Deceptive Cadence (17 page)

“All the
Dunes
,
Star Wars
,
Hitchhiker’s
,
Battlefield Earth
. . .”

He dashed in front of me. “Yeah, it’s nerdy, I know.”

“No, it’s not.” I pushed him aside. “These are all sci-fi classics, except . . .” I slipped out
The Count of Monte Cristo
.

He snatched it out of my hand. “It was for English.”

I laughed. “No, it wasn’t. Don’t worry, it’s a good one. Sword fights, intrigues . . .” I smiled at him. “Romance.”

He flushed and shoved it back on the shelf.

“James! Are you blushing?”

“Shut up.”

I laughed. Looking around the rest of his room, I saw a large collection of CDs. I headed over, surprised to find them alphabetized. His taste in music surprised me.

“This is all techno,” I said. “I woulda picked you as a heavy metal guy.”

“Nah, I get enough of that around the guys.” He sank onto his bed. “Well, at least I did.”

I stepped in front of him, resting my hands on his shoulders. He gazed up at me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me onto his lap. I curled up in his arms as he sighed.

“James?”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be okay. I promise.”

He lifted my chin and kissed me.

“James.” His dad’s firm voice came from the door. “No girls in your bedroom.”

“My dad has a similar rule,” I said to John as I walked out.

Back in the living room, we resumed our previous positions, with Karen in the second armchair. James seemed to cheer up as we chatted. He kept his arm around me, running his fingers through my hair.

Melanie seemed less than impressed. She pulled her knees up and rarely spoke, but every time James smiled at me, she threw me a filthy look.

Finally, the countdown came, and James sat up. “Mum, Dad, just as a heads-up, I’m about to kiss Cadence.”

Melanie gagged, John shrugged and looked away, and Karen chuckled as she stood and walked over to John.

When the countdown hit one, James grabbed my face and turned me toward him. He leaned in, and our lips barely touched when everything froze.

THIRTEEN

I pulled away from James and glanced around. Everyone sat completely stationary. His parents were kissing, and Melanie had the most vicious look in her eyes as she glared, arms folded, at me and James.

“Cadence.”

The man in white stepped into the room, dressed as Father Time. He definitely seemed to enjoy his job.

“How festive.”

He shrugged. “New Year’s is a big night for me.” He tilted his head so I’d follow.

We walked out the front door, where we stood in the middle of the quad at school. I saw myself with Geri by the table, talking with our heads close together.

“This was your first day in this timeline,” he said.

I stared up at him. “Did I do something wrong?”

He shook his head. “This is customary. I will visit you every year as the clock hits midnight, when time is in limbo between each year. We will evaluate what you’ve done, and all your lost memories and feelings will be restored so you can make decisions for the coming year.”

He touched my shoulder and a wave of emotions and memories hit me—Austin smiling at me with our newborn baby in his arms, our first night together, our wedding night. I felt the love again and I gasped, shocked by its intensity. Then I saw his cold, stiff face in the morgue and Melody lying limp in my arms.

Melody.

I had thought so little of her because her memory seemed more like a dream. Guilt consumed me and I fell to my knees to cry.

“Cadence, why do you weep?”

I looked up at him and tried to compose myself. “I saw Austin and Melody, and felt everything they were to me. I’d begun to forget. I feel so . . .” I trailed off as tears streamed down my face.

He smiled. “Yes, you will feel that each time we do this. That’s the reason
why
you chose this path, so it will always be the first thing that comes back. But don’t worry—it will fade away again once we return to time in motion.”

“What if I don’t want it to fade?”

“Oh, you do, sweet Cadence. Those feelings are distractions from what you need to do before it arises in the future. Look here.”

Time fast forwarded. We turned to the hall behind us and saw the disco in full swing. He led me inside. We passed like ghosts through the people milling around and dancing, and stopped right in front of James.

With his shaggy and greasy hair, baggy, ripped cargos, and black T-shirt with stains all over it, he looked terrible. But he wasn’t paying any attention to his friends—he stared off into the crowd.

“What’s he looking at?” I asked.

“Follow his gaze.”

I bent down beside him and saw Geri and me toward the back. We talked frantically, and I knew what had just happened. “He watched me after that spanking thing?”

The man in white nodded. “Up until this point, the two timelines were mostly running parallel. But this night, some crucial choices were made by you which veered this timeline in a completely different direction.”

He waved his hand and everything froze. The room seemed to split. I saw two Jameses sitting and staring ahead at two versions of me and Geri. Geri’s clothes were the same in both timelines, but mine were different; in
this
timeline, Mum took me shopping, but in the original one, she hadn’t.

Then, as if watching a video on a split screen, everything started to move again as I stood stationary. In both timelines, Geri and I moved up toward our group of friends, and James craned his neck to watch.

In the first timeline, Justin moved in on me, and I let him, while in the second I was showered by male attention. James’ response in both interested me. He leaned over to Robbie and said, “Hey, who is that girl?”

Robbie scoffed. “I dunno, some do-gooder ninth grader.”

James straightened and continued to watch me. After a few minutes, he stood. “I’m gonna get a drink and pee.”

“Whatever, dude,” Robbie replied without paying much attention.

James moved around the hall to get closer to my group. He stayed completely fixated on me, and grew irritated when someone got in his way.

Then, in the second timeline, Geri and I split from the group and headed to the girls’ bathroom, while in the first one, Geri left with one of the other girls, leaving me with Justin.

James continued to watch me in the first, and even moved close enough to hear Justin talking to me. “You’re cute, you know that?”

