Jay Asher - The Future of Us

“I’m not bad,” she says. “But I’m not a crazy jock like my sisters.”

A short man with glasses and receding hair asks if we’re from the high school. Sydney signs an invoice, and he helps us load three boxes of plaques and trophies into the back of the SUV. Then we’re off to order flower arrangements.

“My sisters played tennis in high school,” Sydney says. “For a while, they were ranked first and second in the county.”

“At the same time?”

“They’re ridiculously competitive with each other,” she says, slowing at a light. “They’re identical twins, but they argue all the time.”

Identical twins?

“The crazy thing is,” she continues, “they’re both engaged to law school students, and they’re both planning to get married next summer.”

The first time I saw my future, I had a son and two identical twin daughters. The girls looked just like Sydney. Later, we had twin boys who looked like me.

“Identical twins run in my family,” she says. “My mom’s a twin, too.”

I don’t respond. What can I say? Guess what! We used to have twin girls, but then we lost them. Why? Because Emma didn’t like her husband, and apparently you can’t change one thing about the future without changing everything else. But now it seems we have twin boys. Or at least we did yesterday.

“You’re being kind of quiet,” Sydney says.

She’s right. I should be talking. If I want things to happen between us, I can’t sit here thinking about the future. I need to stay focused on the present. Even though we’re going to get married one day, I know so little about her. I have no idea what her favorite movie is or where she likes to hang out. I don’t even know what makes her laugh.

“Do you want kids someday?” I ask. If Tyson were sitting behind me, he’d smack the back of my head.

Sydney smiles as she flips on the turn signal. “That’s a funny question to ask on a first date.”

I know she’s joking about these errands being a first date, but for those words to even pop into her mind means, on some level, she considers this the beginning of a relationship. And it is!

After we drive a few blocks in silence, I ask, “What are you up to this weekend?”

“I’m playing tennis with my mom and sisters on Saturday,” she says. “And then the whole family, including my dad and the fiancés, are helping out with a picnic at the prison on Sunday.”

There’s a prison about halfway between Lake Forest and Pittsburgh, but I’ve never been out there. “They have picnics?”

“Every Memorial Day,” Sydney says. “It’s volunteer work. At last year’s picnic I made the mistake of bringing Jeremy with me. Do you know Jeremy Watts?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He graduated last year,” she says. “He’s a decent guy, but he can be a little insensitive. The whole time we were there, he pretended to be an inmate and he kept whispering things to me like, ‘Can you pass the macaroni salad? I’d get it myself, but I have handcuffs on.’”

I look out the window so she can’t tell I’m holding back a smile.

“They weren’t even wearing handcuffs,” she adds.

I can imagine Emma and me in that same situation. If I made that handcuff joke, she’d punch me in the arm and tell me to behave, but her eyes would give her away. She’d be on the verge of laughing, too.

I point up the road to Sunshine Donuts. “Want to stop? I’ll buy.”

Sydney looks where I’m pointing and then crinkles her nose. “Maybe later.”

We drive past, and I watch the brightly colored sign recede in the side-view mirror.

I HAVE TWENTY MINUTES until I need to be at track, so I’m studying in the library. There’s hardly anyone in here, just two freshman boys on a computer and Ms. Nesbit quietly shelving books. The pink streak in her hair is pinned back with an intricate series of barrettes.

Everything in my life feels like it’s going downhill. Everything except Cody. We smiled at each other twice in the halls today, and all I could think was he’s still single in fifteen years. Single and hot and working as an architect in Denver. While that’s not near the ocean, I could learn to love the mountains.

“How did it go with the phone books?” Ms. Nesbit asks, approaching my table. “Were they at the public library?”

“They were… thanks.” I wish I could’ve stayed in my Denver fantasy a few more minutes.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“What?” I ask.

“The resources we have available today,” she says. “You’re a junior, right? So you’ve probably been researching colleges, but you can also look for summer jobs, camps, even internships at a library. You can plan your whole future right here.”

I smile weakly. Yes, it feels great to plan your life when you believe everything can turn out fine. But what about when you’re shown, again and again, how little control you have over anything? No matter what I do to try to fix my future, it doesn’t work.

After Ms. Nesbit returns to her books, I watch the freshmen laugh at something on the computer, and it occurs to me that I’ve been using Facebook the wrong way. It’s not about automatically having control. It’s about taking control with the resources you have.

* * *

WHEN I GET TO TRACK, I explain to the coach that I had to miss the past two practices because of female problems. It’s not a total lie. I was married to a jerk and had to get rid of him, and then I found out Kellan is about to get pregnant.

We start practice on the field with the whole team standing in a wide circle doing stretches. With my hands on my hips, I lean back and hold it for five seconds. Next to me, Ruby Jenkins is bent forward with her forehead touching her knees. She’s telling me how she’s going to skip school tomorrow even though she’s not a senior. I’m only partially listening because, across the circle, Cody is smiling at me.

When we stop stretching and head toward the track, Cody jogs up beside me.

“You weren’t at practice yesterday,” he says.

He was looking for me?

“I was with a friend,” I say, vaguely enough to let him wonder if that friend was a boy.

I look down at the ground, noticing how our legs are perfectly in sync.

Now, Emma Nelson, it’s time to use your resources.

