So I told him. And he believed me. In fact, he'd traveled to the past himself. A lot. In his younger days, anyway. He said maybe he'd tell me about it someday.

I didn't go into all the details. I said that I'd seen Walt and Rose goofing around in the snow outside of the Rockmore House earlier that evening and then I stayed for a while to catch up with a friend I'd made on previous trips to the fifties. Dad didn't discourage me from it and seemed to understand why I'd want to satisfy my curiosity. He did say to go back "only for the right reasons" but didn't elaborate on what those might be. He didn't have an explanation for it, only that he suspected it ran in the family.

When he parked the car in the driveway at home, that was the end of the conversation. At least for the night. He told me I could talk to him anytime about anything- time travel related or not- and that he wished he'd made that perfectly clear before.

He had the key in the side door when he stopped and added, "I've thought about this before, you know, if I found out you could do this if I'd try to stop you. But the thing is, it's probably not any more dangerous than sending you out into the world in any other way. Since you were five years old, I've had to let go a little just to send you to school every day. And college? I can hardly think about it. So be careful, trust your judgment, and promise me you'll always come back, alright?"

When I woke up the next day, I felt a little lighter. Until I remembered that I had an essay to write and biology homework to do before I had to be at the Shipyard at four o'clock. If only I could pause the passing of time for hours. With the relentless cycle of school and my job and homework, the soonest I could get away to Marquette would be over winter break, sometime between Christmas and New Year's.

I couldn't imagine waiting over two more weeks.

~~~~~~

After school the next day, I crawled into the attic and took down the bin of sewing supplies and vintage clothes that I'd hidden from myself. I needed something to soothe my restless energy. So I set everything up as it had been before, from my sketches on the corkboard to the dresses arranged by decade in my closet and started a new sewing project.

On Wednesday, Kaitlin and I ate lunch on our own because Sophie and Laura were both home sick. Kaitlin sighed heavily when she sat at our table.

"I don't blame you if this is a hard no," she said, "but would you want to ride up north with me this weekend to pick up my sister? Her ride home took off as soon as she finished her exams and stranded her."

"At Northern?" I asked. My heart slammed in my chest. "Isn't that all the way up in-"

"Marquette. Yeah, it's like a seven hour drive." She rolled her eyes. "My parents are flying to Mexico tomorrow for a destination wedding so they can't pick her up. I said I'd go, but I don't want to drive all the way up there alone. I have no idea why Emily picked a college in the middle of nowhere."

I didn't know why either, but I was happy that she did. Because Kaitlin asking me to ride with her to Marquette, home of Northern Michigan University and Pete Brennan, was the best thing I'd heard in weeks.

"Yes! Yes, yes, hard yes. I'm supposed to work but I'll find someone to cover for me. Are you gonna drive up Saturday and spend the night and drive home Sunday?"

"Yeah, Emily said they're having a party at her house that night for whoever is still left on campus, so it might be worth it."

"The guy I was with last summer is up there," I tried to say casually.

"Oh! He goes to NMU? Is he coming back for winter break? Do you think Emily could get a ride with him?"

"Um, probably not." I ripped my sad, flattened sandwich into two pieces and frowned. "I think he has a job? So he wouldn't be coming back until later."

"You should invite him to the party," she said with a mischievous grin.

I snorted a laugh. "I was thinking maybe I could visit him in a less crowded environment."

"Oh my gosh!" Kaitin squealed. I could practically see the hearts in her eyes like a love-struck cartoon character. Kaitlin was a sucker for grand romantic gestures that only happened in movies. "You want to show up at his door and tell him how much you miss him? This is so exciting!"

"No, it's terrifying," I moaned.

"Terrifyingly exciting?"

"I don't know. What if he's my Daisy Buchanan? What if I've built him up in my mind to be somebody different than who he actually was? What if reality doesn't live up to the illusion I've created?" I debated whether I wanted to say my greatest fear out loud. "Or what if I'm his Daisy?"

But what was I actually hoping for? I already knew a relationship with Pete could go nowhere. It might be easier if he did fall short of my expectations, or if he had moved on and gotten married or something.

I reminded myself again that the real reason I needed to see Pete was to assure him that I was fine. To tell him I'd survived the accident and the trip back to 2016 and he had nothing to be sorry for. And to apologize for being so harsh on him the night Rose disappeared. OP

"I don't think you have anything to worry about, V," Kaitlin said, pulling me from my thoughts. "It's only been three months. How different could he be?"

The chair across from me scraped against the floor and Eric sat down at our table with his lunch. His shoulders slumped and he looked tired. Even his normally radiant hair seemed listless.

"Where are the rest of you?" he asked, as if my friends and I were all parts of the same person. Then his eyes darted from Kaitlin to me. "You two look like you're plotting something."

"Sophie and Laura are out sick," I said.

"And Vanessa and I are going to brave the great white north this weekend," Kaitlin announced.

"Are you going skiing?" he asked, perking up a little. Leave it to Eric to get fired up about rich people sports. He studied our unenthused expressions and asked, "No? Snowboarding, then?"

"We're picking my sister up at Northern," Kaitlin said, "staying for a party Saturday night and driving back Sunday."

Eric frowned. "Kaitlin, your car is tiny and unreliable and you're talking about driving to the Upper Peninsula in December. There's probably three feet of snow on the ground up there already." He leaned forward on his elbows and said, "You know, I have four-wheel drive."

"Are you offering us your car?" I asked. "That's so nice of you."

"I'm offering to drive you there in my car."

Kaitlin was actually considering it. "We're staying with my sister Saturday night. I'd have to ask her if there's room for you, too."

"Awesome." Eric pumped his fist in the air. "I'll sleep anywhere."

Then Kaitin went to the bathroom and abandoned me with him.

"How'd it go with your dad the other night?" he asked.

"Oh, it went pretty well actually."

"Really?" His eyebrows raised in surprise. "I found your phone laying in the snow and brought it inside. Your dad called and I answered it and told him I wasn't sure where you were. And then he showed up at my house. I thought he was going to kill me. Or you. Or both of us."

"Oh man, I'm so sorry. I explained to him what happened, so he probably doesn't want to kill you anymore."

"Good to know. So what happened? Where'd you go?"

I glanced around the crowded, loud cafeteria. "Now's probably not the time."

"I see." He smiled sadly and poked at his food. I hadn't seen him take a single bite, which was weird for him.

"Are you okay?" I asked. "You seem a little off lately." Except for when he was lying next to Sophie in the snow. He seemed alright then. I felt a little less concerned about him as I remembered them laughing together. "Are you worried about early decision day?"

"A little."

So that was it. He'd applied early decision to the University of Michigan and results were coming soon, as early as the next day.

"Actually," Eric said, "it's that when I dropped you off at home on Thanksgiving, I realized something that I hoped would happen is probably never gonna happen." His hazel eyes caught mine for a moment and quickly looked away. "And I'm just...getting used to it."

I tried to remember what happened at my house after Thanksgiving dinner. He did leave kind of abruptly, but I never gave it much thought.

"Oh! You think you're never going to be a surgeon because you were afraid to take my stitches out? Come on, don't let that one little thing discourage you. I shouldn't have asked you to do that, I'm sorry. That was a weird thing to do."

He scoffed. "No, not that."

"What is it, then? Did I do something?"

He raked his hands through his hair as he muttered, "It's whatever. It's fine. Forget it. We're good."

"You sure? Because it sounds like we'll be spending like fourteen hours in a car together this weekend."

"That's right." He extended his arm toward me and waited for a high five. I gave his palm a lackluster slap. He was being weird.