I giggled. “I most certainly try, but I’ve never really been sure if I succeed.”

“You most certainly succeed.”

“She’s beautiful, you moron,” James said.

That shocked me. I’d never known.

Meanwhile, in the second timeline, he followed Geri and me to the bathroom and stood waiting outside. Carla and her friends came out first and saw him. Becca moved in and leaned against him. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“What’s up?” he responded distractedly.

“I’d like to see you up,” she answered seductively.

He scoffed. “Yeah, maybe some other time.”

“Too bad.” The girls made their way back into the hall.

Not long after that, Geri and I burst out. He shot upright as our eyes connected. He looked eager, hopeful, but I blew him off and dashed away. He slumped.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” the man in white said. “How small choices make such a big difference?”

The night fast forwarded again in both timelines. Geri and I sat waiting for our rides, but in the first timeline, Justin sat with us, too. In both, James came around the corner of the building and saw me. He watched me as he followed his friends across the lot. He leaned against the side of a car and, while his friends acted like idiots, never stopped staring at me.

He noticed Melanie and waved her over. “That girl there, she’s in your grade, right?”

Melanie followed the direction he pointed and scoffed. “Yeah, she’s a real piece of work, too, especially when she’s with that friend of hers.”

“What’s her name?”

Melanie scowled. “No, James. Just no.”

“Go talk to her for me.”

There the two timelines differed again. In the first, her response was, “No, that Justin kid pisses me off,” and she walked away, but in the second she said, “Seriously, James?”

“Yeah. Go or I’ll smash all your CDs.”

She groaned and walked over to us. When she came back, she growled, “I hate her and her stupid friend. If you even think about dating her, I’ll disown you.” She walked away.

Then, Geri left.

“Watch closely now,” the man in white said. “This is the moment that changed everything.”

In the first timeline, Justin leaned over and kissed me, while I rejected him in the second. James’ reaction drew my focus. In the first timeline, he swore and turned away, pulling at his hair. But in the second, as Justin stood and walked away, his face lit up. He was in the running.

“Now, watch this.” The man grabbed my shoulder and we stood in James’ house, still the same night of the disco.

James burst in. He marched in with anger on his face in the first timeline, but in the second his whole face was lit up, eager, excited. Both times, he headed to a bookshelf in the family room and pulled out Melanie’s ninth grade photo. In the first, he pulled out a black marker and scribbled out Justin’s face, then tossed the photo in the trash; in the second, he scanned the photo until he found me. He stared at me with a crooked smile, then read the names at the bottom.

“Cadence Anderson,” he said quietly to himself. “Cadence.”

He glanced around and slipped the photo under his shirt, then dashed into his room and closed the door.

The man in white stepped in front of me. “And just like that, everything changed.” He waved his hand and I saw James pluck out a note I tossed in the trash to read the details for my ice-skating trip with Brian. I watched him tail me and write down my class schedule. I saw Melanie tell him to get over me because I thought he looked like a bum. He went home and tossed out all his ripped and worn out clothes, then stared at himself in the mirror for an hour.

During the school break, he shocked Karen by asking her to take him for a haircut and to pick up some new school uniforms. He started going to class and reading.

“All of this because I didn’t date Justin?” I asked.

The man in white nodded. “He gave up because you were taken, and when you and Justin broke up, you went straight on to Brian, then Flynn, then―”

“I get the picture.” I sighed. “But I made it nearly impossible for him. I told him flat out
no
several times.”

“But you were always available, so he always had hope. Especially after this.” The room transformed into the third term’s disco in September. James had me in his arms and I stared up at him. The scene froze as the man led me up beside us.

“We’re about to kiss,” I said. “Of course that would give him hope.”

“Ah! But see the way you’re looking at him?”

I looked at myself and in my eyes I saw awe, attraction, and, most significantly, adoration.

“Yes, Cadence, he saw the way you looked at him and he knew he had you. The kiss was just a test to make sure. After that, he knew if he just tweaked his appearance and showed you he could go to class and do the right thing, he’d have you.” He turned and walked toward the door.

“Why is James so important?” I asked as I rushed to follow.

“James was the most significant influence that you had with the different choices you made. Yes, Harper and your father’s relationship was altered for the better, but that was through a choice which, ultimately,
she
made.”

We stepped through the door back into James’ living room on New Year’s.

“Now, Cadence, tell me.” He tilted his head. “What do you intend on doing this year?”

I looked down at James. “Is it wrong for me to be with him? I mean, now that I remember everything with Austin, I feel like I’ve betrayed him.”

“No, Cadence. This is a
second chance
. This life you are living now should be lived like it was your first. You should do all you can so your future turns out better. Don’t feel guilty about giving people around you second chances too.”

I sat beside James and grinned at his face locked in an unreciprocated kiss. I touched his cheek. “Okay, I’ll see where this takes me. This year, I will explore our relationship.”

I tried to remember my tenth grade year. I looked up at the man in white fearfully. “I lose Geri this year! I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to find out what I did and I’m going to prevent it. Losing Geri was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.”

“Very good, Cadence. Now you’re thinking like someone with a second chance.” He gestured at James. “You better lean in and kiss him.”

I shuffled back into his arms and pressed my lips against his. Instantly, his lips moved over mine and his arms tightened around me. The emotions and memories drained out of me and I returned to the hazy blur of what was to come. But I felt reassured that being with James was the right thing for me and him, and I wasn’t betraying Austin in any way. I kissed James with all my feeling, until John cleared his throat, signaling that we’d had enough.