The Timewalker's Decision

The first time I met my husband again, I was wearing Christmas pajamas and a bright neon yellow t-shirt in the drive-through of a local coffee shop. I was thoroughly exhausted after working and spending the night at the ER and needed plenty of caffeine. 

Only…this wasn’t the first time that I’d met him. Or the second, or even the third. 

You see, I have to go back to start this story at the beginning. To the before.

Before, there was a grandmother. A grandmother who had a special ability to time travel. One that was so special that it had to be passed down to the females in the family for safekeeping. The thing was, this grandmother didn’t care for any of her three daughters. Not one. Most would say because of the men they married, Grandmother would say it was because none of them knew how to cook a good dish of Manicotti. However, she did care for her only granddaughter. Me. Mila. Considering that my grandmother hated my father and my mother couldn’t cook to save her life, the grandaughter that could cook macaroni and cheese saved the day. 

Upon this grandmother’s 89th birthday, the gift was given to a young girl with curly hair and a Roman nose and without her knowledge suddenly contained the greatest gift that she ever thought possible. 

Skipping a little to get past her childhood where she struggled to learn how to control her newfound ability, and once her fifteenth birthday passed twice, figured out how to use it when needed. It came to each woman a little differently than the last, some made it work like a wish. A pair of closed eyes, a head bowed wish or prayer that reverted the clock. With a blink of an eye and one could go back five minutes, a flick of a wrist and time would go back a whole year. My great aunt Lilliana learned a hard lesson when she went back in time to the first trimester instead of the third and had to go through pregnancy twice. I always wondered if that’s why my uncle had been so… eccentric. 

For me, the gift came as clear as mud in the form of hiccups. If I had more than three hiccups, I was going back through memory lane. The number of hiccups equaled the number of months I was heading in the past. I never went to the future, unlike some of the other females in the family. We were forbidden to mess with the past, the consequences had never been good when those in the family had tried. I always headed those warnings and when my gift took me to the past, I made the same choices, the same selections, and spoke the same words to ensure that my past didn’t change.

I was considered the goody-two-shoes of the family, could cook, take care of kids, get schoolwork done on time and by due dates, never lied or tattled, never abused her gift or changed any timelines…

That was until I met Spencer. 

Freshman year of college, we were both late for the same physics class and got stuck together in the back row where we could barely hear the professor. Dark brown hair, black glasses, and a grin that was infectious from the moment he introduced himself. 

I barely knew what to do with myself when he invited me for coffee and a study date for a lecture we barely listened to. We ended up talking for hours, our textbooks weren’t even opened once. 

Sitting together ended up having lunch together, lunch ended up becoming movie dates, dinner dates, kisses, and hand holding, interest turned into affection and so much more. For the first time in my life, I was in love and didn’t care about being a goody-two-shoes or what my family thought. 

All I thought about was him. 

This is where I broke the rules. Stayed out late to hang out with the boy I loved. Skipped class to go on a drive or hang out with Spencer and some friends. Lie about what time I was coming home, and change plans as soon as I could with my parents or cousins. I was a girl finally stretching her wings after being in a cage for far too long. There was no limit to time, no event that I couldn’t miss, or a day that I couldn’t do over when I could give myself a case of the hiccups. There was no more Mila the Goody-two-shoes. There was Mila and Spencer. 

Now, you might be wondering, if we met at school how did we also meet at a coffee shop drive-through? 

See, to do this we have to go to the middle of the story. We finished the beginning and now we’re at the halfway point. 

Spencer and I dated all through college, soon becoming Mila-and-Spencer, inseparable despite our differences. He proposed on our fifth anniversary at the beach, a dinner afterward that was candle lit and just as perfect as he was. Having earned my father’s approval months ago, he proposed and I said yes. My heart was full beyond comprehension, I was beyond excited and in doing so gave myself a case of the hiccups. After getting back to that fateful day three months later, I was still just as excited and hopeful as the first time. I also remembered not to suck in so much air. 

We got married in our family’s church, traditional Italian food served and too many cousins to count. Spencer’s family was much quieter compared to mine, not too many of them were social butterflies. Much like my husband was. Quiet, private, and in love with me. Just how I liked him. 

Life moved on for us, time continued without changes as I was happy with my choice of marrying Spencer and if I ever had the hiccups I let it happen so that I might live more days and spend more hours beside him. Spencer was the kindest soul anyone could ever have met, compassionate, gentle, and always remembered the littlest things about our relationship. It was perfect. 

I moved on to complete my education in nursing, he completed working as a software technician. We bought a two-bedroom apartment, in the city, close to the local ER where I worked. Spencer worked from home.  

