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

“Danny! You could have just told me Ben was here!”

“Hi, Jessa!” Danny says. “When did you come back? You should lock your door!”

“Yeah, St. Clair,” Ben says flatly. “You should lock your door.”

The look on his face hits me hard and then the memories rush in, swamping me.

I sink down on the bed as he storms out, with Danny right behind him.

Oh, the memories. So many memories …

I’d arrived here, thrilled that I could hear—this was my deaf self’s third time traveling, and I hadn’t yet been to a reality that held Ben—or Finn for that matter. Not that Finn would matter to the other me—I had no experience with him at all. But Ben …

I gasp aloud and tears pool in my eyes as the memories flood over me, drowning me in emotion. I’d spent most of that first weekend with Danny, delighted that he could speak, and since I was at my dad’s house, I was getting to know my father—a father that Jessa never knew. I went back to Mom’s on Sunday afternoon and when the doorbell rang, I opened the door and Ben was standing there. He said “Hey, St. Clair,” and oh …

I heard his voice for the first time. The very first time. It was warm and wonderful and I couldn’t help but throw my arms around him. I put my head to his chest and listened as he laughed, trying to figure out what had gotten into me. When he spoke again, my fingers touched his lips in wonder.

And then my lips touched his. Of course they did. This was Ben, and I love him.

From that moment on, we were inseparable. I told him that nearly falling off the roof made me realize what he meant to me—which I thought was a great cover story at the time. Ben didn’t question a bit of it. He told me he’d been crazy about me for months, and he asked if Finn was out of the picture. I assured him that he was the one I wanted, and that was that. Ben and I were dating. I hadn’t told this Ben yet that I loved him, but oh, I’d made sure he felt it.

My mind plays over cuddling on the couch, dinners with my family, stolen kisses in the hall at school.

“Uuuuhhhhhgggghh.” I bury my face in my hands.

What a way to totally mess up a friendship. Oh my God, what am I going to say to him? The last thing I want to do is hurt Ben’s feelings. I need to find out just how invested in this new definition of us he really is.

“Maybe you can tell him you were doing research for a story,” Finn says, trying to make a joke. It’s clear he finds this just about as amusing as I do. Which is not at all.

I automatically hate the other me. Who do I think I am, playing with Ben’s feelings like that? I should be ashamed of myself. Stupid other me. I am really, really mad at me for this. I wish I could give me a piece of my mind. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.

“Do you realize what a mess you left me?” I ask myself.

She’s not there, of course. She’s probably with Ben.

“I have to talk to him,” I say to Finn numbly. “Let him down easy.”

Finn sits down next to me. “There’s no such thing, you know. He likes you. A lot.”

“Oh God.” I bury my face in my hands again.

“Now you’ve granted his heart’s desire, and you’re going to have to find some way to tell him it was all a big mistake.”

I get up and walk over to my window to look out, and Ben’s truck is still in front of my house. Which means he’s waiting downstairs to talk to me.

40

Ben

I can hear Ben making small talk with Danny, and I wonder what I could possibly say to Ben to let him know that the last week of my life with him was a total anomaly. He’s either going to think I’m completely nuts or toying with him.

I have no idea how to handle this. Worse, I’m feeling guilty, because truthfully, other me has enjoyed all of this. Too much.

I feel a very weird mix of confusing feelings, as I have other me’s memories fresh in my mind, of Ben with his mouth on mine and those perfectly muscled arms around me. These are mixing with my near-death rescue by Finn and the tenderness he’s shown me in the aftermath. The way I feel when he holds me is just different. There’s a rightness about it—just as there was a rightness for my other self when I was with Ben.

I reach the bottom of the stairs, and he’s stopped talking to Danny. Instead, he’s looking at me with a wealth of pain in his eyes.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says. And my traitorous mind goes back to yesterday, when the other me walked down these stairs, and he called me beautiful, the way his eyes brightened, and that easy grin he broke into when he saw me. My heart gives a lurch and I take another deep breath, trying to push all that out of my mind.

Danny breaks the ice.

“Jessa! I’m winning!” he yells gleefully as he points at the TV screen. “Am I good at this, Ben?”

“You’re a killer, Danny. I should know better than to play with you,” Ben says.

Danny turns his baffled face to Ben. “I don’t kill you. You died.” He looks up at me. “Me and Ben were playing but he died, so he said he was going to go wake you up. I didn’t kill him.”

“He didn’t mean it like that, Danny,” I explain. “When someone says you’re a killer that way, it means you’re good at something.”

“It’s mean to say I killed somebody,” Danny says.

“Ben wasn’t being mean. He said it because he likes you. He meant you’re good at the game.”

“I’m