Warp Read online

  Warp

  A Novella, by Nat Fladager

  Text Copyright ©Natalie Fladager

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  1

  I sit in Mr. McMyer’s biology class ignoring his lecture, twisting my scrunchie around my wrist and staring at the back of Chase’s yellow head. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him.

  I’ve been hopping around my twenties a lot lately, with a few eighteens and nineteens thrown into the mix. I’ve been elsewhere, both in proximity and time. But today I woke up fourteen.

  It took me twenty minutes to readjust from adult to child, longer than usual but nothing like it used to be. Nowadays, I find my footing quickly, and sometimes, easily. I acclimated to my younger senses and tastes in things, my baby tee’s and Pop-Tart craving. By the time I arrived at Junior High, my teenage crush for Chase had reemerged out from under me.

  I notice the stripes on his shirt, the slouch in his seat, the particular inflection when he clears his throat. I feel both miserable and elated to be in the same room with him, with just five desks keeping us apart. So much will happen that he doesn’t know about. He doesn’t have the faintest idea. He doesn’t even know he will one day like me back, let alone break my heart.

  Class lets out and I sit still waiting for Chase to pass by me. When he passes me by, he stops and looks behind him and offers me a closed-mouth smile. I smile back. We were friends here, nothing else. We are friends here, nothing more, and nothing less.

  2

  It’s weird that I time travel. I’m weird. But it’s not my fault, at least, I don’t think it is.

  One day, it just started and hasn’t stopped since. I don’t know how long I’ve been inside of “Warp”, the ethereal being that kidnapped me, but it’s been long enough for me to go through all stages of grief.

  At first, I was scared to death. I could barely function as I leapt from one age to another, seeing bits and pieces of my life I wasn’t supposed to yet see. Gradually, that fear turned into anger and frustration. I was left to watch my peers live normally through Warp-colored glasses while I drifted back and forth, a literal young adult. But eventually, I grew sad. I saw Chase fall in and out of love with me, into other girls, and toy with my emotions. And while I watched our relationship unfold, I found that I had formed another.

  Not only do I have to deal with the social pains Warp has created, but also, the physical effects. Colors have begun to fade. Red is now a watered-down pink and Chase’s eyes are only bluish. My senses have dulled alongside my sight. I no longer notice paper cuts or bruises and a mosquito bite doesn’t itch. I keep hoping for a silver lining. Maybe I will be able to fly or become telepathic or make the world a better place but there are no such things as silver linings inside of Warp.

  I try to cheat it. I stay up as long as I can until I pass out at my desk or while walking across the street. I’ve woken up in the hospital several times but the doctors never find anything wrong. Time warps are undetectable. All I know is that every time I fall asleep, tomorrow won’t be tomorrow.

  3

  When Micah used to kiss me, I used to think about kissing Chase. That is how I coped with being twenty-three, employed as a paint instructor at some franchise miles away from home, and in a serious relationship with a man I’ve seen a handful of times. I would shut my eyes, pretend I was cool with my situation and think about how it felt when Chase’s cheek pressed against mine, like the fuzz of a peach gently irritating my skin. Of course, it’s barely fuzzy anymore, but I can still recall how it once was.

  Now, when Micah kisses me, I try not to think about Chase and sometimes, I don’t. I focus on Micah, the person I seem to have ended up with, at least for now. I haven’t seen very far but each day edges me forward more and more, and yet, I always swing backwards, and that is the reason I can’t move on and the reason I am still in love with Chase and not Micah.

  4

  My phone wakes me up in the middle of the night. “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hi me.” I recognize older Chase. I am drowsy and previously a kid.

  “I’m sorry to call,” he slurs. “Are you home?”

  I gather my knees into my chest and gaze around my old bedroom. “It’s okay. And yes, I am."

  The trickle of rain is coming through on his end more than out my window. I can hear him swallow, taking gulps from a bottle. “I know I shouldn’t want to see you,” eventually he discloses. “It’s just sometimes, I still do.”

  My heart drops and races all at once. I never know what to expect.

  “You’re funny and sweet,” he compliments, sweeping me into his orbit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nowhere. My place.”

  He is at his apartment over on Birch, the tiny but immaculate loft I’ve visited the few times I’ve been invited, or rather, lured. I gather my sundress from the floor. My belly fills with butterflies. I leave my shoelaces untied. “I’m on my way.”

  5

  Micah says he is taking me out dancing tonight. “I don’t feel like dancing,” I tell him. “Yes you do”, he rebuttals. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  Two beers deep and an upbeat Alabama song and I am on the dancefloor. In Micah’s long arms. He twirls me around and grins. I hate that he knows the songs I like and the Stella to order. I hate that his dimples are darling and that I laugh at his jokes. I hate that he’s going to pull me close and tell me he loves me. I hate it because I like that he does and I’m scared that, deep down, I do too.

