Because You Exist by Tiffany Truitt Read Free Book Online Page B

frustration or even confusion; I sighed out of relief. “Me either. I don’t understand any of this. I keep replaying it all in my head. I mean that stuff seemed like it was out of some damn movie played...”
    “...on the Sci-Fi channel late at night?”
    I nodded. “How is something like this even possible? I mean was it a one time thing? Did we miss our chance to change it? How could we change it? We’re just teenagers”
    For some reason I felt my eyes begin to itch. I wildly thought of how easy and nice it would be to give into the fear. I wanted to lock myself and Jenna in my room and wait for it all to end. I was a screw-up, a joke, a high school athlete who would probably fulfill every stereotype ever written about my kind—I would end up fat, divorced, and working some piss poor job I hated.
    Whoever had chosen me must have wanted the world to end.
    My only hope of getting through this was the girl in front of me. The same girl who just admitted she had no idea what was going on either. The same girl the entire football team was convinced spent her afternoons cutting herself or fulfilling all my dark and deviant sexual needs.
    “I don’t know what of any of it means.”
    “Great.” I replied.
    “Would you rather we go back to talking time travel theories and pretending we have any control of this?” she asked.
    “Yeah. I’d rather we go back to that.”
    “All right. I brought you something else to watch.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    Josephine reached down in her bag and pulled out a copy of season one of Dr. Who .
    I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Thanks.”
    “No need to thank me Mr. Denial.”
    As I walked Josephine to her car, despite complaints she was strong enough to take care of herself and didn’t need my assistance, I couldn’t stop myself from asking: “Who are you trying to save?”
    “Myself,” she replied without any hesitation.
    “Well, it seems like we are immune to whatever sickness took the rest of them out. I think you make it.”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Oh,” I replied, standing awkwardly by her car.
    “Before I forget. Next time you feel a shift coming on, you might want to go to the restroom.”
    “Why?”
    “Because people will start to ask questions if you keep falling out of your seat in class and keep having massive nosebleeds. And I get the feeling we’re not really supposed to let other people know about this. Not that they would ever believe us.”
    Call it instinct, but I had the same feeling. This was our secret to keep.
    Chosen.
    Awesome.
    Lucky us.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 10
     
     
    Here’s the thing about time travel—it always occurs at the most inconvenient of times. I mean it doesn’t happen while you’re having an awkward conversation with Jamie from yearbook who no doubt has made a doll from your very own hair, but you have to be nice to her because if you don’t that picture of you with the booger hanging out of your nose will somehow make it in. It doesn’t happen when your uncle makes you go to dinner with Bob Flemming, a big booster club supporter, who insists on bringing his bimbo girlfriends to dinner who treat you like a kid despite only being a few years older than you. And it doesn’t happen when your girlfriend keeps trying to take advantage of you and your equipment just won’t work. No, despite the one time it saved me from Shakespeare, who I just don’t get why people go nutso over, time travel pretty much comes when you least expect or want it.
    The second time I felt the shift coming on was during football practice a few days after pretending to know anything about time travel at the Shell gas station. I almost didn’t make it to the bathroom in time before completely blacking out. I had gotten sacked in practice, and it took awhile to feel the effects of the shift work its way through the pain of getting my ass handed to me because my o-line couldn’t block worth a crap. Stumbling through a chorus