My shoes squeak on the hospital floor as I head for his room. This is the last place I thought I’d be—the last person I’d visit. To be honest, I’m not really sure why I came. I only know that I had to. That small voice inside me whispered—and, thanks to Alice, I listened.
He sits in a wheelchair at the table in his room playing Lego or something. He seems surprised to see me.
“Isabelle Parks.” He announces me like some footman at a ball. But we are alone in the room.
“Xander Watt,” I mimic. I sit across from him as he continues to sift through the bazillion gray pieces.
Fun.
“So…” I say, “how are you, like, feeling?” Stupid question.
He shrugs. Stupid answer.
He doesn’t ask me why I’m here or what I want. Instead, he pushes a pile of gray Lego towards me and points at the diagram. “Can you help me find this one?” His finger taps the drawing of some cube-shaped piece. It looks exactly like every other one. So, I start rummaging too. I never liked Lego. All the tiny bits. Hours building something just to take it apart. All that work—and nothing to show for it?
What’s the point?
“What are you making?” I ask, like I care.
“Lego Death Star,” he says, like it matters.
We sift in silence for a few minutes and then he says, in his oddball way, “My dad left me when I was nine.”
I focus on the pieces, unsure of what exactly I should say to that.
“We were supposed to finish this together.” After a few moments he continues. “But I’ve decided to do it myself. Maybe I don’t need him after all.”
I don’t reply. But I don’t really think he expects me to.
After a pause, I clear my throat and mimic his detached tone. “My birth mother left me in a box on the roadside.”
A fact. One I’ve never told anyone. Still, it’s just a fact. That’s all. Just information. It’s not a definition of who I am. Unless I let it be.
“Are you retconning too?” He looks up at me, suddenly interested.
“What?” I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.
“Retroactive Continuity? It is when comic book writers change or rearrange a character’s early life.”
Oh, comics. Yay.
He keeps talking. “I know that changing up a backstory seems illogical and wrong because, well, the facts are true. What happened, happened. But sometimes it’s not about the facts, it’s about seeing the character’s past in a new light—to make the story ahead even better.”
I pull out my new iPhone to check the time. I should probably go.
“So, I have decided to retcon.” He picks up a piece, examines it, and tosses it back in the box. Picks up another. “The stuff with Max. Maybe even all the way back to when Dad left.”
And I realize that he’s not still talking about his dumb comics. “Are you talking about yourself? Like, revising your life?”
Is that even possible?
I notice it then, the cube-shaped piece. I pluck it out of the box and hold it up. “Is this it?” I can’t believe I found it—in all that gray mess. I’m amazed I found the key piece.
“If you could retcon, what would you change?” he asks.
“I’d go back to China,” I say, without thinking. And suddenly, it all becomes clear. China. “I think I need to see where I came from before I can know where I’m going next.”
The wish rings true somewhere deep inside me, like the surfacing of a long-forgotten secret.
“Who knows?” I add. “I might even take a year or two and volunteer in the orphanage or something.”
He nods.
Then, remembering why I came, I pick up the camera hanging around my neck. Swiping my thumb over the switch, I turn it on as I raise it and look through the viewfinder. His shocked face fills the frame.
“Say CHEE-eese,” I say, in my Yearbook Editor way.
He doesn’t, in his Xander way.
Click.
If that didn’t totally freak him out, now he gets even more awkward when I pull my seat over beside his wheelchair. His face gets all red. I take the strap off my neck and flip the camera around to show him the display.
“See? You can edit right on the camera.” I press a few buttons and change the look. “Crop. Filters. Adjust the light. Or you can shoot black-and-white, if that’s still your thing.”
I hold it out. He looks at it, at me, back at the camera.
“I figured,” I explain, “since your Tank got wrecked…”
He blinks. Repeatedly. He doesn’t get it.
“My parents bought me a better one for graduation,” I say. It surprised me, especially when Dad said it was Mom’s idea—that she wanted to get me something special to help me follow my heart. That she knew how much I loved photography.
Maybe she knows me better than I thought.
“Anyway,” I put it in his hands, “I don’t need this, so it’s yours. If you want it.”
Xander slowly lifts the camera. Looks through the viewfinder. Tests the zoom.
I smile. “Hey, here’s something your Tank couldn’t do. Press this.” I push the timer button. “Hold it about here.” He does as instructed, holding it at arm’s length with the lens facing down at us side by side.
3…
2…
1…
Click.
Xander turns it around to see the display. A black-and-white shot of us. Optimal selfie angle, of course. My hair is perfect. My pose, cute. My smile, wide. But I hardly notice any of that. All I see is the look on Xander’s face. The wonder in his eyes. The small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He looks like a kid at Christmas.