Don't You Wish (32 page)

Carla laughs. “I’m confused.”

“It’s confusing,” I acknowledge, throwing my fried phone back into my bag. “I don’t even know if I can go back. I mean, I can try, but …”

“But what?” Lizzie prompts.

“I told you about Charlie.”

“That’s your boyfriend?” she asks. “Charlie with the sick sister?”

“I really like him. Like,
really
.” I pluck at a candy wrapper as déjà vu vibrates through me. How many times in my life have I sat on a bed with Lizzie and talked about boys? Many. And she always, always knows the right thing to say. I look up at her and she’s playing with the mirror.

“Be careful, Zie,” I say softly. “You could blast into a million electrons and go flying through time and space.”

She sets it down quickly. “I like my life. I don’t want to live another.”

“Well, somewhere, you probably are living a lot of them. Maybe an infinite amount of them.”

She makes a classic Lizzie face of disgust and confusion, crinkling her nose so that a zillion tiny freckles smoosh together. “I don’t know about those lives. I only know about this one. And I really like it.”

“I know,” I say. “Your mom’s marrying a good guy and you have a nice BFF and it’s good.”

“Even if I am a nobody.”

“Being an invisible nobody is not the second level of hell. At least not the only one. The price for popularity is high.”

Lizzie regards me for a long moment, then leans forward, her voice a whisper. “You know what I think, Ayla? I think you have to figure out why you were sent to this universe. I think there’s a reason you’re here.”

Her words resonate. She’s so smart, always right about deep things like this.

“Maybe it’s to give those popular girls what for,” Carla suggests. “Look what you did in that bathroom. You are, like, the hero of invisibles and nobodies everywhere.”

“You think?” I ask.

But Lizzie is shaking her head, carefully touching the rough edges of the mirror as she thinks.

“You can’t change those people, Annie,” she finally says. “Oh, you might be able to embarrass them or get them momentarily off their high horse or even get them to share their precious bathroom with the band geeks. But they are programmed to be mean girls, and they aren’t going to magically change just because one of their own develops a conscience.”

I marvel at the overall smartness of that observation. “You’re always so right, Zie. In any world.”

She smiles, but her eyes are very serious. “I think there’s a bigger, more important reason you were sent here.”

A fine chill tickles my skin as I wait for her to tell me what it is. Even though I kind of already know. “Charlie?” I ask.

“Missy.”

For a moment, nobody talks.

“You’re here to help Missy.”

“How?” I barely breathe the word, because she is right. I know it in my gut, deep in my soul. “How can I help her?”

“Well, for one thing, you have a whole boatload of money.”

That’s true. Millions that could be used for even more research, and a better place to live, a tutor, music. And no strings attached that say Charlie has to go to Crap Academy. “I could help her. That is if she and her brother and mother haven’t gone off to a better universe.”

“Do you think they have?” Lizzie asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t think that mirror works, except to kill phones. I’m here for good.”

“And for a reason,” Lizzie says again. “There’s a reason you traveled across the universe and got to keep the same good soul. And that’s to make sure Missy Zelinsky has the best life possible.”

I get a little flutter in my stomach and more goose bumps. “You think?”

She nods.

“Ah, Zie. You’re the smartest girl I know. In any universe.”

“I am,” she agrees in her inimitable Lizzie way. “And if I
don’t get to bed, I’m going to be the tiredest-looking maid of honor in wedding history.”

“You’re the maid of honor?”

“Of course.”

A bittersweet pang squeezes my chest. “That’s nice. And I’m really sorry about Jim and the mirror. You know I wasn’t behind that.”

“I’m glad I know that, but, really, don’t sweat it.”

“How could I not? I mean, that mirror is a cool idea, and Jim just destroyed it.”

She waves a hand. “Dad’s got two more at his office at Process Engineering, and spent the afternoon filing patents. No one is worried.”

More relief floods me. “I’m glad I came, then. Just to find that out. But now I guess I better go.”

She stands slowly, and offers a hand. “I’m glad you came, too, Ayla. All the way across time and space.”

