Джей Эшер - The Future of Us

I miss Emma. Even if we didn’t say anything to each other, even if she remained asleep, I wish I could be sitting on that couch with her right now.

“EMMA?” my mom calls from downstairs.

I glance at my alarm clock. It’s not set to go off for another ten minutes.

“Emma!”

I groan and pull the covers over my head. I fell asleep on the couch last night, and finally stumbled to my room at two in the morning. When I got upstairs, I noticed the light was on in Josh’s bathroom. He takes showers in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. I considered blinking my light a few times. If he blinked back, I would have held a note to my window like when we were kids. But I decided not to bother him. Josh doesn’t want to hear from me. He spent the afternoon with Sydney, taking their first steps toward a future together.

My mom’s sandals click on the stairs, and I scan my tired brain for what I could’ve done to piss her off. I didn’t see her at all last night. She and Martin were buying cabinetry out in Pittsburgh. I ate dinner and stacked my plate and glass in the dishwasher. I even wiped down the counter before watching Wayne’s World .

My mom is wearing a yellow dress and her hair is pulled back with a matching headband. She’s frowning, and holding up a black videocassette.

“ Wayne’s World , Emma?”

I rub the shoulder I was sleeping on. “Is that why you woke me up?”

“No.” She flashes a different video in her other hand.

“ This is why I woke you up.”

I grab a scrunchie from my nightstand and pull my hair into a ponytail. “Can you be more specific?”

“You ejected our blank tape to watch Wayne’s World ,” my mom says, pressing her lips tight.

I shrug. Maybe I ejected a tape. I can’t remember.

“We were taping Seinfeld ,” she says. “We had it programmed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We tape it every Thursday, Emma. You know that.” She looks at the ocean poster tacked above my desk, and then back at me. “Martin and I are concerned about your lack of respect for this house.”

I sit up. “Lack of respect? What are you talking about?”

She points to the floor by my dresser. “Martin noticed that stain right there. Emma, we just put in new carpeting. How did you already spill something on it?”

I do not want to talk about that. Spilling the vase water was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn’t the stupidest thing I did that afternoon.

“I tried cleaning it,” I say.

“You should have asked us for help. We have products that lift stains—”

Wait a second! “What was Martin doing in my room?”

My mom sighs. “He was just measuring with the contractor.”

I leap out of bed and tug my shirt down over my hips. I’m not in the mood to fight, especially after the arguments with Josh and my dad, but I can’t leave this one unchecked.

“It’s for his office,” she adds. “But that’s not until after you graduate.”

“This is crazy!” I say, my pulse racing. I hold my hands near my eyes, almost as blinders. “This has been my room for sixteen years and it’s still my room. Maybe Martin has designs to turn it into his office someday, but he does not have my permission to enter whenever he wants.”

My mom sets both videos on top of my dresser.

“I’m sorry about Seinfeld ,” I say, opening a drawer and pulling out a green T-shirt and jean shorts. “I’ll call around to see if anyone taped it. But you have to tell Martin to stop plotting his takeover.”

My mom looks into the distance like she’s fending off tears. “It’s been an adjustment for all of us,” she says quietly.

I consider telling her it was an adjustment when she and my dad divorced, and her brief marriage to Erik was another adjustment. I’m tired of adjustments.

“Just tell Martin to stay out of my room,” I say.

Relationship StatusIt’s Complicated

That’s my future this morning. It doesn’t say I’m married. It doesn’t say I’m single. Now I’m a graduate of San Diego State and I live in Oakland, California.

The last thing I wrote was on Wednesday.

Emma Nelson

Hoping it doesn’t rain this weekend.

May 18 at 6:44pm · Like · Comment

My photo is black and white, almost a silhouette. I’m playing the saxophone in front of an open window, and my hair is shoulder-length.

I click open my list of Friends and start scrolling down. Cody is there. He’s wearing a different tie, but he looks basically the same as yesterday. I scroll down to the J s, but there’s still no Josh.

I click back to my main page. I just wrote something twelve seconds ago!

Emma Nelson

I’m doing some emotional housekeeping and letting go of things I’ve held onto for too long. Starting with my password. I’ve used the same one for fifteen years. Just waiting for a new word to reveal itself.

12 seconds ago · Like · Comment

I’m getting rid of Millicent ?

Clarence and Millicent represent everything good about my friendship with Josh. And now I want to let go of that? Did I ruin our friendship forever all because I kissed him? Or is it because I didn’t have a clear answer when he asked why I kissed him?

Hang on! I can’t change my password. That’s how I’ve been able to log on to Facebook. And I need to be able to get onto Facebook. My relationship is complicated now. There’s no mention of a career. Even though I’m not telling much, I imagine at some point I’ll start revealing again. If I can’t learn the details of my life, then I won’t have a chance to repair things.

“Emma!” my mom calls, startling me. “Martin needs to make a work call. Can you sign off now?”

“No, I—”

“This is what we were talking about,” she warns. “We’re getting another phone line soon, just for the Internet. But for now, you need to quit.”

As I close my screen, I think about that photo of Kellan, Tyson, Josh, and me at GoodTimez that I tore up the other day. I hurry over to my trashcan, hoping Martin didn’t empty it when he was in here. And there, underneath several crumpled tissues, are the jagged pieces of the photograph. I pick them out of the garbage, one by one, and cup them in my palm.

Maybe Josh and I aren’t going to be friends in the future, but I can’t throw away these memories. I open my top drawer, slide the pieces of the photo into my journal, and then close my dresser again.

IT’S SENIOR SKIP DAY. With a quarter of the students gone, the hallways feel uncomfortably wide and open. They’re also quieter, making it too easy to get lost in my thoughts.

As I walk to third period, I slide my shoulder against the locker doors and think about time. If I could, I’d travel back six months to the night I tried to kiss Emma, and I wouldn’t do it. She would still hug my arm for warmth as we walked through the cemetery, but when we got back to her car with Tyson and Kellan, there would be no awkwardness between us. If I couldn’t go back that far, I’d return to Emma’s porch the day she set up her new computer, and I wouldn’t give her that CD-ROM. Then she never would’ve discovered Facebook. While we still wouldn’t be as close as we once were, at least we’d be talking.

I continue down the hall until a voice behind me says, “There you are!”

I take a shallow breath, and turn around.

“Isn’t this weird?” Sydney motions at the surrounding hallway. “It’s like no one’s here today.”