“We were seventeen,” I continue. “Decorating for prom. Everything went black when I fell off the ladder. And then we woke up . . . here. This morning.”
Nori closes her eyes and shakes her head like a wet dog. “Okay, wait, what?”
I lean closer. “We don’t remember anything from the past thirteen years.”
Nori searches my face, trying to gauge whether I’m screwing with her. When I don’t crack, she starts laughing nervously. “You two drank way too much. Honestly. Maybe you just need a hot shower, or a personal day. You should totally skip work.”
“Nori, I’m serious. The last thing I remember is being upset over the Under the Sea theme,” I say.
“The prom theme?” she asks, eyes widening in realization. “Oh my god. Do you remember my dress? That weird one that accentuated all my worst angles? I untagged myself in all of those photos. As if you could forget that. Oh, and that’s the night you two first hooked up. Remember?”
Renner and I simultaneously bust a gut. “Hooked up? We hooked up? As in me and Renner?” I’m not certain I want to know the answer.
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.
There are thousands of hits. A song by some band called The Intangibles. An old movie called 13 Going on 30 with Jennifer Garner that Mom always loved. And a bunch of news articles about amnesia and severe head trauma.
Nori taps on the screen with her matte-black nails. “Oh, look at this.” It’s a news article about a woman who woke up at thirty-two believing she was a teenager. “It says she was diagnosed with transient global amnesia. Apparently, you remember how to do basic things, but you forget qualitative memories. It says you’ll remember them eventually.”
“Okay, but look. It also says it’s incredibly rare,” I point out. “Why would both Renner and I have it?”
“True.” Nori bites her lip. “Wait, what if you two have been sent to the future to change something? Prevent some sort of disastrous event?”
Renner hangs his head. “Like our apparent marriage next week? I can’t believe we’re getting hitched.”
I nod vigorously. For once, I agree with Renner. “There’s no way we’re actually getting married.”
Nori stands, shaking her head. “Are you guys really doing this again? Your bickering is so high school. You better get a grip before your bachelor/bachelorette party tonight.”
Renner coughs. “What party?”
“My mom’s coworker mentioned it,” I grumble.
“Ollie and Lainey are hosting. Everyone’s going,” Nori says, buzzing with excitement.
“Who’s everyone?” I ask, hesitant.
“Literally everyone. Even your mom. Trust, I tried to steer you away from a family-oriented party toward the genitals-and-strippers variety. But you two were very insistent on keeping things wholesome to preserve your reputations as educators and community leaders.”
Renner rolls his eyes, resting his hands behind his head. “Sounds like Char.”
Nori ignores him. “Like I said, everyone is going. Including you two, obviously.”
I shake my head and stand up. “No. We’re not going. At least, I’m not going. Tell Ollie we have to cancel.”
She gives me an icy look. “You’re not not going to your own bachelorette.”
“We’re not getting married. We have to call it off.”
She looks at me like I’m a Martian. “After all the hours we spent designing invitations and place cards? No way! Besides, guests are coming from out of town and your parents will be so upset.”
“Let them be upset. We’re not getting married, period,” I say stubbornly.
Renner nods in agreement.
That’s probably the first thing we’ve ever wholeheartedly agreed on.
TWELVE