The Long Wait for Tomorrow Read online

  Kelly doesn’t remember.

  He’s going back to the scene of the crime without even realizing it.

  It’s been far too long for him, twenty years.

  “Shut up,” Patrick told them, ascending the aluminum seats.

  Kelly was sitting second row from the top. White threads like loose nerves hanging from the shoulder seam of his letter jacket. His eyes were closed. A distressed scowl did away with any illusions of narcolepsy or transcendental meditation. Shallow breaths, hands resting on either knee. Fingers tapping out Morse-code nonsense.

  Patrick stood by his side, wondering if Kelly even knew he was there. He raised his hand in an unseen greeting. “Hey.”

  Kelly opened his eyes. He didn’t acknowledge Patrick, just breathed in. Eyes gazing upon the stadium, the hollowed remains of an aluminum tortoise.

  “Um …” Patrick wasn’t sure if people actually said things like what he was about to ask. The occasion had never come up, and the fact was almost depressing enough to keep him from trying. “Do you … want to talk about it?”

  “If I do, it won’t be what you want to hear,” Kelly said. His words were steeped with defeat, uncharacteristic of both the old and new Kelly McDermott. “I know what’s expected of me, now.”

  Patrick took the space next to Kelly, sitting on his own hands.

  “Now that I’m actually here, it’s so strange….” Kelly scratched his nose. “It’s so strange. I’m here, physically here, and yet … I can’t come back. I tried. Tried talking shit with my teammates, grinning like an idiot. Taking crap from Sedgwick. Listening to that cream-puff talk about community and togetherness, while he stands around, just looking for a problem to make him feel like he’s in control. And Redwood, that big renegade ass hole. I hate fuckers who just want to win. Who can’t live without that validation, a goddamn proof of purchase.”

  Kelly shook his head, clenched his fists, and released. “I hate bullies. I hate them, Patrick, and this is who I’ve got to be now. And I can’t.”

  “You were …” Patrick tried to stop himself from going along with it, but he couldn’t help it. “You were never really a bully.”

  “Yeah?” Kelly scoffed, disgusted. “Then what was I?”

  “You …just were, I guess.”

  “I tried so hard today. To be whatever that was, to keep from …” Kelly looked at Patrick with beseeching eyes. “This is really happening, Patrick…. I know you don’t believe me. I can hardly believe it myself. Maybe I’m still back there in that institution, maybe none of this is real. But I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t even know what to think. I don’t know what I’m doing here, how this is even possible….” Kelly paused, nodding with enough momentum to get his body rocking. Psyching himself into a decision. “But now I have to know. I have to figure this out, Patrick.”

  “Because something bad is going to happen?” Patrick said.

  “Do you at least believe me about that?”

  Patrick didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t believe. He did, in fact, feel that Kelly was very right about this. Even worse, he was certain this wasn’t just some prediction with fair odds in its favor. This was more than neutral pessimism, because there was always something horrible looking to sink its teeth into any life unfortunate enough to wander too close.

  Something bad was going to happen, something with far-reaching consequences.

  Patrick believed it, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to break from what he knew to be true and authentic. Didn’t want to waltz into the void with Kelly McDermott, and he couldn’t bring himself to answer.

  “Because if you do believe me,” Kelly told him, “then you need to help me. Whether or not you believe that the Kelly McDermott sitting here is not the Kelly you once knew.”

  “Then I need you to listen to me,” Patrick insisted, standing up to face Kelly. “It doesn’t matter whether you came from twenty years in the future or five minutes from now. Nobody likes who they are, you understand?”

  “I like who I am just fine.”

  “Well, you’re a teenager now,” Patrick informed him. “And the only thing that matters is who you’re supposed to be. I want to figure out what’s going on as much as you, but until we do … You need to stick to script. Keep it as loose as you like, but you have a responsibility to the present.”

  “Meaning?”

  “At the very least, you have to play in that game tonight.” Patrick leaned close. “And you have to win.”

