Fast Forward to us

22- A Future With Hailey

Jeremy

As much as I wanted to sleep that night, it didn't seem like it was going to happen. For an entire hour, I lied down in my bed with my eyes completely open. They couldn't shut. My mind was still racing off. Hailey was pregnant with quintuplets and was in labor. All of my newborns were girls. This was all too crazy. Hopefully, this daydream wouldn't become a reality. Once I realized that sleep wasn't happening, my body went from lying down to sitting up on the bed. On the floor was Melissa fast asleep without a care in the world. Maybe this would be a good time to take a better look at that device. Opening my drawer, out it went. 

Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to find Facebook. Turns out it was the blue square. Opening up the square, I noticed that there were six images at the bottom. The one on the right was clicked. Although, the bell right next to it was tempting. Right before me were the memories that appeared at the party. Clicking on the memories, they were different. They weren't the ones from the party. Why? It was past midnight. Did these memories change every day? It didn't matter. This set of memories was just as intriguing. It was a picture of me and Hailey on vacation. We were celebrating our anniversary by visiting the Grand Canyon. Whoa, we were in Arizona. All the way on the other side of the country.

"Our love is like the Grand Canyon," read the caption of the photo. "Thanks, Lisa, for suggesting Arizona." Lisa appeared to be tagged in the caption.

Reading the comment, someone asked why they weren't wearing masks. Hailey replied that they didn't have to worry about the virus in the big outdoors. A virus? Crap. What was this virus and why were people wearing masks? Was it like the Spanish Flu? Was outside the only safe place to be during the virus? All those thoughts died once it appeared that I could access Hailey's profile. My fingers began to shake trying to access it. For a second, my sight became blurry. Should this be happening?

Boom! It happened. I was now on Hailey's profile. Apparently, she had over a thousand friends. At the top of the profile was a bunch of information about my apparent future wife. It wasn't a lot, but it said she worked for Power Music, she lived in Los Angeles, she held to the Catholic and Protestant Faith. On top of all of that, she was married to me.

Yes, I too had a Facebook profile. My forehead and fingers began to sweat at the thought, but I stayed on her profile. Guess this meant that we'd someday move to Los Angeles. Scrolling down the page, it became apparent that Hailey loved to share her memories a lot. Almost every day. It was crazy. Most of it was pictures until my thumbs stumbled upon a video. It wasn't a videotape. And so, this video received a view.

"We bought our first house!" shouted Hailey with me next to her. "Like, after all these years, we're leaving our apartment."

Apparently, we had a lot of PDA. We both couldn't help but kiss each other as I held the keys. Once the kissing ended, we walked into our home and gave a tour. Giving the tour, there seemed to be a lot of flirting. Who knew we both enjoyed poking each other?

There were more videos. A lot of them were from our expensive-looking vacations from Italy to Egypt. How were we able to afford all of this? The question was soon answered with another video. Hailey's father was wealthy and owned a few timeshares and was in real estate. One, particularly in Florida, was being sold to an eccentric billionaire. Her father was sad that we wouldn't be spending Christmas there anymore.

My eyes came across one last video which was being filmed by me. My wife was in the hospital with nurses rushing her to her room on a stretcher. It looked like the girl was pregnant. She was screaming and swearing like a pirate. At this point, I must've turned the camera off as the next thing I knew, Hailey had given birth. In her arms laid the most precious baby boy that had finished fussing. My sweet wife looked frazzled and relieved. She was crying with joy. The camera was handed off to someone else in the room.

We were both in the video shot looking at our baby. I too smiled and cried with Hailey. Our lips exchanged a kiss. The camera quickly zoomed in on the baby. This baby was the most innocent-looking creature. Those small hands. Those small feet. The way he made sounds. The way he depended on his parents without a clue of what the world was like. It was the most precious thing my young self ever witnessed. A few tears had even escaped. This would be my child someday. A child I would share with Hailey.

"What should we name him?" asked Hailey.

The camera faded to black without an answer to what we named him. The heck? After a little more scrolling through her page, a picture caught my attention. It was of me and Hailey after graduation standing next to a building with our fingers together. We were both in our black caps and gown. We couldn't have been happier. Hailey looked like she was moments away from laughing.

"The time we graduated," was the caption.

Clearly, we had graduated together. But where did we go to school? Do we end up going to the same school? Is this how we meet? Crap, where was this school? Why didn't she list this in her information? My profile was just as helpful as hers. With that, the device was placed on top of the drawer as I remembered the three schools that had accepted me. The Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, and the University of Virginia. Which school was the one? What if I chose the wrong one? None of this could happen.

Where was Haley going? Maybe the question could be asked tomorrow? The thought had me chuckling. I couldn't even talk to her. How would I be able to ask where she was going?  Opening the bottom drawer were pamphlets from all three colleges. No time was wasted studying them. The research had to be done. If I had to stay up the rest of the night figuring out which university to attend, that was the way it had to be. My entire future with Hailey was on the line. Sleep? What was sleep?

WOW! This was quite a chapter! How will the future play out? Stay tuned. Don't forget to comment and vote!

Where do you see yourself in the next ten years?

Should Jeremy be researching his future?

Will all of these future events actually happen?