Page 118 of Prometheus Burning

Mom started to laugh. “What are you going on about? You did what now? I should hope not!”

“You don’t know what party?”

She sighed loudly and drew it out. “Jesus, Jemma. Either you need more sleep, or you need to call Dr. Wiig, because there was no party. Not with Jamie’s parents. And not with you causing a scene. Are you planning on doing this to me at our next party? Is that what this is all about? Have I not been a good mother to you and—”

“Mom! Relax for once, okay? Listen, never mind the whole party thing. Forget it. I just need to know one thing. What’s the date?”

“You need to go to Dr. Wiig, we need to up your meds and—”

“I’m not upping my meds, Mom. The date, please. What is it?”

She groaned as if I’d annoyed her to a point that would irritate her for the rest of the day.

“It’s February 14th, Jemma. You know, Valentine’s Day.”

Her voice was layered with annoyance.

“So this means… Jamie’s alive,” I breathed.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. Alright, thank you. Umm, one other thing. Can you tell me where Jamie lives?”

“What?” I’d never heard her sound more confused.

“Jamie’s address. I need it. Now.”

* * *

The sun shone in the sky, strangely for this time of year, not a cloud in the sky. Though the snow on the ground remained, the sun above cast a shimmer to the white, snow which seemed eternally frozen, stuck in place.

I pulled up to Jamie’s apartment complex—a three-story, beige colored siding with a parking lot meant for about twenty or so cars in the front. A few bushes lined a graveled landscape at the very front of the complex. I cut into an open space right near the doors, and I slammed the gear shifter into park. It hadn’t dawned on me until this moment that, without Jamie’s phone number to call him and inform him of my arrival, I couldn’t expect to get into the building, let alone his actual apartment.

Hopefully he was home.

My iPhone read 2:30 pm.

Jamie dies tonight, I realized. I wasn’t sure the time exactly, just that he hanged himself on the night of Valentine’s Day, and his brother found him the next morning. And I needed to somehow get in there and hopefully stop him from ever doing it.

If he still wanted to do it.

Maybe he remembered everything just like me. After all, I remembered. Wouldn’t that mean that he would, too? And, if so, why didn’t he come to find me at my house this morning? Why hadn’t I gotten a ring on my door and found him there, waiting for me?

Was any of this even really happening? Or would I arrive at Jamie’s place to find out I was in some alternative reality, one in which Jamie had already died anyway?

Relax, Jemma. You still have time.

He’s alive, I just know it.

I pressed my finger to the button on the callbox outside the double doors leading inside and waited, tapping my shoes against the ground. As the box rang up to his apartment, I hoped that everything would be in alignment. That I’d reach him, he’d let me in, and we’d laugh about this crazy thing that had happened to us before returning to the lives we now vowed to live together for the rest of eternity.

“Hello?” Jamie asked, voice gruff. Drained. Full of a depression I’d seen in him only once—the time he showed me his life the night before he killed himself. My heart sank down into my gut.

If he sounded this way, then that would mean…

“Jamie, it’s me…” I said, cutting off my own thoughts, hoping that all I’d have to say wasit’s meand that Jamie would just know. Just know based off what we’d been through. Just know I’d come to get him after we’d been given this second chance together. That my voice could be like magic to his ears, the way his voice was to me.

“I’m sorry, who?” Jamie asked. I swore through the phone I heard something bubbling in the background.

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