  Kelly stared up at him with a blank expression.

  For a moment, Patrick thought his lecture had turned him catatonic.

  He was about to wave a hand in front of his eyes, contemplated a crack across the face, when Kelly finally spoke: “Jenna can’t know.”

  Patrick stiffened. “Can’t know what?”

  “Jenna does not get involved in this,” Kelly ordered.

  “You can’t just keep Jenna out of this.”

  “When it comes to this, I can do a whole lot of whatever I please,” Kelly said. “You want me to march in rank and file, fine. But if something bad is going to happen, if I’m so determined to wreak havoc on the present, as you’ve so kindly pointed out—”

  “Kelly—”

  “If that is the case, I don’t want Jenna to end up hurt or dead!”

  “Oh!” Patrick raised his arms high. “And I guess it’s all right if that’s how I end up.”

  “Something tells me that we just might deserve it, Patrick.”

  Patrick lowered his arms, slowly.

  From behind him, he could hear the sound of the flag whipping briskly in a sudden, unexpected gust of wind.

  Kelly rose from his seat, nose to nose with Patrick.

  “Tell me what happened to Edmund.”

  elly and Patrick parked outside, looking up at the gray two-story house.

  The clock read 3:15.

  “This the right address?” Kelly asked, looking out the window.

  “Yeah, this is it.”

  The two of them sat for a while, waiting.

  Outside, trees lining the sidewalks of Unity Park sheltered them with a forgiving blanket of shade.

  “What if he’s got some kind of after-school thing?” Patrick asked.

  “I don’t think he does.”

  “The game starts at eight.”

  “Fuck the game …”

  “I know it’s hard trying to”—Patrick had to fight how ludicrous it sounded—“to live in the present, be this person you’re not. Anymore. But we still don’t know what any of this means. We don’t know why this is happening. Do we even know why we’re here?”

  “Because something bad is going to happen,” Kelly said grimly. “And Edmund’s the key.”

  “Oh, and you know this how?”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Yeah, you and I should start a club.”

  “And the rest of the world can join.” Kelly sighed as he glanced out the window, over to Edmund’s house. “Tell me, Patrick … How often do you hear of a tragedy anyone saw coming?”

  Patrick didn’t answer, innately aware of where this was going. Silent with misgivings and still unable to come to terms with a Kelly McDermott who would even touch upon such an issue.

  “It’s always after the fact, isn’t it?” Kelly turned back to Patrick. “Nobody sees it coming, but after the fact, oh sure; should’ve seen it coming. I know we can’t predict the future. And I know I can’t remember it, I know that I don’t know. But I can feel it.”

  Patrick briefly thought of all the prophets throughout history.

  It wasn’t about knowing, it never had been.

  “And even you have to admit, Patrick, the writing is on the wall,” Kelly said. “How surprised would you be—honestly surprised, if something horrible happened to Edmund. The boy’s carrying around a world of hurt, he’s unhinged, maybe desperate—”

  As Kelly spoke, Patrick thought back to that day out on the field. Edmund had switched from
hysterical tears to single-minded fury in the span of a few simple heartbeats. Bound against the flagpole, cords in his neck bulging, swearing his revenge.

  I’ll kill you all.

  “Wait, what are you saying?” Patrick interrupted. “You’re saying Eddie’s a psychopath?”

  Patrick was unprepared for Kelly’s palm, hardly even saw it. It smacked against his arm with enough force to throw him back against the passenger door. His head bounced off the window with the hollow sound of knuckles against an empty bottle.

  “Don’t call him that,” Kelly snapped, furious. He grabbed hold of Patrick’s arm, dug in tight. “He’s not a psychopath. Edmund is a depressed, lonely boy. He’s barely hanging on, and now he’s being blackmailed with a potentially humiliating photograph in the possession of someone who I consider to be, if I may be so bold, an actual psychopath.”

  Patrick could feel himself beginning to bruise under Kelly’s angry grip. “Kelly—”

  “I don’t know if something bad is going to happen to Edmund, but I should. Both of us should. Because we helped do this to him.”

