The Sticky Part

Jess watched Tommy being wheeled out to her car. He easily stood up from the wheelchair to open the passenger door. The wheelchair-pushing volunteer looked concerned until Tommy was seated, then turned back to the hospital.

“Thanks, Jess. I appreciate you picking me up.” Tommy sighed and looked out the passenger window.

“You okay, man? What happened?” Tommy had called twenty minutes earlier and had only told her he’d been in a wreck and needed a ride home.

“I… I… it’s hard to explain.” Tommy continued to look out the window. “Look, Jess, I need you to keep this between us, okay?” He looked at Jess. “It’s gonna sound crazy.”

“Yeah, of course, Tommy. Just between us. No worries.”

“You remember when we were kids and talked about time travel?”

Jess remembered a lot of things she and Tommy had talked about when they were growing up. They were nerds and science fiction had been a constant topic between them. Maybe, vaguely, she recalled a few times talking about time travel.

“Yeah, I think so. Like what we would do if we could go to different time periods and stuff like that…”

“Well, it’s nothing like we talked about.” Tommy shook his head and looked back out the passenger window. He looked like he was about to cry. “Like, first of all, I don’t have control over when it happens and that’s why my truck crashed.”

Jess looked over to see if he was pulling her leg. Tommy was terrible at jokes and his face didn’t look like he was kidding. “Wait, whaaaat? You time traveled?”

“Yeah yeah. It’s the only logical explanation. I’ll be doing something and, suddenly, I’m in the future. Not much in the future, but definitely in the future.” He turned to Jess, excited or scared. “I just merged onto I-5 from the Sutherlin ramp, got up to speed, then BAM!, I’m two miles down the road going off the embankment into a tree! So… like a minute and a half to two minutes later. Crazy.”

“Shit, Tommy, it sounds like you passed out! Did you tell the doctors what happened?”

“Yeah, I know what it sounds like…” Tommy looked back at her. “Jessbeck, that’s not what happened.” He looked miserable. “Not at all what is happening.

“Oh, Tommy, how long has this been going on?” Jess was terrified for him. Stroke, aneurysm, what? Mostly, calling her ‘Jessbeck’ was a sign Thomas was under stress. It was the name he called her when his mother was dying during their freshman year.

Tommy laughed, but not happily. “A couple months. I didn’t realize it for awhile. It was only when I was doing things that I noticed that time had passed. You know, turn water on to wash dishes, then the water would be overflowing… A couple of seconds at first, but each jump is getting longer.”

“I don’t know, Tommy… is your body disappearing?”

“No. I was on a conference call a couple of weeks ago and I moved forward. I played the call back and my body was in the same place the whole time.”

“Tommy! You’re not traveling through time.” Jess was even more worried. “You’re blacking out!”

“Yeah, I was thrown off when I first found out my body was still sitting there.” Tommy smiled. “Until I realized that I couldn’t break the laws of thermodynamics. Mass can’t just disappear and show up further down the timeline. The mass needs to dissipate before I can come back as something else.”

Jess couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying. “The mass needs to dissipate… Shit, Tommy, come on! That’s crazy!”

They were quiet for the rest of the drive. Jess parked in front of Tommy’s apartment complex and started to get out of the car.

“I’m good, Jess. A little bruised but I don’t need help getting to my place.”

“Tommy, we need to get you to a doctor! I’ll take you.” She was already figuring out how to rearrange her work schedule.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go in first thing tomorrow. I know you and Evan are busy with work and all.” He saw the look on her face. “Scouts honor! There’s an Urgent Care just a couple blocks away.”

“Okay, Tommy, text me when you see the doctor. Seriously! I don’t plan on losing my best buddy.”

Thomas smiled, gave her a thumb’s up and limped to his apartment.

The morning was busy, as always, so Jess didn’t get a chance to look at her messages until lunch. Nothing from Tommy, so she sent ‘?’ to his phone. She checked again when her shift was over and still nothing. His message box was full when she called. Evan wouldn’t get off work for another two hours, so Jess drove over to Tommy’s. No answer when she knocked and the one window she could get to had the curtains drawn. The neighbors hadn’t noticed anything or seen him that day. The manager of the complex would not let her into Tommy’s apartment or even go in himself.

Jess got home right before Evan. He called a cop friend who agreed to do a welfare check on Tommy the next morning. Jess continued to text and call Tommy until she fell asleep.

Work was crazy busy again the next morning. At 11a.m. Jess was surprised to see Evan at her counter at the bakery.

“Wow! What are you doing here, babe?” The moment she asked, she knew.

“OHGod, is it Tommy?” Evan came around the counter to hug her. Everything swayed and reset askew. This couldn’t be.

The memorial service was nice. Tommy’s father had it in the park near where Tommy grew up. Jess saw a lot of people she hadn’t seen in years. There were people gathered around Tommy’s dad the whole service, so Jess didn’t get a chance to speak with him. There wasn’t a lot to be said anyway. Tommy had an aneurysm that killed him in bed. She would never know if she could have saved him by forcing him back to the hospital that night. Evan said that it wouldn’t have mattered, that Tommy would have died in the hospital rather than at home. She didn’t know. She knew the grief was terrible but that it would fade with time. She wasn’t so sure about the hole inside of her.

She decided to walk home from the service and told Evan she’d meet him there. Evan nodded and kissed her on top of her head. The playground area of the park was enclosed by a cyclone fence and Jess walked along the perimeter of the fence. Kids with and without parents were running around, swinging, sliding, yelling, and having a good time. It had been nice to have that background noise during the service, a reminder that life continues on.

“Jessbeck!” Jess spun around and saw a little boy, about eight, walking up to the fence from the other side, a stick in hand.

“Wha… what did you say?”

The boy smiled at her. “I’m Ricky.”

“Did you call my name?” She must have heard wrongly. Wishful thinking, maybe.

The boy walked up to the fence, lifted the small branch, and spoke quietly. Almost a whisper. “The sticky part is mass transferral.”

“Jess! Jessie!” She turned and saw Tommy’s father coming from the service.

“Hi, Jessie, sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk with you at the memorial.” He was panting from trying to catch up with her.

“Mr. Jackson! I’m so sorry about Tommy.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry, too! You were always Tommy’s best friend.” They hugged. Mr. Jackson stepped back and pulled a vial from his suit jacket. “I brought you some of Tommy’s ashes if you want them. I think Tommy would have wanted me to share him with you?”

“Oh! Of course! That’s very nice of you!” Jess looked back at the fence. The little boy wasn’t there. “Mr. Jackson, did you see the boy I was talking to when you came up?”

“No, but I was trying to catch up with you. I’m out of shape. Was the boy with you?”

“No, I didn’t know him. He came up and spoke to me…” Had he been there? Had he really said ‘Jessbeck’? Was he talking about his stick? Jess was uncertain.

After Mr. Jackson left, Jess walked around the playground, but never saw the boy again. By the time she made it home, Jess had convinced herself that she had imagined the conversation with the little boy, Ricky. She had wanted Tommy’s time travel fantasy to be true and had created the boy. Simple as that.

Jess would often walk to the park where Tommy’s memorial had been held. Quite often. Daily. Maybe she would see Ricky.