Jay Asher - The Future of Us

“It’s too early,” I say quietly. “We barely know each other.”

Tyson empties another bucket into my bag. “Dude, she pulled you out of school. I think she wants to know you.”

“Maybe.” I set the full trash bag off to the side. “But maybe I’m not ready.”

Tyson opens the net just enough to ricochet a green ball off my forehead. “Then get ready! We’re talking about Sydney Mills. It’s my dream to be the guy who’s friends with the guy who’s hooking up with her.”

I shake open a new trash bag. “Wouldn’t you rather be that guy yourself?”

Tyson thinks about it. “Nope. Too many people talk about you.”

I pick up the green ball from the floor and drop it into the trash bag. “Not to mention, it looks like you and Kellan are getting back together.”

Tyson doesn’t respond.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll let Kellan tell Emma about it, if she hasn’t already. But you should be prepared. Emma’s going to want to have a long talk with you about—”

“About not hurting Kellan, I know.” Tyson leans his back against the cushioned border of the ball pit. We’ve emptied enough so that his knees stick up like two islands in front of his chest. He looks at me through the netting. “I would never want Kellan to get hurt. Last time, I just wasn’t ready.”

“But you can understand why Emma’s worried,” I say. “The last time you two broke up, Kellan flipped.”

Tyson picks up a red ball and sidearm pitches it into the blue slide. It rolls to the top, and then falls back into the pit.

“We like each other,” he finally says. “And we’ve both done a lot of thinking this year. I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do.”

There’s nothing I can tell him. Tyson is struggling with whether or not to let himself fall for someone he’s already fallen for. My situation is different. I’m supposed to be falling for Sydney, and everything appears to be lining up for that to happen. But when I think about my future, I’m not sure that’s where I want it to go.

* * *

THE PORCH LIGHT is on when I get home. I set my skateboard against the front door and reach into my pocket for the key. I can hear my parents talking to each other inside. They probably won’t say a word to me when I go in, but Dad will glance at his watch, letting me know I cut it close.

Emma’s house is mostly dark. The outside lights are off, as are the lights upstairs. From within the downstairs living room there’s a faint blue glow.

I walk across the lawn between our houses, listening to the chimes on Emma’s front porch. When Martin first hung them up, Emma complained that even his noises were infiltrating her life.

Stepping softly, I approach their living room window. In the center of the room, Emma is asleep on the couch, her head cushioned against the armrest. She’s facing the TV, but it’s angled so I can’t tell what she was watching.

I miss Emma. Even if we didn’t say anything to each other, even if she remained asleep, I wish I could be sitting on that couch with her right now.

“EMMA?” my mom calls from downstairs.

I glance at my alarm clock. It’s not set to go off for another ten minutes.

“Emma!”

I groan and pull the covers over my head. I fell asleep on the couch last night, and finally stumbled to my room at two in the morning. When I got upstairs, I noticed the light was on in Josh’s bathroom. He takes showers in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. I considered blinking my light a few times. If he blinked back, I would have held a note to my window like when we were kids. But I decided not to bother him. Josh doesn’t want to hear from me. He spent the afternoon with Sydney, taking their first steps toward a future together.

My mom’s sandals click on the stairs, and I scan my tired brain for what I could’ve done to piss her off. I didn’t see her at all last night. She and Martin were buying cabinetry out in Pittsburgh. I ate dinner and stacked my plate and glass in the dishwasher. I even wiped down the counter before watching Wayne’s World.

My mom is wearing a yellow dress and her hair is pulled back with a matching headband. She’s frowning, and holding up a black videocassette.

“Wayne’s World, Emma?”

I rub the shoulder I was sleeping on. “Is that why you woke me up?”

“No.” She flashes a different video in her other hand.

“This is why I woke you up.”

I grab a scrunchie from my nightstand and pull my hair into a ponytail. “Can you be more specific?”

“You ejected our blank tape to watch Wayne’s World,” my mom says, pressing her lips tight.

I shrug. Maybe I ejected a tape. I can’t remember.

“We were taping Seinfeld,” she says. “We had it programmed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We tape it every Thursday, Emma. You know that.” She looks at the ocean poster tacked above my desk, and then back at me. “Martin and I are concerned about your lack of respect for this house.”

I sit up. “Lack of respect? What are you talking about?”

She points to the floor by my dresser. “Martin noticed that stain right there. Emma, we just put in new carpeting. How did you already spill something on it?”

I do not want to talk about that. Spilling the vase water was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn’t the stupidest thing I did that afternoon.

“I tried cleaning it,” I say.

“You should have asked us for help. We have products that lift stains—”

Wait a second! “What was Martin doing in my room?”

My mom sighs. “He was just measuring with the contractor.”

I leap out of bed and tug my shirt down over my hips. I’m not in the mood to fight, especially after the arguments with Josh and my dad, but I can’t leave this one unchecked.

“It’s for his office,” she adds. “But that’s not until after you graduate.”

“This is crazy!” I say, my pulse racing. I hold my hands near my eyes, almost as blinders. “This has been my room for sixteen years and it’s still my room. Maybe Martin has designs to turn it into his office someday, but he does not have my permission to enter whenever he wants.”

My mom sets both videos on top of my dresser.

