When I return to the backyard, I find Destiny fanning open a bag. She has an earbud in her ear connected to the phone in her pocket and is shuffling her feet and bopping her head.

My heart is pounding.

I know it's a stretch, but if Esther is here, maybe a few other people are here too.

I call her name, and she stops moving, then turns her head to me. She scrunches her forehead when she sees my face.

"You're red as hell," she says through gnashed teeth. I stop in front of her. "What's wrong? What happened?"

How do I explain to her that the woman I met in an alternate universe is here, living among us in ours?

It sounds insane.

"My grandma has a friend over." Destiny narrows her eyes and slowly nods like she's waiting for my point. "I know her from somewhere else. I was wondering if, maybe, you and I could look up someone else I know from where the old lady's from."

"Why," she asks, her voice low. I tuck my hands in my pockets and purse my lips.

"Well, he's my boyfriend." Her eyes light up like they did when I mentioned that my mom's having a baby.

"And you weren't gonna tell me you had one?" She playfully shoves my arm, sending me rocking on my heels. "Yeah, I'll help you look him up! I can't wait to finally have a double date, and you can tell me how you two met."

***

To thank us for cleaning her yard, Grandma gave us five dollars each and to-go plates of mixed vegetables, rice, and oxtails with gravy.

Our moms came to get us, but we sent them home with our food after begging to spend a few hours at a girl's house up the street.

At first, they weren't up for it since they didn't know the girl or her parents, but after a while, they left us with Grandma.

There isn't a girl up the street, and if so, I don't know her.

Destiny and I took two bikes from Grandma's side yard and rode off with them.

"What're you gonna say when you see him," she asks, peddling beside me.

Truthfully, I don't know. My stomach keeps rumbling whenever I think of him and what he might look like. I'm just hoping he'll look the same as he did when I last saw him.

"I think I'll just get his number. We can't stay too long," I say, and she nods before looking forward.

"That's true." We turn a corner. She has an earbud in to listen to the GPS. We're two minutes away.

We're near the edge of town where the houses are weathered, and traffic is low. The sun is setting, and the sky is shades of purple and orange. We only have a minute to see him, and then we have to leave immediately.

The GPS takes us to a wide house at the end of a cul-de-sac. It's freshly painted navy blue and has a brick foundation.

There are two cars parked in the driveway. One is grey and the other is black.

We stop at the curb and hop off our bikes, our eyes scanning the yard. We walk the bikes past the Toyota Corolla and BMW, but only I continue up the porch. I leave my bike with her.

I don't have time to be nervous, but there's a heaviness in my arm and a tightness in my chest.

I take a deep breath, then knock so fast it sounds like we're ding-dong ditching. I look at Destiny behind me, sweat hanging off her brows and chin.

"You need some water," I ask, and she nods. The door creaks open, and we turn our attention to the tall man under the arch.

He's wearing jeans and a tank top, his long hair drawn back in a smooth bun.

I smile with my top row and ask, "Can we speak to Troy, please?"

He stares at me with big eyes and his mouth hanging open.

"Leila, you're supposed to say hi before asking, and introduce yourself." I shut my eyes and mentally facepalm.

I look at the man in front of us and chuckle.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm Leila, and that's my friend, Destiny. Uh, good afternoon. Can we please speak to Troy?"

"Leila?" His voice is low, his eyes scanning me from my hair to my shoes. The corners of my mouth twitch, but I force the grin in place.

I slowly turn my head to peek at Destiny. She cautiously walks up the steps with furrowed brows.

"Um, yeah, I guess he's been talking about me a lot." I let out a choppy laugh, both awkward and nervous-sounding. "Is he here?"

"Leila, I'm Troy," he says, placing his hand on his chest. I freeze and Destiny steps beside me, glaring at the guy.

I can't hear or feel my heart. The butterflies in my stomach are gone.

The anxiety from wanting to reunite with my boyfriend is replaced with the feeling of bugs crawling inside my skin.

I stare at his features. He has a scraggly mustache and goatee, high cheekbones, and bushy eyebrows.

"Maybe we have the wrong house," I say, my voice so low it sounds like a whisper. Destiny sits her hand on my back.

"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, sir," she firmly says. He slowly lowers his hand but only glances at her. "We obviously went to the wrong house."

The man stares me in the eyes, and I subtly lean into Destiny. She wraps her arm around me.

We turn away from him but stop when he says, "Leila." Goosebumps appear on my arms and back. Without looking at him, I'd easily mistake him for Troy; they sound identical. "You're so - young."

"Yeah, because she's a minor." Only Destiny looks at him behind us. I stare at the empty street. "How old are you?"

He's quiet at first, like he's not sure if that was a rhetorical question, then he says, "Forty-six," and Destiny scoffs.

Forty-six. My stomach grumbles, and I cover my mouth with my hand.

"You're old enough to be someone's granddad, and you're talking to kids online?" Her voice is loud and shrill, spilling into the peaceful neighborhood.

"Let's just go home," I say, my voice shaking along with my fingers and lips. The man flicks his eyes from one of us to the other, a long crease settled above his nose.

