I snap my eyes shut at that last sentence, wishing I could hide from his reaction. I crack them open the tiniest bit and watch as his mouth forms an O to interject, but then he remembers his promise and clamps it shut.Okay, keep going.
“The first day we met, I stumbled upon this abandoned lighthouse accidentally and watched as a bolt of lightning came out of a clear sky and struck it. A bolt from the sky, or something like that, I think it’s called?’
“Bolt from the blue,” he says quietly.
My hazel eyes light up. “Yes! That.” I smile and take another breath. “Once that happened, I heard a voice and noises coming from the otherwise silent lighthouse. That’s when I went inside, because I was worried someone was hurt, and we met. You had said it was about to storm. I was so confused because on my side, it was a calm, sunny day.”
“Mhm,” is all I’m met with.
“Okay, this is where it gets strange,” I tell him. “Somehow, that bolt of lightning opened up some sort of portal with the red door of the lighthouse. And when I come through the door, I’m transported from my year, 2025, to your year, 1993.”
He’s silent. Silent and staring at me with an inquisitive look on his face. “And you know all of this because?”
“Do you know Iris Fable? She lives in town,” I ask.
His eyebrows rise a touch, as if he recognizes the name. “Everyone knows everyone in a town as small as mine. She mostly keeps to herself. Why?”
“Well, she told me all of this.”
“And you believed her?”Fair question.
“I-I think so,” I respond after taking a minute to really think over the question. “She came to me and shared a similar story that happened to her at this lighthouse. It started the same, with a lightning bolt that came out of a blue sky and hit the lighthouse?—”
“So, she just travelled back and forth in time through a magical red door?” he asks, one eyebrow raised and his arms crossed in front of him.
“I know how it sounds, but it all adds up. Why else do you think I’ve been so adamant that it’s 2025?”
“Because you hit your head and are suffering from a concussion?”
“I could say the same thing about you.” I laugh. “But now that she said it, things make a lot more sense to me. Almost like puzzle pieces coming together to create a picture. The decor here.” I motion to the surrounding space. “The fact that you don’t text or have a cellphone. You didn’t know what Wi-Fi was?—”
“I still don’t,” he retorts with a light chuckle.
“You kept thinking my outfits were strange?—”
“I’m used to them now, though.” A smile curves on his lips, and he takes in my outfit, pausing on my toned legs, which are now stretched out in front of him as we’ve been talking.
“Nothing I tried to bring over for you or from herepassed through. The notebook, the piece of paper with your phone number. I thought I was being forgetful, but Iris said that was true for her too.”
“Okay.”
“And when we went into Killick Bay together, the town felt so strange to me. Like we had gone back in time. And turns out, I think that’s the case.”
He stands up and walks around the living room, pacing back and forth. His hand runs through his long, wet hair. “You have to know how this all sounds, Lucy,” he finally says.
“I know. Trust me, I know. Think about it, though. Doesn’t it all seem a bit strange?”
“But we’ve gone outside together.”
“Yes, through the back door. Not the red door in the entryway. I don’t know why, but that makes a difference.”
“And if we both went through the red door now? Will I end up in 2025?”
“Yes, I think so. But according to Iris, it only works one way for you. If you come into 2025, that’s it. You don’t go back.”
“I’m sorry, Lucy, but this is ridiculous.” He looks frustrated right now. I get it. It makes absolutely no sense. “So you’re telling me I can’t just walk through that red door right now with you.”
“Not without getting stuck in my time, no.”