I smile at her, then impulsively give her a hug, which she gives right back in true Lizzie fashion.

“Hey, don’t forget Nickel-ass,” Carla says, joining the hug.

When I leave, Lizzie gives me the piece of mirror and a kiss on the cheek for luck. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.

The flight home late Saturday afternoon is way worse than the one up. The closer we get to Miami, the more storms there are. All I can do is stay buckled in my seat behind Jim and stare at the flashes of lightning through the rain-spattered window.

I have to talk to Charlie. I have to talk to Charlie so bad, it actually hurts every cell in my body to think about it, and my phone is truly dead. And as spoiled as I am, Jimbo refused to let me take one minute out of the grand opening schedule to get a new one.

So Charlie doesn’t even know what happened to me in Pittsburgh. For all he knows, I teleported across the galaxy.

And for all I know, so did he.

I close my eyes as the plane drops through the rain, the runway lights of the executive airport in sight.

Things don’t improve when we land, as Jimbo insists on heading straight home. I broach the subject of a side trip to Hialeah and get shot down instantly. In this weather, he’s taking the limo out tonight, and I can stay home for a change.

Like that’s going to happen.

I have to wait until Dad leaves, and while I do, I email Charlie, but he doesn’t write back. No one I know would have his cell phone number. Maybe Facebook.

But he’s not on Facebook.

Where is he?

The minute I hear Dad leave, I fly into action. I’m driving to Charlie’s house in whatever car I can get my hands on. I have to tell him my plan for Missy, my decision to stay and use all my considerable resources to make her life a happy one. I want to be with him, part of his happy family, and help all of them live the best life they can. Right here and right now.

Burning with the need to share this, I don’t even hesitate to grab the keys to the Aston Martin. I already think of it as my car. Yeah, this universe has perks.

As I pull out of the garage, the rain instantly drenches the car, with thunder rolling in the distance. I close my eyes and hear Missy’s voice.

It was a car accident, four years ago. Four years ago in less than a week on November seventeenth
.

Holy crap! I hit the brakes on the drive and fishtail a
little on a puddle. That’s today. This very day. November seventeenth!

We were on our way home from my soccer game, which had gotten called on account of lightning
.

Is that where Charlie is going—back to the place where the accident happened? Just like he told me to do with my mirror?

I struggle to remember Missy’s exact words.

We were on Old Cutler Road. You know that really winding one down south? We were just turning onto 168th Street, and …

I have no idea where that is! With shaky hands, I punch numbers and words into the GPS. I have to get there before he does. Before he leaves.

I bang the steering wheel, waiting for the satellites to tell me how to get to that intersection. To take me there.

To take me to Charlie.

As the woman’s voice starts spewing out directions, I follow, gripping the wheel, staring through the slap and smack of the windshield wipers. I can’t see a thing, and I have no idea where I’m going. But I won’t let that stop me.

Thump-woof. Thump-woof. Thump-woof
.

Somehow the GPS lady gets me through Coral Gables to a winding street called Old Cutler Road. Lined with an umbrella of banyan trees, the street is dark like black soup. My lights are barely enough to keep me from driving off the snake like road.

How will I ever find him?

I tamp down the question and check the street numbers
with the next flash of lightning. I’m at 144th. I do some math to figure out that I’m twenty-four blocks away from the intersection. The street winds, there are no “blocks,” and I can’t see a damn thing.

But I power on.

As I get closer, a gash of white lightning slices through the sky, almost immediately followed by a roll of thunder. Peering through the swish of the wiper blades, I scan for his Jeep, imagining him parked on the side of the road, holding a curved mirror out the window to catch the light.

But there’s no one out tonight. No other cars, no people.

Just as I reach 168th Street, the light turns yellow. I hesitate for a second, knowing I can cross safely because there are no cars anywhere. I’ve made it halfway through when suddenly a car comes barreling toward me, toward the intersection.

I blink at the headlights of the oncoming car, blurred in the downpour and darkness. They’re oddly shaped. High, round, close together.

Jeep Wrangler headlights
, and they are making a left turn directly in front of me!

