The Girl and the Time Machine Part 1

 

 

 

The Girl and the Time Machine

by Moises Bautista

I built a time machine. I had built a time machine. Everything I planned was finally ready at last. All that was needed was for her to say yes and then everything would launch. She just needs to say yes. Everything is ready. She just needs to say yes. Say yes. Say yes. Please say yes.

These are the words that would echo back and forth in my mind constantly. The cling and clang of their weight adding fuel to my personal ambitions and motivations.

Time. Time is the keyword in this story. I am not lying when I said that I built a time machine. I built a physical time machine. Although, perhaps not in the way that you would expect.

August 31, 2015

It was the beginning of my junior year at PACS high school. It was about one in the afternoon and I had just finished getting a signature from my 7^th class of the day on a pink slip sign in sheet that was given to me by the main office earlier that morning. This slip had all the classes that I was to attend for the rest of the school year and was on my way to my final class of the day. According to the sheet, this class was on the third floor so that would mean I would have to take the stairs as I was on the first floor. I saw it as no real trouble for me to rush up as I was excited for this class because it turned out that the teacher for this class I had had the year before. This teacher would specialize in history and the projects that he assigned us gave us a chance to be very creative in our presentations of, which I personally took full advantage of. Because of that I actually gained the reputation amongst my peers in the class for having the most elaborate presentations, such as programming my teacher’s laptop to make myself appear virtually inside my power point documents and give the entire presentation there or make a working miniature hot air balloon while other students simply made small propeller mechanisms on pencils. Of course, I would do these things because I enjoyed making people happy more than anything and seeing how my classmates enjoyed my projects brought me a tremendous amount of joy. I saw each assignment as an opportunity to entertain them and made sure to do my best in all the work I put out and really put my heart into.

When I finally made it the third floor and walked into the classroom, I could see dozens of familiar faces. Some people I knew and some people I knew of. All of the students were talking and catching up with all their friends and discussing what they had been up to in the summer.

As I continued to look around, most of the students in the class were mostly just acquaintances and not really people I could consider close enough to be friends. Except for one person who I had happened to find between the bustling crowd of students all dressed in their black shirt and khaki pants school uniforms. One girl who I immediately recognized upon seeing her. She was wearing glasses, had dark hair, light and clear skin, slim figure, with her classic stripped peach backpack. This girl’s name was Les. I had met her in the 9^th grade when I first came to PACS but never really talked to her that much. However, during the 10^th grade, I had the chance to talk to her more as I had her for more classes and we got to work together on a couple of projects. We talked way more but not really enough to consider her a close friend.

Les and I then locked eyes and her face lit up.

“Ryan!” she said ecstatically. “Welcome back!”

“Hey.” I replied back “Long time no see.”

We then walked towards each other and her and I began catching up and started talking about what we had done during the summer when all of a sudden, our teacher raised his hand and told us all to settle down as he had an announcement to make. The class then grew quiet. Our teacher then went on to explain that he was going to begin teaching in about a minute so he told us to choose a seat but to keep in mind that once we chose the seat, it was going to be our permanent seat for the res of the year. The students then scrambled and began to search for seats next to their friends. During this commotion, I noticed that no one really wanted to sit in the front. Suddenly, Les turned to look at me and told me to come sit next to her. She then pointed to the seats in front and told me to hurry and come along. I then looked at her in a joking manner and asked “Why?”

She then looked back at me and told me to just do it because she didn’t know anybody in the class and because she knew me. So naturally since I really didn’t know anyone in the class either, I saw no harm in sitting with her. But little did I know that by making that choice of sitting in front of the classroom next to Les, would set off a chain of events so massive that I honestly would have never expected.

 

December 15, 2015

I was in class getting some graded paper work back from my teacher’s desk as he walked by my desk. It was the final week of the semester and we were preparing to go on a three week break the following week.

I was walking back to my seat when suddenly I noticed the door on other side of class open. It was Les. My teacher then got up and began walking towards the door. It was 2:05. The bell had already rung 5 minutes earlier so that meant Les was late. My teacher approached her and asked for her late slip which she gave him and then welcomed her in.

“Hey, Ryan. What’s up?” Les asked as she headed towards her desk.

