Free A World Without You by Beth Revis

PlayStation in one corner, and a stack of board games on the walnut table in the center of the room.
    Harold sits to the right, staring at the walls and sometimes muttering. As I watch, he pauses with the fork halfway to his mouth, a distant look in his eyes. His power isn’t enviable; seeing and hearing ghosts plagues him far more than it helps him. Ryan has his back to me, playing on his phone while he eats. His hulking body slouches over the table lazily.
    So neither of them notice when Sofía looks up. Right at me.
    A lump forms in my throat. I wasn’t ready. Not for this. Not for seeing her again.
    But I can’t look away.
    â€œHi,” she mouths.
    â€œHi,” I whisper.
    She moves to get up from the table, but I shake my head and raise a finger to my lips. A look of confusion crosses her face, but I can’t explain. I want nothing more than to burst inside, race across the common room, grab her, and never let her go. But I can’t explain why I’m here. I’d have to tell her that I’m visiting her in this past because I lost her in another. I’d have to tell her that I can’t save her.
    â€œNo,” I moan as the strings of time wrap around me again, squeezing, pulling.
No, I won’t tell her
, I want to say.
I just want to see her. Just one more moment. Give me that. Please.
    But how am I supposed to plead with time itself?

CHAPTER 10
    Intent matters. As soon as I even thought about warning Sofía, about trying to save her, time pulled me back.
    I thump my head against the common room door. The windows outside are dark, far darker than the evening of October 3, and I don’t have to pull out my phone to check that I’m back in the present, but I do anyway.
    At least I got to see her. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
    I close my eyes and try to picture her in that moment when she saw me and her eyes lit up. I want to hold on to that image forever.
    This is progress. My control has been weakening, but I wanted to see Sofía, and I did. Figuring out the intent thing brings me one step closer to saving her.
    I turn to go back to my room, but I realize that it would actually be nice to have a distraction from all that’s going on. I push open the common room door. For a moment, I see it the way it was on October 3, with Sofía at the table, and asmile plays at my lips. But I blink, and it’s today, and Sofía’s not here.
    Ryan has the chess set out on the table, and as I step inside the room, a white bishop knocks over a black pawn of its own volition. Ryan picks up the fallen pawn, twisting it in his fingers as he stares at the board, and a black rook slides forward to take the bishop. Gwen cranks up the volume of the television across the room, ignoring everyone but the zombies she’s shooting. Harold must be in bed already.
    As upset as I am, I still like this place. Berkshire is a far cry from the old, rambling farmhouse where I grew up. Maybe that’s why this room wraps around me like a warm blanket. That house, with its two and a half acres and pond and willow trees, is just a little too . . . provincial for me. Provincial. That’s an SAT word my sister would love. But it fits. Even though the house isn’t in the middle of nowhere, it’s far from all my friends and within walking distance of exactly nothing. Somehow, all that space cages me in. Everything in the Berk is wrapped up in brick and contained together. It’s nice.
    As much as I love the academy, though, it’s still a school, and the only place where Sofía and I can really just chill is the common room. It’s where we eat, where we take breaks, where we hang out. Sofía first opened up to me in this room, over by the wing chairs. She was sitting on the floor, behind the chairs, reading a book and sort of fading in and out of visibility. If it hadn’t been for the book, I don’t think I would have noticed her.
    I