It was how I saw him in the drive-through, I had just left the ER, exhausted and overworked I had changed into the first clothes I had in my gym back. Christmas pajamas and a neon yellow shirt. At this point, I didn’t care. Once my order was placed, I pulled up to the window and that’s when I saw him. My Spencer. Black shirt matching his black glasses, on the curb waiting to walk across the intersection with his coffee in hand. Excited as I was to see him, I honked my car horn as my husband started walking forward. 

Turning, Spencer gave me a small smile and wave. 

He never saw the car speeding down the intersection thanks to me. 

There was no turning away from seeing one’s own husband die in front of them. Between one breath and the next, I was beside him but stilled when I realized that this man was not my husband, but in fact, someone I did not know. 

To fill you in, we have to go back to the other other beginning. 

There once was a boy. A boy named Spencer. He had a brother, a twin, named Shane. As children, they were side by side, always together, inseparable. Spencer-and-Shane. Identical twins that knew each other better than most people knew themselves. But then their parents divorced and each took a twin to live with them, then trade off the next year, the boys started to lose contact. Eventually separating into different lives, and different careers, passing each other like two ships in the night. Shane moved out of the country for work while Spencer moved further in. They spoke when they could but were no longer as close as they had been as children. 

That was until Spencer met a girl named Mila. 

Spencer wanted his brother to know his girlfriend, his fiance, his wife. Wanted to know the woman who stole his heart. Spencer asked Shane to fly home, stay with the couple for the week, and finally introduce him to Mila. 

How was Spencer to know that his brother stopped at a small coffee shop and happened to meet his wife before they’d even known about each other?

This takes us to the end of the story. Mila and Shane did meet. Under circumstances that neither ever wanted to go through again. 

I met my husband’s twin, a twin I never knew about, as I gave him CPR trying to save his already lost life. Instead, I reversed time and time again to save the wrong man with the same face as the husband I loved. 

How was I supposed to know that time was so slippery? How was I supposed to know that this wasn’t Spencer but Shane? How was I supposed to know that time went down to the details, the seconds, and nanoseconds? How was I supposed to know that as I tried to save the man I thought was my spouse, my true husband was getting robbed in a convenience store? How was I supposed to know that two minutes and thirty-four seconds wasn’t enough time to get to someone halfway across town? How was I supposed to know that Spencer would get shot trying to stop the robbery? How was I, someone who could control time, realize I didn’t have enough of it? 

When I found out the truth, I had thought I was a grieving widow. I felt as if my heart was torn from my chest twice, dripping crushed hope onto the tile. When I realized what had happened to my Spencer, Shane had already passed, I was covered in blood, and my house that usually held my love was empty like a tomb. 

 I had needed teleportation, not time travel. Spencer might still be alive if I did. At the end of this story, time wins again by showing me that while I can reverse time, I can’t be in two places at once. Grandmother gave me the wrong gift. Time stands still because people don’t. We’re constantly moving, acting, and breathing. Time could be moldable, constantly changing for me, but in that one moment time was immovable for me. 

There was no hesitation when I broke the golden rule - changing the past to save the future. My future. I always headed those warnings and when my gift took me to the past, I changed my choices. Changed my selections, and changed the words I spoke to ensure that the past was different.

It would always be Mila-and-Spencer. I would risk dealing with the past and breaking the most sacred rule so that my fate of being with him would always be there. 

And that’s where things started to splinter. Time and Fate are two very different things. Time is controllable…Fate is not. I started by telling him to go on a different day only for him to end up in a car crash. No matter the times I hiccupped I could never reach Spencer in time. Traffic, my car stalled, the burglary happing earlier, the freeway closed down, Spencer becoming a hostage, dying quicker, losing him faster. It was inevitable that Spencer was the one to die. 

Shane wouldn’t have been hit by the car if I wasn’t there to distract him. Shane lived because I wasn’t there to honk my horn. He was there for me to meet. He was there to order his coffee, meanwhile, his brother was being murdered in a robbery gone wrong. 

I spent two years trying to undo Spencer’s death, but every time I made it to the past, the future still ended with my love dying. 

It wouldn’t change despite everything I did to make it, every choice, every action, every word, still led to the fate that Spencer would die. 

It would never be Mila-and-Spencer again. 

So, with a final inhale, I gave myself the largest case of the hiccups yet and traveled back in time. So far, I met a boy. A boy and his brother. 

Shane. 

The one who lives. Shane, the brother, the twin, who wouldn’t die. The one who would fall in love with the girl named Mila. The one who would have dark hair, black glasses, and a beautiful smile. 

Mila and Shane. Mila-and-Shane. 

When I met my husband again, I was wearing Christmas pajamas and a bright neon yellow t-shirt in the drive-through of a local coffee shop, and he was there holding his coffee. 

My husband. The one who avoided fate and was right on time. What a gift it was to be able to control it…