Young Writers Society

Wilson stopped abruptly as he finished his joke and looked at his with her mouth agape for a few seconds before her laughter fought her way back up and she started wheezing. She gave Blake a pat on the shoulder. "Hahaha! That was a good one!"

He gave her a small smile. "I didn't spend all this time overthinking things for nothing."

"Oh my gooooooosh," Wilson groaned between her laughter, grabbing the back of the bench as she leaned forward. "TOO MUCH, Max. Too much! Haha!"

After another minute passed, his laughter finally died down. Now he was just left with several burning questions that Wilson couldn't answer, and one burning question that she probably could - but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the reply to it. It had occurred to him only moments before. He had wondered why Wilson had helped him before he had learned the truth, but, now that he knew it, he couldn't help but wonder why the physical embodiment of time would take an interest in him.

"Hey, Wilso-I mean, Willy?" he asked, looking over at her. "Why did you bring me here, and why did you even approach me in the first place?"

Wilson's smile slowly faded and she stared at Blake blankly. She cleared her throat.

"Uh. If I told you... I did it on a whim? Would you be mad?"

He let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"No," he quietly said, his gaze dropping down to his lap. "I wouldn't. I just-I just thought that you might have done it to stop me from doing something really stupid in the future. You know, like in all of those movies and books."

Wilson smiled, letting out an airy laugh. "Ah. Well. Life's not really like those books and movies all the time. I mean, the only one who's really gonna stop you from doing something stupid, at the end of the day, is yourself. I try not to rob people of their own free will. But while you're with me, I'll try to be a good friend and keep you from doing anything too dumb," she said with a small wink.

He gave her a small smile. "Thanks," he said, honestly grateful for her being there, and for finally having a friend that knew the whole truth about him - even May only knew that he attended a prestigious private school, and was blissfully unaware of the existence of magicians and demons. He looked up at her. "I guess I have to go talk with my parents now, don't I?"

Wilson smiled back. "As I said before. You don't have to do anything. But... it does seem like that's why you came here, isn't it? It might be worth it... giving it a shot."

He took a deep breath. "I guess it is."

He slowly got back to his feet, more terrified of the prospect than he had been prior to his realization that his parents weren't normal. He didn't want to mess up the flow of time, and he didn't want to sully his memory of them with a horrible encounter. But he wanted at least a moment to understand them - to understand what they were like, and get an idea of the life he might have had.

Wilson grinned slightly as she got up after him, waiting for him to lead the way. She'd go when he was ready.

The first step back towards the house was harder than expected. His mind kept flickering to all the ways that his meeting with them could go wrong, almost all of those ways involving his father being a demon, and his mother being a magician. They were going to both be suspicious as it was, given the way that he had acted when he had needed to get away from the house earlier. He would just have to say that they really had the right address, and that he had just been anxious about messing things up. Explain the smell of herbs clinging to his clothing as him working in a greenhouse. Explain his arrival as a relative trying to get information on family for a school project with a friend, then point at Wilson.

But would something like that really work?

He took a deep breath. It had to. It wasn't like he had any other options.

Wilson followed after him, holding her hands behind her back and watching him with a supportive little grin. "You got this! ...Max," she said with a smile and a wink.

"Thanks, Willy," he said. He fell into silence as he continued towards his house. Each step felt harder than the last, and he desperately wished that everything would go as planned. It all rode on that first interaction when someone opened the door - presumably his father again, if the previous attempt was anything to go off of.

He took yet another deep breath when he finally got to their doorstep.

He raised a hand and went to knock-

Only for the door to be swung open.

This made him jump back in surprise and nearly knock Wilson over in the process, but what startled him even more was when a hand shot out and grabbed onto his wrist. One minute, he was standing on the doorstep. The next, he was being dragged inside of the house. Wilson received the same treatment. Then they were abruptly let go, and the door was suddenly slammed shut.

"So," his dad said. He leaned up against the now closed door, arms folded and an almost mischievous look to his eyes, "are you Arthur or Blake?"

Blake blinked, then hurriedly started to say, "I don't know-"

His dad leaned down and narrowed his eyes. "Hmm. Blake's eyes are a lighter shade of green, so I'm going to go on a limb and say that you're him."

Blake just gawked at his father.

As soon as Blake's dad dragged them into the house, Wilson was giddy with excitement. She stared at the dad with wide-eyed giddiness, even though she knew Blake was probably terrified.

To be fair, Blake did say he wanted this. Of course, them being dragged into the house by force as unexpected, as was the dad apparently knowing Blake was Blake from the future.

Wait. He knew Blake was Blake from the future.

"I'm curious as to how you came to that conclusion," Wilson said, placing a hand on her chin, stroking an imaginary beard. "Because that would mean Max -or uh, 'Blake' I guess, is from the future, and well, that's kind of impossible."