Part Three
It felt like I slept forever. When I woke up I was sure I had slept through my alarm clock. I forced my eyes open and went to the left side to look at my alarm clock. I couldn't believe my eyes when it said ten!
I scrambled out of bed and wondered why my mom hadn't tried to wake me up. She was always up here when I wasn’t up for breakfast.
But when I stood up and looked around I realized something was wrong. Just like the dream I had had the other night, this wasn’t my room. When I forced my eyes open and looked closer I realized this was the exact same room as my dream.
Okay this was just too weird. I was sure that was a dream. I mean I woke up and everything was normal. But now here I was, right back to what I thought was a dream.
I sat down on my bed and tried to figure this out. The day before yesterday I was here, yesterday I was in my normal life, and today I was back here again. Maybe it was a pattern. Like every other day or something. I was only fifteen. Why did this have to happen to me?
I put my hands over my face in frustration. I guess any normal girl would think this was so cool. But I didn't. I wasn't ready to be married and be a mother yet. Even if it did mean I got to spend all this time with Jason.
Then another thought occurred to me. Jason hardly ever gave me the time of day when I was fifteen. So whatever was going on here, why would Jason fall in love with me? Was I looking at my future, or was it just someone trying to play a cruel joke and in reality Jason would marry Kim? Or maybe this was what I could have, but not really what I was going to have.
The more I thought about it the more my brain would hurt. I sat up when I heard a noise coming from downstairs. There was no doubt in my mind that it was Sarah. For being a three year old, she was awful quiet. But then I remembered something my mother had told me many years ago, "If a child is being quiet, it usually means they're doing something they're not supposed to." It was only my second day of being a mother and I already managed to mess it up. I raced downstairs to see what was going on.
When I got to the kitchen I couldn't help but laugh. Yes, she did something that she wasn't supposed to. But it wasn't so bad to the point where she was in any danger. She sat in the middle of the kitchen covered in flour. I looked down and saw a bag of flour that had been dumped. She didn't look hurt at all. In fact, she smiled when she saw me.
"What did you do?" I asked her as I came up.
"I wanted to make you breakfast mommy," she said in that cute little voice.
"With flour?" I asked.
"That's what you put in those one flat things that you make."
I laughed. "You mean pancakes?" I didn't know how to make pancakes. My mom usually made them and they were done by time I came downstairs. But apparently I knew how to make them now. "Honey you're not old enough to make pancakes. Next time you should come and get me and I can help you."
"But then that would ruin the surprise." I gave her a smile and then started cleanup. It was a really good thing Jason had already left for work. I didn't even want to worry about what his reaction would be if he saw my lack of responsibility.
Sarah offered to help, so I had her hold the dustpan. It didn't take long to clean up. Although that was a whole thing of flour wasted. It didn't look like two big of a bag, so I figured I shouldn't worry too much.
I never realized how boring it was when you were older and you had nothing to do. After I made Sarah breakfast she went and watched another movie, leaving me with nothing to do for two hours. I could clean. But I really wasn't in the mood to clean right now. Instead I found myself watching the movie with her. I didn't recognize it, so I assumed it was a new movie that had just come out in the past five years. It was about this boy and this dog. Nothing had really changed DVD wise. I guess in five years they didn't bother to make anything cooler with movies.
Once she was done watching her movie she went to her room to play. Yesterday she wanted to be around me all the time and today she just didn't seem like it. I wondered why that was.
When I came back in there an hour later she was asleep on her bed. I breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that meant I wouldn't have to worry about her for the next hour.
Now I had two options, clean or take a nap. I bet you can guess which side of me won.
I never really thought about how boring a typical day could be as a stay at home mom until I actually experienced it. I went through the whole day kind of bored and didn’t really do anything. I made lunch for Sarah after our nap, and then I cleaned the kitchen while she colored. I tried to show some support by putting her drawing up on the fridge, and she seemed happy about it.
Just as it seemed like the day would never get over I heard the sound of a car pulling up to the driveway. “Daddy!” Sarah shouted and as usual ran outside. I wondered if this was a normal thing for her. He did the same thing he did yesterday and he twirled her in the air as he picked her up.
