Autumn's Wish by Bella Thorne Read Free Book Online Page B

with Schmidt on my lap and sit with her while she eats. She’s totally impressed when I tell her about my new SAT date and prep class; then she fills me in on all the construction drama at the new Catches Falls branch.
    The whole time we talk, there’s a question I’m dying to ask, but it’s so the kind of thing I never thought I’d say to my mom that I can’t imagine getting the words past my tongue. I have to stare down at her pizza and address the question to her uneaten crust rather than to her face.
    “Mom…have you thought about…I mean, are you…” Ugh, even asking the crust is hard. I close my eyes and blurt it out. “You’re not dating anyone, are you?”
    Mom chokes on her soda.
    “No!” she says. “Autumn, what would make you even ask that?”
    Other than seeing her get married? “I don’t know, I just…” Inspiration! “I had this weird dream that you were getting married again and—”
    I don’t mean to well up. I don’t. I honestly have no idea it’s coming. It’s just that I see her in my head in that wedding dress with that strange guy, and from where I’m sitting I can see my mom and dad’s
real
wedding picture on the coffee table in the other room, and the next thing I know I’m starting to cry and Schmidt’s licking my face and Mom’s running around to sit next to me and put her arm around my shoulders.
    “Oh, baby,” she says. “It’s okay.”
    “I’m sorry.” I sniff. “I don’t know why I was thinking about it—”
    I sob and Mom rubs my back.
    “It’s normal,” she says. “It’s totally normal to wonder about that. But look at me, Autumn.”
    I meet her eyes. They’re reaching out to mine, full of strength and certainty.
    “Your father was the love of my life. There’s no one else, and I’m not looking for anyone else. I have you, I have Erick, I have Schmidt and Eddy and my work and my friends….My life is full. Okay?”
    I sniff again, and nod.
    Later, while I’m brushing my teeth, I wonder if I already changed the future. I didn’t do anything big, just signed up for a test and a class and had a couple conversations, but maybe it was enough. When I get back to my room, I yank on the chain and pull the locket out from under my shirt. I open it and make sure it’s still set for my mother’s potential wedding day, but before I can snap it shut, I notice something.
    The little number in the top window—the one that used to show a 10—now shows a 9. I can’t imagine why. None of the other numbers in the locket have moved, and this one doesn’t even have a dial next to it. The number changed all by itself, sometime after I made that first jump.
    Chills crawl over my skin as I realize what it means.
    “It’s a countdown,” I whisper.
    It has to be. It was at 10, I made one jump, and now it’s at 9.
    The locket isn’t like the diary or the map. I can’t use it as much as I want. I have ten jumps and that’s it.
    I decide not to jump again just yet. If my jumps are limited, I need to use them more carefully. I need to accomplish more in the present before I check back in on the future. I need to make sure my life can’t possibly turn out the way I saw.
    On Monday I harass Erick to speed up his morning grooming routine—which these days takes
way
longer than my own—so Mom can drive us both to school early and I can visit the guidance counselor before classes start.
    “Ms. Falls!” he cries when he sees me, and springs up from the largest beanbag chair in the office. Mr. Winthrop had some kind of epiphany over the summer, I guess, and decided he’d get more guidance customers if he became a “cool” teacher. For him that meant ditching his desk and chair and replacing them with an assortment of beanbags, a thick plushy rug, and a giant chalkboard where anyone who comes in can scribble down whatever’s on their mind. As far as I know, Jack and J.J. are the only people who use the board. They sneak in whenever Mr. Winthrop isn’t there