I SIT on the floor and prop myself up against the wall. My head is spinning.
I can hear John and Sam—Sam!—speaking quietly outside the door. I can’t make out what they are saying at all, and part of me wants to stand closer to the door so that I’m in the know. And so I can confirm that is indeed Sam Riordan.
He looks so young. I’ve only ever seen pictures of him. He was famously shy about being captured on film. In all those photos, he looks bored out of his mind, which is exactly the way he looked a few minutes ago.
I don’t think I’m able to stand up. I try, but the world seems to spin and I don’t want to risk it. I know standing up has no bearing on whether I have a seizure or not, but feeling light-headed is never a good sign for me, so I stay sitting next to the wall, pressing my cheek against it.
I close my eyes and try to keep my breathing steady. This is why I need to quit. I can’t afford to have a seizure here. That is not how I want to find out how much John knows about epilepsy.
“Damien,” John says. He’s crouched in front of me, only one knee on the floor, and his hands in his pockets. I wonder how he’s staying upright. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I can’t help it. I laugh into the wall, which must look ridiculous, because John starts to laugh too.
“Do you want some water or something?”
I am trying to nod, but I’m laughing too hard to do anything. John chuckles, shakes his head, and sits down in front of me. He just waits for me to be done, even though I’m acting like a lunatic, and he doesn’t say anything. He watches me, I think, a small smile on his face.
I look straight at him when I’m done, tears in my eyes. He smiles at me. “Are you okay?”
I exhale through my nose. “No,” I say. “Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I don’t know if I do. I don’t want him to think I’m leaving because of him, but I think I’m legitimately going crazy.
And he’s my boss. I don’t know what he wants to hear from me.
I shake my head.
“Are you sure?”
I shake my head again.
He nods and moves so that he’s actually sitting beside me, his back up against the wall. We’re both looking at the empty desk now.
“You can,” he says. “It won’t change anything.”
I look at him. His eyes are closed and he’s leaning his head back. He has this tattoo I can’t make out, peeking out from above his shirt collar.
“Okay,” I say. “Well, where do I start?”
He swallows. “How about you tell me why you think you need to quit?”
“I don’t think I need to quit,” I say. “I need to quit. Despite the—”
“The what?”
“The little surprise,” I say, laughing again.
He frowns, obviously not understanding what I’m talking about.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” I say.
“I know crazy people,” he says. “You don’t strike me as crazy.”
I laugh again, closing my eyes and leaning back. “Just wait.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m waiting.”
I take a deep breath, thinking about how I can avoid having this conversation. Instead I end up telling everything. I go into way too much detail probably, talking about Levi, the hospital, Ziggy, my family, my brother, even about the bracelet. I talk about breaking into Crash, the walls, the seizure itself.
I avoid talking about John, at least, though at one point I do let it slip I thought about calling him.
I’m breathless and exhausted by the time I’m finished. “Anyway,” I say. “That’s why I need to quit. That, and I’m going crazy.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s Sam Riordan,” I say. “Your—our boss.”
He nods. “He’s a prick, but that doesn’t mean you’re going crazy.”
“No, it’s not that. He died. You know, in 2006.”
John frowns. “What?”
“He died,” I repeat. “I mean, he didn’t just die, he was old. He had lung cancer. didn’t he?”
John looks at me, cocks his head and raises one eyebrow. “He’s fine.”
“Right,” I say. “That’s what I’m saying. I thought he’d died ten years ago.”
He shakes his head. “What year do you think it is?”
“Twenty sixteen,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. “Obviously.”
He swallows, looks at me, puts his hand on my forehead, and lets it linger there. I wonder if I should move away, but I don’t. I’m waiting for him to be done doing—well, whatever he’s doing, I guess.
I laugh. “I don’t have a fever. What year do you think it is?”
“Nineteen eighty-seven,” he says. He takes a long, long second to look at me before he swallows again, moves his hand away from my face, and shakes his head. “Obviously.”
I LOOK him up and down before I start laughing again. But he says nothing and his expression doesn’t change, and my laughter starts to sound strange and hollow in the quiet room.
He’s knitted his eyebrows together and he’s staring at me. I don’t think he’s even blinked at all.
“Stop it,” I say. I’m not laughing anymore. He’s making me uncomfortable.
“You stop it,” he replies. “Do you think this is funny? I was worried about you.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says this, he kind of looks down and away, and I feel bad for a second before I remember he’s trying to play a trick on me.
“That’s not fair,” I say. “I open up to you and you decide to be cruel.”
