He stood and walked toward the doorway leading back to the hospital room. He stepped through and slowly closed the door.

I glanced around my room, suddenly apprehensive about my decision. To change my past could lead me down a completely different path. I flipped through the scrapbook and found that all the journal entries came from my journals, but times when I wasn’t consistent with my entries were in typewriter print.

I opened to the first entry and found a note. It read,
To help you keep track of things. I’d recommend reading for a week in advance.

I turned to the first week. As I read through, I learned I was dating my first boyfriend, Tyler, and about to start the second term of my ninth grade year. I planned on dumping Tyler sometime that week, and I would spend most of the week avoiding it.

I thought about what I remembered from that time. Tyler had been furious when I dumped him and refused to talk to me for the next few months. Although the least dramatic of all my breakups, I would do it with more grace and class this time around.

I also made the decision to have no boyfriends at all. I thought about all the boys I’d dated and knew I didn’t want to date any of them again. I needed to remain faithful to Austin anyway, even if we weren’t married yet.

I turned to Austin’s picture again. He was so small. He hadn’t hit puberty until the middle of the tenth grade, so the Austin I knew hadn’t surfaced yet. His dark hair was ruffled and scruffy, and he looked positively adorable with all his baby fat. I smiled and touched his face, knowing that if I
had
known him at fourteen, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to him.

I plucked up the picture of him and Melody, and my heart felt heavy. My baby girl. Her golden locks looked just like mine when I was a child. How I loved her, and how my heart ached at the memory of her tiny lifeless body. More than anything, I needed to do this for her. She didn’t deserve to die, so I had to do this second chance right and prevent her death.

Sliding the photo into the scrapbook as a bookmark, I shut the book and slid it under the bed, covering it with a blanket and books. I climbed into my bed and sighed. As I drifted off to sleep, I felt hopeful again
.

CHAPTER TWO

“Cadence, it’s time to get up.”

I rolled over and pulled the blankets tighter around me. “Seriously, Austin,
you
can’t complain about sleeping in―”

“Austin?” My younger brother Dusty burst out laughing. “Who’s Austin? What happened to
Tyler
?”

Completely disoriented, I sat up and stared at him, gaping as his twelve-year-old self sprinted out of my room. How was he twelve again? Dusty was twenty-three and had just finished his bachelor’s degree in architecture. I rubbed my eyes, confused.

Then, I remembered everything.

I leapt out of bed and shut the bedroom door. After scrambling to collect my uniform for the day and dumping it on the bed, I slipped out the scrapbook and found Austin’s pictures. I found one with him at the beach with his stepdad. He lived on the West Coast his whole life, and I lived on the East Coast. I closed my eyes, longing for the day I could go to him, then shut the scrapbook and hid it away.

I rushed to the bathroom, pausing as my sixteen-year-old sister Harper stepped out. She glared at me and shoved me aside. “Move it, kid.”

“Bite me, Harper.” I had no idea why I said it—it just came out. I guessed some of my teenage traits would kick in on occasion.

“That was original.” She twisted her long, dyed-black hair into a bun.

I couldn’t help staring at her. At twenty-seven in the past . . . future . . . she was married, had three kids, and had given up on dying her hair in her early twenties. I hadn’t seen her hair in a color other than light brown in years.

“What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.”

“Then get away from me.”

I stepped backward into the bathroom and shut the door. While I took my shower, I wondered what I would face that day. There were so many possibilities, so many choices I could change, so many things I would and wouldn’t do.

I dressed quickly, but couldn’t help admiring my slim, athletic body. How I missed it! That was something I would avoid doing too―putting on weight.

As I entered the kitchen, I found Dad grabbing his lunch out of the fridge. Harper had inherited his light brown hair and eyes, and he stood tall and strong. I felt fairly certain he was a superhero. I smiled at him and kissed his cheek. “Hey, Dad.”

He turned to me, surprised. “Good morning, sweetheart. You’re rather chipper this morning.”

I shrugged. “I’m going to make the most of my day.”

“Good for you.”

“What are you doing today?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m going into State Parliament.”

“Oh, it’s one of
those
days.”

He grasped my chin. “Wow, you
are
different today. Since when have you cared what I’m doing?”

I hesitated. I needed to act more like a fourteen-year-old. My old fourteen-year-old self would have simply said,
“Hi, Dad, have a nice day. See ya later.”