I just sat in the kitchen. I didn’t know what was up with me today. I guess I just had a lot on my mind and I didn’t get much time to think about it with Sarah around. I only wished I could talk to him. That would be so nice. I mean he was my husband now so you would think I easily could. But might I remind you I didn’t know him that well for him being my husband and the Jason I knew was only fifteen and for all I knew he could be totally different now. I just couldn’t talk to him.
He came in and of course gave me a smile. “Hi honey,” he said with a smile. Oh how I would have loved to hear that two days ago. But today, I really wasn’t in the mood.
He seemed to sense that something was wrong. “Are you alright?” he asked. “You seem kind of off.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Hey look I know you’re probably getting tired of staying home all the time. But don’t worry, we’re going out tonight.”
I looked at him like he had just spoken a foreign language. “What?” I asked.
“Yep,” he replied with a smile. “I arranged a sitter for Sarah. You remember that nice teenager down the street that the Johnsons referred us to? Well I talked to her and she said she would have no problem babysitting Sarah tonight. I know it’s been forever since you and I have just gone out on a date, so I’m determined to make it up to you tonight. We’re going The La Santa. That’s the fanciest restaurant in town in case you didn’t know that.”
I just stared at him. I couldn’t believe it. In my mind I was only fifteen so I had never been on my first date yet. Well I was just about to, but with a guy that I was apparently supposed to know and I wanted to go on a date with, just as a fifteen year old and not a thirty year old.
“I don’t like the silence,” he said. “It worries me.”
I didn’t want to sound insane, although I knew I already was. “Oh yeah we can go on a date. But does it really have to be tonight? I mean what about tomorrow? Isn’t today Friday? Tomorrow would be perfect because you wouldn’t be tired from working all day.”
“I feel fine. And besides, Sarah’s party is tomorrow. I hope you didn’t forget. My parents are coming over and you told me you already ordered her cake you just had to pick it up.”
I did? How was it he knew more about me than I knew about him? “You mean like a birthday party?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes Brittany a birthday party what else? You know, Sarah’s turning four and she’s all excited because she made a commitment to be potty trained before her fourth birthday and she came through. We’ve been talking about this for months.”
“Oh yes, how could I forget?”
He gave me a weird look. “So we’re going tonight right? Unless you don’t feel up to it, because I wouldn’t want to push you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
“Sure we can go,” I said as my stomach did a flop. “When are we leaving?”
“The babysitter should be here any minute now. I told her seven, and it’s already six-fifty.”
Please be late, I hoped. This was a ruined by the bell moment because just then I heard the doorbell ring. After inviting her in and getting her situated he motioned for me to follow him outside.
Why did everything have to happen to me? I had wanted to go on a date with Jason since we first met, but not this way. I felt sick to my stomach the entire walk down. What would we talk about? Would he want to kiss me? We were married after all. I just didn’t know what to expect.
He seemed to sense my uneasiness and as we got in the car he kept looking at me weird. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I thought you would like this. I mean I know how much you hate being cooped up in the house all day watching Sarah. I thought maybe this would give you a little break and give us the chance to just talk before all the family comes over for her party on Saturday.”
“What party?” I asked. I hadn’t remembered him mentioning anything to me about a party. Maybe he did, but I could only remember up to a couple days ago and my teenage years.
“Sarah’s birthday party,” he reminded me as he started up the car. “Don’t tell me you forgot. She only reminds us every waking minute about how she’s going to be turning four this year. My mother and your mother are both coming and you said you were worried because our fathers don’t really like each other. This all happened just last week.”
So I apparently had been around for a while now and could talk like I knew everything I was supposed to. So then what was my problem now? I was half tempted just to give up and tell him I had gone crazy and I needed to go to the doctors because I couldn’t remember anything. But I know that couldn’t have been true because tomorrow I would wake up as a teenager again. “Oh yeah,” I said. “Now I remember. She never let it go did she?”
“I know that you’re probably stressed because of the party. I don’t blame you. I know it’s been awhile since you’ve seen your brother and our families don’t always get along the best, and my sister always has a habit of messing things up even if she doesn’t try. I totally understand. But don’t let it get to you. And I hope you can have fun tonight and just forget about everything you’re worried about. Sarah’s in good hands, I promise.”
I gave him a fake smile, and he seemed to buy it as he pulled out of the driveway. I just hoped this night didn’t go disastrous.
