The do over, p.4
The Do-Over, page 4
Study for Lit test
Remind Mom to email copy of insurance card to office
Remind Dad of parent-teacher conferences and make sure he puts it on his calendar
I grabbed my robe and went into the bathroom to shower. I started the water and stepped in, letting it pour over my head, scalding and sliding down my neck as tears involuntarily started up again.
“Em, are you almost done in there?”
Seriously? “I just got in here.”
“Joel needs to go potty.” Lisa sounded like her mouth was once again planted on the door. “Bad.”
“There is a bathroom upstairs.” I forcefully squirted shampoo into my hand. I wasn’t in the mood for a battle. Not after yesterday.
“Your dad’s in there.”
I was going to strangle someone with my bath sponge. “Just this once, can you maybe ask my dad to get out? I didn’t get much sleep last night and I really need this shower.”
“You know how your dad is in the morning.”
Holy. Balls. “Give me two minutes!” I rushed through the rest of the shower, muttering through gritted teeth like a grumpy old man while slamming bottles down as hard as I possibly could.
Back in my room, I blow-dried my hair before sliding into comfy pants and my favorite Northwestern hoodie, a wardrobe selection made wholly out of poutiness. I wanted absolutely zero human interaction, so I put on headphones as I entered the kitchen. No way was I going to discuss the whole Texas thing without a little more sleep.
Luckily no one was in the kitchen, so I wolfed down a bar as fast as I could while reading the next chapter of the Christina Lauren book that I’d promised to return to Rox when I got to school. Maybe if I finished quickly, I wouldn’t have to see another per—
“Good Lord, slow down.” My dad walked in with the newspaper in his hand. “No one here knows the Heimlich.”
I pulled the headphones down to my neck. “Ha, ha.” Yesterday was hilarious. Funny, funny stuff, Dad.
“So.” He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and put it under the Keurig. “Did you wrap up the way-too-expensive present you bought for ol’ Josh? Lots of cheesy red hearts and ‘I love you’s?”
“What?” I swallowed and the bar felt stuck in my throat. “You want to know if I wrapped his present? Yesterday?”
He raised an eyebrow and pushed the middle button. “I just assumed you’d be all amped for Valentine’s Day, but I see you’re wearing sweats and looking grouchy, so maybe not. Did I miss something?”
What was he even talking about? I had no idea so I just went with—“You know what happens when you assume, right?”
“Yeah, someone’s an ass.”
“Oh, come on, you guys.” Lisa came into the kitchen with Logan on one hip, Joel on the other. “Can we please not swear around the babies?”
Were they kidding me?
“They weren’t in here when he said it, remember?”
“And technically,” my dad said, throwing me a wink exactly the way he’d done the day before, “ ‘ass’ isn’t a bad word. It’s a donkey.”
I felt my eyes squinch up as I looked at my dad and then at Lisa. Were they trying to be funny, or something? Yeah, no—she still looked at me as if she wished I would disappear.
I grabbed my backpack and my car keys before remembering the van. “Aw, jeez, I forgot about the wreck. Can either of you give me a ride to school?”
“What wreck?” Lisa set Joel down and shifted Logan to her other hip, looking at my dad. “She wrecked the van?”
Before I could answer, my dad said, “No, she didn’t wreck the van. I just went out and scraped the windows, remember?”
“Well, then, what did she mean about the wreck?” Lisa looked at him, and he looked at me and said, “No idea. What did you mean, Em?”
I looked around him and out the kitchen window. There, in the driveway, was my Astro van with the windows scraped. I pointed. “Where did that come from?”
“What, your car?” My dad looked at me like I was being a goof. He didn’t look—at all—like someone who was pranking me. “I’d say Detroit. You know, because GM…?”
I glanced at Lisa and she tilted her head a little and crinkled her eyebrows. “Em?”
“Um, I, uh, I was just messing.” I tried for a smile and pushed toward the door. “I’ve got to go.”
