She snorts like the answer is obvious. “At least, I think it was prom night.”
“We don’t remember that. Or anything else,” Renner says, a little more forcefully.
She blinks. “You’re being serious? You’re not playing some ridiculous prank?”
“Cross my heart.” I make an X over my chest. “We need to know what’s happened in the past thirteen years.”
Still a little unsure, she gives us the basics. It’s all out of order, as per usual when Nori tells a story. But I manage to get the gist.
Renner and I first hooked up on prom night and dated for the first year of college. I can’t help but laugh because it sounds so outlandish. Renner just rests his head in his hands like his life is over. We broke up in our second year, dated other people, and got back together when we both moved back to Maplewood to work at MHS. We got engaged this winter on a Hawaiian vacation.
Engagement aside, I think about the unlikely reality that both of us would become educators. At the same high school. How could that even happen? Of everyone in our friend group, Renner was the person I was most looking forward to never seeing again after high school.
“Everyone knew you two were meant to be,” Nori tells us, all starry eyed. She explains that Renner moved back to be a PE teacher. He coaches both the rugby and track teams.
“I’m a gym teacher,” Renner notes under his breath.
I can’t help but snort.
“What’s so funny?”
“I just can’t imagine you demonstrating how to put a condom over a banana with a straight face.”
“I dunno why you’re shaming me about teaching kids to stay physically active while educating them about safe sex.” I dry cough when he says sex all deep and authoritative. I feel like I’m in middle school sex ed all over again, chuckling over the word vulva. He continues on when I don’t respond. “Puberty is no joke. Kids need someone to teach them about body odor.”
“You would know,” I sneer, desperately scraping my memory for a time Renner had BO, to no avail.
“You’re just pissed because I’m probably the cool teacher everyone loves, and you’re the terrifying one rumored to lock kids in an underground dungeon as punishment for being a half second late to class.” I wouldn’t be shocked. Renner would still manage to upstage me in a weird alternate universe.
“First, I’d have a candlelit lair. Not a dungeon. It would be sacred. And for the record, I’d rather be terrifying than ridiculous,” I shoot back.
Nori clears her throat. “J. T., you were assistant coaching a college rugby team in Boston for a while. But you wanted to come back home to be with Char.”
He runs both hands down his face, looking disturbed. I am equally concerned for both of us. Renner actually gave up his dream of coaching college rugby for me? What was he thinking?
Apparently, I’m the school counselor at MHS, and Nori’s a freelance graphic designer.
She goes on a tangent about how she couldn’t transfer to Rhode Island School of Design because the world wasn’t ready for her brand of talent. （She still seems bitter.） But it worked out for the best because we went to college together, where she met her girlfriend, Sasha.
“What about everyone else?” I ask. “What happened to Kassie and Ollie? Are they married?”
Nori looks at me in disbelief. “Kassie and Ollie broke up after high school grad. I can’t believe you don’t remember. It was a huge blowout. Ollie is engaged to Lainey now.”
I blink. Kassie and Ollie broke up? How? Why? My brain is fuzzy from information overload, settling on the more digestible tidbit of information. “Ollie is with Lainey Henderson? The curly-haired kid I used to babysit?” I clarify. “She’s . . . a ten-year-old.”
“She’s twenty-three. He hired her at the office. He’s a Realtor,” Nori informs us.
“This is . . . insane.” My head feels unusually heavy. This is too much new information. “We lost thirteen years. Thirteen. Did I make dean’s list? Was I valedictorian?”
“Relax, girl. You made dean’s list and you were valedictorian and gave a big speech. It was a good one—at least, I think it was. Pete and I got buzzed in the coatroom right before the ceremony so my memory is a little fuzzy but—”
“There’s gotta be an explanation for this,” Renner mutters.
Nori starts tapping on her phone. “Okay, hold up, I’m googling.”
Renner and I crowd the back of her chair, watching as she types, I woke up in the future.