The grass is refreshing. Slightly wet but cool. It’s most definitely not my bed.
I lie there for at least five seconds, like an idiot, with my palms pressed against the soft, chilly blades, looking up at endless black sky that’s replaced the ugly off-white ceiling I’ve stared at for almost my whole life. These five seconds are the most peaceful I’ve had in the past six months.
And then I realize something’s wrong.
I sit up quickly and jump to my feet faster than I should. The ground rushes up and the world spins.
My eyes finally adjust to the darkness, and I’m able to come up with two possible explanations for my change in location.
One, somehow I’ve gotten up from bed without realizing it, and I’m standing on my street, the same street where I learned how to ride a bike and parallel park, where I almost had my first kiss, and where I broke my arm in seventh grade.
Two, somehow I’ve gotten up from bed without realizing it, and I’m standing in a twilight-zone version of my street.
And, shockingly, option two seems more likely, because something is really off.
Mr. Cameron’s house looks…cleaner than it ever has. The blue paneling is a brighter blue than I can remember. And Ms. Cunningham’s house across the street? There’s no fountain there, and I know there should be, because the homeowners association had a field day debating whether she should be allowed to have it. And, of course, there are two cars in Mr. Evans’s driveway, suspiciously retro-looking ones, when I know there should only be one, since his wife left him last year (but he doesn’t want to talk about it).
But, most importantly, the house at 2405 Stuart Drive, my house, isn’t my house anymore. It’s a house, someone else’s house. Someone with a penchant for wind chimes.
And…the addition is missing.
“What the actual fuck,” I whisper.
The cul-de-sac is familiar, but the houses, the cars, they are all…different.
“Okay, okay, Andre,” I tell myself quickly. “Deep breaths, that’s it. Breathe. You know how to do that. Breathing still makes sense, right?”
But my breaths come out shallow, despite how hard I try to breathe in for five seconds, hold for three, and breathe out for seven. I read that somewhere. But it feels like I can’t get enough air, no matter how hard I try. Like I’m actually suffocating on oxygen. If that’s even possible.
Catastrophizing won’t solve anything! I scold myself mentally, the voice in my head barely breaking through the sound of blood pumping in my ears. I rub my palms together, feeling the rough grains of dirt, the dew, and the sharp grass sticking to my palms. It feels so real.
But no matter how real it feels, it can’t be real. That’s what happens when you have two parents who swear up and down by the scientific method. It rubs off on you.
“Sleepwalking…or dreaming,” I reason, dusting off my jeans. That’s something I can wrap my head around. Maybe hallucinations are a side effect of the antirejection meds.
Reaching back, I gingerly touch the back of my head, which hit the ground hard when I fell, and wince, feeling around the inflamed skin, checking my fingers.
No blood. Good.
Or bad?
Is this what being in a coma is like? Had I drifted off to sleep and something went completely wrong, and now I’m in the hospital, hooked up to dozens of tubes, fighting for my life while my mom and dad decide to keep me on or take me off life support?
Oh God.
Oh God.
Oh God.
“Uh, hey?” a voice says to the left of me. I see him in my peripheral vision, waving at me as he walks around the front of a white car that’s just cruised into the driveway.
He’s dressed in a normal outfit: a white undershirt with a pair of jeans and boots. It’s a simple look, and he wears it well.
His shaggy blond hair falls over his bright blue eyes, and he brushes it back in a nonchalant way that tells me he does this maybe a dozen times a day.
But something feels…off.
“You lost?” he asks, throwing his leather jacket over his shoulder like he’s a half-price James Dean.
How do I answer that? Honestly? Because that answer would be: Yes. I’m completely freakin’ lost.
But instead, I turn back to the house, willing it to look familiar. Hoping I’ll wake up from whatever bizarro dream this is.
But nothing happens.
I turn back to the stranger and open my mouth, close it, and open it again. He simply grins, his arms now crossed over his chest, waiting patiently with an open, if slightly confused, smile on his face.
“Where am I?”
“You took all that time to think up something to say, and that’s what you settle on?” He shakes his head and grins. “Boston, Massachusetts.”
He’s from around here, I think. Says it like all other natives. Baws-ton. Good. That’s at least something I can work with.