The sun was bright when I stepped outside and I squinted as I carefully walked in the fresh snow by the front of my car. Not only was it not smashed, but it didn’t even have a single, solitary scratch on it.
How?
I climbed inside and started it up, my mind scrambling to figure out what the deal was. My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket. Chris and Rox were FaceTiming me.
I pressed the button to answer and there they were, looking exactly as they had the day before, faces squished together in the junior hallway.
“Guess what I just saw?” Chris asked.
“I want to tell,” Rox whined, pushing at him while grinning.
“I can’t talk right now—I’ll call you back.” I disconnected as my mind flipped over like a T-shirt in a dryer. Things were bonkers all of a sudden. I backed out of FaceTime, and my eyes landed on the calendar on my phone.
FEB 14.
My phone said it was “FEB 14.” But… it wasn’t. It was the fifteenth.
Right?
Out loud, I said, “Hey, Siri, what is today’s date?” and her little robotic voice confirmed—it was the fourteenth.
Huh?
I started driving toward school, confused, until it hit me.
I dreamed about the very terrible Valentine’s Day. I had been excitedly looking forward to the big day; it made sense I would dream about it, right? It was like when little kids dream about Christmas.
So I hadn’t already had a terrible Valentine’s Day; it had all been just a bad and slightly psychic dream.
I let out a big breath and smiled.
I floored it, because I couldn’t wait to see Josh. I wished I’d opted for better than a baggy sweatshirt, but that didn’t seem important anymore because I still had him. I could already picture him, looking all cute in one of his plaid button-downs, hanging out in the commons, and I couldn’t wait to be by his side and shake off the wildly bad dream.
My phone buzzed on the passenger seat and I glanced over. Josh.
Happy VD, baby. Are you here yet?
Ha! That’s exactly what he’d typed in my dr—
I looked up and the truck in front of me had stopped. Noooooo! I slammed my foot on the brake, but it didn’t help.
I hit Nick’s ugly truck—again.
Just like in my dream.
I got out.
“You were texting, weren’t you?”
“Please, not again.”
“You were texting. Admit it.”
“Nick Stark, so help me God, I might throat-punch you if you say that again.”
This time he raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”
My brain tried to wrap around what was happening. I pointed at myself and said, “Emilie Hornby, your lab partner. And I wasn’t texting.”
He actually grinned when I said that, the corners of his mouth turning up as his eyes moved over my face. “You doing okay here?”
“Wonderful.” I rolled my eyes and went through the motions, everything eerily the same as the day before. It was obvious he didn’t think he’d ever met me before, and I felt cloudy as I struggled to figure it out. My hand shook as I handed over my insurance card. Was this déjà vu? Had I dreamed about Valentine’s Day?
Was I actually psychic?
I didn’t even attempt to call my parents when the cops and the tow truck arrived. I silently accepted his proffered coat and rode to school with Nick, who must’ve sensed my inner turmoil because he didn’t say a word. I listened to Metallica barking out the lyrics to “Blackened,” and this time the music seemed a bit more fitting. It perfectly accentuated my WTF morning.
As Nick drove, I studied his profile. His dark hair, prominent Adam’s apple, hard jawline, tall body—all the same as in my dream.
Just for fun, I looked out the window and said, “I love Metallica so much.”
His eyebrows went straight up. “Seriously?”
Not at all seriously. But I had to test the upside-down, repetitive-day universe, didn’t I? “Sure. I like their rage—it’s almost like you can feel it, y’know?”
His mouth turned all the way up and he looked at me like we were soul mates. “Well said, Hornby.”
I looked back at him and wondered how I would ever get out of the dream sequence. Was it my fate to crash into him every morning for all of eternity? I knew that couldn’t be right and there had to be some explanation, but I was really starting to get freaked out. I’ll pretend that I’m all right and everything will be fine—it’d always worked for me in the past. When we got to school, I stood on shaky legs after getting out of his truck. I don’t know why, but as I handed back his coat, I asked him, “Everything is going to be okay, right?”