I smiled back at him. “I gotta eat, you’re in my way.”

He stepped aside and I plucked the milk out of the fridge.

About twenty minutes later, Dusty and I walked together to the bus stop and, just as I remembered, Harper charged ahead. Once we arrived, she pretended we didn’t exist.

“Harper’s such a brat,” I muttered.

Dusty snorted. “Yeah, so are you.”

I punched his arm and he laughed.

On the bus, Harper hurried right to the back with her friends, while mine waved me over from the middle left side. I sat with the three girls I rode to school with for years, staring at them. I hadn’t seen any of them since I graduated, so it felt surreal to have them sitting right in front of me.

“Cadence!” Amy, one of the girls, slapped my shoulder. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing. Kinda tired.”

“Well, you have maths first, so you can catch up on sleep then. We wanna know how things went with you and Tyler over Easter.”

The other girls, Elise and Laura, grinned and leaned closer.

I hurried to remember. Tyler had taken me to the movies and kissed me. That was my first kiss, and my first make-out session. Nothing special . . . but then, I was fourteen.

“We, ah . . .”

“Did he kiss you?” Amy asked eagerly.

I thought hard about how I should react, then faked a blush and buried my face in my bag.

“No, Cay!” They all moaned and shoved my shoulders.

“I can’t believe you chickened out
again
!” Amy whined.

“I didn’t chicken out!” I hissed in a low voice.

Their attention instantly snapped into focus.

“Well?” Amy beckoned.

“Well . . . I don’t wanna kiss and tell.”

They groaned in unison. “Cadence, come on give us something!”

Give them something? What had I given them before? “Well, it was actually kinda weird.”

“How exactly? Did he slobber all over your face?”

I couldn’t help giggling. “No. It was just . . . weird. I think he was way more into it than I was.”

“Are you serious?” Elise said. “Tyler is adorable and you weren’t that into it?”

My cheeks warmed, really blushing that time. I buried my head into my bag again. “I just don’t feel like we work. He hardly talks to me, and whenever I say something to him he looks at me funny.”

“Are you saying you’re going to dump him?” Amy leaned closer.

And there was the first decision I needed to make differently. “I didn’t say that at all.”

They breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. First crisis avoided. The rumors wouldn’t spread to Tyler before I had a chance to tell him myself.

We arrived at school and split to our different groups. I paused as I watched them go their separate directions and wondered how we could all be friends one minute, but then pretend to not even know each other the next.

I quickened my pace, heading straight to my group of friends. The group consisted of about twenty people, mostly boys. As I climbed the stairs from the lower quadrangle to the upper level, I saw them gathered around a picnic table. I stopped to stare. There they were, my friends, half of whom I would somehow manage to offend and estrange before I graduated.

A curly-haired brunette burst from among them, heading right at me. I caught my breath, frightened for a moment that she would attack me, but instead she threw her arms around my neck.

“Hey, hey, Cay! I missed ya over the holidays. I believe we have some catching up to do.”

As she linked her arm through mine, I couldn’t help staring. Geri, my best friend from seventh grade to part way through tenth when we had a falling out, wanted to talk to me! I had no idea what happened. She just suddenly turned on me. I’d thought about it over the years, wishing I could at least know what I’d done.

“So, how did it go with Tyler?”

I glanced around, surprised to find us tucked away behind a classroom. “It went okay.”

“Only okay? Didn’t he kiss you?”

I gazed into her brown eyes, overwhelmed with joy to have her back. A tear streamed down my cheek and I threw my arms around her. “Geri, I’ve missed you so much!”

“Oh, hey . . . Cay, I missed you too.” She pushed me back and looked into my face with concern. “Are you okay? Did he dump you?”

I shook my head.

“I think I’m going to dump him,” I told her to cover my overemotional state.

“Damn, seriously?” She scowled. “He was
that
bad of a kisser?”

I chuckled at how simple she made it. “No, I just don’t think I like him like that anymore.”

“Sad. Well, I always thought you looked more like brother and sister than a couple anyway.”

I smiled at her as my feelings over the loss of her friendship overcame me. I was determined not to let that happen again. She was the best friend I ever had, and I refused to blow it a second time. “Thanks, Geri. That makes me feel a little better.”