In my journalism elective, I was told that the easiest questions are usually the simplest ones, and the simplest ones will get you all you need to know—if you know how to ask them and how to read between the lines. I know the where.
“Are you lost?” he asks again.
“No, I’m from around here too.”
“Which part?”
“H—” Nope, can’t say that. “Nearby. I must have gotten off at the wrong station. Can you point me to Forest Hills?”
He frowns. He has an expressive face. You can see every emotion on it. I guess he can’t help wearing his heart on his sleeve.
“Forest Hills? The Orange Line?” I ask.
“I know what you mean. Just never heard someone ask me that before. Odd question. Hard to spot and all,” he says with a sarcastic tone.
“Sorry?”
A heavy awkwardness appears between us as suddenly as a spring shower. His face twists into a confused expression, a mix of Is this boy dangerous? and What is he talking about?
But he speaks softly, not like he’s scared, like he’s concerned. “You okay, boss?”
I should just say yes and walk away—in any direction. I should say goodbye, thank him, and move on.
But I never do things the easy way. At my core, I’m a problem solver. And this is a problem worth solving.
The boy points in the general direction that I need.
“Thanks,” I reply, taking a few steps before pausing and turning to him. But I stop. I need to know something first.
“What did you mean my question was odd?”
“First you don’t know where one of the ugliest T stops is, and now you’re asking me an obvious question,” he teases. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Which is a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that. I employ a tactic my mom uses—silence. Eventually, he’ll get uncomfortable and answer. In three, two, one…
“T stops are easy to spot,” he caves, fishing out a cigarette and lighter. “I mean, they’re aboveground, loud, ugly as shit, and—”
Hold up. “Stop,” I interrupt. “You said its aboveground?”
“Mm-hmm.” He lights the thin white cancer stick in two clicks.
“Forest Hills is underground.”
“Underground?” he repeats, voice muffled with the cig in his mouth. He pulls it out, holding it between two long fingers. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? No. Pretty sure I know my stations.”
“Me too.”
Silence again, except this time it’s not my doing. He narrows his eyes curiously, scanning me, it feels like, for information.
“You sure you okay, boss?”
“I’m fine,” I repeat. Why is this guy saying the station is aboveground? What a stupid thing to lie about. It’s something I can confirm easily, and—
Wait.
Wait.
Then, like when a random song lyric from years ago suddenly pops into your head, memories from viewing old photos during middle school history class flood my brain. Black-and-white photos, and photos with poor color quality of Boston. The old Boston. Boston in the 1950s and 1960s.
With aboveground trains.
“When is it?” I suddenly ask. “Still summer?”
He nods, but slower this time, his eyes studying me. “June, actually.”
“June fourteenth?”
“Right on the money.”
“And what year is it? Two thousand twenty-one, right?”
A beat passes, and it’s the longest beat of my life.
“Right?”
He looks concerned, very concerned, but he answers. Not the answer I want to hear, though. Not the answer anyone wants to hear.
“Nineteen sixty-nine.”
The words echo and bounce around my brain for what feels like hours before they finally lodge themselves into my psyche.
I’m back on my ass before I even realize it, my legs buckling under me.
He moves forward and, ignoring the wetness of the grass, falls to his knees beside me. He presses the back of his hand against my forehead.
“You’re warm. Are you sick or something? Confused?”
“I’m okay.” I bat his hand away. “I just need…some…”
“You need some water. You’re coming with me.”
He counts to three before hoisting me up, slinging my left arm over his shoulder.
“I can walk.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.” He winks, walking across the lawn to the front steps. “Stand here for a sec,” he says, fishing out his keys. He keeps me close, even though I’m perfectly capable of standing on my own.
I’m not sure I mind it.
He turns the key and uses his shoulder and a little extra effort to push the door open, stumbles when it gives, and gives me a boyish smile.
“Always gets stuck…”
“When it rains,” I finish the sentence for him. I remember that when my parents bought the house, they complained about it. The doors were one of the first things we changed… But sometimes they still get stuck.
He looks puzzled but shrugs it off and walks into his house.
My house.
Fifty-two years in the past.