Anaya strode into the den.

Answers, answers, answers.

The words pulsed in her mind like a dull headache while she dug around the cabinet by the pale gold vintage French sofa set. Finally, she found what she'd been looking for. The phone book her parents always kept there was dusty with disuse. She turned on the lamp and her fingers flew through the pages.

Aubrey. Audler. Augier.

There. Augustine.

Bernard. Danielle. Hailey.

Anaya backed up. She scoured the page again, up and down.

No Gregory Augustine.

How the hell am I supposed to know how this works if I can't find him? How do I get my memory back? I can't just faint every time I have these... manifestations.

She grasped at another idea. It was a long shot, but she searched the pages again for the only other place she could think of.

Anaya dashed up the stairs and scrambled to the phone in her room. She punched in each number slowly and deliberately.

"St. Jude's Retirement Home. Grace speaking. How can I help?" The female voice was friendly and professional.

Anaya mind weighed the possibilities. It was eighteen years before she last saw him. The chances of this working were minimal but this was her last hope.

"Hello." She paused and tried again. "Hi, Grace," she said, plunging ahead and hoping for the best. "I'm looking for a resident of yours. Gregory Augustine. May I speak with him please?"

There was a faint tapping noise. "One moment please while I check for you."

Anaya's heart leapt. Could it be? Was it possible?

"I'm afraid we don't have anyone by that name staying with us."

Anaya shut her eyes and sank to the floor, cradling the receiver.

"Are you sure? He definitely had... plans to move in."

"I'm quite sure, Miss. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

The woman's cordial tone was eroding, turning into barely-concealed impatience.

"No. No thank you." Anaya let the phone drop back into the carriage.

She sat there in silence.

Now what?

She couldn't stop now. She'd have to figure out what was happening to her. With or without Gregory.

Anaya grabbed an empty, spiral notebook and sat down at her desk. She needed some kind of baseline to compare against her new experiences. She'd always been methodical, so she decided to put one of her best adult skills to use. Making lists.

She used to keep lists of all kinds back when she was an adult - grocery lists, Christmas lists, patient preference lists. This time, she would write a list of herself. "Anaya's Life List." She would jot down everything that would happen to her, in chronological order, until her death. A timeline would be a perfect starting point to help guide her toward what she needed to change.

Dad's company is going bankrupt because... because... because why?

Nothing came.

Come on, woman. You know this.

Only she couldn't actually recall what happened. It was like looking down a long, dark tunnel with ghostly figures she couldn't quite make out. Determined, she changed the question to poke at her memories from a different angle.

Okay... after Dad lost the company, we had to...

She set the tip of her pen onto the thin, blue line, willing the recollection to come pouring out.

But it didn't. She gritted her teeth and pushed her concentration, feeling like an Olympic athlete in training. The dark tunnel only got darker. No matter how much she tried, nothing appeared. Worse yet, the harder she concentrated, the more she felt that same weakness from before creep into her head, as if the threads of consciousness were starting to collapse in from the edges of her vision.

Her pulse quickened and she abandoned the dive through her memories of the future. The weakness immediately subsided.

"I can't remember," she uttered out loud, more a curse than a statement of fact.

What's wrong with me? I used to dwell on my past, sometimes too much. Now I can't remember something as significant as this?

The doctor's part of her brain clicked into gear. She needed a clear understanding to make her prognosis.

Anaya could call to mind the immediate past of her thirty-five-year-old self. She vividly recalled Gregory, the accident, and her second chance. Her hindsight of her teen years - even her childhood - had also flooded back, and was still becoming even clearer.

But the time between her current teen self and the woman she was when thrown back in time - that was what dwelt in the dark tunnel. She could get to some of the basics, like looking at the chapter headings in a table of contents, but the details were now a blank. Those memories, those years... they were now places her mind simply could not go.

She set the pen down, her eyebrows pinched together in frustration. Thinking about asking her parents for a loan had sparked the recall of her future self. Those memories that almost caused her to pass out seemed only to be triggered by some related event.

Like déjà vu.

Only she didn't want to risk blacking out when a fragment of her future resurfaced. But how was she to know what to change if she could only trigger the memories by chance?

You have to do this. Just start with what you know.

Overcharged with nervous energy, Anaya paced around her room. She shuffled up and down the tan carpet. In her haste, she hadn't even removed her shoes. She kicked off her Vans and flung her jacket onto her bed.

What, precisely, could she do about her family's financials?

She scanned the walls as if searching for the answer in Toni Braxton's exhilarated smile while on stage or Brad Pitt's determined glare. A few more of her favorite stars, Tom Cruise and Jewel, stared back at her, but offered no counsel.

Were there rules about knowing the future—the parts that applied to her at least?

It isn't like I can run out and buy a winning lottery ticket to make it all better.

Anaya had never even held one before, let alone memorized the correct numbers on any given day. She'd repelled the idea of wasting money when she knew the odds were against her.

