July 21, 1993 [3]

The rear view mirror reflected the passenger headrest so Martha adjusted it to frame the police cars and their screaming lights as they trailed her on the freeway. She drew back her hand, tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks and wondered, rhetorically, how in the hell it had come to this...

This life had been a phenomenal success. Martha had nailed her performance at every stage. She'd come to find there were age appropriate instincts at her disposal – The Ghost she'd tried so hard to resist in her last life. All she needed to do was let The Ghost lead in those moments and her behavior would fit within her original timeline like a glove.

Her father wasn't exactly his old self – there were still occasional quiet spells she didn't remember him having in her first – but it was leaps and bounds closer than the disaster of her second. Then, in the spring of her freshman year, he lost his job – just like in my first life!

Looking back, this milestone had led Martha to a state of overconfidence. She'd been so disciplined – so faithful to the script up to that point. Then shortly before the end of the school year, it happened.

She was at her locker, swapping textbooks between classes. Across from her, Tiffany Cipowski, the girl whose early physical development had been the envy/desire of her peers, was doing the same. Martha watched as a pair of boys snuck up behind Tiffany and dropped an ice cube down the back of her shirt. The shock from the cold forced her to arch her back and, as was the boys' aim, stick out her chest. Laughing, they high-fived each other then scampered down the hall.

The look on Tiffany's face had been heartbreaking – anger, embarrassment, confusion, and despair swelled through her reddened cheeks. Martha closed her locker and, in a move that she would come to regret, crossed the hallway.

"Hey," Martha said.

"Hey," Tiffany responded softly before clearing her throat.

"I saw what happened. That really sucked. Those boys are idiots."

"Fuck yeah, they are," Tiffany said then slammed her locker shut. "Sorry, I... don't usually curse."

"Like I give a shit," Martha said with a smile.

Tiffany exhaled a laugh as the warning bell sounded. "Thanks."

Martha shrugged her shoulders and said, unaware of the irony, "No problem." Then she walked off to her class and on to her brand new timeline.

About a month later, while in line with her father for Jurassic Park tickets, Martha saw Tiffany walk by with her family. She ran to Martha and embraced her happily then introduced her to her family before continuing on. The interaction had been ominously novel, but Martha shook off her apprehension as paranoia. She'd made one girl happy. How much change could it possibly create?

And then there was this morning.

She was eating her Frosted Flakes as her father spoke on the phone. "That's wonderful... Yes, absolutely... Alright, see you then." He hung up then turned to Martha. "Great news, Marty!"

Martha dropped her spoon in her bowl with a clink and stared at him. She didn't remember there being any 'great news.'

"I didn't mention it before because I didn't want to get your hopes up or... gosh, I guess I didn't want to get my hopes up. But I had an interview last week with the Jet Propulsion Lab and... They hired me and I start tomorrow!" His face burst with joy.

A significant portion of Martha was screaming bloody murder but The Ghost told her to be happy so she went with it out of habit. "That's great, Dad. Congratulations!"

"Strangely enough, I might have you to thank."

No. F-ing. Way.

"It was so funny – at the beginning of the interview, the woman leading it and I had the feeling we'd met before but couldn't quite place it and then, bam! We both knew. She's an aunt of that girl we saw outside the movie theater. Tiffany's her name, right? Well, she was there that night and I guess Tiffany must think pretty highly of you because she talked you up for the rest of that evening – how nice you are, how smart you are, that your dad's a chemical engineer... Shortly after that, by some crazy luck, my resume ended up on her desk. I swear half of the interview was spent talking about you girls and the impact you've had on Tiffany."

Martha's mouth gaped in shock. She tried to keep her eyes wide and eyebrows raised to feign elated surprise. "That's... great, Dad. Congratulations," she repeated.

"And JPL's a great place to work. They get tons of funding that's not going away any time soon. So I could be there for the next ten or fifteen years."

She finally closed her mouth. The Ghost was straining to keep Martha from throwing her bowl of cereal across the kitchen. Steven beamed as he waited for more of a reaction from his daughter. "Wow," she managed. Then she stood, gritting her teeth to pass for a smile. "Would you excuse me, please?"

"Yes. Of course," Steven said, his own smile faltering somewhat.

Martha walked quickly to the bathroom then closed, locked, and leaned her back against the door. She grabbed a hand towel and bit into it, pinching her eyes and clenching her entire body. A muffled, involuntary scream escaped. She opened her eyes and faced herself in the mirror. What have you done?

"Everything okay in there, Marty?" Steven asked.

"Oh... yeah. Just... really excited about your job. And um... having female problems."

"Oh dear. I'm sorry, sweetie. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Sure thing, Dad."

