❝In class, you said I reminded you of someone. Who is she?❞
❝My wife. You remind me of my wife.❞
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When an accidental time travel brings twenty-seven-year-old William eight years back to the pas...
"She is pregnant," William dropped the bit of information casually like he was dropping a ping-pong ball and Harvey's heart did a flip as joy rushed all over him.
Eliza and William were having a baby. He was going to be a grandfather.
Harvey didn't realize he had been smiling wide until William spoke the most heartless sentence.
"I don't want it."
Harvey jerked up from his seat, standing tall and staring down at his daughter's husband, eyes wide in disbelief.
"What did you say, boy?" he spoke through clenched teeth and William flinched before getting up to his feet and standing awkwardly across Harvey, the shawl dropping to the floor.
"Look," William began, placing a hand at the nape of his neck, fidgeting all over. He was nervous, Harvey could clearly see it. William might not be a very big fan of Harvey but the boy respected him. "It's too much. You know I never wanted to get married."
"But you didn't stop the wedding," Harvey countered back and William looked at him, biting his lower lip so hard that for a moment Harvey thought it was about to bleed.
"Yeah. I didn't," William said, his face now a tinted shade of pink as he tried to search for the right words.
"Well...I...you know why I did it."
Because you're attracted to her —Harvey pushed the thought away and exhaled a deep breath, running his hand through his hair. He had to do something. William couldn't do this. Harvey watched William with a curious look. This was the time. He was sure of that. He must do what he was asked of.
"You know I have a Time Machine right?" Harvey finally found the most overused sentence in history to say to his son-in-law.
William looked at him, puzzled. "You are kidding me, right?"
Harvey watched him for some time. There was no way William would actually believe him. He had even shown the boy the device. A box in a jar with fireflies dancing around it. William had only laughed at him in return and Harvey had almost come close to believing that all the things that happened weren't real, that he and his daughter were indeed enveloped in a nightmare.
"I promised him, Papa," Eliza had begged. "I promised him. I never asked for anything, anything but him. Don't hurt my heart but denying his existence. He made me promise him."
When Harvey looked into those beautiful green eyes of his daughter which were just like her mother's — the mother he wasn't able to save, he was filled with guilt.
Widowed at the age of thirty, Harvey had given his entire life to watch his daughter grow happy. She was deemed a curse by her relatives. His wife's parents didn't even look at their granddaughter.
"She is evil," they said. "Leave her be. You both are a curse!"
But he had fought them. Ever since then, he promised himself that he wouldn't let anyone hurt his daughter. He had devoted his entire life in taking care of her and Eliza never asked him for anything in return. She was sweet, kind and loved by all around her, even her ex-boyfriend, James Dawson, who still lingered around often just to get a glimpse of her.
"I do wonder sometimes if I would have made a better son-in-law to you, Mr Scott," James had once said to Harvey after Eliza's marriage.
"No, you wouldn't," Harvey had answered, ignoring James.
But then came William Ray, and that's when Eliza asked him for something for the first time. She had asked him William Ray, the man who she was in love with, the man she had made a promise to. William was Eliza's first and last wish. He was a gift she had asked her father for.
Harvey took a deep breath and ran his hands all over his face.
"Forget it." He shook his head. "Forget I said any of that. Go and take a shower. There's a bag of clothes Eliza keeps in her room for you. Take her room."
When he didn't hear any movement from William, he lifted his eyes only to find that William was still standing, bewildered and staring at him with his mouth agape.
"Go, before I change my mind," Harvey ordered and it made William close his mouth and he rushed up the stairs.
As he watched William go, Harvey prayed that Eliza wasn't mistaken nor was he and that William was the same boy.
He needed to find out. He needed to send William, send him where he had to go. But how?
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