“I’m sorry about Seinfeld,” I say, opening a drawer and pulling out a green T-shirt and jean shorts. “I’ll call around to see if anyone taped it. But you have to tell Martin to stop plotting his takeover.”

My mom looks into the distance like she’s fending off tears. “It’s been an adjustment for all of us,” she says quietly.

I consider telling her it was an adjustment when she and my dad divorced, and her brief marriage to Erik was another adjustment. I’m tired of adjustments.

“Just tell Martin to stay out of my room,” I say.

* * *

Relationship Status It’s Complicated

That’s my future this morning. It doesn’t say I’m married. It doesn’t say I’m single. Now I’m a graduate of San Diego State and I live in Oakland, California.

The last thing I wrote was on Wednesday.

Emma Nelson

Hoping it doesn’t rain this weekend.

May 18 at 6:44pm · Like · Comment

My photo is black and white, almost a silhouette. I’m playing the saxophone in front of an open window, and my hair is shoulder-length.

I click open my list of Friends and start scrolling down. Cody is there. He’s wearing a different tie, but he looks basically the same as yesterday. I scroll down to the Js, but there’s still no Josh.

I click back to my main page. I just wrote something twelve seconds ago!

Emma Nelson

I’m doing some emotional housekeeping and letting go of things I’ve held onto for too long. Starting with my password. I’ve used the same one for fifteen years. Just waiting for a new word to reveal itself.

12 seconds ago · Like · Comment

I’m getting rid of Millicent?

Clarence and Millicent represent everything good about my friendship with Josh. And now I want to let go of that? Did I ruin our friendship forever all because I kissed him? Or is it because I didn’t have a clear answer when he asked why I kissed him?

Hang on! I can’t change my password. That’s how I’ve been able to log on to Facebook. And I need to be able to get onto Facebook. My relationship is complicated now. There’s no mention of a career. Even though I’m not telling much, I imagine at some point I’ll start revealing again. If I can’t learn the details of my life, then I won’t have a chance to repair things.

“Emma!” my mom calls, startling me. “Martin needs to make a work call. Can you sign off now?”

“No, I—”

“This is what we were talking about,” she warns. “We’re getting another phone line soon, just for the Internet. But for now, you need to quit.”

As I close my screen, I think about that photo of Kellan, Tyson, Josh, and me at GoodTimez that I tore up the other day. I hurry over to my trashcan, hoping Martin didn’t empty it when he was in here. And there, underneath several crumpled tissues, are the jagged pieces of the photograph. I pick them out of the garbage, one by one, and cup them in my palm.

Maybe Josh and I aren’t going to be friends in the future, but I can’t throw away these memories. I open my top drawer, slide the pieces of the photo into my journal, and then close my dresser again.

IT’S SENIOR SKIP DAY. With a quarter of the students gone, the hallways feel uncomfortably wide and open. They’re also quieter, making it too easy to get lost in my thoughts.

As I walk to third period, I slide my shoulder against the locker doors and think about time. If I could, I’d travel back six months to the night I tried to kiss Emma, and I wouldn’t do it. She would still hug my arm for warmth as we walked through the cemetery, but when we got back to her car with Tyson and Kellan, there would be no awkwardness between us. If I couldn’t go back that far, I’d return to Emma’s porch the day she set up her new computer, and I wouldn’t give her that CD-ROM. Then she never would’ve discovered Facebook. While we still wouldn’t be as close as we once were, at least we’d be talking.

I continue down the hall until a voice behind me says, “There you are!”

I take a shallow breath, and turn around.

“Isn’t this weird?” Sydney motions at the surrounding hallway. “It’s like no one’s here today.”

She really is beautiful, with her light brown hair and amber eyes. She could be featured in one of the magazines Emma and Kellan flip through for the quizzes.

“Are your arms tired from yesterday?” Sydney asks. She reaches forward to squeeze my bicep. Thankfully, I did my extra push-ups today. “I worked you hard.”

“Not a problem,” I say, though my arms are pretty sore. “What about you?”

Sydney lets her shoulders and arms droop forward. “I was exhausted when I got home.”

The two-minute warning bell rings and I’m grateful for the interruption.

“Where are you eating lunch?” Sydney asks, glancing at her phone.

I’m going to my usual spot at the oak tree, but I’m not sure I should invite her to join me. That’s what Tyson suggested, but Emma may be there, which would be more awkwardness than I can handle right now.

“If you already have plans,” Sydney says, “we can have lunch some other time.”

She deserves an explanation. “It’s not that I have plans,” I say, “but there’s been some tension with one of my friends, and I’m hoping to talk to her about it today.”

Sydney momentarily looks away. I shouldn’t have used the word her.

“That’s good,” she says. “I mean, that’s sweet of you.”

On Facebook, Sydney and I seem happy together. Even though we’re different people now, we must become more similar over time. Maybe Emma was right and I pushed things too soon.

“This is going to sound weird,” Sydney says, looking down. “Last night I was telling my sister, Haley, what we did yesterday, and about how much fun I had hanging out with you.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I had fun, too.”

She sighs, and then looks up at me with a half-smile. “But when I told her I took you out to Rick’s house, she called me an idiot. If that put you in an uncomfortable position, I just want to say I’m sorry.”