Keenan and I are sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, flipping through a book he brought with us from the year two thousand twenty-three.

The cover has this dark blue color with white and grey diamond-shaped stars here and there, but in huge font, the title reads: Astronomy and Time, and it's as thick and lengthy as the Guinness Book of World Records.

He's still mad at me, and I'm mad at him, but I know I made a good point earlier when I asked him how everything works and why we're here of all places.

"Almost everything is random, it seems," he says while skimming through the pages. I find it hard to believe how someone who time-travels often is so clueless, but here we are. "Maybe it's based on familiarity or fulfilling desires that we didn't know we wanted." I make a face at him. He's talking like the adults in Charlie Brown, and as if he knows what I'm thinking, he says, "Imagine you have parents that are never there. During the Leonid shower, when we wish to be somewhere else, it's like the universe creates this alternate dimension or timeline just for us."

"I still don't get it," I say while shaking my head, and my face only relaxes when I hear him mumble, 'Of course you don't.' He flips to the next page, and I ball my fists up. "What's your problem with me, Keenan?"

"Oh, where do I start?" He lifts his chin and stares at the ceiling with his head tilted. I know that he's trying to be funny—or at least I hope this is just his sense of humor—but a part of me feels hurt, and he hasn't even said anything yet. "Because of you, we have to go back to the messed-up life I'd hoped we'd forget about, all because you can't seem to grasp the concept of not compromising a mission." I shut my eyes and lower my head. "You bullied some girl, then had to play the victim and try to get me in trouble."

When I reopen my eyes, I can barely see him over the fog my tears are creating. I couldn't care less about him being upset; it's the fact that he's right that's making me sad.

I swore that I knew what I was doing, but all that this experience taught me was that I was stupid. I blurt things out, either not thinking or trying to be funny, and because of me, Regina knows we killed that cow.

I'm surprised she hadn't told on me, but maybe she was planning to blackmail me instead. For all I know, this situation could make her angry enough to tell.

"I could've done this myself, Leila," he says, and a tear rolls down my face. "But I just wanted to help you escape and feel better. I've been doing this for over fifty years, and I haven't been caught more than twice."

What?

The other tear races down my other cheek as my face relaxes for a split second, and then my brows come together.

Fifty years? He has to be exaggerating because that would mean he's, like, sixty-three?

"How old are you," I ask in a low voice, and his eyes widen at the open door. It's like he didn't realize he lied to me when we met and told on himself just now.

When we met, he told me he was thirteen too, but even if technically he's physically a teenager, he was alive for more than thirty years, and that's weird.

"It doesn't matter." I jolt to my feet. If I were many shades lighter, I'd be pale. My trembling lips have a pins-and-needles feeling, and I want to throw up thinking about the fact that I've grown close to an old person who lied about being a kid. Our friendship stayed platonic, thankfully, but regardless, it's so weird. "Leila, come on," he says, rolling his eyes, and I shake my head in disbelief. "It's no different than if you were a vampire for like two hundred years and became friends with me."

"At least I would've been honest about it," I whisper yell, and he tilts his head with a look that doesn't seem convinced.

"Really, how? 'Oh, hi, my name's Leila. I know we just met, but I'm a three-hundred-year-old vampire but don't worry, I'm technically still a kid.'" He stands up, and we look at each other at eye level. "I said I was thirteen because I am."

"Okay." My voice shakes. It may seem dramatic, but when I look at him now, I don't see the same Keenan. Is that even his name? How do I know that everything else he told me was true? How do I know that all of this is real? "Why'd you start time-traveling? Where are your real parents?"

His gaze softens, and his eyes flicker from left to right when he looks down. I watch him sit on the foot of the bed, then I look around his room. He has a boombox, a poster of Prince and one of James Brown, and a bookshelf of comics and books like The Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn.

"When I was—really thirteen, my parents and little sister died, and I was sent away until I was eighteen." He licks his lips and takes a deep, shaky breath. I cross my arms and watch him in pity. "I worked for this butcher shop until I was thirty, then I was fired for no reason. I had a wife and a baby on the way," he says, and my eyebrows drop. That feeling of disgust returns and overshadows the bit of pity I felt for him. My stomach growls as I fight back vomit; plus, I haven't eaten since lunch. "So, for three years, I worked as an elevator attendant. My baby and wife died, and that night, I saw a bunch of shooting stars. It was like—it was like my wife and child came back to show me that they were okay."

