Time for more drastic measures. I pedal furiously into a residential area and hurl myself off my bike （into a bush to cushion my fall）。 A man with gardening shears looks down on me. He’s not overly pleased. I briefly entertain diving in front of an oncoming vehicle. But wouldn’t that be suicide? What if I’m not dreaming?
Resigned—and a bit bruised—I decide that the only logical step is to return to the house for more information. Renner is still there, man-splaying on the front porch, hair disheveled, unsure which way it wants to flop.
“You have a branch in your hair,” he says, voice deep and gravelly—like a thirty-year-old’s . . .
I set my bike in the driveway so I can fish the branch out. “Why are you still here?”
“I went home.” There’s a weird look on his face that tells me there’s more to the story.
“And?” I already know what he’s going to say, but I need to hear it.
“It’s 2037,” he tells me, like he’s already accepted this strange fact.
“So I’ve heard.” I finally let out a deep exhale. I park myself on the step next to him and stare out at the street. Another one of those fancy cars drives by. I guess that’s why everyone has one. We’re in the future. “And we’re . . . getting married next week.” I hold up my ring finger.
“Yeah. My mom told me.” He runs both hands down either side of his face.
“You saw your parents?”
“I saw my mom,” he says definitively, jaw ticking with unease.
A lump forms in my throat at his expression. “Your dad . . . wasn’t home?”
His eyes flick to his shoes. “They’re divorced.”
“Oh my god. How is she?”
“She’s . . .” He pauses, flinching. “She’s . . . different. Happy.” His eyes widen and he shakes his head regretfully, as though he’s said too much. This Renner, disheveled and slumped over, is a far cry from the cocky, smirking one I’m used to.
“Anyway, my mom thinks I’ve lost it. She tried calling you.” He dangles a phone over my lap.
I blink at him. Renner’s parents’ divorce feels like too big a topic to just gloss over. I want him to elaborate, to ask if he’s okay. I want to assure him he will be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it now.
But do I really expect him to cry on my shoulder and divulge his family problems to me? If the tables were turned, I’d seek support from a grizzly bear before Renner.
“She tried calling you,” Renner repeats, snapping me back to reality.
I have four missed calls. Two from Dorothy, Renner’s mom, one from my mom, and one from Nori.
“What the hell is happening?”
Renner starts pacing around the porch. He folds his arms over his chest, and my eyes flare at the sight of his biceps. Yup. He definitely didn’t have those at school this morning. “Okay, let’s think about this logically. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“It was Wednesday, June 12, 2024. We were decorating for prom and arguing,” I tell him. “The seaweed fell off the wall and you made me fall off the ladder. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Exactly that. Mostly your boobs crushing my face,” he says, the faintest smile on his lips. “And for the record, it’s not my fault you fell. You’re not blaming me for this.”
“Good to know you’re still immature.” I shake my head. “Anyways, that’s a good sign. We both remember being seventeen, decorating for prom, and the ladder.”
“But what happened to us? To everyone else? How is it now Friday, June 12, 2037?”
I take in a deep breath. “We know this isn’t a prank. There’s no way the entire town of Maplewood could pull this off. What are our other possibilities?”
“Death. We could be dead. This could be purgatory,” he suggests. “Or maybe we hit our heads and got amnesia? What if we have brain damage? Or what if we somehow fell into an alternate dimension? Into the Upside Down?”
I twist my lips. “Do you realize how that sounds?”
He hands me his phone. “Look. Scroll all the way up.”
I flip through the photos. There are at least a thousand. All of Renner and me throughout the years. The earliest is dated 2029, five years after high school graduation. These photos seem foreign, an in-depth look at someone else’s life, someone else’s memories and travels. Logically, I know it’s me in the photos, but I have no memory of any of it, especially not the trip to Paris and what looks like a tropical vacation on a white sandy beach.