YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Eleven

Finishing up in the bathroom, I darted to my room to dig through the clean-clothes pile for a bra.

"Oh, your ride's here!" came Laura's voice, this time muffled from somewhere in the kitchen.

My ride?

I usually biked on Saturdays as my dad had the car with him at work. And then a realization shot through me like an electric charge: What if it's Kieren?

I whipped my backpack over my shoulders and tripped down the stairs, all while squeezing my feet into my Keds. I could feel my sweaty palms slip-sliding over the banister. A tall silhouette awaited me on the other side of the wavy yellow glass in the front door.

Laura appeared from the kitchen, a brown paper bag in her hand with a Pop-Tart-sized rectangle wedged inside.

"Thank you," I breathlessly whispered while my shaking hand opened the door, bright sunlight flooding into my eyes that felt, for a moment, as though I were entering another portal.

But this was no portal. This was real life—my real life now, as I must have wanted it to be. Because in front of me stood Brady, a smile wide as Texas on his lips.

"Hey, beautiful," he said.

"Hi," I stuttered, my brain frantically trying to make sense of why he was here. Were we friends? Did he give me a ride to work on his way to the gas station?

But my questions were answered when he leaned down and kissed me. There was no trace of cigarette smell on his breath, only mint gum. A waft of the lemon-scented detergent his cousin used to use on all his clothes filled my nostrils with a nostalgic, warm sensation. And though my brain had not yet caught up with my body, I couldn't help but get excited to kiss him back.

Things end up the way they're meant to. That's what my mother had said.

Is this what I had really wanted all along?

"You ready to go?" he asked, reaching out for my hand.

And having no idea what else I could possibly do, I took Brady's hand and headed for his car.

*

Brady scrolled through radio stations as he drove, not satisfied with anything. He lingered for a moment on a pop song before changing it again. Meanwhile, I stared out the window, trying to process what was going on, Laura's breakfast lying unopened by my feet.

Is this what I wanted?

Yes, there had been a time when being with Brady, feeling his soft lips on mine as they had been just moments before, and knowing that he truly wanted me back, was all I could think about.

But that was before Kieren. Or after Kieren, I guess I should say. After he'd held me and kissed me the whole night when I got back from Portland. After I'd forgiven him for my brother's accident.

The next thought made me squirm a bit in my seat, flustered and grappling with my memories. Because the morning after Kieren and I had spent together in my bed, that was when he'd tried to hurl himself in front of the oncoming train. And pushing him out of the way, I had gone in to the train portal instead of him.

I never blamed him for that morning. How could I? It led me to my brother. But is that why we weren't together now? Was I somehow still resentful of Kieren? Did I still not trust him?

Brady turned the radio off, his hand resting for a moment on my knee before returning to the steering wheel so he could make a left turn.

"You're being quiet."