He looked down at the coat for a minute, like he was trying to interpret my question. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it?”
CONFESSION #7
I failed swimming lessons seven times before my mom finally gave up on me.
Everything at school was the same as the day before. I got called to the office and lost the summer program. Then I went outside and saw Josh and Macy. Honestly, I don’t know why I even went to his car—maybe I somehow thought I’d seen it wrong the first time. Maybe I thought I’d see something that would explain it all away. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but all I ended up with was an even greater sense of rejection.
Because this time I noticed how into her he looked as he watched her talking to him in the front seat. This time I noticed just how beautiful she was, sitting there in her white sweater with her blond hair framing her face like a Barbie halo.
I turned and went back inside before the kiss could happen, a little surprised that it was no less painful. I might’ve thought it’d be easier with a warning, but it wasn’t. It still felt like my entire solar plexus was being crushed by a car. Because I’d done everything right, and it still wasn’t enough.
I kept my eyes down and headed for the nurse’s office. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, or worse, have anyone see the tears that were blurring my vision. I almost made it out of the blue hallway when I heard, “Em. Wait up!”
I stopped but didn’t raise my eyes. I couldn’t.
Chris grabbed my elbow. “So tell us what he got you!”
“Em?” Roxane’s knees bent and then her face was lower than mine. I must’ve looked pretty pathetic because she said, “Oh, honey, what happened?”
I blinked fast and shook my head. She grabbed my arm and yanked me into the girls’ bathroom. Chris followed, as he had many times before, grabbing a paper towel and dampening it before wiping at my smeared makeup.
“We don’t cry tears of mascara in the bathroom, remember?” he said, giving me an empathetic pout.
I just nodded. Suddenly, I was incapable of words.
“I knew he was going to turn out to be an asshole.” Chris tossed the paper towel and put his arms around me. “He’s too cute and charming to be that cute and charming. Who was it?”
I just shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Macy Goldman, but I think—”
They both groaned.
“What?” I pulled away and crossed my arms. “It isn’t about the who, it’s about the fact that he did it at all. Macy is irrelevant.”
Chris’s right eyebrow went up. “Yeah, okay.”
I looked at Rox. “Seriously.”
Roxane gave Chris a matching eyebrow-raise. “She’s in shock and doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Then be honest, here. Being cheated on sucks, period.” Chris put his hands in the pockets of his trendy leather jacket. “But being cheated on with the most perfect girl in school is, like, a whole ’nother level.”
“ ‘’Nother.’ ” Rox pulled a piece of gum out of her purse and put it in her mouth. “Is not. A word.”
“It is too.”
Rox crossed her arms. “I’ve showed you the dictionary page that is not-shockingly absent of a ‘’nother’ entry, and I’ve dragged you into Ms. Brand’s Honors English class and garnered her professional opinion. Which, of course, was in my favor. Because it is not a word. It is what confused rednecks say when they aren’t sure whether they should say ‘other’ or ‘another.’ ”
Somehow their bickering dried up my tears. It was normal. Routine. It was how the three of us behaved on a daily basis when Valentine’s Days weren’t being left on repeat. I said, “Hey, I’m going to take off. Thanks for making me feel better.”
“Did we do that?” Chris tilted his head and lowered his eyebrows.
“I did.” Rox pushed him out of the way and gave me a quick hug.
I looked at them both and was so freaking grateful they were my friends.
Chris said, “My mom is making BBQ tonight—you should come over.”
His mom’s barbecue was delicious. I’d always considered myself picky until I started hanging out at his house. His mother was Korean, and her food smelled so good that before I’d even had a chance to be picky, I was eating kimchi, bibimbap, and mandoo—while begging for more dinner invites. “Maybe I will, I don’t know.”
