I mean, I know that. I’ve worried about this possibility. Not deeply, more like when you are sure you have a dreaded disease because your arm tingles or a freckle suddenly looks funny, then the tingling stops or the freckle is just a freckle, and you forget you were even worried. It’s one thing to peek through the window at a horror and another to call it home. I can’t stay here forever and never have my real life as a result. So I’m not gonna entertain the idea.

“Nope. Not me. We’re going to have to figure the portal out. I’ll start by standing in that field this next Monday at the time I arrived and then every Monday after school till I’m a scarecrow. I don’t care. It’s home or bust.”

“That’s the goal. You can even take me with you.”

“No chance,” I joke. “This school would never have two Black teachers at once, even if they are both you.” The sentence is like a grenade, it’s out so fast and lands so hard. Why would I say that???

The look she gives me is steeped in disappointment. “It never gets better?”

“Well …”

“I want to be surprised, but I’m not. I live in this country.”

I need to throw her a bone. “We had a Black president!”

“That is news. Did they shoot him?” She waits, and I realize it’s not a sarcastic joke. She means it. She assumes someone would.

“No! He was beloved. Well, at least on one side.”

“The next guy was white, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah.” I don’t say who—no need for her to live with that for thirty-six years.

“Figures. And what about you … gay people. Is that any better?”

“We can get married now. And be in the military. But …”

“People still hate you?”

“Yeah. Some do.”

She says nothing, just absorbs it. “Sounds like you traveled the wrong way in time. Should’ve gone forward!”

“Preach!” The eyebrow raise she deploys in response suggests I should never say that again, or at least not in that voice. “Right. Maybe next trip.”

She laughs. “Let’s get you home from this one before you start packing your bags.”

“If you do, I mean, if I find a portal or whatever, how will you explain?”

This, at least, is a question she has an answer to. “I’ll say your mom got better, and you went home. Simple as that. No one will think about it twice.” But she pauses. “Except me, of course. 1985 won’t be remotely the same after that.”

When I’m back on campus, I see Chaz coming out of my room. He’s eager to see me. “There you are! Take a walk with me?”