She wrapped her arm through mine. “Good. That’s what I’m here for.”

We walked toward our friends, attached at the hip, just like old times.

Back at the group, I saw Tyler and his best friend had joined them. Geri’s arm clenched mine and she whispered, “How are you going to do it?”

“I dunno.”

“When are you gonna do it?”

“I dunno. Soon, I guess.”

He looked across and saw me. He smiled and I remembered why I’d noticed him in the first place. Ahead of the game, puberty-wise, he stood taller and bulkier than most of the other guys. He had a wide, open smile with dimples in his cheeks, his best feature by far. But as I looked at him, I realized what Geri meant by brother and sister. We had the same color hair and eyes, the same athletic build, and even the same nose.

“Geri, I just saw what you meant by the brother thing.”

She giggled. “Are ya totally freaked out now?”

“Yeah.”

He met us eagerly and grabbed my hands. “Hey, Cadence.”

“Hey, Ty.”

He leaned over to kiss me, but I turned my face away. He kissed my cheek instead. “You look hot today.”

Hot? Did he just say
hot
? “Ah, thanks.”

Whatever happened to pretty or beautiful? Austin always called me beautiful or gorgeous, only calling me hot when he teased me or I practically begged for it.

The bell rang, and I looked around. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll walk you.” Tyler smiled and slipped his arm between my backpack and my back. I glanced at Geri, who shrugged as she turned to head to her own class.

We walked in silence, just like I remembered. I glanced up at him, finding him content just walking beside me. “Ty?”

He looked down at me. He seemed startled that I’d spoken. “Um . . . yeah?”

“Why do you like me?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you like me? We never talk to each other.”

He scratched his head. “Yeah, we do.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Well, you’re hot. I like that.” He tried to kiss me.

I raised my hand and pressed it against his lips. “What’s my favorite sport?”

He grinned. “Soccer.”

I shook my head. “I’ll give you a hint. I play it on Saturdays.”

“You play a sport on Saturdays?”

I raised my eyebrows. “See what I mean? Like most girls, I play
netball
on Saturdays. You could’ve just guessed it.”

He shuffled closer to me, his brows furrowing. “I’ll pay more attention from now on.”

I sighed. Now was the time. I pulled him aside and we stood under a tree for some privacy. “This isn’t working out.”

“Huh?”

“You and me. We don’t work. I’m sorry.”

He leaned back as his eyebrows lowered. “You’re dumping me?”

“Dumping sounds so harsh,” I muttered, seeing the anger burning in his eyes. “I feel like if we don’t end it now, we’ll end up hating each other and I don’t want that. I think you’re a really nice guy, but―”

“Shut up, Cadence! I’m not going to let you dump me.”

“Tyler―”

“Because I’m going to dump you. You’re boring anyway. You’re so uptight and never let me go in for a grope.”

He marched away from me.

I turned and headed to my classroom. At least it wasn’t a big scene like last time. He could at least walk away with his dignity intact.

I slipped into roll call just as the last bell rang, telling us if we weren’t in class we’d be marked absent. I sank into my normal chair and an arm wrapped around my shoulders. “Hey, pretty lady.”

I looked over my shoulder and smiled. My good friend Michael had always been there for me through thick and thin, and he’d never complicated things by developing a crush on me, which I appreciated more than anything. “Hello, handsome knight.”

He chuckled and ruffled his white-blond hair. “I am the better looking of the two of us, huh?”

I giggled and elbowed him in the ribs. We fell silent while the roll was called, but jumped straight into a quiet conversation when study time began.

“You looked distracted as you came in,” he said.

“Oh.” I bit my lip. “Tyler and I just broke up.”

His eyes widened. “No way!”

“Shh.” I couldn’t help smiling.

“That’s okay. I always thought he was kinda stupid anyway.”

I elbowed him in the ribs again.

He grabbed my arm and leaned closer. “So, since you don’t seem too upset by it, I guess you did the dumping.”

“Dumping sounds so horrible.”

“That’s a yes, then.”

I sighed. “Yes, technically. But he’s going to say he did it and I’m not gonna stop him.”

He leaned back, stunned. “Wow, that’s pretty mature of you.”

Was I being too mature? I needed to think more like a teen. “Yeah, well, this way I’ll get the pity votes, right?”