“The sky” I said as I laughed feeling pretty clever.

Les smiled and shook her head.

“By the way, I got you some candy.” Les then put her backpack on her desk and pulled out some snickers candy bars. My favorite.

“Aw thank you, Les” I said as she gave it to me. “For this I shall give you two of my finest camels and a chicken next time we meet.”

Les then began to laugh.

Suddenly, our teacher then began walking up to the board and told us to pull out our textbooks as today’s lesson involved us reading from the book.

Les and I then pulled out our textbooks, which were moderately heavy, from our backpacks and began to follow along our teacher.

Just then, one of the students in the class raised her hand. It was actually one of Les’ friends. The teacher then called on her and she explained that she forgot her text book. The atmosphere grew quiet and tense. The reason for this was because my teacher was very strict and stern of the classroom policy that we required us to be prepared and bring our textbooks every day. Since we covered a lot of material from it whenever we read and called on people to do activities from it, he couldn’t continue the lesson as the student would fall behind.

My teacher then began to ask if the student had her book in her locker to which she said yes. The teacher then told her to go get it and the student began to get out of her seat when suddenly a voice said:

“She can use mine.”

It was Les.

Les then got up from her seat with her textbook in hand and walked over to the other side of the class to give her book to her friend. After she did that, Les then began walking back to her desk and the teacher began to continue his lesson.

Les then looked at me and smiled as she sat down.

She then whispered “Guess we have to share now, huh?”

Les began scooting her chair closer to mine. As she did this I could smell a certain perfume that she had on which I hadn’t noticed originally when I walked in that day. It smelled like cheery and peaches. Coincidentally the smell of my two favorite fruits.

We then began to read the pages together and we took turns turning them. After doing this for a while, I noticed that she had painted her nails a dark navy blue.

“Your nails look nice by the way. The color blue is very aesthetic.” I said as I leaned in to her ear.

“Which shade is your favorite?” Les whispered back.

“Shade?”

Les turned to face me. “Yes. What shade do you like?”

I was confused by this. I expected Les to merely accept the compliment. “Um. Light blue?”

Les giggled. “Okay.” She then turned back to the book.

An hour then passed and the teacher announced that we pull out our notebooks and answer the questions on the board before the bell rang. Les and I then put the book aside and began to work.

I turned my seat over to my right to ask a question to my other partner next to me about one of the problems. I then felt a tap on my shoulder from my left.

“Hey, Ryan.”

“Yeah?” I said as I turned to face Les.

Snap. That’s the sound her phone made when she took a picture of me with her flash on.

“Delete that.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not going to do anything bad.” Les said as she laughed and adjusted her glasses.

“Please, Les. Just please delete it.”

I then tried to grab her phone which she teased me by moving back and forth from out of my arm’s reach. I could tell she was enjoying this.

“No.” Les said as her grin grew wider and wider.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

We both stared at each other for a few seconds. Her smile then turned to a frown.

“Fine” she pouted “I’ll do it.”

She then displayed her phone screen to me as she deleted the picture.

“Happy, Ryan?”

“Really delete it, Les. I know how Iphones work.”

Les then chuckled. “Okay, Mr. Ryan sir.”

She then scrolled to her phones back up storage and erased files bin and deleted it permanently. Les put her phone in her pocket.

“Thank you.” I said and then went back to doing my work.

No more than one minute passed when I noticed Les take her phone out of her pocket again. She then put her hands under her table and began to use her phone. I kept on doing my work but I kept my eye on her with the corner of my eye. I then began to stare at her phone screen. I saw that she was frantically scrolling through her phone’s touch screen when I saw her download something from an online storage account. It was the picture from before. She then quickly turned her phone off and put it back in her pocket.

“Let her have it” I thought to myself and just went back to my essay.

A few minutes later the bell rang and all of us students in the class began to pack up and leave.

Les and I began to pack our stuff but she had finished before me.

“See you later Alligator” she said and began to walk towards the exit across the room.

I smiled and waved goodbye as Les then began to what almost seemed as her skipping out of the classroom heading towards the sea of students. I watched her as she left.

That was a lot of work for just a mere picture, I thought to myself. Certainly, she couldn’t like me. Could she?