  “I need some fresh air,” I excuse myself from our entanglement and escape outside. He stays put for a few minutes to let me mull things over, as I often say I need to do. Ever since the day I woke up to him, to his, I mean our, house on Bainbridge Island, to my socks mingled with his socks in the top drawer of the dresser, I have needed a moment alone. To absorb it. To process that this person is also me. That somehow, along the way, I became her and wanted him.

  “It’s cold.” Micah joins me eventually. He lights up a Marlboro and I watch the smoke drift into the sky.

  “I’m not cold.”

  “No?”

  I shrug.

  “Hailey.” He calls me.

  “Yes?”

  “Get out of that head of yours and into the present. It’s much nicer here.”

  I am not sure about that but I don’t tell Micah about my vacillation. Instead, I allow him to come by my side and rub my bare arms. “Warmer?” he asks, holding me.

  I nod against his chin. “A little.”

  6

  When we were kids we would exchange Valentines at school in shoeboxes. At first, our parents helped us remember all the kid’s names, but then we got older and we knew all our classmates, especially the ones we liked the most.

&nbs
p; I liked Chase Morgan and in fourth grade, I told him that I thought he was amazing on my Jurassic Park Valentine, the one with the T-Rex. He never said anything and his Valentine to me was generic. To Hailey, it read in Sharpie. Happy Valentine’s Day. Chase.

  I waited every year for him to like me back. There were rumors of who he had a crush on and I was never the one. But there were also instances where I thought I was. And then one day, it happened. I woke up and I was sixteen and Chase met me at my front lawn. He took my hand and we walked to school, our fingers interlaced. I was stunned but I walked steady, one foot in front of the other, keeping pace with his, our shadows one.

  He had picked a snapdragon from the bush in front of my house and puppeteered it to make jokes. And then he pinched it and opened its flower mouth and made it say, “I love you.” I looked at the flower and told it I loved it back.

  7

  I figure I shouldn’t say anything to anyone about Warp. What would my parents think? What would they do? Chase would only love me less. He would think I’m insane and I probably am.

  That being said, I’ve had slip-ups.

  This one time, I told my friend Julie she dyed her hair purple when she got older. I corrected myself and told her I thought she would look pretty with purple hair. It was too late at that point. I am sure I am the reason she went periwinkle.

  When I traveled to nineteen, I was in college, at the University of Oregon, and somehow I blended in. I interacted as a college kid, was good at beer pong and aced calculus. It’s as though, all the days I missed living through still lived through me. Time didn’t skip me. I just skipped time.

  I would return to a kid and suddenly I knew all this stuff. For a while I showcased my hidden talents until I got too much attention and I shut it down. I couldn't just use my powers willy nilly, if I could even call them that.

  Sometimes, I drift back and forth on a short rope, the Monday of one week to the Thursday of the same week. And other times, I fall asleep and wake up years away.

  Once, I woke to my wedding day. My dress was silky and thin and my toenails freshly painted. A bunch of daisies sat on my vanity and I stared at their dark centers as I sat and waited, afraid to find out who I was or was not marrying. By the time that my dad came to walk me down the aisle, I was overwhelmed. “Oh dad.” I reached for him. “I think I’m going to pass out.” And I did. And I was fifteen, not even old enough to get married.

  I’ve spent hours in the university library with my head buried in thick books about String Theory and Einstein, grappling for answers to this incomprehensible disease. I even found a guru who lived off the beaten path by means of Ask Jeeves in the ninth grade. Anonymously, I went to see him and found that his concept of time travel had nothing to do with skipping chunks of his life and everything to do with the potent “tea” he drank four times a day.

  I swear Warp teases me, dangling me in front of my biggest desire and plucking me out of it just as meanly. Perhaps, the reason I haven’t seen past twenty-three is because I don’t last long. Maybe I commit suicide from one to many hops or from heartbreak. I need to find a way out, back to my linear life, but how can I do that when I have no clue how I got lost.

  8

  It’s past midnight when we all walk to Rhino Park. I can tell it’s hot out from how Chase’s t-shirt clings to his back. Our flip flops pitter patter against the sidewalks, harmonizing with the buzz of cicadas.

  “Your turn, Hailey,” Julie passes me the baton.

  Chase turns to the circle. His hands in his pockets, his hair contrasting against the dark sky, overgrown and wispy. It’s my turn to play truth or dare. I consider my options.

  The last time I saw Chase was two days ago and it was prom. I had gotten ready, thinking we were going together, but he never picked me up. I walked to the high school alone, saddened by my bare wrist where his corsage would have been. He played on stage with his band, Loch Ness Monster, and I sang along in the back of the Warp-less crowd. Later, Julie mentioned to me that we had been broken up for two weeks and I had to act like I knew this.

  “Come on, we don’t have all night,” Julie pressures me. She hands me the bottle of vodka we are all sharing and I take a swig.

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and sit on a swing. “I dare Chase to kiss me.” In his reality, we never have, even if we’ve done more than that in mine.

