Kathleen Podell Netflix all the way, babe.

9 hours ago · Like

Emma Nelson Storm Netflix+Glee = my life

8 hours ago · Like

I have no idea what I’m talking about, but if Netflix plus Glee equals my life, I’m hoping those are good things. I keep scrolling down.

Emma Nelson Storm

Packing the boys’ lunches. They’re slowly settling into

the new school, but I still feel guilty about moving

them in the middle of the year.

Yesterday at 7:01am · Like · Comment

Boys? I told Josh we shouldn’t get too attached to our future children, but it’s hard to believe I’ll never see Olivia’s plump cheeks again.

Emma Nelson Storm

Luke just lost his first tooth! How much does the

Tooth Fairy leave these days?

May 20 at 4:25pm · Like · Comment

Six people have commented, everything from “Congrats, Luke!” to “I dunno… maybe a dollar?” But it’s the last comment that stands out.

Kellan Steiner Lindsay is fourteen now, so I’m

out-of-date on the Tooth Fairy. Sorry!

May 20 at 7:12pm · Like

I’m tempted to click on Kellan’s name, but I promised Josh I would only look up Kevin Storm, so I force myself to stay on my own page. Mostly, I talk about my boys and Netflix, which seems to be a new way to watch movies.

Emma Nelson Storm

Kevin saved a life today. I will never browse online

while driving again. Don’t worry… I’m writing this

at a stoplight.

May 17 at 7:18pm · Like · Comment

I have a computer in my car? Josh is going to freak out when he hears this. And if Kevin saved a life, maybe he’s a doctor. Or a paramedic. Or a fireman! That’d be cool because firemen have great bodies.

I read through the comments of various people congratulating Kevin. The man in the eighth photo has graying hair and… it’s my dad!

Dale Nelson Put your phone in your purse,

honey! All my love to the family.

May 17 at 8:03pm · Like

My eyes sting with tears. Seeing my dad’s name makes me miss him so much more right now.

Josh Templeton Thanks for the text yesterday,

Em. You BETTER not have written it while

driving. Hey there, Mr. Nelson!

May 17 at 8:18pm · Like

Dale Nelson Nice to see you, Mr. Templeton!

Emma tells me that you and the family are doing

well.

May 17 at 8:31pm · Like

Emma Nelson Storm What is this, a reunion?

Josh, say hi to Sydney and the twins for me.

May 17 at 8:52pm · Like

I have no idea what a text is, but I can’t help smiling. The other times we looked at Facebook, Josh’s name was always in my Friends category, but we weren’t talking back and forth like this.

Then my mind catches something I missed earlier. I scroll up to the comment Kellan left about the Tooth Fairy, and lean in to get a closer look at her picture. She has the same long black hair and the same devilish smile. She’s wearing a black shirt and dangly silver earrings. Josh isn’t here, but this is too big to ignore. I need to look at Kellan’s webpage.

I click on her photo.

The most recent thing she wrote was back in February.

Kellan Steiner

Lindsay’s flying to her dad’s this weekend. Her first

solo plane trip!

February 23 at 2:09pm · Like · Comment

Catrina McBride I know you’ll miss her, but

enjoy your time off. Single mamas need that!

February 27 at 6:53pm · Like

Fifteen years from now, Kellan is a single mother with a fourteen-year-old daughter. That means—

There’s a loud knock at my door. I back-click until I return to my page.

Josh grins as he strolls in. “That was called knocking. And not that it’s any of your business, but you’ll be happy to know I’m wearing boxers now.”

I smile weakly. All I can think about is whether to tell Josh about Kellan. I should, but I don’t want to create any more ripples that could ruin either one of our futures.

Josh leans over my shoulder and looks at the screen. “How are things this morning?”

“Now, or in fifteen years?”

“Fifteen years,” he says. “How are the Storms?”

“We’re fine,” I say.

Josh points to the screen. “Look! I’m talking to your dad! And now I have twins again?”

I get out of my chair. “You can click over to your page if you want. I have to finish getting ready for school.”

Josh sits at my computer, and I walk into my mom’s room. I close the door and sink onto the foot of her bed. If Lindsay is fourteen, and Facebook is fifteen years from now, then Kellan must become pregnant in the next few months.

Unless she already is.

31://Josh

I JUMP OUT OF EMMA’S CHAIR and slide open her window. A van drives up the street, the high-pitched drone of its engine growing louder until it eventually shifts gears. At Wagner Park, someone tosses a glass bottle into a garbage bin. It clanks, but doesn’t shatter.

Perfect! If my home phone rings, I shouldn’t have trouble hearing it.

I return to Emma’s computer and look again at the most important bit of information.

Married to Sydney Templeton

I click where it says Photos. Emma and I need to leave for school soon, so rather than reading through dozens of short statements that hardly make sense, I want to see what my future looks like.

The first square is labeled:

Our New Casa

12 photos

When I open the album, twelve new squares slowly load. The first one is only half filled-in, but I already love what it shows. The house is literally on the shore of Crown Lake. According to Mom and Dad, that’s the most expensive location in town. The rest of the photo appears, revealing a wraparound porch leading to a long wooden dock. Either Sydney inherited a fortune, or my graphic design business is booming!