Martha tried in vain to control her breathing. The life she'd built was crashing. Could she salvage it? Her father needed to be out of work for another year. Could she sabotage his new job? I'd have to do it soon because working at JPL even for only a few months would create enough chaos to veer us off the path to Illinois and my dad can't know that I was to blame because that would veer us off the path too and it can't be too scandalous or else he might get blacklisted and not get the job in Illinois but it can't be too tame or else they might give him a recommendation to another firm in California-

The bathroom began to spin. Her thoughts were a fiery jumble. She didn't know where to go or what to do. Her stomach had an idea and she lunged for the toilet making it just in time to throw up her breakfast.

She flushed, rested her head on her forearm across the seat, and watched her mess circle the drain, wishing it could be that simple. Her chest heaved rapidly in exhausted panic. Slowly, she rose to her feet and found that the retching had lessened her vertigo enough for her to rinse out her mouth at the sink.

Whatever the solution was, it didn't involve hiding in the bathroom and alarming her father any more than she already had. She wiped her face dry then opened the door.

Her father was washing dishes in the kitchen. After noticing she'd come out, he said, "You know, I was thinking maybe we could have sushi for lunch – kind of as a celebration?" He finished rinsing a bowl and set it on the rack to dry, then turned to her. "As long as you're up for- Oh sweetie, are you sure you're okay? You don't look so good."

Martha was at a loss and The Ghost was useless – curled up in a ball and crying in a corner of her mind. Because there was no instinct for this – no breadcrumbs leading her back to James.

"Or we don't have to," Steven offered with concern. "I could pick it up and bring it home. Or pick something else up... and, um... maybe some chocolate too, if that would help?"

His voice sounded far off. She felt cold yet delirious as if struck with fever. The vertigo returned. She was numb and disoriented. Was she floating? Was this real?

"Marty?"

She spotted his car keys resting on the countertop and what came next was a blur because suddenly they were in her hands and suddenly she was hurrying out the front door. This wasn't The Ghost, however. This was something else, something deeper that Martha didn't have the time or mental coherence to give a name.

"Martha, what are you doing!?" her father demanded from a life in which she did not belong.

The blur continued as she was starting the car then driving then there was a horn then she slammed on the brakes.

Stopped in the middle of the intersection, she looked to her left and saw the source of the horn, a police car she'd just cut off after breezing through the red light.

Its siren blipped and through its loud speaker, an officer commanded, "Pull through the intersection and then to the side." A second blip sounded for punctuation.

Martha eased on the gas and slowly moved through the intersection to comply. It was over. She'd stolen her father's car and added the police to her nightmare. Even if she could snap her fingers and make her father's job disappear, this would be enough to clinch another failure. Another damn childhood away from James. I don't think I can...

A block ahead, she saw a sign for the 210 East freeway entrance. East... James... Her head lurched back as her foot hit the gas.

Martha had no clue what her plan was. I'll somehow lose the fleet of police cars then make it halfway across the country with a half a tank of gas, no money and no drivers license? Brilliant.

The police kept their distance, not wanting to provoke a crash. Traffic had thinned as many cars had pulled to the side, warned by the sirens or perhaps news radio. Though not quite the draw OJ Simpson would be in a year, onlookers gathered on pedestrian bridges to wave for the news copters trailing the pursuit.

There were two such helicopters she could see out the driver's side window, but she assumed there were more behind her, broadcasting her failure for all to see. Would her father be watching, fraught with worry and confusion from her perfect daughter's sudden delinquency? Would the news have reached Illinois?

Martha returned her eyes to the road just in time to see a car driving dangerously slow, coming up fast. She braked and swerved to narrowly miss it. Her tires squealed in horror as inertia slammed her to the side of the car. She counter steered and was thrown in the opposite direction and then out of her seat as the car began to roll.

Martha opened her eyes slowly. Flashing blue and red reflected off broken glass as she lay in the overturned car. She coughed and her broken nose shrieked.

Through one of the window frames, a policeman crouched and shouted something to her, but she couldn't make any sense of it over the ringing in her ears. He stood and walked off, presumably to get more help.

So this was it. Her impulsive escape had come to a painful end as would this once promising life. She had no intention of letting the consequences of her spree play out – her medical treatment, her criminal punishment, her broken father...

There was a large shard of glass inches from her face. She could puncture her carotid artery and bleed out before the ambulance arrived. But... she couldn't reach it.

She couldn't reach anything.

Oh shit...

Beneath her shrieking nose, Martha felt the sting of a cut across her chin. But beneath that, there was nothing. She looked down at her legs. One was bent at the shin with a compound fracture, yet she felt no pain.

Oh shit, oh shit...

The policeman returned with a pair of EMTs. They wrapped a brace around her neck and slowly turned her face-up toward the bottom of the car, then slid a backboard underneath her. As they pulled her out of the wreck and into the blinding sunlight, Martha, limp and helpless, began to cry.

Author's note:

I promise I'm not this much of a sadist in real life. Seriously though, James better damn well appreciate what Martha's going through to get to him!