The Palmer Pool

14 | No Broken Record

London was my favorite place on earth up until that moment when the beach we were walking on replaced it. The skirt of my dress fluttered in the breeze and I made a mental note to wear dresses more often, they were more comfortable than shorts. Pete was quiet and I was afraid I'd said too much. I should have told him I'd never been outside of Michigan, maybe it seemed like I was bragging.

A piece of cobalt blue sea glass caught my eye and I reached down to pick it out of the neutral stones surrounding it. It was cool to the touch, rounded at the edges and perfectly smooth. I held it up to the sunlight and then realized I was able to pick up the seaglass without it being handed to me. It was like I didn't even take the time to think that I might not be able to do it.

"Whoa! I've never seen sea glass this blue."

"Beautiful," he murmured. Only he wasn't looking at the sea glass, but directly at me. His eyes caught mine and I quickly looked away.

"Here," I pushed it into his palm, "you keep it."  I hoped it would remind him of me when I was inevitably gone again, possibly forever.

"Vanessa," he blurted and then paused, "I'm sorry about the way I acted earlier."

"It's okay," I sighed. "Those were all legitimate questions."

"And you can answer them whenever you're ready, or not at all. But, just so you know, I'm not going to be able to stop trying to figure you out," he said with a sly smile.

"Oh yeah? Have you figured anything out so far?"

"You're off your rocker," he said matter-of-factly. "Or I am. Or we both are."

"I won't tell anyone if you won't." I said it jokingly, but my concern about being found out was growing. "Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with you. But, with me, I'm not so sure. So, did you come up with any other ideas?"

"Not any good ones," he scoffed.

"Well, if you're going to get anywhere, it will require some ...suspension of disbelief." With that being said, a curtain behind his eyes opened up, revealing a spark of excitement.

"In that case, for a while I thought maybe you were a ghost. But you're not...old fashioned enough. You're the opposite of old fashioned somehow." He narrowed his eyes, studying me. Maybe he did know. I held my breath as I waited for him to say it.

"Or you could be from outer space," he said casually.

"What?! Do I look like an alien?"

"Well, I don't know what aliens look like, but if they look like you, that would be a nice surprise. Or a dangerous one," he said conspiratorially, his eyes widening, "aliens could invade and we wouldn't even notice."

"You don't have to worry about an alien invasion. I'm not from outer space."

Unless, I thought, I'm on a planet in some alternate universe. Since I began time traveling, my mind had opened up to consider almost anything as a possibility.

"That's all I've come up with so far," he said with a shrug.

We were too absorbed to notice the huge white crested wave that crashed onto the beach. When the wave caught the hem of my dress and rushed around my calves, I shrieked in surprise and darted out of the water. Pete stood there laughing, his pants soaked from the knees down. His laugh and the cold water fueled me with a burst of energy and I took off running along the water's edge, my toes flinging sand and splashing water up onto the backs of my legs. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Pete jogging a few yards behind me. I slowed to catch my breath and turned to face him.