Джей Эшер - The Future of Us

The last person who should be lecturing me about flirting is Emma. But she’s right. I never asked her how she was doing today. Both of us are trying to figure out so much, yet I was only concerned with my own life.

I stand beside Emma as she clicks the word “Friends.” She scrolls past several rows of photos, and then slows down when she reaches the C names. She sighs heavily when Cindy Freeburg is followed by Corbin Holbrook, whoever those people are. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she was hoping to find.

I tell Emma I’m going to the bathroom. I’ve got a few root beers talking to me, and I’m also not in the mood to hear her moan about a future without Cody Grainger.

Since the downstairs bathroom is getting renovated, I walk through her mom and Martin’s room. The last time I was in here must have been back in elementary school. I probably got a splinter or cut myself climbing a chain-link fence. Her parents kept the Neosporin and Band-Aids in this bathroom.

Outside the bathroom door there’s a large square frame displaying a dozen photos. I’m in a few of them, but it doesn’t look like any pictures have been added since Emma started high school. In the bottom left corner is a picture of Tyson, Kellan, Emma, and me squished into the back of a minivan on the way to a middle school dance. Tyson and I are wearing cheap clip-on ties, and Emma and Kellan have their bangs curling up like waves. And we all look so small!

I remember how Emma and Kellan danced with a large group of girls. Tyson and I mostly hung out under the basketball hoop unless a girl yanked one of us onto the dance floor. The last song of the night was “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men, and I decided to ask Emma to dance with me. With my hands barely touching her hips, and her hands on my shoulders, we spent the first half of the song staring down at our feet. I pulled her a little closer, sliding my hands onto her back, and soon Emma rested her chin beside my neck. As that final song began to fade, I closed my eyes and leaned my head until our cheeks touched.

That’s when I first felt a crush forming on my best friend.

WHEN I RETURN to Emma’s room, I’m ready to talk about our futures. Even though we haven’t been able to speak without snapping at each other today, we need to. And I have a plan to make that happen.

“Let’s play Truth,” I say. “You can ask me anything, and I get to ask you anything.”

Emma shakes her head. “There’s nothing I want to know.”

“Nothing?”

“I have a better game,” she says. “No one’s ever played it before. It’s called Refresh.”

I remove my backpack from the bed and sit down on Emma’s comforter.

“While you were gone,” Emma says, “I got to thinking about the Refresh icon on the computer. This is going to blow your mind.”

It’s nice to see Emma smiling, so I sit up and listen.

“Ever since we discovered Facebook,” she says, “we noticed there were changes between when we logged off and when we logged on again. Those changes could’ve been made by a thousand different ripples throughout the day. But think of how cool it would be to see the effects of one tiny little ripple.”

“I’m not really sure what you’re suggesting,” I say, “but I’m not causing any ripples just for fun.”

Emma points at the monitor. “Check out what my update says.”

Emma Nelson Storm

Forget it. I’m making Kev take me out to dinner. I

can only stay cooped inside for so long.

1 hour ago · Like · Comment

“That doesn’t sound bad,” I say. “You’re going out to dinner.”

Emma slowly nods her head. “So you get to live in a huge house on the lake, and I have to stay cooped inside. That sounds fair.”

Since when did this become a contest where we compare our lives?

Emma glances at her closet, then her dresser. “Now, we have to do something. It doesn’t have to be huge, but something we weren’t going to do before playing this game.”

“Emma, I’m not messing with the future. Not as part of a game.”

“Then don’t call it a game!” she snaps. “Think of it as an award-winning science experiment.”

Emma picks up the thin blue vase from her dresser. Earlier this week, it held the dying roses Graham gave her for prom. Emma slowly tips the vase until water begins dribbling onto her white carpet.

“What are you doing?” I ask. But I know the answer. She’s making a small change in the present to see how it affects the future. If I grab the vase from her now, it wouldn’t matter because that wouldn’t have happened before either.

At first Emma lets the water spill onto one spot, but then she begins spiraling it into bigger circles until the vase is empty.

“The water had a little dirt in it,” she explains, sitting at her computer again. “When Martin sees this, he’ll probably have a long talk with my mom. My mom will lecture me, and then she’ll make me clean it when I should’ve been doing my homework. How do you think that will change everything that comes after?”

I don’t want to guess how the future just changed. It’s impossible to know, and it shouldn’t have been changed to begin with.

Emma looks over at me pleadingly. “Come on! It’ll be fun.” She scrolls over the Refresh icon. “Fast forward fifteen years and …”

She clicks the mouse and the page reloads.

Emma Nelson Storm

Going to Kev’s favorite restaurant tonight. Hopefully

the babysitter shows up this time.

36 minutes ago · Like · Comment

I sit down on Emma’s bed and lean over so my thumbs press into my temples. This is so reckless. Emma doesn’t care what happens to her future because she doesn’t want the future she has. All she cares about is Cody. But since there’s no mention of him on Facebook, she has nothing to lose.

Emma groans. “I sound about as happy as before. I need to do something bigger.”

“How do you know you’re not happy in this future?” I ask. “I thought you liked Kevin Storm.”

“We’re going to Kevin’s favorite restaurant,” Emma says. “And my babysitter has a habit of not showing up.”

“You’re reading a lot into very few words,” I say.

Emma glares at me. “If I totally screw things up, then I’ll change it back.”

“You can’t change it back!”

“You’re not playing, remember? And if I screw things up that badly, then I’ll keep screwing them up until they get better. I can hit Refresh all night if I need to.”

“I’m out!” I say, heading toward the door. “I’m done with Facebook. I’m not messing with the future anymore.”

“That’s because you’re afraid,” Emma says. “You have no idea why Sydney likes you, so you’re terrified that something I do will break that rock solid relationship of yours.”

“Sydney has plenty of reasons to like me,” I say.

“Name three.”

“This is stupid.”

“You can’t, can you?” she says. “You’re afraid of reality.”

“If anyone in this room is afraid of reality,” I say, “it’s not me.”

“That’s it.” Emma moves the arrow from the Refresh icon and clicks on Friends.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking you up. Maybe things will never be perfect in my future, but I’m tired of you acting like you’re better than me because your life turns out fantastic.”

“I never even thought that.” I run to the computer and pry her fingers away from the mouse, then I click back to Emma’s page.

Emma jabs her finger at the screen. “Do you see where I live now?”

Lives inColumbus, OH