Poor girl.
“Is Lisa here?” Rose asks as I wheel the bike over to the garage and lean it against the outside of the house.
Charlene shakes her head. “No. Not today.”
“Oh. Okay,” Rose says. She’s smiling, but something about it feels odd. Like she’s posing.
I want to jump back in the car, away from this decidedly weird vibe. This whole thing is uncomfortable, but since this is my first time meeting Charlene, I’m not sure if I’m the one causing it, or if this is always the dynamic between the two of them.
Rose and Charlene make stilted small talk for another minute or two before Charlene puts us all out of our misery by saying she has to get back to her homework. We say an awkward goodbye and get back in the car, while Charlene returns to the house.
My seat belt somehow gets all twisted, and as I turn in my seat to untangle it, a slight motion at the top of the driveway catches my eye. It’s Karl, his wrist now bandaged, half-hidden in the bushes at the edge of the woods. He startles when he notices me, his eyes going wide. For a second, we just stare at each other, while Rose starts the car. Then he turns and disappears into the trees like he was never there.
Chapter Forty-Five
ROSE
“I’ve met him before.”
“Who?” Rose said, looking over her shoulder as she backed up, turning around in the Derrins’ skating rink–size front drive.
“Karl. In my time.”
Rose blinked at Justin, his words taking a second to fully register. Was he willing to talk about the future now? Despite the risk to the space-time continuum?
Since he was the one bringing it up, she had to admit, she was curious. “Oh yeah?” she said, approaching this new subject carefully, like a deer she hoped to touch before it bounded back into the trees.
He nodded, his eyes far off. “I didn’t recognize him at first, but after seeing his house again . . .” He laughed, a little incredulously. “He kicked me out of that house, the night of the bonfire. That’s actually why I was on the bridge that night. If not for Karl, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Why’d he kick you out?”
“Because his son hates me.”
“Karl has a son?”
Justin nodded. “He’s the worst.” He shook his head, seeming dazed as Rose steered away from the house and down the winding drive. “It’s so weird, you know? You have this idea about why things are the way they are, but you never really think about it. Like, I go to school every day in a building named after my dead grandparents, and I know they died in a fire at the school, but I never actually thought about them as, like, people people, with personalities and responsibilities and, I don’t know, smells and stuff.”
Rose raised an eyebrow as she turned onto Wilson Bridge. “Smells?”
Justin shrugged, fidgeting a bit in his seat. “You know, like how some people have certain smells—you can’t necessarily describe them, but as soon as you smell their scent, you know exactly who it is? Like Mrs. Hanley. Or like you, even.”
“I smell?”
“It’s a good smell. Like something sweet but also . . .” He trailed off, his cheeks turning slightly pink as he ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Nope, I just said that I can’t describe it and I’m sticking to that. Just trust me, it’s a good smell.”
Rose wished more than anything that she could bend her head down and check to see if she smelled just then, and if it actually was a good smell or if he was just being polite, but there was no way to do that inconspicuously.
But if she was being honest, she knew exactly what he was talking about. Noah had a warm, slightly spicy scent to him, subtle but always present. She’d recognize it anywhere.
Justin’s scent was cooler, crisper. Different, but still pleasant. She fought a sudden strong urge to lean toward him and inhale deeply, but even though he was the one who had brought up smells in the first place, that seemed a little too strange.
“I never really thought about it before, how people smell,” Justin mused. He tilted his head sideways, considering. “Honestly, this whole time smells different.”
“How can time smell different?”
“It just does. I can’t explain it. Different chemicals in the air, I guess. Also, you guys smoke a lot.”
“I don’t smoke!”
“I didn’t mean you personally.”
“So, wait, people don’t smoke in the future?”
“No, they do, but you can’t smoke in public anymore. Although some places will still let you vape.”
“Vape?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s dumb.”
They sat in silence for a minute, Rose kneading her hands on the steering wheel, her mind brimming with questions. This was the most he’d talked about the future since they’d met, and as much as she didn’t want to overwhelm him, she was hungry for more answers. She cleared her throat. “What else is different? You don’t have to tell me any of the big stuff, like who’s president or anything—”
Justin snorted. “Depends on who you ask.”
“Huh?”
“Trust me, you really don’t want to know.”
Well, now she kind of did want to know, but she’d said she wasn’t asking, so she didn’t push the subject. “Tell me something little. Something that won’t matter if I know it in advance.”
He ran a hand through his hair, staring out the window. “Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.”
“What? What happened to Pluto?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Just got . . . demoted or something.”
“Demoted to what?”
Another shrug. “No idea.”
“Wow.” She caught herself looking up at the sky, like she might be able to spot Pluto in the distance.
“Friendship is different, in the future,” he said softly, pulling her attention away from the clouds.
Rose wrinkled her brows, confused. “How can friendship be different?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like . . . in the future, we’re all constantly in touch with each other through our phones and social media and stuff”—he’d explained to her that first night, when he kept asking to use her phone, what smartphones were, which, no matter how hard she tried to wrap her brain around them, still sounded like something out of science fiction—“but no one is ever really fully . . . there. Present. In the moment. We’re all always multitasking, and no one ever really gives anyone else their full attention. Not like people do here.”
Rose laughed humorlessly, thinking of Lisa, Noah—even her dad and Diane. “People don’t really do that here either.”
“Sure they do.” He looked at her, his blue eyes piercing. “You do. You’ve given me your full attention since the minute I got here.” He held her gaze a second longer, then looked away, flushing slightly as he ran a hand through his hair.
Her mouth went dry, heat trickling down the back of her neck. She cleared her throat a few times, unable to dislodge the lump that had suddenly appeared. “I just wish I was actually helping,” she said softly.
He sighed, dropping his head back against the headrest. “At least you’re trying,” he said, glancing at her sideways. “That’s more than I can say for most of the people in my life. If I even have a life anymore.”