The following day, I ran into Les on my way to class. She had jumped right in front of me as I was getting my textbook out of my locker.

“Hey, Ryan!” she said as she slammed her hand on my locker. “Did you finish yesterday’s homework assignment? I was wondering if you could help with some of the hard parts.”

“Yeah. And alright.” I said “What parts did you need help in?”

“All of them! I fell asleep in class when he assigned our homework and explained!”

“You fell asleep?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you notice me? Right after you told me to delete your picture I felt tired and plopped on my desk.”

That wasn’t true. I saw her working on the problems we were assigned on.

“Sure. Okay.”

“Awesome! Thank you so much! Meet you by the lunch benches in an hour?”  

I looked over to her hand which was still on my locker.

Her nails were light blue.

June 2, 2015

I was shocked, undeniably shocked. I didn’t know what to do.

It was the final week of school and I had found myself in a nerve wrecking situation. Three weeks before, Les had told me that she was moving to another city and would not be returning for senior year. In the past few months, Les and I had gotten to know each other really well and had become great and inseparable friends. We had worked on my class projects together, hung out more often, and enjoyed each other’s company overall.

When Les announced that she would not be returning I was surprised because the very week before the news, we were already panning out the things we were to in senior year. Furthermore, during these last couple of months, I had actually begun to develop a crush on Les and I sensed that she, as crazy as it was to believe for me at the time, possibly felt the same way as well. I began to notice I had these feelings around January and since then I had done my best to begin showcasing my feelings for her such as getting her gifts, complimenting her and many other things which I knew would make her happy. Personally, though, I really cherished the friendship I had with Les and I didn’t want to rush into things as I had never been in a relationship before at the time and didn’t want to ruin things. That along with my timidity. Therefore, I felt that I would just see where our friendship would lead us into our senior year, not to force anything but let things happen naturally and if it did, then maybe, if the moment was right and the stars aligned just right, I would tell her how I felt.

For the final three weeks of the month of May I struggled with this issue of confession, seeing that I thought I was never going to see her again after our final week in June, I debated on whether I should confess my feelings or not. However, in the end, I decided that on the final Monday of the last week of school, I would tell her after our final class. Everything went according to plan but, when the moment came on that day, my timidity got the best of me.

 “I will just ask her tomorrow.” is what I told myself the day before while on my way to go confront Les afterschool.

But tomorrow never came because the very next day, Les didn’t show up to school. Everyday that followed after that I would sit at my desk, waiting for Les to arrive so that I could finally tell her how I felt but she was unfortunately marked absent by the time attendance was called. This process repeated for the remaining days of the week.

On the final day of school, everyone was in high spirits and celebrated how they were going to finally be free for a few months and began dancing in the halls and getting rowdy as most teens do when excitement awaits. It was a shortened day and we only had 4 hours of school that day, but to everyone, it felt like the longest. While everyone began leaving their seats to go socialize with their friends in other classes or play card games to pass the time, I remained at my desk near the door waiting for Les. While everyone discussed and planned what they were going to do they very instant they got out of school, I planned on getting ready for the heartbreak that reality was about to give me. While everyone waited for the final hour and prayed for the clock to hurry to the last minute so the bell could finally ring, I prayed up until the last minute of the final day to see her one last time. She never showed up.

That summer I spent just going about my life and enjoying it as best I could before school started once again. I had fun and took advantage of having more time to do things I couldn’t during the school year such as making comedy videos, working on art projects, travelling and overall spending time with friends and family. However, whenever I found myself alone, typically in my room at night as I got ready to go to bed, I began to wander in my thoughts, but I couldn’t help but struggle with the memory of Les in my mind and my regret for failing to act.

As the weeks got closer and closer to the beginning of the following school year approached, I couldn’t help but fathom the idea of Les returning. I thought to myself about what I would do if Les returned. Would the chemistry still be there, if there was any in the first place? Would we just treat it as nothing ever happened? The answer far beyond my grasp. Although the chance was very unlikely, I still couldn’t eliminate the option completely.

August 24, 2015

The first day of senior year had finally arrived.

I looked at I took a look at roster to see who I was to have class with this semester. I saw many friends, acquaintances,

“Les Lastnamú.”

A cold shiver went down my spine.

End of Part 1