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

I nod. “And it was a lot like home, but my parents were still together.”

His eyes soften. “Sometimes it’s hard on the other side,” he says. “You can’t ever predict what it’s going to be like, unless you’ve been there before. Sometimes, not even then.”

“And Danny. He—he—” I stammer, trying to wrap my head around it. “He didn’t have autism. How is that possible?”

“Who knows?” Finn shrugs. “They’re not sure what causes autism, exactly, are they?”

“Not entirely, though they have found some genetic links.”

“So his genes combined in a different way—maybe because of external factors, like your mom was exposed to something during pregnancy, or maybe it was just timing as he moved from one stage of development to another. It could have been any or all of that,” Finn explains.

I sink down on my bed, still not sure how to process everything. As crazy as all that just was, I have a really weird feeling in my gut right now. Like there’s a giant fist around my stomach. I think about my parents sitting there, side by side, and tears burn at my eyes again. I force my thoughts away from Danny, because I know I really will start crying if I think about all of it together.

“You okay?” Finn asks sympathetically. “It sounds like that was a lot to face.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. That is a serious understatement. “Does that happen sometimes? Experiencing a reality that you kind of don’t want to leave?”

He looks away from me.

“Yes, it happens. You’ll learn to get over it.”

I set my elbows on my knees and put my forehead in my hands. “I just want to write. That’s all. I want to be a writer.”

Finn sits down on the bed next to me.

“Nobody’s stopping you. You’ve got an amazing gift. Take it as far as you want to go. None of that has to change.”

“Everything’s changed.” I stand up and start walking for the door.

“Jessa, think about all this for a moment,” he says, grabbing my shoulders and turning me to face him. “You’ve got something here that any writer would kill to have—unlimited worlds to explore, and all at the touch of your fingertips. How is that a bad thing?”

“How do you do it, Finn?” I ask him. “How do you keep from getting attached to people you know in these other realities?”

His hands are still on my shoulders, and they slide up to gently cup my face. “You don’t. Not always.” For a long moment, his eyes hold mine; then he drops his hands and shoves them in his pockets. “But it’s better if you don’t let yourself.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“And Mario and I know for a fact that you are.”

“So we’re back to me having no choice in the matter,” I say glumly. “Look, I appreciate that I have access to all this writing material. It’s just everything that goes with it that I’m not so confident about.”

“I know. But I’m not worried,” Finn says.

“Why?” I ask, shaking my head. “What makes you all so sure about me? It’s not like I’ve got superpowers or anything.”

He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear.

“I’m always sure about you, Jessa,” he says.

13

Possibilities

It’s Monday, and I’m back at school. Somehow, this reality now seems surreal, and I’m living in some bizarre fantasy world in my head. I see the world around me with new eyes. Every nuance, every tiny decision falls like a rock hitting the surface of a frozen lake, causing cracks that spread, shattering the surface.

Do I want pizza or chicken noodle soup for lunch? Should I wear the blue hoodie or the gray one? What if my mom leaves five minutes late for work? What if Danny puts two packs of frosting on his Toaster Strudel?

The possibilities breed more possibilities, cycling on into infinity, and now I know there’s a group of superpowered reality travelers who keep it moving smoothly. All these years I’ve been harvesting my dreams for story ideas and I never had an inkling that I was really experiencing any of it.

I certainly never, in my wildest dreams, thought I’d really be meeting Finn in the flesh or that he’d be trying to help me navigate this sea full of crazy. My mind is still whirling over all that I’ve seen, and I’ve only been to two other realities. How many are there? Thousands? Millions?

I find Ben leaning on my locker right before history class, and I wonder for a moment what he would have been like in the reality I visited yesterday. The memories from the other me surface, and I sift through them.

There was no Finn in that reality. But there was a Ben. He and I traveled in different social circles, and we didn’t speak much. But I did have a slight crush on him.

I let that sink in for a moment as I walk toward him in my reality, and to say this is a weird sensation would be a serious understatement.

It’s not that I never considered Ben as romance material. I actually did at one time, when he first moved here from New Mexico a year ago. He was the focus of lots of female attention. Some of it was because he was new, from someplace most of the school considered to be “exotic,” and this is a small, boring town. But he’s also easy to look at.

We’ve only just gotten a class with each other this semester in AP Honors History, and then he joined Spanish Club. By the time we started hanging out, I’d begun dreaming of Finn on a nightly basis. How does anyone compete with your dream guy? It was a losing battle from the start, but I couldn’t very well explain that to Ben without sounding like a complete head case.

I do like being around Ben, though. He makes me laugh, and he doesn’t mind if we just hang out or occasionally do goofy stuff like playing Band