Rewrite Redemption (55 page)

“You don’t have the code,” I said.

“I do so have the code,” she said, grinning mischievously. She called up the message and held the phone up so I could see.

What the heck. I figured at that point, it didn’t hurt—anything to take my mind off what just happened.

Constantine appeared on the screen. He looked like death warmed over but still beautiful. He was sitting in his dad’s car. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said, “well, you, really. You’re an Editor. You know the drill. You screwed up, Dude. You screwed up so bad; there isn’t even a word in the world of screwed-up-ness for how bad you screwed up. You’ve gotta fix this, Dude, or your future is toast.”

Lex nudged me, pressing pause. “See, he’s laying it out for himself. We have nothing to worry about. He’ll fix it. I just needed to make sure.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “You’re just nosey.”

She grinned and pressed play again.

“You have a chem test tomorrow. Yeah, forgot, didn’t you? Too busy thinking about taking…okay, I can’t remember her name…that chick from English—yeah her—to the concert. Right, I know what you’re thinking. I’m you, remember? Well, you blew it, Dude. You didn’t study for the test and decided to skip because it counts for twenty-five percent of your grade. 

“Bad move. Mom caught me, you, us…whatever. We got grounded. Well, you haven’t done it yet. I guess I got grounded. So don’t make the same mistake. Cause here’s what happened. I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything if I just jumped back and changed it. Yeah, I know, Prime Dictate and all. Well, you talked yourself out of that one. You convinced yourself…myself, that it was just a tiny edit of our timeline. I was wrong, big time. I was so frickin wrong.” Constantine choked up at that point.

I felt my eyes fill up with tears. Lex put her arm around me, and we leaned back against the tree. Constantine put the phone down for few seconds. In the silence, we could hear him taking short, gasping breaths. But we kept watching. We couldn’t stop at that point.

When he picked the phone back up, his red eyes looked intently into the camera. “This is serious, Dude. You have to believe me and do exactly what I tell you. If you don’t, then Devon falls off the roof and is paralyzed, never to walk again. And it will be your fault. Believe me. You don’t want that. We moved to Colorado because of his wheelchair and the sun. Yeah, you lose your redwood, and I can’t even begin to tell you how bad that turns out. Mom and Dad go off the deep end. In my world right now, they’re sitting by Devon’s hospital bed, waiting till dark to pull the frickin plug.” 

He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes, and let out a long, ragged breath.

“There’s no hope. He’s brain dead. He didn’t do well being paralyzed. He lost football. You know how that would be. He didn’t have anything else. His girlfriend, she dumped him in a hot minute. Mom, my God, Mom’s two steps short of a cliff-dive. The doctors loaded her up on tranqs and all kinds of shit, just to keep her from jumping. And Devon, he downed every frickin pill in the house. The rest is history. But it’s bad, Dude, it’s incredibly, overwhelmingly
bad
. And you need to fix it.

“You need forethought. Yeah, you scoff, but that word’s become really important. I’m telling you, all you gotta do is not skip chem. Take the test. Go to the concert. Don’t tell Devon about roof rocking. In fact, give that up altogether. And never, under any circumstances, mess with your own timeline. It’s not worth it. Who knows what the consequences could be. Besides, the Guild will catch you and block your signature, leaving you screwed for the rest of your miserable, little life.

“And those stupid boots Devon has that make him taller? Trash those boots, Dude. Trash those frickin boots.” He shoved his hair out of his eyes.

“One more thing, see that girl…no, not the blonde, dumb-ass, the other one. The one with the energy, yeah, the one with the amber eyes. You felt her when she came in, didn’t you? Yeah, she’s a Shadow. You found her in Boulder. She’s the reason you’re not going to have to live the nightmare I just laid out. But there’s more about her. I know I’m laying a lot on you, Dude. But it can’t be helped. You need to know—we’re in love with that girl.”

I gasped and grabbed on to Lex’s arm.

She pressed pause, looked at me, and grinned, “See, I told you he liked you!” 

I grabbed the phone from her and pressed play.

“She’s…she’s frickin incredible. She’s tough and she’s smart. She’s not like anyone you’ve ever met or will ever meet again. She’s the one. Don’t give me shit. I know how that sounds—doesn’t matter. I’d take a bullet for that chick. Ha, you can’t even begin to know. I—”

He shut his eyes and bent his head down, holding his chest with his other hand, breathing in and out slowly. Then he opened his eyes back up and looked straight into the camera. “I don’t have time to spell it out. But she means more to me than anything or anyone in my whole life. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Her dad’s name is Samuel Jones. They have a house on Mapleton Avenue.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“She lives in a tree house. It’s so amazing. You have to see it to believe it. I gave her up. I know, stupid, but it was the only choice. It’s screwed up here. Not just the family but also the situation with A.J. She has a boyfriend, a kid named Ipod. Yeah, weird name, huh? But he’s an okay guy. I gotta hand him that. She’s with him now. So I’m releasing this timeline because I just can’t take the pain of losing her. Not after all we’ve gone through. So when I integrate, I’ll be a blank slate.

“After you graduate, track her down and find out if things have changed with this guy. Maybe she’ll outgrow him. And if she has, then whatever it takes, get to know her. Because you’ll never find anyone like her if you live forever. I guarantee it will be worth it. Do it, Dude!

“No matter what happens when she gives you this message, you can’t make any more contact with her until after 6:00 the evening of next May 10th or you’ll risk messing up the timeline. Trust me; you don’t want to do that. And don’t go narking to the Guild either. This is just between you and me.