She grabbed a pillow and let out an exasperated growl. How was she supposed to do this? It felt like she was rebuilding an elaborate house of cards, with no base, no fortification, just starting somewhere in the middle.

What if something I changed for myself or my parents irrevocably alters someone else's life?

But how would she even know? She rubbed her temples, frustrated all over again. It was exhausting to think about and try to keep all clear in her head.

A door closed downstairs.

"Hey, honey. We're back. I bought dinner, so be down in ten."

All of Anaya's time travel concerns were washed away until they recede out like a wave.

Mom?

Tears stung Anaya's eyes. She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard her mother's voice. All she knew was that they were absent from her memories of her future self.

But Mom's here now.

Anaya certainly remembered enough of her childhood to know if she didn't get down there toot sweet, the rest of the evening would be miserable. Her mother's name was a longstanding joke in the family. Patience Jones had no patience at all.

Ready as I'll ever be.

Anaya made her way down to the dining room.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of her mom. Anaya realized more than ever that in twenty years from now she would look almost identical to the Patience right in front of her.

Except I don't cook.

Anaya narrowed her eyes.

When people remarked that they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter, Anaya had always waved it off. But now, her mother was the mirror image of her future self in a long-sleeved khaki dress that clung to her figure, flattering yet modest. Her black hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail, her bronze skin was smooth and wrinkle free. When she caught sight of Anaya, her deep brown eyes brightened.

Anaya's throat constricted. "Hey, Mom."

"Hi, sweetie. I'm almost done. Can you set the table, please?"

"Um, sure."

She reached for mats from the drawer she instinctively knew they would be stacked in. Whatever else was going on with her mind, the memories she still retained were spot on.

The dining room was exactly as she pictured it. The crimson and ivory velvet of the eight chairs stood regal against the solid wood of the table. The dangling crystal prism of the chandelier sparkled above. She'd actually helped pick out much of the decor. Together, the three of them had spent hours redecorating during the height of her dad's success. They'd gone through a dozen catalogs, constant trips to the furniture store, the countless styles - experimenting with a variety of mix-and-match designs - before deciding on this blend of contemporary yet classic vibes in a palette of reds and golds.

She was in the midst of setting the table and reminiscing when a new voice interrupted her.

"Hey, honey. How was school?"

The sound of her father thrilled his "baby girl," and a huge grin broke out on her face... until she got a good look at him. This was not the hale-and-hearty Marcus Jones she remembered from her teen years. Her dad's skin was a sickly, jaundiced yellow - not the sunkissed tan that she remembered from all the work he did outdoors. His usually crystalline blue eyes were puffy and dull with fatigue. Simply put, Dad looked like crap, a grim shadow of the man from her memories.

Anaya felt the look of surprise and sadness wash across her face. She turned and pulled out a chair for herself. The last thing she wanted was to make her father think she was disappointed with him.

"Fine, Dad. You know, the usual."

Her mother sat down. Her father poured himself a glass of Tennessee Whiskey before joining them. He raised it to his lips, made a half-toast to no one in particular, and knocked back most of it in a quick gulp. He swallowed another before slicing off a piece of steak.

"Pass the potatoes, please," he said to her mom. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she replied as she did so.

Anaya watched the stand-off conversation between her parents. It wasn't cold, but more like they were strangers than husband and wife. They didn't even look each other in the eye.

Memories from even younger days gushed forth. Images of her mother in her favorite blue dress and string of freshwater pearls, dressed up for a night out with her husband flashed through Anaya's mind. Then the look on her dad's face when he savored the last taste of her mother's signature pumpkin pie. Anaya didn't need to be from the future to know that those happy nights didn't happen anymore.

For a moment she considered unloading her fears on them. Mom, Dad, I know I look seventeen, but I'm actually thirty-five, and I got a chance to go back in time and do things better this time around. Where should we start?

The clock chimed seven.

The phone began to ring.

The girls...

"Kait's on the dot, always." Her mom gave a small smile. "Are you going to get that?"

And say what?

"It's fine. I'll catch up with them later."

Her mother had always been fond of Kait. Arranging playdates, sitting through boring school plays, patching up fall outs - Mom had been there with them through it all. Anaya blowing off her nightly call with her best friends should've at least raised an eyebrow. But her mother just nursed her glass of water, her food hardly touched.

Anaya stared at the table and moved her vegetables around her T-bone steak. They weren't ignoring her, but weren't paying close attention either. Her father went through two more glasses of whiskey before his plate was cleared.

"I'll clean up. You guys go on ahead," she offered, hoping to give them some time alone. It was the least she could do until she figured out how to truly help them.

Her mother smiled her gratitude. "Thank you, honey. I need to look over some things from the office, anyway."

Her father kissed her temple. "Thanks, sweetie."

They both retreated to opposite ends of the house like boxers at the end of a round. Alone with her thoughts and a table full of dirty dishes, Anaya headed to the kitchen to scrub them both.

The dishes cleaned up just fine. As she wiped down the dinner table, she still hadn't found an answer to her time travel conundrums.

