Page 19 of All Your Tomorrows

“Sue’s van’s here,” he said, quickly sitting up straighter in his seat as we pulled to a stop in front of his house.

I inhaled a deep breath as my hands gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white.WasI nervous he’d disappear? Or, was I more worried about how badly this could go?

He reached over and placed his hand on mine. “You got this.”

I tried to ignore the warmth spreading through my hand and up my arm. His touch was so damn real and that notion scared the hell out of me because I might just start to believe it. I slipped my hand away and switched off the engine. It was go time. “Let’s do this.” I pushed open my door and stepped out. I didn’t hear Kyler’s door slam shut, probably because he didn’t have to open it to pass through it before meeting me in the front of the car. I wrapped my scarf around my neck as we made our way up the driveway and to the side of the house. I knocked on the side door and waited, listening for a voice or footsteps. “Do you think we should’ve gone to the front door? Do you think she remembers me? Do you think she told your mom? Do you think she forgot I’m coming?”

Kyler reached over and rubbed a reassuring hand over my back. “You’re rambling.”

“Am not,” I snapped, knowing I was totally rambling.

“She’ll remember you.”

The door unlocked and then opened. Sue smiled when she found me standing there. “You came back?” she said.

“Of course.” I stepped inside with Kyler on my heels.

“I’m in,” he said, relief in his voice.

“Thank God,” I said.

“What?” Sue asked.

“Thank God you remember me,” I explained.

“Of course,” she said.

As I followed Sue through the kitchen, I glanced to my side to be sure Kyler was still with me. He looked all around, taking in the home he’d grown up in as we trailed Sue down a hallway to the small bedroom at the far end of the first floor. She stopped in the doorway causing me to stop.

“Mrs. Fletcher will be home around eleven-thirty, so you might want to leave before then so you don’t run into her.”

“No problem. Thanks for letting me visit.”

She smiled, stepping aside so I could enter the room. I moved past her and stopped at the side of the hospital bed. Sue’s footsteps retreated down the hallway as I stared down at Kyler. He lay under the sheets with his arms at his sides and his eyes closed. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought he was asleep—save the ventilator tube in his mouth and the monotonous clicking of the machine keeping him alive.

“Jesus Christ,” Kyler said from beside me.

I jumped, almost forgetting there were two of them.

“I look like shit,” he observed.

I lowered myself into the empty chair beside the bed, pushed myself to the edge of it, and lifted my hand to his cheek. “Can you feel me?” I asked, though anyone watching would’ve thought I was talking to the Kyler in the bed.

“No,” he said from beside me.

“Try to touch yourself,” I said.

He stepped up to the bed and leaned down, slowly moving his hand toward his arm. He stopped mere inches from his body.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t get any closer,” he said, struggling to touch his other self.

I grabbed his wrist and tried to pull it closer for him, but something invisible—not to mention inexplicably solid—stopped it from moving any further. “I guess jumping into your body is out of the question,” I said as I released his wrist.

“I guess so,” he conceded.

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing it was an inadequate thing to say.