I slam on the brakes, hydroplaning wildly on a puddle, and fishtailing, but I can’t stop. I’m going to hit that Jeep. I’m going to hit that Jeep exactly like it was hit before, when Missy was paralyzed.

I pump the breaks and jerk the wheel, doing everything I can scare up from driver’s ed, but it’s like the world’s in slow motion and I am careening right toward that canvas top and plastic windows.

Screaming, I just squeeze the steering wheel as the front
of the Aston crunches into the Jeep, a noisy, horrific bang of metal against metal, followed by the air bag smacking me in the face and stealing the breath I was holding.

Then everything is silent, but for the rain on the roof and the slow hiss of the air out of the bag under my head.

I’m alive. I’m alive! But what about Charlie?

With trembling hands, I fight the air bag and manage to get my belt off. I throw open the door and stare into the pouring rain. The intersection is empty. Where did he go?

Another universe.

“Oh!” Choking on rainwater and emotion, I turn to see how bad the Aston is. Then a flash of lightning bathes the intersection in white and I see the Jeep on the side of the road.

“Charlie!” I tear across the street, trying to process that Charlie and his mother are taking Missy out and putting her in the wheelchair.

“Ayla, no. You can’t be here!”

I freeze at the words, at the tableau of the three of them standing in the middle of the storm, about to get hit by lightning. Then I see the mirror Charlie is holding.

“No!” I scream. “You’re going to get killed!”

“We have to do this!” Mrs. Z. cries from behind the wheelchair, her hands on Missy’s shoulders. “We have to try!”

Missy’s eyes are filled with hope. I can see it burning there, firing through her like the bolt of lightning she’s waiting for—unadulterated hope that she can get to a better place.

“Charlie.” I reach for him, and he wraps his arm around me.

“What are you doing?” I ask. But I already know the answer.

“An experiment,” Charlie says, lifting the drenched mirror. “We have to re-create the scene, to the minute, everything about what happened that night.”

“And get killed trying?”

“We’re not going to get killed,” he insists.

“You almost just did,” I fire back, gripping him and fighting the desire to shake some sense into him.

“You shouldn’t be here, Ayla,” he says. “I thought you were already … gone.”

“I didn’t go, Charlie.”

“When you didn’t call, I figured—”

“I fried my phone. And it didn’t work.” I point to the mirror. “I don’t think it’s going to work, Charlie. I have a better idea. A different idea.”

“Please, Ayla, let us go,” Missy cries. “We all want to live our lives in a different universe, one where this accident never happened.”

“But you live in this one,” I insist, swiping the water off my face. “And I have the means to help you even more than some company. I can make your life better.” I put my hand on the mirror, and it angles toward me, reflecting my face.

But it’s not my face. It’s … Annie’s face.

“You see it, don’t you?” Charlie asks.

I just nod. “How did you do that?”

“With the picture you emailed me. We all see ourselves the way we want to be. Just ask Missy.”

“I’m on a skateboard,” she says with a mischievous grin. “You should see me fly.”

“I want to see you fly,” I say, tears rolling and mixing with rain. “That’s why you should stay and let me—”

“Annie.” Charlie puts his hand on my cheek. “You can’t do that for her. But this can.”

I close my eyes and tilt my head into his palm. “I’ll miss you so much. I don’t want to be here without you.”

“Hey, look at me.”

I open my eyes and get lost for a minute in his, so dark and comforting. “What?”

“You don’t want to be here, either, Annie Nutter.” He angles the mirror again and tilts my face to look at it. “You want to go home where you belong. With your family and your friends.”

I can’t speak, my throat is so tight with tears. He leans forward and kisses me softly. He tastes like rain and … home.

“C’mon, you two! You’re supposed to be thinking about where we’re going, not where you’ve been,” Missy says.

She’s right of course, and Charlie and I break apart. As my eyes open, I look to the mirror, to Annie Nutter. Yes, that’s where I want my soul to reside. Right there in that—

A huge flash of lightning whitens everything, freezing the instant in stark, blinding light that reflects off the mirror.

Sudden, intense heat slams through my whole body as I blink into the light and see Charlie doing the same thing.