As she trudged up to bed, she passed her parents' bedroom. There was a heated conflict in progress. The hushed tones couldn't keep the conversation from leaking into the hallway.

"I don't have time for that. I'm buried under all the paperwork to file for bankruptcy. It's due by Friday, you know that!" her dad seethed.

"If you'd drink less and wake up earlier, you could find the time," her mom hissed back.

I should have traveled back earlier. I was so worried about me, I didn't realize everything else that was going on right now. Could I have prevented this?

Anaya quietly pulled her door shut. That didn't help. Although darkness enveloped her, the angry, harsh whispers still seeped through the wall.

"...insolvency... liquidation..."

"...court order... debt restructuring..."

"...fraud."

Anaya dropped into bed, curling into fetal position. She might've heard this conversation the first time they had it. But the words and phrases held much more gravitas to her adult mind than she must have recognized when she was a teen.

We're all so self-absorbed at this age!

High school and popularity and boys and the future were all so much overwhelmingly important then than the simple recognition of family. How much had that mindset influenced the woman she'd become?

Her pangs of guilt grew sharper.

She rolled onto her back and turned her head towards the window. The half-moon hung low in the sky, casting a silvery glow. There was a glint below her eye. She realized it was just moonlight catching the tear tracks down her cheek.

It's too late to stop.

A door shut and soft footsteps padded down the stairs.

Anaya swiped at her cheeks.

How could I have been so consumed with myself that I'd missed all this before?

Once she'd cleared her eyes of sadness, the room looked different to her. Her lights were still off but her bedroom was filled only with the dim glow from her window. But surrounded by the quiet that remained after her parents' angry words faded, Anaya was more alone than she'd been since she traveled back.

No, not alone. I still have me. Two of me, really. Teen body and adult mind. A new me and a new life. I should take the best of both worlds and stop looking at things the old way.

For a moment, Anaya did nothing. She calmed her breathing. She opened her mind instead of whirling it around in place. As she existed in the silence and dark, she realized it was neither. The sounds of life filtered in through the glass of her window. Insects. Frogs? Yes, and there was light traffic on the distant main road.

In the moon's glow, even the posters on her wall seemed to look at her with new expressions. They weren't there as unspoken sources of judgment or encouragement. Now, somehow, all those celebrities seemed to be looking to Anaya for answers.

I came back here to fix the fact that I dropped out of school. Let's start with that.

At dinner, she'd planned to tell her parents about her decision to go to college. She imagined they'd be happy and proud. But she wasn't prepared for the Mom and Dad that sat down to the dinner table with her. So young and yet more worn down than she ever remembered.

So she'd said nothing.

I can't dump the burden of paying for college on them. Not now, not like this.

In her first life, she never asked for support. She'd gone off on her own, for her brief foray into modeling.

Remember how well that worked out?

Only... she couldn't. Not exactly. She only recalled vaguely that her quick decision to go the "glamorous" route not only was not glamorous, but hadn't ended well for anyone. It'd been the beginning of the end.

I wish I could remember why, though.

Anaya mentally smacked herself for telling the girls that she could teach and travel. Was that some vestige of her self-centered past making a last-ditch effort to stay alive? Whatever it was... that had been silly.

Adult Anaya is in control now. There's no time to live in the past.

That thought made her smile in spite of everything.

Except that's what I'm doing. Literally.

So, looking at the bigger picture of being back in time, Anaya's two main problems were intimately tied together - her parents' impending monetary collapse and the expense of a new life she hadn't lived the first time through.

How much does college cost these days anyway?

Anaya felt an unexpected surge of anger at her parents' lack of foresight.

Why the hell didn't they bother to invest in a college fund for me?

But she quickly realized that she couldn't really honestly fault them for that. Neither of them had a degree. No one in either of their families had gone off to college, either, so there was no background dealing with educational expenses. Her mom was continually upskilling herself with professional courses and her dad was more of a big-idea, big-picture guy.

Well, my seventeen-year-old self sure would've kicked up a shitstorm.

But as a thirty-five-year-old in a teenage body, she had no use for pettiness. More than that - had she ever even voiced a desire for college? She didn't remember much talk about it. She'd always been rather non-committal at best. At worst, she'd felt no need for it. She was going to have a glamorous modeling career, after all. Who needed boring college courses?

And, again, that's exactly what I'm doing this. Self-recrimination aside, what are my options? What can I do about it?

Her grades had plummeted her last year of school, so she could scratch "scholarship" off her mental list straight away. Her brow puckered as a thought occurred to her. She didn't even know if she could get financial support.

So find out, girl!

There ought to be some sort of insight in all the brochures she'd brought home. Where had she put them again?

Ana quickly found the pamphlets in her bag. As she pulled out the info packets El had given her, a tiny white business card floated down to the grey carpet, like the first perfect snowflake of winter. She picked it up off the floor, pinching the little rectangle between her fingers, and came to a grateful conclusion. Maybe she wouldn't have to figure out all of this on her own.

El offered to help. It's time I started to accept that I need it.