BEFORE SHE KNEW ME
The first time I opened a portal, it was an accident.
It
was nine days after my birthday at a joint party with one of my best
friends. It was at his house. We played games in his backyard, ate
ice-cream cake, opened presents, then challenged everyone to a video
game tournament. My brother was older though, and he had an advantage. I
ended up knocked out quickly, as did three of my friends.
Once
we were out, we got bored, so we went in search of something else. We
just didn’t expect to find what we did. In the basement, instead of old
board games, we found his father’s home lab, and the locked door didn’t
keep us out. We knew it was where he kept his failed experiments and we
wanted to check them out.
One
of them wasn’t as failed as we thought, and after messing with the
wires, the motor flared to life, connecting to a laser beam, and a
portal opened in front of us: a huge black hole that rippled like it was
made of oil. We dared one another to touch it, but no one would step
up.
I
don’t know who it was who shoved first, but it happened. Somehow, I
tripped and fell. And I brought two of the three of them with me:
through the portal.
We ended up in another world. In the ocean.
The second time we opened a portal, it was different.
It was because of a girl, and it changed everything.
1
It all started with a fight.
It
was the first Thursday in March of my sophomore year. I knew because I
kept track of the days and months and years that passed since we’d
fallen through.
It
had been an uneventful day. I skateboarded to Eastview, got to first
period on time, made an appearance in my first class, ditched my second
one to hang out with Eli and a couple guys while they got high behind
the football stadium, and then made it through my last two. At the end
of the day, I headed to It’s a Grind for the afternoon coffee that would
get me through work.
I
didn’t usually frequent the unofficial campus coffee shop. It backed up
to the school parking lot and was always crowded, which meant long
lines and a high probability of getting sucked into a conversation with
someone from class. I didn’t do conversation well. I didn’t know what to
say to most people. It was hard to know what to talk about when my mind
was usually on things they wouldn’t understand.
I
usually stopped at a gas station or something because I didn’t have any
coffee shop loyalties. I just wanted something strong and convenient
and preferably cheap. That day, though, my foster parents had been out
of coffee, and I spilled the cup I’d bought on the way to school when a
group of freshman girls knocked into me before first period. The
caffeine withdrawal combined with my fourth period world history class
had given me an unbearable headache.
If
even one thing had been different: if my foster parents hadn’t run out
of coffee, if those girls hadn’t knocked into me, if I had ditched world
history… I wouldn’t have been there, and things might not have worked
out the way it did.
*
When
the fight broke out, I was trying to place my order. I’d only been in
one real fight myself. I was more of a keep my head down and stay out of
trouble kind of guy. So I didn’t see how it started.
“Small black coffee,” I ordered.
The
words had barely left my mouth when the door jingled open and some guy I
didn’t recognize leaned in to shout to one of his friends. “Dude, get
out here, there’s a cat fight!”
For
a split second, the conversations halted. Just about everyone else
turned to the door and froze, straining to see behind him to the parking
lot where the “cat fight” was allegedly taking place. My muscles
tensed. Most of the fights near or on Eastview’s campus involved Eli. He
had always been the get right in the middle of it kind of guy, and I
was his best friend, which made it my responsibility to make sure he
didn’t kill someone by accident. Or get killed himself.
Then
I remembered he caught a ride with Reid in the new car fifteen minutes
ago, and if this was a cat fight, it would be girls going at it, not
guys. Thankfully Eli usually stayed away from that. Satisfied he
couldn’t be involved, I forced my shoulders to relax.
If
Eli wasn’t beating someone up, I didn’t really care. I looked at the
girl behind the cash register and offered her my two dollars.
I didn’t even look up when the guy behind me said, “Oh shit, that’s Brooke Haslen.”
“Small black coffee,” I repeated to the cashier.
She unfroze, took my money, and asked, “You want me to leave room for milk?” all without looking at me.
I shook my head, about to repeat “just black” when I heard it.
*
It was more a yell than a scream, I guess. It might have even been a word, but it was to far away and too muffled to be sure.
But I recognized the voice.
It was the same one I heard six years ago, when she pulled me half drowned out of the ocean.
It was a voice I’d know anywhere.
