Traveler by L.E. DeLano (book suggestions .txt) 📕

I can see myself, and everything else behind me. I can see Finn, and his eyebrow’s still raised in a way that really irks me.

I set my hand against the chrome and try to concentrate on my reflection.

“Don’t let yourself get distracted,” he warns. “You could end up somewhere you don’t want to be.”

“Quiet.”

I take a second and look around me, so I have something to compare to when things start to change in the reflection. I look back at myself, and I try to see me sitting in a booth at my Mugsy’s. I stare so long and hard, my eyes start to water.

“You’re trying too hard,” he says in a singsong voice, and it makes me even madder.

“Will you shut up? I’m new at this, remember?”

I straighten my shoulders and try again, and this time, everything behind me starts to get duller, more muted. I see the glittery, gold-speckled booths and gleaming, ornate decorations bend and morph into mundane photographs of coffee mugs and deep-red corduroy booth upholstery. Finn is saying something, but I tune him out, pushing my fingers into the chrome.

And I’m back.

I take a second to look around me. Mugsy’s is half-full, but no one seems to have noticed me just appear. Then I realize that I was here anyway, or at least, other me was. What did I use, though? I turn the teaspoon over in my hand and see myself in the bowl. Wow, she must be good at this if she could travel through a teaspoon.

I stare at the other me for a moment.

“Hi,” I whisper. “Bring me a cupcake next time.”

I stare down at the humdrum chocolate chip cookie in front of me, and I wonder if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to travel again.

11

Fate and the Social Norms

“You’re holding out on me, St. Clair,” Ben says, tossing an entire fistful of Milk Duds in his mouth.

“Huh? What?” I realize I’ve been sitting here zoning out and haven’t heard much of what he’s said. The movie hasn’t started yet, so I’m going to have to answer him.

“Are you even listening to me?” he complains.

“Sorry. Got a lot on my mind. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that the partner project in Draper’s class is due on Wednesday, and I need your essay so that I can build the diorama and feature your key points.”

“Crap! That’s due Wednesday? We just finished the invention project!”

“Where have you been?” he laughs. “Draper announced it, like, a week ago.”

“Sorry. I haven’t even started. Can I e-mail it to you tomorrow night? Or maybe Monday morning? How much time do you need?”

“Relax.” He throws an arm around me to pat my back, and he leaves his arm on my chair. “I can put it together in a night.”

“Thanks.”

I’m very much aware that he hasn’t taken his arm off the back of my chair, so I lean forward and turn to him.

“Do you believe in fate, Ben?”

“Fate?”

“Like we’re all part of some preordained plan or something. Destined to do things or meet certain people. Fate.”

He eyes me speculatively. “Like, it’s fate that we met? Is that what you mean?”

I roll my eyes. “Not that specific, but yeah, maybe you were meant to move all the way here from Texas—”

“New Mexico,” he interrupts.

“Whatever. You sound like you’re from Texas.”

“That’s because it’s right next door to New Mexico,” he reminds me. “And for the record, we were fated to be friends as soon as I realized that you knew my home state was actually a state. You’d be surprised how many of y’all ask me what my country’s like.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But I’m talking fate in a general sense. Like there are some people that we’re just supposed to meet, for whatever reason.”

He takes a drink of his soda, considering for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do. I think we all have people that we were meant to meet. Not so sure about things we were meant to do, though.”

“But how do you accept one and not the other?”

He shrugs. “I guess I’d like to think that I have a hand in shaping my future for myself. Otherwise, why bother doing anything, right? Might as well just strap in and wait for the ride.”

I start to lean back, but I remember his arm is there and shift forward again. “Yeah, I guess.”

I hear his sigh as he moves his arm, but I’m not really looking at him. I’m a thousand miles away, thinking about what Finn said.

My logical brain tells me I shouldn’t be getting mixed up in all this. But my gut is telling me that I trust him. I trust Finn because I know Finn.

And that’s crazy. I realize that’s crazy.

Ben drives me home after the movie, and we sit for a moment in the driveway, with the truck idling.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, St. Clair,” he remarks. “Why so philosophical?”

I shake my head. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“I need to stop having an existential crisis and go inside and write an essay,” I remind him. “Or my project partner will hang me in effigy inside his diorama.”

“Now there’s a thought,” he says, grinning widely.

I reach for the door handle. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“Yeah. See ya Monday.” He stares at me expectantly for a moment, and then realizes he hasn’t unlocked the door. He pushes the switch with a loud thunk, and I escape to my house and my room, where I hope to get a grip on myself.

That turns out to not be an easy thing. I am afraid to go to sleep.

I stay up as late as I can, finishing the essay and e-mailing it over to Ben before I tackle a new assignment for Ms. Eversor about a controversial subject. I choose “Internet Etiquette” and I realize halfway through writing it that I don’t find it very controversial and I am probably the most boring person on earth.

I’d be a better writer if I’d ever done something, or been anywhere,