“Oh, and one more thing. Do me a favor. You’ll laugh. I never…I never even kissed her. Don’t give me shit. You have no frickin clue. She’s not like all the other girls you’ve been wasting time with all these years. She’s worth a million of them. Anyway, kiss her for me, okay? The timeline has probably already diverged meaning this me is toast. Since I live on in you, I want this
one
memory. So make it a good one. You won’t be sorry.

 “Anyway, I know this is a lot to take. But you know about timelines, and you know I’m serious as hell. I’m counting on you, Dude. I’ll see you soon…or I guess that’s
be
you.” 

With that the screen went blank.

In English, we read this turn-of-the-century story about a man and woman who were deeply in love. They were dirt poor and each had only one treasured possession. The guy had a watch, and the woman had beautiful, long hair. Christmas came and they desperately wanted to buy each other a present. Long story short—the guy sold his watch to buy the woman bling for her hair. While he was out doing that, the woman sold her hair to buy a chain for his watch.

It really moved me when the teacher read it aloud in class. I’d thought it so romantic at the time, how they gave up everything they had for the one they loved, not knowing that the other was doing the same thing. But having just heard Constantine’s message, I thought of the story, and it didn’t seem romantic at all. It just seemed sad and incredibly unfortunate.

“He loves me,” I whispered. “Well,
did
.”

“Looks like,” Lex said. She shut off the phone. “I’m so, so sorry, A.J. I mean, not sorry he loves you, just sorry he’s going to forget.” She put her arm around me. I dropped my head against her shoulder.

“The times we had together,” I said, “they’re gone now, for him.”

“That so sucks,” she said.” Her good mood evaporated as the irony of my loss hit her. “Maybe you can go back and do it over again. Tell him how you feel before you come here to fix his problem. You know, do a rewrite of the rewrite.”

“I could screw things up even more. I could do what he did and accidentally hurt someone.”

“I guess…”

“Why did he think I was with Ipod?”

“No clue. In hindsight, there were signs of it. He acted strange sometimes. I just thought he was worried about his family and blew it off. He wasn’t real eager to bring Ipod back. I mean, not that he didn’t want to rescue him. He just didn’t seem happy about it. But it never occurred to me that he thought you and Ipod were a thing.”

We sat there, mostly in silence, offering a comment every so often. We watched the dry, dead leaves blowing in the wind—a surreal dance, fitting our melancholy mood. Lex gathered a pile of redwood needles at her feet and toyed with them listlessly. I just sat there, drained.

“Kind of sweet though like that story with the watch,” she said finally.

“I was just thinking about that.”

“Yeah, because he loved you, he brought Ipod back to make you happy, knowing he couldn’t have you himself. You tried to be strong, so he wouldn’t know you were hurting; so he thought you didn’t love him, and he gave up this timeline. You let him dump his memories, so he didn’t have to hurt, when what he was hurting from, was losing you. Now his memories are gone, and you find out he loved you after all. Sadder than the watch story.”

“Tell me about it. Too late now.”

“Which majorly blows,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, right?” I grabbed a pile of leaves and let them drift through my fingers. “You think I’m just—I don’t know—jinxed?”

“No clue, A.J. It’s not as if he’s dead.
This
Constantine kissed you after all, and he has a pretty clear message to track you down. Maybe someday, you guys will get together again.”

“But it won’t be the same. I want
my
Constantine. And when we get back, he won’t be there. Maybe we didn’t know each other for long, but in the short time that we had, a lot happened. We have a history. He took a bullet for me.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Not many girls can say
that
.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s freaking freezing here and it looks like it’s going to rain. Let’s go. We need to deal with things at the tree house. I hope Sam’s okay.”

“Sam…
right
,” I said, sighing. “Like we don’t have enough going on.”

When we stood up, we could see over the bushes. Con was standing at the window. He had his hands pressed flat against the glass. It was too far away for me to see his face clearly. But he stood perfectly still, his head cocked to the side, just watching us. I turned away and didn’t look back again. No point.

We left him there, the Constantine who had given me my first kiss.

********************

The trip back was short and sweet. That time, I lost myself in the wonder of its beauty in spite of my sadness. The tree house was empty when we arrived, and Lex dissolved into a pile of laughter on the floor.

“I will
so
never get tired of that!” she said, lying there.

I looked around and…

The coffee table was gone. So was the picture of my mom and me. Something wasn’t right.

“Lex, get up, get up…look!” The furniture was wrong. Everything was wrong.

“The hell?” Lex jumped up and looked around. “Our stuff is gone! And who is this girl?” She picked up a photo from the desk. The girl looked about thirteen or so and she was sitting on a horse. “Okay, A.J., what did you do? Are we in a freaking parallel universe or something?” She grabbed me by the shoulders, frantic.

“No clue! I didn’t do anything, really. I mean, nothing that I know of.” I ran to the porch. “Oh. My. God! I screwed up on the time. That has to be it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I messed up on the return time, or something. We must be in the future. They foreclosed on the house; and somebody bought it and fixed it up, and…where the heck is Sam? My God, Lex, what have I done?” 

I was horrified. Sam probably went totally off the deep end; and my mom’s greedy idiot of a dad stuck him in a nut house, and then sold off everything. He sold off my tree house and—

I heard laughter from behind me. She’s lost it, I thought. Lex has lost it. We were in the future and my house belonged to someone else. I’d lost Constantine. I’d probably killed Sam. And Lex was freakin
laughing
? I wanted to punch her.