August’s face fell as he stood there, my legs sliding from around his waist to rest by his sides. A small fraction of guilt mingled with the frustration and sheepishness in his stare, but he didn’t step away as I’d expected him to. Instead, he chewed on his cheek for a beat, maintaining our close contact and studying me carefully.

“I know you are upset,” he breathed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering on my shoulder and skimming down to rest on top of my hand. “Believe me when I say I knew my decision would wound you. It was not made lightly, and I have suffered with the understanding of how you must be in agony each day that we were apart.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” I countered harshly. “It makes it worse, actually. You knew you were doing something wrong and went ahead with it to hurt me.”

Anger flashed across his features, and he sucked in a sharp breath, looking away for a second before he sighed and met my gaze once more. “I had no intention of hurting you, Olivia. I was just as pained to be without you. And as for doing something wrong, I do not agree with that assessment. You and I both knew that at least one of us would travel again. I was merely the only one realistic enough to go through with it.”

Laughing in dismay, I scooted away from him, swinging my legs to the other side of the counter and sliding off. “Realistic?”

“I had to meet Charlotte in the past,” he asserted, “or we would have had no help when we first arrived in this time!”

The frustration and pain inside me reached its boiling point with those words. Spinning around, I slammed my hand on the counter, shouting at him. “We already had her help! There was no need to go back! You could have stayed here, helping me fix things like I wanted, rather than run off for weeks doing something that makes no difference in the long run. Don’t you get it? The things you’re so worried about, they already happened. Time travel or not, we can’t change that. Charlotte Mercer was at the hospital when you required her. Nothing is going to change that.”

“Something can change it!” he countered, the words barely under a yell as he addressed me. “And if you had taken a moment to think of anything other than what you wanted, you would have been with me when I discovered what has changed during our travels through the loops.”

“Loops?” The word caught me off guard, making me pause as I regarded him with skepticism.

“Time loops,” he answered, fuming. “You also would have a better understanding of how time travel works. Charlotte—”

“No.” Cutting him off, I folded my arms. “I’m not interested in whatever it is she’s told you. For all we know, she could be as twisted as her brother, using us to change whatever she wants in the past.”

Chuckling, he ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head as he balled his hands into fists and rested them on the counter. “No. Once again, if you had bothered to spend any time—”

“I don’t want to!” I shouted at him. “Can’t you see that? I don’t care what is different in this time. I have everything I could ever want!” Wide-eyed as the explanation for my behavior left my lips, I stared at him, trembling. “At least, I did, before you decided to do things without me.” Tears clouded my vision, my voice catching as I continued. “Can’t you see where I am coming from? You and I are together. My parents are alive. I’ve managed to get Dan and Emilia dating. Life could be perfect here if you would just listen to me and trust what I’m saying. Things that have happened already cannot be undone, not with us. It’s not possible.”

Frowning, I quickly wiped away the few tears that had escaped. It was impossible for me to understand how he couldn’t see we were fine. We remembered the alternate timeline, which meant we were safe in what had happened to us. No matter what Gabriel changed, we would be together. I knew it.

Sighing, August rubbed his face, his expression falling farther. Then, staring at me, he let whatever vulnerability he’d been keeping from me shine through. “I’m missing,” he croaked out. “All the records of my life in the past are gone. And the portrait you painted . . .” He stopped, biting his lip as his gaze transferred to the wall. “It’s changed.”

A cold pocket began to form in my stomach. “Changed how?”

He shook his head. “Little things. It still looks like me, but . . .” His gaze met mine, defeat and fear in it, uncertainty and apology bridging the gap to me. “It might not be that way for much longer.” Taking a deep breath, he moved closer to me, grasping my hands in his. “I will do whatever it takes,” he muttered. “You know that. Whatever I must to make sure we stay together. I am sorry that clashes with your desires right now. Truly. But nothing will stop me from keeping you by my side. Not even you, save you wishing to end things between us once and for all.”

He paused, as if waiting for me to refute such an idea, but I said nothing.

Gently pulling my hands away, I shook my head. “I can’t agree with you,” I whispered. “I’m not going to tell you it’s okay for you to murder my parents so we can be together.”

“It is not remotely close to murder,” he replied, exasperated as he followed my step backward. “And if it were, you agreed that General Mercer needed to die to put time how it should be before!”

“That was different,” I responded sharply.

“No, it is not,” he insisted. “It is precisely the same. Someone who should not be alive is.”

“They are my parents!” I screamed, the tears continuing to flow down my face as I stared at him in dismay. “The people who raised me, taught me everything, and loved me from the moment I first appeared in this world! I will not ever tell you it is okay to change things to how they were before! Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be! Did you ever think of that?”

Swallowing the large lump in my throat, I dug my nails into the palms of my hands, quivering like a leaf. “What if this is how it was supposed to be the whole time? This could be right! We can have everything we want, you just have to leave it alone.”

August, his own eyes filling with tears as I refused to take his side, frowned. “I don’t want to live in a time I’ve been erased from,” he said quietly. “And I’ve done my best to set it right, but I will not find out if it worked until I speak with Charlotte. As for your parents . . .”

A tear rolled down his cheek, a perceptive smile gracing his sad features. “I understand what you are saying, Olivia. Your emotions are clouding your good sense. If I could, I would bring my parents back as well. However, it is past their time. They don’t belong here. I am at peace knowing their souls are in eternal rest.”

“My parents are not ready to rest,” I asserted. “And you don’t get to decide if they are or not.”

“Neither do you. Or Gabriel. Or any other time travelers.” Taking another hesitant step toward me, he licked his lips. “The truth is, Gabriel did something that kept them alive, Olivia. They aren’t supposed to be alive.”

