Climbing out of bed, Ethan found that the rumpled clothes and shoes he had collapsed in after drinking were gone. In their place, beside the bed, lay a pair of faded jeans and a slightly wrinkled shirt. The bedroom door led to the hallway and the dining room, where the sound of Margaret Carter's grumbling echoed from wherever she had wandered off to.Ethan dressed and stood up, looking at himself in the mirror set into the center of the wardrobe. After confirming the date on the calendar, he could hardly believe it was really him: Ethan Carter, seventeen years old, back in the year 2000.The face in the mirror was young, yet unmistakably his. The familiarity of it sent a strange shiver through him.For a moment, Ethan wondered whether this was a joke played on him by some advanced alien civilization, like the ending of Spielberg's *A.I. Artificial Intelligence*. But if it really was 2000, that movie wouldn't be released until next year.He hurried out and found a bowl of steaming oatm

Nora had been very gracious with him that day, and after that, they slowly grew closer.Thus, they spent their entire adolescence together.What was it like to suddenly see the girl who had once been his entire teenage world?Ethan even had a name picked out for their kid.Ha, just kidding.He really had had a crush on Nora back then, but he'd also been self-aware.Could he play basketball as well as the school's resident "Kobe"? Could he play the piano as smoothly and elegantly as the "Piano Prince" at the school talent show? Could he solve physics problems faster than the guy who sat behind her, the one who later got into a PhD program?The answer to all three: no.Those guys became cannon fodder. Some were like a ball thrown straight at a wall, shattering on impact. Some, after being turned down, were remembered years later as tragic heroes marching bravely toward certain doom. Some were still sending unrequited love letters in college.But Ethan wasn't any of them.Ethan took the

Jenna and Nora, who had turned down Ethan's request, had walked only a short distance when Jenna, somewhat speechless, saw Nora suddenly stop, pull her Snoopy coin purse from her pocket, take out a twenty-dollar bill from a folded wad of cash, and turn back to slap it down on the table in front of Ethan and Danny.Nora got fifty dollars a week for spending money, and with her habit of saving, she always had a few dozen dollars in her wallet."Why did you give them so much? That's a fortune to those two!" Jenna had really wanted to say, "Why should they get anything?""An emergency."Looking back at her, Jenna thought Nora's sharp features, her hair fluttering in the wind, and that casually tossed-off line gave her a truly gallant air.And she had just done something bold in front of everyone.Jenna had always admired Nora's decisiveness. She knew she could never be that straightforward herself, so she hoped that just by staying close, some of it would rub off on her.Ethan's mood had

What Danny wanted to say, but didn't, was simple: You're dead last in the class. Since when did you care about studying?If Danny had actually asked him that, Ethan would have told him yes without hesitation. Better late than never, and today was as good a day as any to start.But Danny didn't ask. He just thought it to himself.Wait, what was happening? "Thank you. I want to focus on my studies. You're a great person." The most basic, overused rejection lines imaginable, one after another. Was Ethan actually a professional at this?She hadn't expected to hear such a painfully ordinary rejection, the kind so cliché that most people wouldn't even bother using it.But somehow, that painfully ordinary rejection hit harder than anything she'd expected.A murmur rolled through the onlookers on the second floor, and the whole crowd stirred.Camille opened her eyes and felt the commotion rolling through them, an indescribable jolt running through her chest.Wait. Hold on. Am I really that un

Ethan got back to the housing complex and stood downstairs outside his own building, looking up at the lit window on the second floor. He hesitated.His arms still ached from the bruises Margaret had given him earlier, and he still had the $20 he'd borrowed from Nora in his pocket, though only about $13 of it was left.The whole day had been strange and unsettling, and he was genuinely afraid that if he went upstairs, he'd find himself back in that empty old house, everything gone again.Taking a deep breath, Ethan climbed the stairs anyway, pulled out his key, fit it into the lock, and turned the knob.He pushed the door open, and the first thing he saw was his own living room. Two people sat on the couch: Margaret, and another woman around fifty.The woman had sharp, upturned eyebrows, wore a fairly elegant green wool coat, and had a slightly jutting jaw that gave her whole face an edge. Margaret, who'd been staring blankly at the door, spotted Ethan and said, "You're back!"His fat