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“Times are not what they used to be,” he said in a raised voice so Jesse could hear him from wherever he was.
He came back with a laptop in his hand. “True that. When I was a kid, I was able to play outside with my friends. Can’t do that anymore these days." He placed the laptop on the coffee table in front of them. "Let’s see. When did that guy hit you?”
Liam and Isabella stared at each other. “About three weeks ago,” said Liam. Jesse opened a tab and logged into his doorbell online account.
“We should be good then. They save all the footage for sixty days. So…" He browsed over a plethora of videos. "That would have been Tuesday then?”
“Thursday. It happened on Thursday,” Liam said, tensing his muscles. He felt a tingle in his fingers like he always did when he was nervous. A habit straight out of the military. All the 'What ifs'were running through his head again. Isabella was obviously anxious as well. He felt her leg judder against his.
Jesse pulled up a list of dates and clicked on a video titledThursday, 11/03. The screen of the laptop played a video of the street that started at the early morning hours of that day. “This must be it. Any idea what time it happened?”
“Probably right before midnight,” Liam said.
“Ok.” Jesse fast-forwarded through the daytime footage. Isabella was now holding onto Liam’s arm, fingers buried onto his skin, eyes glued to the screen. His other hand reached out to give hers a gentle squeeze. No matter what they found out from this, he'd be there for her.
And in an instant, on the pitch-black screen during midnight, a car zoomed in, spreading daylight into the night, and suddenly stopped with a woman laid on the ground in front of it. They saw the entire incident in a blink of an eye.
“Wait! There it is. Go back,” Liam shouted, holding his breath.
Jesse rewound the video and stopped at around 11.35 PM. For the first few seconds, there was absolutely nothing to see. It was an empty street lit up by street lanterns. Then, all of a sudden, a red-haired woman with a long dress walked onto the street.
“Who is that?” Liam asked.
“I—I have absolutely no idea,” Isabella's voice trembled. Both of them leaned closer to the screen, their faces now inches away from it.
The woman stopped in the middle of the road, seemingly starring at something on the ground. Then she bent over, reaching for something.
“What is she doing?” Jesse asked now as curious as Liam and Isabella. “I don’t know. It looks like she's picking up something—”
“THERE!” Isabella shouted, pointing at Liam’s car pulling around the corner. It was clearly him. His headlights lit up the whole street, putting the unknown red-haired woman into the bright spotlight. She was very attractive and must have been in her early thirties. But just right there and then, the video flickered, with an audible and somewhat painful white noise that made all of them squint. The next clear picture showed Liam holding Isabella. All three stared at the laptop with their mouths wide open.
“What the hell was that?” Jesse was the first to ask.
He rewound the video to the same spot where the unknown woman appeared. Liam was frozen, Isabella's arms folded onto herself, hugging herself with her fingernails breaking into her skin. They watched the scene again, but the footage remained the same, with the exact identical order of events. An unknown red-haired woman stood in the middle of the road bending over, Liam’s car pulled into the street, the footage flickered followed by that irritating white noise, before finally being presented with Liam holding Isabella in front of his car. The mysterious woman was nowhere to be found.
“I—I d-don’t understand—” Liam stuttered, then noticed Isabella was squeezing all the blood out from her arm. He held her wrist to calm her down.
Jesse stood up abruptly and turned toward the two of them. “What kind of a sick joke is this? What's going on here?”
Isabella managed to tear her gaze away from the laptop. “I don’t know,” she answered, wildly shaking her head in disarray.
“That man in the video is clearly you!" Jesse aggressively pointed at Liam. "You're the asshole who hit her. And what did you do to the other woman?” He shouted in a threatening voice.
“What?!” Liam jumped up from his seat. He knew that the video would reveal him as the driver at some point, which would inevitably lead to confusion, but by no means did he ever imagine it would make him look like a kidnapper of someone whom he had never even met. Even worse, this incomprehensible footage meant he was the last person to see this red-haired woman before she magically vanished into thin air, leaving an unconscious Isabella behind.
“I didn’t do anything to her! I don’t even know this woman!” He stood there with nothing more to say, utterly speechless. Isabella got up as well.
“It’s true, we have never met this woman,” she said with a trembling voice, pointing at the screen. Jesse took a step back, separating himself from the two.
“Why the hell would you even want to see a video that showed you hitting someone with a car?” His statement made Liam look like an idiot. But Jesse didn’t even begin to scratch the surface as to why he was so desperate to see this footage. It was supposed to prove a point. To find some clarity. To end all confusion about time travel.
“Listen, we are terribly sorry for all of this. But we just wanted to see if the car actually hit her.” Everything sounded totally unbelievable. It was time to go.
“Wait a minute… Are you the creep in black?!” Jesse took a step toward Liam. His fists clenched and ready.
“Jesus! No! If you watch the whole video you'll see that I’m actually the guy who beats him up!”
“It’s true, he saved me.” Isabella said stepping in front of Liam as if she was defending him.
