Free Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins

us.”
Standing here with him feels surreal and oddly normal at the
same time. I don’t know what it should feel like to be honest.
I realize I’ve been staring at Lawrence for at least thirty seconds in complete silence. He doesn’t seem to mind, but I look
away quickly.
“So,” I say awkwardly. “What happens now?”
Lawrence shakes his head. “I confess. I don’t really have a
plan. I just…knew I wanted to see you again.”
I narrow my eyes. “Has this whole thing been an elaborate
plot to date me? You know, you could have just asked me out.”
He lifts his hands like he’s been caught. “Was it so obvious?”
I try to hold my serious expression, but his badly hidden
smile makes us both laugh.
“No, but seriously,” I say. “You’re really from nineteen twentyfive? Like, for real?”
“Afraid I am.”
“You walk into that house, and it’s nineteen twenty-five?”
“Correct.”
I rub my forehead. “It’s so weird.”
“You said it,” he murmurs in an adorable 1920s style of
agreement.
1920s. It might be my imagination, but length of the beach
we’re standing on has taken on an almost eerie change. What
was once a simple coastline is now host to an unbelievable
truth. How is it possible that Lawrence and I are here together?
How is this happening? Why this beach? And why now? My
eyes move from the rocky point on one end of the cover to the
other. An idea bubbles up.
“What if we tried going down one of those paths?” I ask,
pointing. “Do you think the same thing would happen?”
“It’s a good question.”
“We should test it,” I say.
“It’s certainly worth a try.”
We start to climb out to the closer point. It’s windy, but the
heat of the afternoon spreads down in brilliant white light. The
crash of waves against the rocks fills the air with a salty mist
that almost sparkles in the sun.
“I’m almost afraid to try this,” I say, looking ahead at the
rocky, bush-speckled path.
“Afraid it might work?”
“I guess so. I mean…what if I can travel into nineteen
twentyfive?”
“Or what if I can come into the future?” Lawrence asks.
“I say we go to your time first. You’re living in the cooler era.”
“That so?”
“Definitely. I mean, I’m a fan of women’s rights and smartphones, but you have flappers and speakeasies and Fitzgerald.”
“So you know a little about my time, then, I guess?”
“Sure. We had a whole unit on the Roaring Twenties in
English when we read The Great Gatsby.”
Lawrence’s brow wrinkles, as if I just spoke in Chinese. I realize
those phrases are probably all modern iterations. And The Great
Gatsby probably isn’t widely known yet, if it’s even published yet.
“Things were much more exciting in your time,” I say. “More
pure. More honest. More, I don’t know…alive, I guess.”
His laugh carries a hint of bitterness. “I’m not so sure about
that. But here’s hoping things change in the next few years for
the better.”
Like the Great Depression? The Dust Bowl. World War II.
All right around the corner. And Lawrence is going to live
through them. My heart sinks a little. I give him a quick, sidelong glance, envisioning him in a soldier’s uniform, storming
the beaches at Normandy. Chills run over my skin and I shudder involuntarily.
“You okay?” Lawrence asks, his brow lowering.
I look away from his gaze. “Fine. Just got cold for a second.”
Should I warn him? Maybe toss out a subtle “I wouldn’t do
much investing in the stock market, if I were you.” Or, “Keep
an eye on the Germans. They’re still pissed about World War I,
and it’s not over yet. Not even close.”
I follow the thought through a few scenarios. If I told him,
would anyone believe him? Hey, I met this girl from 2015 on
the beach, and she said we should assassinate some German
guy named Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, right.
Would it even help Lawrence? Maybe knowing all the crap
he’s about to face would make him go crazy. If the