  Without a word, Chase takes three giants steps towards me. He holds onto the swing’s chains and slowly makes his way in until his lips meet mine.

  “Nicely done.” Julie claps us out of bliss. Chase gives me a push on the swing then walks backwards to group.

  I let the swing settle to a stop and press my hand over my racing heart. It never gets old, falling in love with Chase, and I do it over and over again.

  9

  My mom shivers in the early morning while we finish packing the rental car. She’s still in her slippers and robe after getting me up at five and telling me it was time to go.

  “Are you sure you want to drive up alone?” she asks.

  I twirl my daisy ring around my finger, like I do when I’m agitated. We had scrambled eggs in the dark and I learned I was moving out and headed to the Pacific Northwest, a place I’ve been living all along. “I’ll be fine,” I reply because I would break down if she came along.

  She hugs me and tosses my stuffed dolphin in the backseat. “I know you need to be independent.” She tears up. “Call me when you get there, okay?”

  “Okay.” I hold back tears of my own. I don’t want to go. I don’t really want to have gone.

  “You should reach Seattle by seven if you take a lunch break. Is Rachel expecting you?”

  Rachel was/is my roommate in college and also my roommate in Seattle. Her parent’s own the seafood restaurant I first worked at before they fired me for being late too many times and I got a job at the paint and wine place with my art degree. “I’m sure she is.”

  I scanned my dawn-dusted surroundings. I’m leaving everything behind. The streets and their curves, the citrus trees, the old houses and the young people inside the houses, everything I thought I cherished. I wonder where Chase is and if he knows I am going.

  Reluctantly, I get into the car and roll down the window. “Say goodbye to dad for me,” I request because he’s not here. I try to act my age but it’s difficult.

  “I will.” My mom smoothes my cowlick flat. “Drive safe.”

  I roll up the window and start the engine. I could resist. I could stay instead of go, mess with Warp. But I’m too chicken. I’m afraid I could make things worse. If destiny is a real thing, I don’t believe it pertains to my twisted reality, just the one I am no longer a part of.

  10

  “How was your day?”

  Micah’s trench coat is sought by the wind blasting us on the ferry. He cracks a sunflower seed between his teeth and spits the shell into the sea.

  “Pretty good.”

  I take a seed and suck on the salt. Micah works at the Aeronautics Department at UOW. I found that out the third time I saw him, along with the discovery that we were living together, something my mom and dad lectured me was wrong to do when I was growing up. He’s older than me by a few years and originally from Wyoming. He’s an only child and his dad passed away when he was a boy. I don’t know how we met or how we got to be together or why he likes me.

  “How about you?” I bundle my sweater over my chest. “How was your day?”

  “Great. Subbed for Thermodynamics and collaborated with Bryan on our project.”

  “What’s your project again?”

  “It’s nothing yet. Nothing interesting at least. I’ll tell you when it is.”

  Micah takes out a book from the big pocket on the bottom of his coat. It’s a small paperback. He always has a book to read and its usually science fiction. He’s a nerd. I fully admit that. I can imagine Micah back in middle school, gangly and adorable, playing Tetris on his Gameboy, in the same trench coat. I wonder how it wo
uld have been if I had known him first. If it was him who lived down the street from me. If he would bring me an orange from his orange tree and let me ride his skateboard after months of longingly watching him cruise down Sycamore.

  “Pizza and beer tonight?” He asks while reading. He loops his free arm around my waist and pulls me near.

  I like this part, where I can be an adult and eat pizza every day and drink beer without sneaking it out from the garage fridge. I also like the part where Micah captures me and I fit perfectly into the swoopy groove of his torso. Maybe it’s better like this, with having Chase first and Micah last.

  11

  When I was five, I went through a bout of sleepwalking. My mom found me several times in the living room watching Nick at Night but when she caught my attention, I had no recollection. At one point, I decided to take a stroll around the block and naturally, this sent my mother into hysteria. The doctor said it was brought on by stress and to make sure I was tucked-in securely until the episodes based.

  I have not (that I know of) sleepwalked since. Until last night.

  I awoke with a bowl of soggy Fruity Pebbles in my lap and Chase sitting across from me.

  “Hailey, did you hear what I said?” Chase repeated something wearily. He had on boxers and a Sharks t-shirt. His feet were bare. I looked down at my own and saw that they were laced in high tops.

  “What?”

  Chase yawned. I caught his yawn and yawned too. “We can’t just pretend like we are together. Because we aren’t.”

  “What time is it?” I asked, dismissing his speech.

  “Three twenty.”

  “AM?”

  “Yes. Hailey, come on. Did you even hear what I said?”

  Somewhere in-between hopping and waking, I began to sleepwalk. I must have trodden over to Chase’s place in the wee hours, my unconscious state keen to misbehave.

  “I hear you,” I finally relented, snapping into place. “I’m sorry I came here.” I stared across the table at him. “I just thought it would help.”