Shaking my head, I kept backing up until I was against the far wall. “You don’t know that,” I countered, continuing to cry as I stared at him. “This could be how it all was supposed to be.”

He only shook his head. “Time knows,” he muttered. “It knows what is right and wrong, and it will work to put things how they are supposed to be.”

My mind flashed to Gabriel, his drunken voice sharing that Time had been working to end General Mercer when his life was extended past its time. Nothing like that had happened with my parents, though. I think I would have been aware if they almost died every single day.

“Then let time sort it out,” I answered dryly. “And you stay out of it.”

Dropping his head, he stared at the floor, the air in the room one of heartbreak and frustration between the two of us. Then, his damning reply came in hushed tones, so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.

“I cannot. There is too much at stake.”

Sniffing, I nodded, my heart shattering as I pushed away from the wall and haltingly walked past him. Picking his jacket up off the floor, I handed it to him, motioning to the door. “If you’re refusing to stop, we have come to an impasse,” I stated, my voice shaking. “And I don’t think you should stay here until we can work it out. I need some time for now.”

Frowning, he took the coat, our gazes locked. “You are sure?” he asked.

Another tear slipped down my cheek as I nodded.

Gently, he reached out and wiped it away, his frown deepening as he paused, holding my face.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Always.”

Then, he moved past me, picking up his bag and going through the door once more.

 

 

It was painful to listen to Emilia gush about her date the next morning, her perky happiness a drag against my gloomy demeanor. She didn’t seem to notice I was down, she was so wrapped up in her own bubble of euphoria.

“It was so perfect, Olive,” she cooed, the road ahead of us reflecting in her sunglasses as she drove, some pop music playing on the radio in the background. “I don’t know how I ever managed to split from him in the first place. The more we’re together, the more I feel like we are meant to be, like you said.”

“Hmm.”

Staring out the window, I let my head rest on the glass, watching as the clouds went by overhead. It probably wasn’t the best of days to go to Jersey and meet my parents for lunch, but I would do whatever I could to mend things with them.

Especially if August was trying to get rid of them.

The phone in my pocket began buzzing, and I opened the text message from my boss, an attachment of August’s portrait appearing on the screen. I’d asked him to send it to me, wanting to see if the picture really was different.

To my horror, it didn’t even look like August anymore, instead showing some man with brown hair and a scar in his eyebrow.

My stomach clenched painfully, and I locked the screen, setting it in the cupholder as I bit my lip. What did this mean? Was August right? Was he really disappearing from time? What did that entail for us?

The proof was staring me right in the face. What I thought was impossible to change was not. He was right; Time knew when things were altered. I didn’t recognize who the man in the painting was anymore and I was going to have to make a decision on what to do if I wanted my life to stay as it should be.

However, I didn’t know how I would decide which timeline was the right one.

My phone buzzed, drawing me from my gloomy thoughts, and I pulled it out, smiling as I saw my mom’s face on the screen.

“Hey,” I said, reaching over and turning the radio off completely so I could hear better. “Sorry, I’m running a bit behind. Em is driving me over right now. We should be there in about twenty minutes.”

“That’s fine, honey,” Mom replied. “Your father and I ended up spending the night in the city and are on our way now. I wanted to make sure you weren’t waiting out on the porch, but we’re a few minutes ahead of you. I’ve grabbed your favorite for lunch. We probably should have met at your house, but I have that meeting with the Woman’s Coalition afterward—you’re welcome to come with me, by the way—and your father is eager to get back to his book.”

“Hi, Olive,” he called from the background.

“Hey, Dad,” I answered, laughing some at their carefree voices.

“Anyway,” Mom continued, “tell Emilia she’s more than welcome to stay and eat, would you? We’re grateful she’s been helping you drive around ever—Albert, look out!”

Dad yelled something unintelligible, and the sound of screeching tires screamed out of the phone’s earpiece, followed by the deafening crunch of metal. A car horn filled the air, blaring nonstop, ringing in my ears like the beacon of the end of the world.

“Mom?”

There was no reply.

“Mom!” I pulled the phone away from my ear, looking at Emilia in horror.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, panicked as she tried to keep an eye on both me and the road at the same time.

I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, the world seeming to slow down as my chest tightened, my breath refusing to move. The phone fell from my hand as my fingers went numb, my gaze turning to the road ahead.

Time knows and will do whatever it can to fix it.

August’s voice rang in my ears now, mixed with the sounds of my parent’s screaming and crunch metal.

It couldn’t be true. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. My parents were supposed to live. I was supposed to have everything I wanted. Time had changed it all to give me that. I was a good person. I didn’t deserve a story like that.

Yet, as we came up on the bridge, the highway became congested, cars parking in the middle of their lanes, people running ahead to where a pillar of smoke rose into the sky.

It was like I was in a horror movie. My limbs all felt wooden, and suddenly I was out of the car, running—no, floating—down the road, stopping beside the Oldsmobile my family had owned the greater part of my life. It was almost unrecognizable, the horn screaming into the air, mangled front end smoking and spitting out fluid. The windshield was shattered, my favorite dish from the Chinese restaurant strewn across the munched hood and road, as well as the car that had been driving the wrong way.

Everyone around me was yelling, some of them working at the doors, unable to get the latches to open, others checking the other vehicle, some on their phones, all the sounds melding into a dull roar that barely pierced my consciousness. Even Emilia, her hand gripping my arm, was pushed to the background, only the sound of my thumping heart clearly audible.

I didn’t look inside the vehicle.

I already knew what my mom and dad looked like in death.