Part 30 (1/2)

I stayed where I was, studying them for an eternity, trying to decide if they were familiar or not. They gave me the strangest sense of dej vu, and I felt like I should remember them even though I couldn't quite put my finger on the memory.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 4:13, but I was awake-awake so there was no point trying to go back to sleep now. I chucked the covers aside and made my way to the kitchen in search of coffee.

The hallway was dark but I'd been in this house my whole life, I didn't need a light. Still, everything about this was wrong somehow.

I had the strangest sensation I was sneaking around someplace I shouldn't. Trespa.s.sing.

I froze when I reached the kitchen and saw Grant standing over the sink, loading dishes in the dishwasher.

Grant.

I knew him-his name, his face . . . and he obviously recognized me, because he grimaced when he saw me. ”Sorry. Did I wake ya, slugger?”

Slugger? Was that really his nickname for me?

I tested it out, and the whole dej vu thing tilted . . . right, but not quite.

”No,” I answered, when he just stood there, waiting for my response. ”I . . . uh . . . bad dream, I guess.” I shrugged.

Was that the truth? It could've been a dream as easily as anything else.

He nodded, his eyebrows tugging downward. ”Your dad again? I'm sorry, slugger. It'll get easier.” He reached for a dish towel.

My dad . . .

Just the mention of him brought an overwhelming something almost into range. A memory I couldn't quite reach, but there was a sharp stab of pain.

Again, I couldn't help thinking none of this was right.

I took a step away from Grant before he could finish drying his hands. I didn't want him to try to hug it out or anything, and for some reason I got the feeling that's where this whole touchy-feely conversation was headed.

”All right,” he called after me as I staggered down the hallway to my bedroom. ”I'll be here if you wanna talk.”

I slammed the door behind me, and did a quick inventory of the room. It was mine, but not mine.

Mine from before, came the thought, hitting me like a freight train the same way the pain had. All these things were things from my past. From another me.

It all came rus.h.i.+ng back at me then. The Returned, the camps, the No-Suchers and Agent Truman, the ISA. Adam and my dad.

The explosion.

So how was I here now? Why hadn't I been blasted into smithereens when we'd destroyed the ISA facility and their fleet of s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps?

And what had Grant meant about my dad? Why was he acting so weird?

I looked around, at the plastic stars and the purple walls. At the stuffed animals and the trophies. Why was my room back the way it had been before I'd been taken all those years ago?

Then, on my nightstand, I saw the program from a memorial service, and I knew whose it was before I even picked it up.

In Loving Memory the heading read, and below that my dad's face stared back at me. Not the way I'd last seen him, with his soft gray beard and bloated cheeks. In the picture, he was clean-shaven and clear-eyed, as if someone had decided an image from the past would better represent him.

But I knew better. I missed my messy dad. The one who'd waited five years for me to come back and then hugged me so hard he'd almost choked me. The dad who'd gone on the run just to keep Tyler and me safe. The dad who'd sacrificed his own life to make amends for what he'd done all those years ago.

I bolted upright. Tyler.

If I was here . . . back from . . . wherever, was it possible Tyler was too?

Yanking on a pair of sweatpants I found on the floor, I decided to find out. I didn't want to risk another share-your-feelings moment with Grant, so I climbed over my window ledge and bolted across the street to a house I'd once spent as much time in as my own.

The house was dark, but I went straight around the back to Tyler's bedroom window and tapped on it. The entire time my heart was going a hundred miles a minute in my chest. I had no idea what I'd do if he wasn't in there, if I had to go through this . . . whatever was happening to me, all alone.

When the bedroom light turned on, I closed my eyes and whispered a silent prayer, and with each footstep that came closer my stomach did a little flip.

Please don't be his mom . . . please don't be his mom . . .

Then, on the other side of the gla.s.s, Tyler's face appeared. I waited a second to make sure I wasn't seeing things, and then gave a little wave to say, It's me.

His eyebrows squeezed together as his green eyes took me in. It hadn't occurred to me until this very second that the two of us might be back at square one. That he might not remember anything . . . not just about the ISA and the Returned. But about us.

My heart plummeted, I wasn't sure I could do this again.

”Hey,” I said, when he opened his window, not sure how to go about testing the waters.

”Hey. What are you doing here so . . .” He leaned back and looked at something-his clock probably. ”So early?”

”Jeez, Tyler.” Suddenly I felt like an idiot. ”I'm sorry.” I bit my lip. ”I . . .” I sighed. ”I don't even know what I wanted. I'll let you get back to sleep.”

I turned around and started to cross the street, deciding I had to be the most embarra.s.sing person who ever lived. Behind me, I heard his feet land in the gravel. I hesitated.

”I'll remember you always.” I almost missed it, he said it so quietly. Less than a whisper.

I closed my eyes, begging myself not to completely lose my s.h.i.+t, before I trusted myself enough to turn around again.

Tyler started grinning, that dimple making an appearance at last when he saw the tears gus.h.i.+ng down my cheeks. ”I've been waiting almost a week, but I knew you'd eventually figure it out,” he told me, sounding even more relieved than I felt. ”I knew if I gave you enough time, it'd all come back to you too.”

”Shut up,” I told him, right before I ran and jumped in his arms and forced him to kiss me.

It took another two days for me to sort it all out.

There were so many details to get straight, like why our parents-my mom and stepdad, who I was now officially calling Grant, and Tyler's folks-had different memories from our own.

”It was the fireflies,” Tyler insisted, every time I challenged him on something that didn't make sense, most importantly why we'd survived the explosion at all. ”You didn't feel them? You don't remember?”

Except, that's the thing. I sort of did. My memory was still coming together in pieces, but it was coming.

In those last seconds, right before we were completely surrounded by smoke, right before the heat from the flames became too much, I'd felt something on me. Something swarming over me.

I remembered that sensation from before . . . from Devil's Hole when Tyler had been taken. That creepy-crawly feeling of all those fireflies on my arms and legs. In my nose and hair.