Time After Time by Tamara Ireland Stone Page A

wandering again.
    I stand up and return to my desk. I open the bottom drawer and dig deep, shuffling through a collection of postcards I’ve bought to give to Anna, little scraps of paper I’ve saved for no particular reason, and climbing maps folded haphazardly and stuffed inside. At the bottom, I feel the red notebook I hid when I got back from Evanston last weekend. I open it to a dog-eared page near the back.
    The calculations are especially messy, stretching across the binding and continuing down the sides. Even the pencil marks themselves have a bit of a manic look to them, but with complete clarity, I remember writing them and know precisely what they mean.
    I barely knew Emma at the time, but I stayed up all night calculating and weighing the risks of altering an entire day to prevent an accident and possibly save her life. Sure, I’d gone back before—five minutes here, ten minutes there, each time changing totally minor, completely insignificant events. But I’d never gone back that far or deliberately changed that many minor things. I didn’t even know if it would be possible. And even though it was, I decided I would never do it again.
    But looking at the dates and calculations reminds me how I felt when it was all over and I saw the look of pure relief on Anna’s face. She practically skipped down the driveway after seeing Emma that Saturday morning—all of her various internal organs intact and the skin on her face scratch-free and perfect—and as I stared at her through the windshield, this feeling of intense pride washed over me. I had done that. I  made that happen. It was the first time I’d ever felt that maybe I had been wrong about this gift of mine. It was the first time I’d wondered if maybe Dad was right.
    Now I run my finger along the pages, thinking about the look on his face as we stood in the kitchen last week, watching the news on the screen. He wanted to say something, but he knew I wasn’t supposed to travel anymore. Besides, I’d told him so many times that he probably knew it was senseless to bring it up again: I don’t change things.
    I wonder what he’d say if he knew that I once did.
    For Emma, I’d gone back fifty-two hours. Could I go back even further?
    I turn to a clean page and start scribbling some new calculations. I know I’ll never be able to answer the big ethical questions with any certainty, but a few minutes later, I’ve figured out the math. I’ll need to go back about sixty-four hours. Two and a half…almost three days. I’d have to stay back there, just like I did with Emma, and repeat those three days again to be sure that the do-over stuck, that nothing unintentional got altered along the way. I slam the notebook shut, bury it deep in my drawer again, and go back to my homework.

    This is officially insane.
    I’m standing in my room, zipping up my backpack. It’s heavy, filled to bursting with water bottles, Doubleshots, Red Bulls, a wad of cash, a flashlight, a smoke detector, and a fire extinguisher. I look around the room and shake my head. What am I doing?
    Before I can give it another thought, I close my eyes and visualize my destination. When I open them, I’m in the alley I found on Google Maps, just one block south of the apartment complex. I’ve never been here before and already I hope I won’t have to come back again.
    To describe this neighborhood as sketchy would be a massive understatement. It’s only a little after five A.M ., but there are pockets of activity everywhere. A group of guys are hanging in front of a liquor store on the corner, and the doorways are filled with homeless people curled up in sleeping bags. There’s an eerie buzz around me, and I feel my guard go up as I walk down the street toward the address. I keep my eyes up, my feet moving.
    I’m relieved to find the apartment and somehow feel a little bit safer as I slip into the entryway. I scan the directory on the wall, reading the last names next to each of