Rox said, “Go home and binge-watch that filthy show I was telling you about. It’ll make you feel better.”
I felt marginally better when I went to the nurse’s office, and walking to my dad’s was less frigid than it’d been the day before because I wasn’t in a dress. The entire time way home, I went over and over the questionable events of the past twenty-four or forty-eight or whatever hours.
“What in the hell is going on?” I shouted to the snowy, frozen houses that were quiet in the way that suburban neighborhoods were quiet on weekdays as I walked down the street. “How is this happening?”
The only explanation was that I was having a dream that very second. I was having a vivid, realistic dream—about having a vivid, realistic dream—and I just needed to wake up from it.
I pinched myself, and—
Ow. Shit.
I got home and listened to my dad tell me about Texas, and I went to my grandma’s and let her take care of me again, just like the day before.
As soon as it got dark, I went out on her porch and wished on every single star I could see that when I woke up in the morning, things would be fixed. Once I went inside, she told me to pepper my soup and I had an idea.
It was pretty out there, but so was everything else.
I went over to the armoire and pulled out the tabby-cat pepper shaker. “Hmm.”
“Hush and shake.”
“No way.” I looked at that bitchy-looking, badly-painted feline and wondered. “What if it was the half-century pepper?”
“Pardon?”
“The pepper might have caused this. In movies, it’s always weird exposures to random things like perfume or old snowballs that cause time loops to happen.”
“I think the tragedies of the day have taken a toll on your logic. Perhaps you should—”
“Listen. Grandma. If I tell you something that seems impossible, do you promise not to judge me?”
She nodded, sat back down at the table, and patted the chair beside her. I plopped down and scooted closer, but didn’t even know where to start. “I know this sounds impossible.”
“Just tell me, dear.”
“Um, okay. You know how today is Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes?”
“Well, what if I told you that yesterday was Valentine’s Day for me, and today was a total repeat?”
She crossed her arms. “Is it possible that it’s just déjà vu?”
I shook my head. “I thought the same thing at first, but I know that things are going to happen before they do.”
“Like…?”
“Like I knew Josh was going to cheat today because I already watched him do it yesterday. I knew I was losing the summer scholarship because I already did yesterday. I know that Great-Gram Leona gave you that ugly cat pepper shaker as a wedding gift because you told me that yesterday, and I also know that if you check my phone there will be a new message from Josh that says ‘Call me. Now I’m pissed.’ ”
That made her eyebrows go up.
“My phone has been in my backpack out in your car since you picked me up; I haven’t looked at it since I called you. Go get it and let’s see if I’m right.”
Her eyes traveled all over my face before she stood and went out into the garage. I was sure she probably thought I was delusional and was humoring me, but it felt good to tell someone about my upside-down life. When she came back in, she was holding my phone and staring at it in disbelief.
“So…?”
“Dear Lord, Emilie, we’d better go get a lottery ticket, don’t you think?”
CONFESSION #8
When I was ten, I used to sneak into my next-door neighbor’s backyard on summer days and swim in their hot tub when they were at work. No one ever knew.
YET ANOTHER VALENTINE’S DAY
The minute my alarm went off, I knew for certain that the whole thing was real.
I lay there in my bed, cocooned in the heaviness of my down comforter and staring up at the ceiling, not wanting to leave my pillow-soft bed and face it. Because even though I didn’t have a clue about the how or why, I was definitely living in a day-on-repeat loop. I’d gone to sleep at Grandma Max’s, yet here I was again, waking up in my own room to that annoying song Josh had programmed into my iPhone to wake me up.
I glanced over at Logan, sound asleep with his mouth wide-open.
Yep—been here, done this.
I sat up and reached for my phone. And I thought, What if the universe wants me to fix something?
I didn’t believe in fate and karma and that sort of nonsense, but I also didn’t know how to explain what was happening.
Somehow I was reliving the same day for a third time.
