A World Without You Read Free Page B

buildings of the polio camp. “It’s just a bunch of sick kids.”
    She shook her head. “No, not here. But, you know, I think maybe . . . maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad.”
    â€œSick. Kids. Just, like, buckets of sick kids all around being sick. Not my idea of a fun place.”
    â€œYou don’t understand,” Sofía said. “When you’re sick with, like, a terminal illness, something you live with forever, there are very few moments you can forget about it. It’s like a lead weight inside your chest, cracking your ribs. Every time you move, you can feel that weight shifting inside of you. But then there are moments when, for whatever reason, the weight goes away. You forget you’re sick. I bet this camp was full of those moments. That’s what I’d want to see. That’s what I want to feel.”
    She was right. I didn’t understand.
    â€œSo where do you want to go?” I asked, still unsure of this wild mood of hers.
    Sofía looked off into the distance, toward the ocean and the sun and forever, but she couldn’t see any of that. “I want to go somewhere far away.”
    She didn’t bother explaining any further. She just kept walking. I don’t think she was going anywhere in particular, but we headed toward the state park. I thought about running back to get her abandoned red shoes so she wouldn’t have to walk on the splintery wood of the boardwalk, but she veered left, where the ground was soft.
    I look around me now. Any minute, past-me and past-Sofía will come around the bend and be standing right in front of me, at the chimney. It’s where Sofía took me that day, right before she whirled around, her eyes blazing, her long, dark hair whipping back, and said: “Here.”
    â€œHere?”
    â€œCan you take me back to this place? Back when there was just one family on the island, the ones who built this house?”
    â€œIt wasn’t built here,” I said. “It was built in Salem.”
    â€œFine, then when the house was moved here. To . . .” Sheturned around, her eyes scanning the plaque. “Let’s go back to 1692.”
    â€œI . . . um . . .”
    â€œYou can do it, right?”
    â€œYeah,” I said immediately, wanting to impress her, to erase the doubt in her voice. “I’ve been back further than that. It’s just . . . why?”
    â€œI want to go away. I want to be as far away from this world as possible. Take me back further than 1692, I don’t care. Let’s go to the days when Native Americans were here. Let’s go further. Let’s go to the dinosaurs.”
    All my muscles were tense, and I moved very carefully, like I would if there were a wild animal in front of me. “I’ve never been that far back before,” I said. I regretted telling her that I could take her back. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and hold her tight, not fling her through time and space. I didn’t realize it then, but a part of me sensed that she was running away, and I didn’t want to let her go, even if I was going with her.
    â€œI don’t care, I just—” Her voice cracked. “I need to escape.”
    I took a deep breath and grabbed both her hands in mine. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but I knew I would do anything to make her happy. As I was holding her, I called up the timestream. I saw it expanding out from the two of us, strings erupting in every direction, each one linked to a different time and place. She couldn’t feel it; she didn’t react at all as I focused on the date engraved on the chimney, on the house that once contained it, on the island of the past.
    And then we were there.
    We had been standing among ruins; we were now standing in front of a chimney with bright red bricks streaked withsoot. A roaring fire blazed at the bottom, casting Sofía