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

football in high school, linebacker. He also sang in the chorus and had a solo in the final concert of his senior year that made everyone cry because it was so good. He works part-time at the loading dock of a manufacturing company across town, and he also goes to college. He’s studying public relations.

He’s Danny. My Danny, but not my Danny.

Suddenly, I’m frightened. I want to go back. But at the same time, I’m fascinated. I can have a conversation with Danny. One where I don’t have to play word games to get information from him or hear him quote movie dialogue while I try to figure out how that applies to what he’s really trying to say to me. He can just talk, and I can just listen.

“Lunch is out back, if you want it,” he tells me over his shoulder. “Mom ordered from that new wings place.”

I swallow my apprehension and decide I’m going to stay just a little longer. I open the sliding glass doors and stop dead in my tracks.

My parents are sitting together on side-by-side lounge chairs next to a moderate-sized pool.

We have a pool. And my parents are together.

“We’ve got wings!” my mom calls out.

I look at them, wide-eyed.

I realize that I’m blowing my cover here. I’d better act more … normal. But this does not feel normal.

“Hi,” I manage to say.

“You hungry?” Dad asks, reaching out to offer me the bucket of wings.

“I don’t think I can eat.”

“Are you feeling sick?” Dad asks.

I take a moment and just look at them. They look like this is no big deal. Like the way we used to be. My parents divorced when I was nine and they’re still civil with each other, but it would be a stretch to say they parted as friends. My dad still lives in town, and I see him one night a week and every other weekend, but I can’t stop staring at him now.

They look content—with life, with each other. And I have a lump in my throat so big I know I can’t speak. I shake my head no.

“It’s because she came downstairs last night and ate a ton of snacks,” Mom says, reaching for the wings bucket and heading back into the house. I give my dad an awkward smile and trail behind her, still feeling like my head is swimming.

“That’s not healthy, you know,” Mom scolds me as she puts the rest of the wings in a plastic container. “Missing sleep and loading up on junk is only going to make you sick.”

“I know,” I say. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“If you had a date on a Saturday night, you wouldn’t be home eating,” Danny snarks from the living room.

My mother rolls her eyes. “Danny, that’s enough.”

“Just giving some free advice.” He shrugs. “The girl needs a love life.”

“Danny!” Mom objects.

“Just sayin’,” he defends himself.

I look over at him sitting on the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn balanced in his lap. I suppose some things are universal. He catches me staring and makes a face at Mom. I smile, unable to help myself.

“Jessa.”

I turn to look at her again. “Yeah?”

“Just … take a multivitamin or something. Humor me.”

“I will.”

She steps back out the door, and I look over at the clock in the kitchen. I assume time runs concurrently—and if so, I really should get back.

I take one last look at my “normal” brother. I want to ask him a million questions. I want to sit and talk to him for hours. I mean, if I’m me, he’s still him, right? He can tell me everything I really want to know.

Except it wouldn’t really be him. Not the way I know him.

I move up the stairs to my bedroom. This time I make it through the mirror much more quickly, leaving my could-have-been life to another me.

I back slowly away from the mirror, not entirely sure about what I just experienced. Then I glance down at myself.

“Why am I wearing this?” I say aloud, and my eyes go to the mirror again. She changed me into a pair of jeans I had stuffed in the bottom of my closet because they’re red. I went through a colored-jeans phase in ninth grade, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in them now.

She added a bright-yellow-and-green flannel, layered over a blue-flowered T-shirt that’s part of a sleepwear set. I look incredibly tacky. It only takes me a moment to get changed back into my T-shirt and sweatpants, and I wad up the other clothes, throwing them far back into my closet.

I can hear Danny downstairs, and he’s shouting at someone—possibly the TV, since my mom is at work. I have an overwhelming urge to see him, so I race down the stairs and there he is … having an imaginary sword fight with Finn.

“Hey,” I say.

They both stop to look at me. They’re each clutching a cardboard tube from the center of a roll of paper towels—my mom collects them for craft projects at the retirement home where she and Danny work.

“Took you long enough,” Finn says. “Weren’t you changing your clothes?”

“I—uh … when did you get here? And why are you sword fighting?” This day is getting more and more bizarre.

“Jessa! You came back!” Danny smiles at me. “I’m giving Finn lessons.”

“We were watching The Princess Bride,” Finn explains. He looks at me oddly. “And you let me in. Then you ran out of here to change your clothes.”

I’m still looking at Danny strangely, and I know it shows on my face. He’s my Danny, and I didn’t realize how glad I’d be to have him back, but … did he realize I had changed? I mean, not just my clothes?

“Jessa…?”

Finn realizes something is wrong. “Danny, we’ll do some more later, okay?” he promises. “I have to go help Jessa with her homework.”

I feel Finn’s hand on my arm as he leads me back up the stairs to my room.

“Okay,” he says, shutting the door behind him. “What’s wrong?”

“I … traveled.”

He looks