Renner coughs. “What party?”
“My mom’s coworker mentioned it,” I grumble.
“Ollie and Lainey are hosting. Everyone’s going,” Nori says, buzzing with excitement.
“Who’severyone?” I ask, hesitant.
“Literally everyone. Even your mom. Trust, I tried to steer you away from a family-oriented party toward the genitals-and-strippers variety. But you two were very insistent on keeping things wholesome to preserve your reputations as educators and community leaders.”
Renner rolls his eyes, resting his hands behind his head. “Sounds like Char.”
Nori ignores him. “Like I said, everyone is going. Including you two, obviously.”
I shake my head and stand up. “No. We’re not going. At least,I’mnot going. Tell Ollie we have to cancel.”
She gives me an icy look. “You’re notnotgoing to your own bachelorette.”
“We’re not getting married. We have to call it off.”
She looks at me like I’m a Martian. “After all the hours we spent designing invitations and place cards? No way! Besides, guests are coming from out of town and your parents will be so upset.”
“Let them be upset. We’re not getting married, period,” I say stubbornly.
Renner nods in agreement.
That’s probably the first thing we’ve ever wholeheartedly agreed on.
TWELVE
Before Nori leaves, she crafts a “foolproof” plan. Renner and I will go to school (otherwise known as work) and re-create the ladder fall in the gym in hopes of somehow propelling ourselves back to seventeen.
“Purposely chucking myself off a ladder is the opposite of foolproof,” I point out, already wincing from the phantom pain. Though ... at least it’s a plan. And it’s the only thing that remotely makes sense.
Nori ignores my reluctance. “Make sure to do it in the exact same place, exactly the same way. I bet my left boob you’ll wake up back in 2024.” She pauses, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, and if it works, you have to tell my seventeen-year-old self not to cut my own bangs before college. It wasn’t a good look.”
“And if it doesn’t work? What if we’re still stuck here in 2037?” Renner asks, a desperate look on his face.
“You have to come to your joint bachelor/bachelorette at Ollie’s tonight and pretend everything is normal until we find out what’s going on,” she says, not blinking. “I’m not letting your underdeveloped teen brains ruin your adult lives. Besides, maybe seeing more people you know will help spark your memories.”
Doubtful.
Re-creating the ladder fall sounds ridiculous, but what other option do we have? I’m willing to do anything to save my future self from making the biggest mistake of my life.
“You’re delusional if you think you’re driving,” Renner says, nudging me away from the driver’s side as I stride toward the car, fob in hand, channeling Vin Diesel inThe Fast and the Furious.
“Why not? I have a license. See?” I pull my perfectly legitimate driver’s license from my bag and brandish it in his face. Believe it or not, I passed my driver’s test somewhere along the way. I truly don’t know how it happened, but I’m damn proud. Besides, if future me has a cool, sleek, futuristic car, I’m not passing up an opportunity to take it for a joyride. There have to be some perks for being robbed of my youth and forced to marry Renner.
He leans in, scrutinizing it like an eighty-five-year-old with cataracts. “Char, you’re a liability on the road.”
I shove the ID back in my purse but keep the fob tight. “I am not. You can’t hold one tiny incident against me. Lots of people fail their driver’s test. You’re unfairly targeting me because I’m an Asian woman.” Yes, I’m aware I’ve perpetuated the ridiculous stereotype that Asian women can’t drive. I’m not proud of it.
He levels me with his look, running a hand through his hair, exasperated. “First, this has nothing to do with stereotypes. I’m going by the facts. It wasn’t just one incident, it was multiple. We were in the same driver’s ed class. And if I remember correctly, you almost backed over a pregnant woman.”
“You’re being so dramatic. I merely tapped her. She walked away without a scratch. And maybe she should look where she’s going before she walks into a car.”
He tosses his hands in the air and heads for the passenger side. “Fine. Drive. Maybe you’ll kill us and put us out of our misery,” he adds.
To be fair, our “relationship” is flat-out insufferable. Not that I expected anything less. I’ve tried to give him some grace after his parents’ divorce bomb. But it’s proving a herculean task. We’ve beenbickering all morning, ever since he used all the hot water, claiming he needed extra time to wash his beard. He also ate the last piece of bread in our pantry without even asking if I wanted half. If my future entails living with a man with the emotional intelligence of a ten-year-old, I don’t want any part of it.
