She approached cautiously. She was wearing sunglasses and her hair was up in a bun, making her look older and even more out of my league. “Are you better now?” she asked. “I just came to check on you.”

Could she be any nicer? How many times would I have to freak out on her before she left me alone? But I was glad she was persistent. I was so happy to see her it was only then I realized one of Nan’s silky white skivvies had landed on my foot. I plucked it off and said, “Yeah, thanks. Thanks for asking.”

“Whoa, you don’t look better. What happened to your eye?”

I’d almost forgotten about the run-in with Bryce, despite the constant sting where his fist had met my temple. I thought maybe she’d been lingering to witness it, so I was glad to learn that she hadn’t. And I really didn’t want to go over it again. “Nothing. Just a minor misunderstanding with a door.”

She raised her eyebrows and I knew right away she didn’t believe me. But she gave me a pass. “So how are you doing?”

She had that look, the one doctors gave to their patients who only had three months to live. Like I was a charity case. Right. That’s probably what I was to her. She felt guilty about what her grandmother had done to us, and this was her way of making it up to me. “Why do you keep asking me that?” I said.

“I just”—she shrugged—“care.”

“That’s warped. I’ve been a total jerkwad to you. You should be running in the other direction.” I looked away, toward the clothesline, then mumbled, “Save yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You saw something. Something with me? That’s why you don’t want to see me anymore. Right?”

She was inspecting the shells on the ground. So while she wasn’t looking, I quickly flung the undies back into the wicker basket. She raised her head just in time to see them make a safe landing and raised her eyebrows again but said nothing. I played it off by nodding and saying, really nonchalantly, “Yep.”

“Bad, huh? How bad?”

I was still trying to block her view of the basket. I gave her a smirk. “Terror, pain. Death, dismemberment. All that good stuff.”

“Really?” She gulped.

I expected her to make herself scarce, like I had when I found out. Instead, she just stood there. Staring, directly, at the row of boxers behind me. “This is the part where you run away, screaming,” I prompted after a minute.

“Is it?” She seemed reluctant to move. Almost like she liked the idea of dying.

“Yeah. Why? You don’t want to?”

“Well, I was just thinking. You can change it, right? You said your future changes all the time?”

“Sometimes. Not always. Like my mom says, fix one thing, another breaks. And sometimes you can’t fix things.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I told you. I only see part of things. If I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t fix it. And some things can’t be prevented.”

She frowned. “So what is it? A car accident?” I didn’t answer, but my face must have given it away. “Soon?”

“Pretty soon, I think.”

She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, my God. Not Beauty. I just got it, and my dad keeps getting on me because of what happened in Maine. He’ll kill me if I total my car!”

I waved her away with my hand. “So run away. Save yourself.”

But again she just stood there. I checked to see if she was growing roots under those pretty red toenails of hers. Then she just hoisted her bag over her shoulder. “I am not afraid,” she said.

I laughed. “You should be.”

“We can change it.”

I shrugged. “Not always. Not if we keep …” I stopped. Not if we keep running into each other. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t even want to suggest it. “Look. This is not your fault. You don’t have to be nice to me. If there’s anyone you should be able to say no to, I’m it. Why don’t you start practicing?” I exaggerated the word. “No. Say it with me.”

She just stared at me.

“And then you turn and walk away.”

“You really think that I’m bothering with you just because I feel guilty?”

I nodded. “Isn’t it?”

“No. I like you, Nick. When you’re not being weird, I like spending time with you. That’s the truth.”

I shook my head. “I’m never not weird.”

“That’s not true. We had a good time on the boardwalk.” She moved closer, so her next words were almost whispered. “And listen. You know things about me. Things that you never would have been able to find out about me if you were a total jerk, through and through. If you were that person, if that was truly who you were, I would have shut you out. But for some reason, in some version of the future, I let you in. I let you get close to me. Right? That proves to me that there is good in you.”

I considered it for a moment. “Maybe in that version of the future, you were stupid. Maybe you kept trying to convince yourself there was good in me, even though there wasn’t. I’ve done really stupid things in some of my futures. I know how to freebase coke,” I said, thinking of my short life in Vegas, married to the stripper. “That’s pretty stupid.”

She shook her head. “I know you’re pushing me away just because you’re trying to protect me. That’s a noble, good thing.”

I just stood there, unable to meet her eyes. Unable to meet the eyes of the one person on this earth who knew me better than I knew myself.

“And so your vision says we are going to be in a car accident. If that can’t change, if we are doomed to this future, then how can you know me so well? Maybe because we don’t die in it. Or maybe because that future isn’t set. Maybe seeing two different versions of the future. You just need to pick the right one. The one that doesn’t end in tragedy.”

It’s obvious she’d put a lot of thought into it, and she was probably right.

“All I am saying is that you don’t have to shut me out completely.”

“That would be taking a chance.” I swallowed and looked away. “I’m sick of taking chances.”

“But I’m not,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “Look. You said that touching me made you feel normal. Right?”

I sighed. “It’s a joke. I’m not normal.”

She frowned and started to speak again, but thankfully, just then, a car horn blared. She looked behind her nervously. “I do have to go.”

“So, go,” I said, surprised at how gruff I could be. I wondered if it would be the last time I’d ever see her. If so, I wouldn’t blame her. That would be the smart thing to do.

But that would kill me. In other ways.

She turned and walked back down the path, her head lowered. I felt this weird sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, like a hole inside of me gaping open. I reached down to pick up the wicker basket and when I stood up, I saw a car speeding away from the house, a red convertible. Sphincter’s Mustang. Two blond heads, a his and a hers, poked out from the front seat. Sphincter and Taryn. Taryn and Sphincter. No, he didn’t have his arm around her and her head wasn’t nestled on his shoulder, but in my mind, as soon as the car turned the next corner, it would be.

That wasn’t the future. That was just me.

Being paranoid.

Being a sucker.

Watching the best thing I’d ever had, in any of my lifetimes, moving farther and farther away.

When I got back upstairs, the hole in the pit of my stomach had grown to a canyon. That would have happened anyway after hanging rows of silky underpants on the line, but I felt even worse because of Taryn. Sphincter was parading around with my girl, and I was hanging my mom’s and grandmother’s underclothes. Something was wrong with this picture. I started thinking there was no way that what I saw with Taryn—me kissing her, being with her—could be real. After all, she had Sphincter, who was, looking at the way hot girls hung on his every word, the highest goal one could aspire to in the game of love. She had Mount Everest. I was just irrevocably and unequivocally too lame for her. The Grand Canyon of Lame.