“I did everything I could, Blake,” I say quietly. “You might not understand, but I was trying to do the right thing.”

“That’s the thing about trying to do something, Andre. You either do it, or you don’t. There is no try.”

He lets out a deep breath. “Just leave. Go home.”

“I can try again,” I whisper. “I…I can still fix this. I know I can.”

“Stop trying to be something you’re not. You’re not a time traveler; you’re just someone who stumbled into it. And you know what? You’re the worst type of time traveler—someone who does more harm than good.”

Each word hurts. Each syllable is like a needle finding my weak spot and jabbing in deep.

But before I can fight or fly, a surge of pain, worse than before, sharp and deep, stabs at my stomach. I double over, grabbing my body and almost buckling to my knees. I squeeze my eyes shut, and all I see are stars, colorful stars, black stars, white stars. It’s like I can see, in this brief moment, almost every color. There’s a ringing in my head that sounds like every cell in my body screaming all at once. It drowns out everything, even my own inner voice.

When I open my eyes after the worst of the pain stops, I’m no longer in Blake’s house. I’m outside.

And there’s snow on the ground.

As the colors all around me start to come together and objects take form, it’s clear to me where I am. I’m in Boston, at the edge of an alley, a familiar one based on the street signs I see across the street.

Someone bumps into me. Someone familiar, despite the longer hair, dingy clothes, sharper stubble, and darkened features on his face.

Someone who is just as surprised to see me as I am to see him.

“Andre?” Michael gasps.

Twenty-Eight

I’ve seen many versions of Michael since jumping through time, but never a version like this.

His face is sullen, his skin a shade grayer than before. His hair is longer and unkempt. Matted. Jaggedly cut. He reminds me of pieces of a puzzle that don’t fully come together to make a complete person. Like something is missing.

The light in his eyes is gone. And I didn’t know how much I missed it, truly missed it, until now.

“So,” he says, rubbing his nose with his sleeve. “You came back, huh?”

I reach forward to grab him, but he moves back, far enough that he’s unreachable. Farther than he’s ever been before, even through time and space.

“Do you remember what happened when you last left? What you said? Do you even know what year it was then?”

“Nineteen seventy.”

“And now?”

I can’t answer that one, and he knows it. He sucks on his teeth in disgust.