  Kelly released Patrick from his grip and sunk back into his seat, scowling at the odometer.

  Patrick slowly reached up and rubbed his arm, in shock.

  “This could all mean nothing,” Kelly said, voice flat. “And maybe it’s all windmills in my mind. But even if I am jumping at shadows … It doesn’t mean we don’t owe him … If we can help Edmund, fix this mess we’ve made. What we did to that poor kid …”

  Kelly trailed off, and at the sight of his unapologetic lament, Patrick was instantly contaminated by it. Channeling the vile self-loathing like a lightning rod. His arm throbbed, as though everything that Kelly felt had been mainlined into him, a near overdose that forced him to look away. An elderly couple shuffled past the car, trying to make out Patrick’s face.

  “Are you disappointed in me?” Patrick asked. “That I could do something like that to another person?”

  “Surprised, I guess … I was just so positive you were the good one.”

  Patrick almost choked on Kelly’s words.

  “It’s all right.” Kelly put an arm around Patrick’s shoulder. Looked him right in the eye, a steely commitment rendered in bright blue. “It’s all right if you don’t believe me. You don’t have to for us to make this right. And we are. We’re going to fix this.”

  “Right now, looks like.” Patrick motioned past Kelly.

  Edmund was walking up to his house. Shoulders slumped beneath a blue book bag, eyes fixed on the concrete. Out of his pocket came a set of keys. He paused before the limestone steps leading up to the porch, a rumpled figurine in the shadow of an unwelcoming dollhouse.

  “Think he’s going to listen to us?” Patrick asked.

  Kelly’s only response was to open the door.

  The two of them made their way across the street, silently, like a couple of G-men. Unable to shake off damp images of Edmund’s pleading eyes, they held off for as long as they could. It wasn’t until they’d made it to the walkway that Kelly finally spoke.

  “Please don’t run, Edmund.”

  And to Patrick’s surprise, he didn’t.

  From the top of the steps, Edmund turned around and faced them. Unafraid. He disengaged his book bag and let it slide down his arm. Wrapped one of the straps around his hand and made a fist.

  That’s a weapon you’re looking at, Patrick’s angels warned. You know where he lives now.

  As if to respect this declaration of war, Kelly stepped forward with his arms outstretched.

  Palms open.

  Patrick remained as he was.

  “I know what I did now,” Kelly said. “Patrick told me.”

  Edmund stood his ground.

  “I don’t know why I would do something like that,” Kelly continued. “I wish I could say it’s all in the past, but here we are. You don’t have to accept my apology. You don’t have to accept either of our apologies right now. But, right now, I do need you to listen to me. And I need you to believe me.”

  When Edmund spoke, it was nothing short of a dare. “Why should I?”

  “Because I can help you,” Kelly told him. His conciliatory tone shifted to that of negotiation. “If you want to make this mercantile, that’s good enough for me. You don’t believe I’m sorry, then you’d better believe I can get you out of this…. Long as you’re willing to help me.”

  “So, I saw you and Cody fighting today,” Edmund in formed him.

  “I thought you seemed a bit more comfortable with me than you did this afternoon.”

  “I’ve got two bricks in my book bag….” His face compressed with a trembling, now very familiar rage. “That’s why I feel more comfortable talking to you.”

  “You do what you have to do.”

  “I’m really sick of you assholes….” The profanity faltered somewhat, as though Edmund were experimenting with it for the first time, though his fury was no less succinct. “I wish you’d killed Cody today.”

  “Help me out, and neither one of us will have to, Edmund.”

  Edmund relented a little, his grip around the strap loosening. “What do you need?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You’ve got three seconds.”

  “I’m from the future,” Kelly said plainly. “Twenty years in the future, and I need you to tell me how the hell that’s even possible.”