We talked about things as we drove up the restaurant. He just talked about my family and how things were going at work. I tried to get him to do most of the talking since the only things I could talk about involved me being obsessed with him when we were both in high school and I didn’t have any memory of the past ten years. But he didn’t always keep talking and at the times where he insisted I answered a question I just gave him a wishy washy answer that I would have replied as a teenager and then he let the conversation drop while secreting giving me a weird look.
After that car ride I decided I didn’t know how long I was going to keep going like this so next time I was here I should try to see if I kept any journals. I never did as a teenager, but maybe by some miracle I was smart and did now.
Dinner was just as awkward as the car ride had been. It was hard to make conversation with a person that you were supposed to know in and out but you really didn’t know that well and you don’t have the same personality that he’s used to. But we got through it with a couple laughs and I learned a lot that I didn’t know before. He told me of some stories of Sarah and us and some of the crazy things that had happened in the past. If this really was the future I was looking forward to, I wasn’t complaining.
I was really thankful when the waiter came over and slapped our receipt down. Jason used a really nice looking credit card to pay for it and as I searched my own purse I apparently had in the car I realized I also had a really nice looking credit card. But I wasn’t stupid enough to use it, even if it was technically mine.
We both got up and headed to the car. I just wanted to go to bed and then spend all of tomorrow trying to come up with ways I could get out of this party. If I was stressed about as an adult, I knew I would be stressed about it as a teenager in an adult’s body.
As we got into the car something caught Jason’s eye. He looked down in the cupboard between the two seats up front and saw a candy bar. It had a little note on it. I had no clue where it had come from, but he seemed to smile when he looked at it.
“Dear Jason,” he read out loud. “You will always be my world and I hope you never forget it. Signed, Brittany.” I jumped at the sound of my name. I didn’t write that. Or at least I didn’t remember writing it. “Oh thanks Brittany. You were hoping I would find it next time I was in this car weren’t you?”
He looked at me and I realized he expected me to respond. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” I had always been a terrible liar, but he was so preoccupied with the candy bar that he didn’t notice.
“And it’s even my favorite candy bar, Twix. How long have you had this lying around?”
“A couple days,” I lied. “I was just waiting for you to find it.”
“How sweet. Well now I feel guilty because I didn’t bother to do anything like that for you.” He seemed to be in deep mental thought as he said this. I wondered what he was thinking. He set the card on the dashboard and backed up out of the parking lot. I looked at it for a minute and sure enough recognized my handwriting. It hadn’t changed much.
We got home and he pulled into our driveway. We both got out and he came over to the other side as I opened my door. I had a feeling he would have opened it for me if I had let him. He came up to me and grabbed my hand.
I felt tingly all over. I would have given anything for him to hold my hand when I was fifteen. But then I would have given anything for him just to talk to me when I was fifteen. Everything was happening just as I had always wanted to, but I never imagined it in this way. It made me so mad.
But of course I didn’t pull away and I let him lead me up the driveway. Once we got up to the stairs he leaned in a little closer and I realized he was trying to kiss me. I had two sides to me speaking. The first: no! You’re supposed to have your first kiss when you’re fifteen on your first date with him, not when you’re already married! The second: yes! Kiss him! This is what you’ve always wanted!
The second one won. As I sat there on that porch, I had my first kiss. It might not have been the way I had always planned it, but I wasn’t complaining.
He pulled away after a little bit and then smiled. “I’ll put Sarah to bed okay,” he told me. “You just go to our room and relax. I plan to give you a full break tonight.”
He had actually put Sarah to bed the last night I was here, but I decided not to argue and went inside.
I was immediately greeted by Sarah screaming, “Mommy!” as she gave me a big hug. “Mrs. Jems showed me how to make cookies. It was a lot of fun.”
“Glad to hear,” I said as I hugged her back. I gave her a smile and then went upstairs. Maybe I was just doped up from the kiss, but I couldn’t help thinking. This morning I had been nervous, but now I knew that if I could just get passed all the rough patches this would be a blast. The party on Saturday would be one of those rough patches. But since I was only here every other day that was technically still four days away. I still had time not to worry about it.
I knew exactly what would happen as I dosed off, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to talk to Julia tomorrow. Of course I wouldn’t tell her anything about what was going on, but either way I still had loads to tell her and cover the stuff up that she could catch onto with a bunch of lies. I was already thinking of them as I went to sleep.
