Parallel: The Secret Life of Jordan McKay (25 page)

Told By Dr. Ashcroft

August 2, 2009

10:39 a.m.

My hands were splayed across the desk as I looked at the picture that hung above my head. Why was this so hard to do? Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hands and opened the file drawer, knowing this was the last place I hadn’t yet looked. I pushed back the files, revealing the journal as I gazed upon it with both guilt and wonder. With a nervous hand I reached down and grabbed it, slowly pulling it from the drawers depths. I knew he had it hidden somewhere, but why? What about her files couldn’t I read?

That day in the kitchen when I read what I could of the one entry, something had sparked my interest. This wasn’t just any journal, but something more; and I needed to know what that was. I looked over my shoulder toward the door, anxiety running like sand through every vein.

I only had a few stolen moments to look at it before Jordan would be done with his shower and come looking for me. At times I wished he’d had a job so that I could sneak around more often, but in his world, with his luck, he didn’t need any.

I had known for a while now that there was something going on beyond our simple life. It was hard to know what it was, but I knew him well enough to know that his interest in my dreams was not completely out of concern for me. I flipped open the cover and took a deep breath, searching for the page I had begun reading that day in the kitchen. As I shuffled through, I found that nothing was in order and I figured it was from when they’d been sprawled on the floor. Finally, I saw that each page had also been numbered and was in fact, in order.
Out of order but in order?
I asked myself, trying to make sense of it.

Furrowing my brow, I flipped to the back where I found two birth certificates and a death certificate. The death certificate was his mother’s, along with one of the birth certificates, the other belonging to Jordan. There were a few pictures tucked into the back flap as well and I pulled them out, suddenly shocked by the face staring back at me, a face I had almost forgotten.

His mother had a sweet innocent smile and fair skin, her hair long and black as it lay in a braid down her chest, accentuating her dark brown eyes. She was in a hospital bed, her body already frail. Her looks were breathtaking, but it hadn’t been her that had shocked me, it was Jordan. Though he had told me about that day in the park when we were young, I had forgotten his face. The face that I saw in the image now, however, brought me back.

I gasped, bringing my hand to my mouth. Not only did his face bring me back to that day, but it was also the one that had haunted me for so long. It was the face from my dreams, the face of the man, the boy. Only now had I been able to see it, only now was I able to finally put the pieces together. I felt my heart racing harder with each blink, seeing the boy that had manifested himself in my dreams, growing up alongside me like a shadow.

It was him, it had to be. I was right to assume it, all along. But why was it that I could see this boy, Jordan, as though he were my best friend? Especially when I had no way of knowing what he had looked like growing up? Outside of my dreams in my everyday life, I did not know him like this. There was only that one meeting in the park when I was four, and no one remembers when they were four.

I was shaking now, my cheeks becoming flushed. Wanting to know more, I flipped to the next photo in the stack, reading the inscription, “Boston Orphanage 1994.” I felt my heart stop as I looked into the face of the boy on the bus from grade school.

“No,
no
…” I whispered. I put my hand to my head, shaking it in disbelief. “Him too…
That was him too
?”

I thought back to my life in grade school and the excitement I had felt that day when that cute, mysterious boy, had sat next to me on the bus. I had long wondered what had happened to him, finding that though he had moved into the neighborhood as he had claimed…

A wave of nausea washed over me as it often did since I’d gotten pregnant, though this time it wasn’t from the pregnancy, but from the rush of memories and what they meant. My mind was trying to refuse seeing the obvious; dreams I had repressed and denied for so long were now flooding my thoughts, gaining power over my entire body. The boy on the bus had claimed to be living in the green house down the lane, this house, just as Jordan had claimed when he was also the boy in the park.

I pushed the book to the side as I grabbed for the garbage can just in time to throw up. There was no denying it any longer. What I always knew was true. Coughing, I didn’t hear as the door to the room creaked open and Jordan stepped in.

“Kenzie are you alright?” His voice sounded frantic.

I reached for a tissue off the desk and wiped my mouth, looking up at him, my stomach cramping. He was looking at me with concern, but I saw the way his face changed as he noticed the book in my lap.

What I couldn’t understand is why my memory of him at this age seemed to cross over, from my dreams to my reality, as though he had traveled into both like a phantom. I grabbed for the garbage can, taking deep breaths.

“Kenzie, you need to calm down, you’ll make yourself sick.” Jordan knelt to the ground, lifting his hand to place it on my back, but I swatted it away.

“I think it’s a little late for that, Jordan.” I shook the photo in my hand. “This, Jordan. What is this? Why do I know you more than just from in the park? Why do I know your face so well, as though I’d watched you grow up? Why are you the boy from my dreams?” The questions poured from my mouth without control. I looked to the floor, concentrating on the weave of the carpet, trying to calm down. My eyes were watering and everything was blurred. I swallowed hard, pressing back the feeling of nausea.

Jordan lifted my chin with his hand, looking me in the eyes. “Kenzie, don’t you ever wonder why you know me, then and now?”