“I’m the one who’s being cruel? You tell me this story where you make me genuinely worry about you, you get me in trouble with my boss, you come in here and you, you—”
He’s holding back, which annoys me. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I’ve only ever followed his lead, answered his questions. Less than an hour ago, I was trying to quit, not get him in trouble with anyone.
“I what?”
“You confuse me,” he says and sighs before he rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily. “Every day you confuse me. And I’ve just realized you’re probably doing this for fun. Like, this is a joke to you. I am a joke to you.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s making me angry. He’s pretending all of this is my fault, but it isn’t. I haven’t done anything wrong, even though I have wanted to.
“I confuse you? How do you think I feel? You’re nothing but mixed signals,” I say. “And now you’re being cruel. Which honestly is the last thing I need right now. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I’m barely staying afloat here.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Maybe it was a mistake coming here,” I say. “I guess I could’ve just emailed or called you. But, I don’t know, I guess I thought you deserved for me to do this face-to-face. I was wrong.”
“Email?”
I groan. “Really, dude? Grow up.”
He swallows, still not looking directly at me. “You really believe this, don’t you? You really believe that you’re in 2013.”
“Twenty sixteen,” I say. “And I am.”
“No, you’re not,” he replies. “The year, Damien, is 1987. Is that why you think you’re going crazy?”
I nod. “Because—”
“Yeah?”
I’m starting to feel nauseous again as I start remembering arriving here. I mean, what he’s saying kind of makes sense, even considering the state of Crash itself. The way that people stare at me. The way he asks me, and speaks, about me, about Levi, about us. The way his house is decorated. The fact that he doesn’t seem to understand me. How cheap everything is.
But those could all be explained away, right? I’m fairly sure. Except for Sam. I don’t know how to begin rationalizing Sam. And John didn’t know what my phone was. He’s only five years older than me, maybe, so he would definitely know what a phone was.
If this was, which it is, 2016.
I sigh and pull my phone out of my pocket. “Stop,” I say. “Seriously. I’m fragile right now.”
That feels like such a stupid thing to say, especially to someone I don’t know well. But I’m not sure what else to do. I grab my phone, unlock it, put it in his hands, and watch him.
“What is this?”
“My phone,” I say. “Remember? You gave me your number and—”
“I remember,” he replies. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because I want to see what you do,” I say.
He looks down at the phone, inspects the sides of it with his thumb, barely grazes the screen with his fingers. Then he turns it over, brings it close to his face, and just looks at the side.
I laugh and take it off him.
Okay, if I am in the past, and it appears that John is either an extremely convincing performer, or I am in fact a time traveler, it’s incredibly important that I convince him of this.
I really have to make him understand I’m not making fun.
“I have no signal here,” I say. “But I can do loads of things.”
He shakes his head. “Like what?”
“Hm,” I say and get closer to him. “Like take a selfie.”
The flash seems to blind him, so his eyes are closed when I actually show it to him. He pales when he sees the photo of us on the tiny illuminated screen.
“So this thing is a camera,” he says.
“No,” I say. “It’s a phone. And a camera. And I guess, I don’t know, like a little computer. I can play games on here or whatever.”
I boot up Fruit Ninja and start to play it in front of him. He’s staring, grimacing. He leans in closer and tilts his head away from the phone so he can hear the music coming from it.
“So you’re—” He’s pale now. “You’re either a time traveler or an incredibly rich person that happens to have access to technology no one else does.”
I laugh. “Okay, if I was the second one, like, do you think I’d be working here?”
He smiles. “Right,” he says. “Good point.”
I DON’T think either one of us realizes how late it is until we hear someone moving in the hallway. We’ve been sitting down and talking. I’ve been trying to answer his questions with my admittedly limited knowledge of history. I’ve hit on a couple of major things, but I’ve tried to keep it upbeat—a little more Berlin Wall torn down, a little less Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. He’s not that interested in that, thankfully.
He seems more interested in how I live. Day to day. He’s made me describe my day in detail a couple of times. I’ve talked to him about checking my bank account online, making my rent payments through my computer, keeping in touch with my friends abroad on Facebook. I’ve even told him how I brush my teeth. I guess I didn’t realize how much technology dictated my life until I tell him about my school work. He listens so intently, but his eyes are closed, and he also mustn’t notice how late it is, because when he hears the noise outside, his eyes go wide and he looks straight at me. He puts a finger over his lips and it feels like he stops breathing.
I think I stop breathing too. That has to be Sam, and I really don’t want to get John in trouble. Especially if I’m not coming back.
We hear the front door open and close, still barely making a sound, before he stifles a giggle.
“Fuck me,” he says. “What a day. I need a drink.”
I nod. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”
He raises his eyebrows. “So are you coming or what?”