In the second picture, I’m laying on a hammock with identical red-headed boys. I don’t think we have twins anywhere in my family, but for Sydney and me to have twins in two of my futures is a bizarre coincidence.

In the next picture I’m standing in front of the house waving at the camera. My other arm is around… is that David? I click to enlarge the photo.

David is standing with one arm around me and his other arm around a guy with short brown hair and sunglasses. We’re all smiling. Beneath the picture, it says:

In this photo: Josh Templeton, Dave Templeton,

Phillip Connor

So he goes by Dave in the future. Sorry, bro, but I’m still calling you David. When I scroll the arrow over his name, it turns into a hand. I glance at the door. Emma’s still not back. Anyway, she wouldn’t care if I checked on David. He’s family.

David’s page says he now lives in Bellingham, Washington, and works as a computer engineer.

Then I notice something else.

In a relationship with Phillip Connor

Okay, that’s… um… I don’t…

Emma walks in and plops on her bed. “Anything interesting?”

“Nope!”

I click the red X in the corner. Facebook disappears, and AOL says, “Goodbye!”

“Sorry,” I say quickly. I’m a little shaken by what I just saw. “Do you want me to sign back on?”

Emma tilts her head and smirks at me. “Tell me truthfully, did you change your underwear because I made fun of you?”

“No,” I say. But the answer is yes. Emma walking in on me was embarrassing enough. But there’s no telling when a girl I actually have a chance with might get a glimpse of my underwear. I don’t want her first thought to be Haven’t you heard of boxers?

After Emma left my house, I took a shower and swiped some boxers from my dad’s drawer. They were in an unopened pack, and they’re a little loose, but they work. I’m planning to buy a few pairs of my own after school.

“Remember, I can tell when you’re lying,” Emma says. “And if you did that for Sydney’s sake, it’s kind of sad. Because if you think about it, you don’t even know her.”

“I don’t know her yet,” I say. “But it’s going to happen.”

“Oh, really? Did she call you last night?”

That is the question I was hoping to avoid.

“Because if she didn’t,” Emma continues, “maybe she’s having second thoughts.”

I don’t say anything. What if Emma’s right? Sydney and I really don’t know each other. Maybe she noticed me in Peer Issues sooner than she was supposed to, and now everything’s rippling in ways that will push us apart.

Emma leans over my shoulder and signs back on to AOL.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting her to call me right away.”

Before I came over, I carried my phone into the bathroom and plugged it into the jack near the medicine cabinet. I opened the bathroom window and set the phone on the sill. If it rings, I should be able to hear it from Emma’s bedroom. Then I took the cordless phone from my parents’ room and placed it by the front door. That way I can leave Emma’s house, sprint across our yards, and answer the cordless before Sydney hangs up.

“You’re right,” Emma says. “She wouldn’t call you right away. She’s going to play hard to get.”

“Do you think so?” I ask.

“Those are the rules,” Emma says.

Emma and Kellan spend hours talking about relationships and taking quizzes in magazines. Whenever I contribute my two cents, they just laugh and call me clueless.

Emma scrolls through some comments on her Facebook page, reading each one carefully.

“It’s hard to tell,” she says, “but I think Kevin Storm may be a firefighter. Or a doctor.”

Even if Sydney plays hard to get, she’ll call me eventually. Otherwise, why would she ask for my number? I hate that Emma’s trying to put doubts in my mind.

“Good for you,” I say. “So he’s better than Jordan Jones. Did you find anything else on there?”

Emma stares at the screen. I shouldn’t have asked that question when I wouldn’t answer it honestly myself. I told her I didn’t find anything interesting, but my brother ends up in a relationship with someone named Phillip!

“Nothing new,” Emma says. “But I have been thinking about your list, the one with people you want to look up. I’m not sure if—”

I remove the folded-up piece of paper from my backpack. Emma grabs it and turns it around, then starts reading through the names. I want to say we should crumple up the list and not check on anyone after all. If what I saw about David is true, then what else will we find that people may not want us to know?

“Eww!” Emma shoves the paper back at me. “Why did you put Kyle Simpson on there?”

I laugh. “What are you talking about? You dated the guy.”

“Barely! And I have no desire to find out what’s going on in his future.”

“He’s probably a Chippendale dancer,” I say. “Or he runs a nudist colony, or—”

“Stop!” Emma tosses me a pen and says, “If you insist on looking people up, cross him off.”

I cross him off, knowing we should eventually cross off every name. But if I say that to Emma, she’ll know I’m hiding something from her.

“I never understood how someone can go from dateable to eww,” I say. “I hope no one I’ve gone out with thinks of me that way.”

“I’m sure they don’t,” Emma says. “But I never really liked Kyle before he asked me out. He was just there. Like that girl in Seattle for you.”

After I got back from spring break, I talked about the Seattle girl a lot during lunch. I showed off a school picture she gave me where she wrote her phone number on the back in purple ink. I passed around the picture because she was pretty, but I also wanted to make Emma jealous.