I grumbled and sat back. “Don’t you think that’s exactly what I’m doing now?” I crossed my arms against my chest as the stomach acid burned through my esophagus.

“But did you wonder before today?”

I let a sharp breath pass my lips as I grabbed my cup of juice from the desk and took a sip. “Yes, of course I did.” I set the glass back with a clank. “I was too afraid of the answer to ever ask, so I never pried.”

He slid the book from my lap and brought it into his. “This is complicated but…”

“You are the man from my dreams, aren’t you? Except, you know them, too. You know exactly what I’ve dreamt.” My eyes stung with betrayal, but also a sense that I was finally getting some clarity. “You’ve been playing me the fool.”

He swallowed hard. “Kenzie, I…” I could tell he felt guilty. “I know about the day we met on the bus. I remember it all like it was yesterday.” He flipped through the pages, handing it to me and pointing. “See here.”

The page was dated
May 21, 2009
at
9:34 p.m.
I skimmed over the entry, my mind remembering every moment we had shared when I had found him lost on the bus that first time, as though it was happening all over again. I felt the scars return to my face and I could feel the way the nylon nurse uniform cut into my skin. “You, this was you. But how? It says this happened last month, but…”

“
Changed it?
” I looked back at the page, reading the end where he explained his plan to save me from the horrible life I seemed to lead. “I don’t understand. You can’t change it.”

“But I can, Kenzie. And I did.” He paused. “I’m not proud of it, I can see now that I was selfish to do so, even if I thought it was selfless at the time. Your life was yours to lead, I should have never…”

“But, Jordan,
that’s not possible.
” My blood felt hot now, my stomach still churning.

“There’s something wrong with me, Kenzie.” His eyes met mine and I could feel every ounce of truth as he said it. “I can travel through time, or rather, I could and…”

“But that’s
absurd.
Crazy,” I refused to listen as I began to feel as though the word absurd had become a friend of mine. “How do I know you’re not lying?” I began to crumple the page in my hands as I clenched my fist, but Jordan took it back from me.

“It’s something I’ve inherited…”

“
Inherited?
” I interrupted.

He continued. “Yes. I assure you, I wish I was lying,” he flipped back through the book and handed me another page, the one I had been looking for before.

The entry was dated
April 3, 1963
. I took it with a gentle hand, watching the page shake as I brought it to my face. I began to read, swallowing though my throat was dry.

April 3, 1963

Something happened today that is hard to explain. I always thought my life was sealed in a horrible fate of sadness, but it seems I found a way to change my luck. I was in the closet of my mother’s house, hiding from my drunk and abusive father, rocking back and forth and trying to think of a happier time. I thought about that day in class a few weeks ago, when the gerbil and I got to sit in the corner and play games while the rest of the class cleaned their desks. I had done exceptionally well on the spelling bee so I won the opportunity. As I sat in the closet, I felt something funny begin to happen as the thought began to feel real, and before I knew it, that gerbil was in my hand and I was back in class.

At first I was frightened by what had happened, and the teacher sent me to the nurse. For the past few weeks, I relived the exact same life I already had and that dream I’d manifested in the closet never ended. It may seem strange, but I think that day I traveled through time.

Today, I will try to change why my father was coming after me in the first place. If this works, I think I may have discovered something amazing.

“
Six?
You were that young?” I racked my brain, finding it made sense now, knowing that he was barely out of pre-school at the time. “But you traveled forward, she traveled back.”

Jordan nodded. “Yes, it doesn’t matter, as long as we can imagine ourselves at that age, it just sort of happens.”

I cleared my throat, finding the nausea was returning. “And you would also assume the age you were, in either the future or past? In other words, you can’t leap and stay twenty-seven so to speak?”

He shook his head. “There’s no exact science. I’ve never really met someone like me,” he paused. “Or rather, I’ve never gotten the opportunity to exchange stories.”

I lifted one brow. “Stuck here?” There was a hint of anger to my voice, heightened by the fact that I was carrying this man’s child.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached out and touched my hand, and I let him, too exhausted to care. “What I meant was that I can’t Shift anymore, or rather it’s been a while. The last time I nearly killed myself.”

He looked at me from under his brows. “I believe you already know what would have happened. I’m sure you dream about it. I figure you’d repressed it, though. I wouldn’t blame you.” His eyes became glossy as he said it, as though the anger was still there. “I tried to change it many times, but it always turned out bad. The only solution was to let you know who I was so that you would remain with me and not run off to see Max.”

I took a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

He brought his other hand up and placed in on mine, cupping my hand in both of his. “You have to try and believe me.” He let go to stand and grab the hem of his shirt. “See, you remember this don’t you?”

He pulled the hem up and I saw the remnants of the large bruise he had endured that night at the rugby house. “Sure, I remember.”

He ran his hand across it. “This was not from a fight. This was because my kidney was beginning to fail. See, my mother died from a cancer that she gave to herself by Shifting carelessly through time. I don’t really blame her. She did live through the sixties, seventies and eighties.”