~~~~~~

On Saturday morning, when Eric picked me up from my mom's house, Kaitlin was already in the front seat. Once I loaded my bag in the back and settled in, I made them guess what my mom said to me as I walked out the door.

"I love you honey, have a safe drive?" Kaitlin guessed.

"I love you honey, don't forget to bring home a genuine Upper Peninsula- crafted beef pasty for me?"

"No, she said, 'Don't get pregnant.' And I said, 'You act like getting pregnant is the worst thing that could happen to someone.' And she said 'It is.' Just what you want to hear from your mother."

"No offense, sweetie," Kaitlin said in an artificially high-pitched voice, "but you are the worst thing that has ever happened to me."

"My dad said, 'Watch for deer,'" Eric said.

"Well, that's just Midwestern dad speak for 'I love you,'" I reminded him.

"Maybe 'don't get pregnant' is your mom's version of 'watch for deer,'" Eric suggested.

"Yeah, a code, like how squeezing someone's hand three times means 'I love you,'" Kaitlin said.

"It does? I've never heard of that," I said.

Outside my window, the flat landscape rolled by in patches of lifeless farmland bordered by leafless trees in every shade of brown and gray. In a few hours we'd find ourselves in an actual winter wonderland. Later that night, when everyone else was distracted at the party, I'd try to find Pete. Apparently there were many ways to say 'I love you' and I regretted that I never said any of them to him.

In my coat pocket there was a letter I'd written to tell him just that, among other things. I decided to write a letter in response to his, in case he wasn't home when I got there or if he was still alive out there somewhere at my origin and couldn't see me or hear me in 1955. There were so many ways that this might not go as I hoped and planned, but I felt a small sense of relief in knowing that at least I was trying to make things right. The plan was in motion and we were on our way.