  Perhaps the statement was too outrageous to warrant a reaction. In the seconds that followed, that certainly seemed the case. Not a peep from Edmund. Not even a whisper of an emotion on his face. Even the birds had ceased their tea time gossip to swallow what Kelly had just announced.

  Without so much as the bat of an eyelash, Edmund turned around.

  Walked across the porch and unlocked the front door.

  Unaware he’d even been holding his breath, Patrick let it out, heart sinking.

  “Well?” Edmund walked back to the edge of the porch. He slung his bag over his shoulder, looked down on them with a superior impatience. “You guys coming or not?”

  The birds went back to their business, and Edmund motioned for them to follow.

  Just as Kelly was wrapping up his story, Edmund’s mother came in with a tray of brownies and lemonade.

  “Is this OK for you?” She stood at the entrance to Edmund’s room, shoulders practically filling the entire width of the doorway. Not that she was excessively fat, just thick. An opera singer’s body, dressed in hospital scrubs, name tag reading Rachel-Ann. Blond hair pulled back, accentuating the spherical dimensions of her face. A set of plucked eyebrows rested high on her forehead, large doe eyes sparkling with the desire to please. Her lips were moist with red lipstick, parted in a hopeful, servicing smile. “Eddie doesn’t get much company.”

  “Mom.” Edmund’s voice dropped low. His cheeks went red, jaw contorting as he twisted in his chair, knees banging uncomfortably against the side of his wide antique desk. “Please …”

  Rachel-Ann paused in the middle of the room, genuinely confused by her son’s sudden desperation. “What’s wrong, Eddie?”

  Patrick saw Edmund’s expression turn from embarrassed to plain miserable, words caught in his throat. It appeared as though Edmund never got any company, to the point where his mother had no idea how to behave in front of teenagers, and Edmund had no way of explaining just how awful things were already going.

  “Looks good,” Kelly piped up from his seat on the brown carpeted floor. He flashed a broad smile. “Brownies and lemonade are the only thing I eat some days.”

  “Oh, aren’t you sweet?” she cooed, Georgia accent thickening. She moved toward Edmund, who quickly removed a series of papers from his desk to make room for the tray. There must have been an entire pan’s worth of brownies there, though it didn’t stop her from letting them know: “If y’all want any more, just go ahead and ask…. I’m Rachel-Ann, by the way.”

  Edmund ushered her to the door. Rachel-Ann was attempting to compliment
Patrick’s suit when Edmund managed to get his mother over the threshold and gently close the door on her.

  He leaned against the wall, waiting for someone to make fun.

  “Well?” Kelly asked.

  “She’s just trying to be nice,” Edmund said defensively.

  Patrick, half-stretched out on the bed, decided against smiling.

  “I wasn’t talking about your mother,” Kelly assured. “I was talking about time travel.”

  “Right, OK …” Edmund moved back to his chair, keeping a suspicious eye on Kelly all the while. He sat and swiveled to face them, holding on to the armrests as though preparing for takeoff. “Time travel … This raises a couple of questions.”

  “Actually, I have one first,” Kelly said, raising his hand.

  Edmund nodded, still monitoring every move they made.

  “Are you just going to let everything I told you slide? I kind of figured this was going to end before it even got started, but you’re really going to accept it all? Just like that?”

  For a moment, Edmund’s face sagged with a recognizable dread. As though, at any moment, the closet door would open to reveal the entire football team, clutching their sides with uncontrollable, vicious laughter.

  Patrick was already preparing for Edmund to go for that bag of bricks.

  “I don’t have to believe you,” Edmund concluded. His fear was gone for the moment, replaced with a superior hostility. “Whether you’re completely insane or not doesn’t interest me. Very little about you interests me. I’m out for myself here, and if you want to know about time travel, I’ll tell you everything I know…. Which, I might add, is considerable.”

  “So is it even possible for a person to travel back in time?” Patrick asked, eager as Edmund to get the ball rolling, get it all over with.

  “No,” Edmund replied.

  Well, that was easy enough, Patrick’s angels said, smirking.