Destiny guides me off his porch, and we grab our bike handles. I keep my head down and my shoulders raised to my ears, but she scowls at him.

We mount our bikes in the street and ride off as quickly as possible. Destiny shakes her head, anger set on her face.

"Leila, my mom said not to talk to people online unless you know them." I wanna yell at her to leave me alone, but my throat closes in.

My eyes burn and well with tears. I breathe heavily and it's just as shaky as my body.

I don't understand how Esther can be the same age, but Troy is old.

Why couldn't he be our age like the other Keenan?

Tears run down my face like my eyes are faucets. I huff and puff. The wheels steer in different directions. I fight with them to remain straightened.

"Are you okay," she asks, her tone now soft. I follow her path, unable to tell a house from a tree.

"I'm fine," I say, still panting. My heart feels taken in someone's hands and squeezed with all of their strength.

"Are you sure?" She leans her head forward to look me in the eyes. "I understand if you're not. That guy was absolutely sick."

"I said I'm fine! I just wanna go home." She watches me blubber like a baby. My nose runs and I repeatedly sniffle.

***

"Why the fuck would you go to somebody's house when you don't even know them," the other Keenan asks me.

I lay staring at my ceiling with my fingers laced on my stomach and tears running off my temples.

My cellphone is beside my head on the pillow where his sharp voice hits my ear.

I cried on the way home. It must've bothered my mom because she kept pestering me for an explanation, but I wouldn't give one.

Only a few people know about Troy, and, besides the time-traveling aspect of my life, I don't wanna let my parents know that I snuck off to a stranger's house.

"I thought I did," I say through hiccups, my lip vacuuming between my teeth. My breaths shudder.

Keenan takes a deep breath, then sighs.

"So, how does it work," he asks. "Why am I young and he's older?"

"I don't know. I wish," I say, but he interrupts me.

"You wish Keenan was here." I pull my trembling lips into a straight line. He inhales and exhales his frustration again. "Look, your boy has a computer in his dad's office. Tomorrow, I'll go in the room and see what I can find out."

"We can look it up on our phones," I say, slowly pushing myself up. My fish and seahorses swim laps around the tank, passing the vertical line of bubbles.

"I know, but I don't think I have the patience for that. The keyboard is small, and the screen gives me a headache." I nod, forgetting he can't see me.

"Maybe the brightness is too high," I say, and he scoffs. Tears puddle in my ears.

"I turned it all the way down a few days ago." The seahorses retreat near the coral reef. I raise my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them.

"Hm." I take a deep breath, my shoulders rising to my ears. When tears gather and drop off my chin, I wipe what's left with the back of my hand. "It might just be the blue light."

"The light is usually white," he says, dragging his words like he's thinking about it.

"No, I mean the," I say, stopping myself to chuckle. "Never mind. I can put a filter on your phone, and it'll help with your headaches."

"Alright." We sit in silence for a few seconds. Everyone's gone to bed hours before I called him, so we keep our voices down. He takes a sharp breath, then waits a bit longer before asking, "What'd you expect to happen when you went to his house?"

I don't know. I didn't expect us to instantly pick up where we left off, but eventually. Maybe to go roller skating with me like we did in the past or catch a movie.

"I guess I was just hoping to see someone who knew me." My voice is softer and slower. My blinking is the same as I think about the older version of Troy. "He seemed to remember me, but it's not the same."

There's a long pause before Keenan asks, "Do you think he'll recognize me too?"

"Maybe," I say, but it sounds like a question. I furrow my eyebrows and turn my eyes to my phone. "You planning to see him or something?"

"Not really." He doesn't sound certain either. He takes a deep breath and says, "I just wanna see how he looks. I don't plan on staying to reminisce."

"It'd probably be for the best." When he asks me to explain why, I say, "Well, I don't know if he knows you. He knows my Keenan and they weren't necessarily the best of friends."

"Well, how do you know he thinks you're you instead of my Leila?" I wipe my temples and ears with my fingers.

"Maybe because we had our schedules changed," I say with a sarcastic tone. "You two didn't even have Gym class before we got there."

I flinch away from the phone when he yells, "You changed my schedule?"

"Actually, it was the administration and the real Keenan." I sit up against my headboard and lift the cellphone, staring at his name and picture on my screen.

"The real Keenan?" I shut my eyes; his tone is still sharp. "So, what does that make me?"

"I didn't mean it like that." I speak with my hands and use a softer voice to diffuse him. "Look, I don't know how else to differentiate you two."

"Maybe try saying Keenan from now and Keenan from then," he says. I pucker my lips and tug them to my nose while squinting.

"That doesn't sound natural." I shake my head too.

"It's the same number of syllables, Leila," he yells, and I draw my lips into a line. With my head lowered and my back slouched, I listen to him take deep breaths and mumble to himself. He half-collects himself to say, "You know what? Goodnight. I'll text you what I find out in the morning."

"Goodnight." My voice is meek. He ends the call, and I stare at my reflection on the dark screen.

I really wish my mom would redo my hair.