“We drove into Pittsburgh to check out some buildings,” I say. “I’m fascinated by the architecture there.”

“I’m thinking about taking an architecture class at Duke next year,” he says.

Before I can stop myself, I blurt out more from his Facebook page. “I’m interested in wind and solar energy and how they can relate to architecture.”

The second I say it, it feels like I’ve gone too far. But then Cody squints up at the sun and says, “I never thought about that.”

I exhale. “You should. It’s the wave of the future.”

Cody stops and reaches into a pocket on his shorts. “I found something near the locker-room water fountains, and I thought it might be yours.”

When he opens his fingers, he’s holding my gold necklace with the tiny E pendant. I touch my hand to my collarbone. I’ve worn that necklace every day for eight years. I can’t believe it fell off and I didn’t notice.

Cody spills the necklace into my hand. As I watch him jog away, I remember what Josh said yesterday, about how I dumped Graham and now I’m moving on to Cody. What Josh doesn’t understand is that Cody isn’t just some guy I suddenly noticed. I’ve had a crush on him for a long time. I’d be crazy not to respond when I have his attention.

* * *

DRIVING HOME, I think about what happened yesterday on Facebook. By insisting I would never live in Ohio, my future shifted to London. Just thinking differently can change everything.

I’m obviously not happy with Kevin. But instead of tracking him down like I did with Jordan, maybe I can promise myself that one day when I meet Kevin Storm, I won’t marry him.

I slow at a light and glance around to make sure no one is watching.

“One day,” I say quietly, “I’m going to meet Kevin Storm, but I will not marry him.”

The light turns green and I step on the gas.

I say it again, louder this time, and then add, “No matter what!”

WE’RE IN THE PARKING LOT of Sam’s Club, a discount superstore ten miles outside of town. I lower the tailgate of Sydney’s Jeep Cherokee and hoist myself in. The back is already crowded with supplies, and I have to duck forward to keep from banging my head.

“Ready?” she asks.

I hold out my hands and she lifts a bulk-size bag of Cheetos out of the shopping cart. She tosses it to me. Then she passes me two bags of pretzels, followed by Doritos. While she sets cases of soda onto the tailgate, I shift around the rest of the cargo to make room.

“What banquet’s this for?” I ask.

Sydney lifts up a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew and holds it out for me. “These aren’t for school.”

I slide the soda to the back of the bed. She hands me another twelve-pack and I fit it tight against the first one, then pull at a corner of the blue tarp that’s bunched underneath.

“Usually the Student Council errands take longer,” she says, “but we plowed through them so fast I figured we had time for an extracurricular run.”

All afternoon, I’ve been pushing carts, lifting boxes, and loading things into the Cherokee. And that’s fine. I won’t complain about spending time with Sydney Mills. I don’t even mind assisting her on a personal errand, but it would have been nice to know when we made that switch.

I hop onto the pavement. “Is this for that prison party?”

“Prison picnic,” she says, closing the tailgate. “But no. It’s for my friend’s bonfire tomorrow night.”

I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand and climb into my seat. When she starts the engine, I lower my window halfway down.

“You can’t just have alcohol at a party, or people get too drunk,” Sydney explains. “You need something for them to snack on.”

All week, people have been buzzing about this bonfire. Tyson is using his dad’s pickup to help some senior skaters haul firewood out to the lake.

“Also, if the cops bust the party, you want to have soda around,” Sydney says. “Hide the beer, grab a Coke!”

I haven’t put much thought into going to the bonfire because my mind’s been on other things. Mainly, it’s been on Sydney.

“Rick left a message on my cell phone earlier,” she says, “asking if I could pick up some things for him. I was going to do it tomorrow, but since we had time this afternoon, I figured why not. Plus, I have the Cherokee today.”

For the past three hours, Sydney and I have been driving around town together. At first I couldn’t believe she picked me. Every time our elbows bumped or fingers touched, I felt electricity in my whole body. But after a while, things calmed down. Maybe I was expecting an instant connection. Although we do end up together, right now we barely know each other. I’m just the guy who spoke up in class when her ex was acting like a dick.

“If you don’t mind,” Sydney says, “can we drop off the bonfire stuff before I take you home? It’s on the way.”

“That’s fine.”

“Have you ever been to Rick’s?”

“Rick who?” I ask. And then I realize who she’s been talking about. “Rick Rolland?”

“His house is beautiful,” she says. “It’s right by the lake.”

“Are you talking about that guy from Mr. Fritz’s Peer Issues class?”

“That’s right! His parents already left for the long weekend, so he’s throwing the… oh… right.” Sydney turns toward me with an apologetic look. “Rick and I used to go out, but that’s totally in the past.”

“That’s… no… it’s fine.”

“I know he can seem like a jerk,” she says, “but he’s actually a decent friend.”

As Sydney merges onto the highway, I lower my window the rest of the way.

* * *

SYDNEY TAKES THE TURNOFF for Crown Lake, and then a quick left on a hard-packed dirt road. As we circle the lake, I watch for the house she and I one day live in, but I don’t see anything that resembles the photos on Facebook. Maybe our home hasn’t even been built yet.

We turn onto Rick’s gravel driveway, stopping in front of a redbrick house with a dense forest of pine trees behind it. Sydney honks her horn twice and then shuts off the engine.