"Like in The Princess and the Frog, when the firefly turned into a star?" He looks at me solemnly and heaves a sad chuckle that sounds like him blowing out air.

"Yeah, I guess so." He takes the loose string on the hem of his pajama shirt and twirls it around his index. "I started time-jumping since then. At first, I went back to when I was a kid to try and stop my family from dying; it didn't help." He shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows. "I never told anyone this. Honestly, I never had anyone to talk to until now, so." He trails off and shrugs, his face relaxing.

I sit beside him and place my hand on his, stopping him from picking at the string.

"I'm sorry," is all that I can say. My brain is no longer racing with thoughts and questions, so I'm seriously at a loss for words. His back is slouched, and his shoulders are slumped over. "Can I ask you something, though?" He turns his head toward me, and with a grin, I ask, "Why don't you pass any of the history assignments?"

***

Regina and I step into the entryway, and she shuts the door behind us. Our parents still haven't come home from work, and Michelle is at her fiance's parents' house, which is lucky for Regina because before we got back, she drank two cans of beer.

"Now are you gonna tell me why you lied?" She walks around me, and her breath burns my face. "Why'd you lie to me?" I bite my inner cheek and glance toward the kitchen to avoid her look of disappointment. "Seriously, why? If you'd have told me the truth, I still would've helped, but to have me over there ready to thrash him for something he didn't do is messed up."

"I didn't know you'd care," I mumble, and she narrows her eyes at me like nothing I'm saying makes sense.

"What do you mean you didn't know? I've fought people for you since I was in middle school." Again, she asks me or mentions something I should know. My eyes flick left and right on the floor, and then I walk past her. I know I'm acting suspicious, but I'd rather for her to have a ton of conspiracies that don't make sense than for me to confirm anything or cause any more problems. "Leila?"

I hear her breathing and footsteps approaching as she follows me to my room, and like earlier, she sticks out her sneaker to stop me from shutting the door.

"Regina." I start to tell her to leave me alone, but not nearly as nicely as earlier, so to avoid saying anything mean, I take a deep breath.

"You haven't called me Regina since you were seven; it's always been 'Gina, even when you're angry." Her tone is stern, each word coming out assertively like she means everything she says and wants me to know it. "I'm not joking around anymore, Leila." She says my name like either she thinks it's not who I am or she's trying to give me the same energy I gave her by calling her by her full name. "What's going on with you, and why'd you kill —"

I stick my fingers in my ears and hum loud enough to make my head vibrate, but anything is better if it can drown out her annoying voice. She sticks her arm out to grab one of mine, so I quickly step back, which gives her space to enter my room.

"Leila, stop it," she yells over my attempts to ignore her. She reaches for me again with her left hand, and I nudge backward. I feel like Neo in The Matrix as my shoulders buck my arms away from her before she can yank my fingers out of my ears. "Grow up!" My knees start to give out when the back of them hits the edge of my bed. She reaches for me again, and I quickly raise my arms to keep from falling, but I stumble into the seated position at the foot of my bed. With my shoulders tight in her hands, pressing my upper arms to my sides, she says, "Either you tell me what's going on, or I'm telling Mom and Dad what I already know."

I stare into her hazel-brown eyes and at her eyeliner. In a low and certain tone, I say, "You don't know anything." She narrows her eyes at me, and her clear, polished nails dig into the back of my shirt behind my armpits.

I don't believe she knows anything but that we killed the Williams' cow, but whether she watched the news or not, she can't possibly know exactly what happened. She takes her hands off of me and then stands up straight.

"What I know is that you slaughtered someone's property and then went days pretending it didn't happen." My heart drops into my stomach. Keenan's right, this is all Looney Tunes. I can't stress enough that it was an accident, but seeing that woman mourn an animal and constantly being reminded of its death is starting to make me feel like I'm being tortured. "Also, when I was at a friend's house, I saw the lady and her husband on the news. I saw that hole, but I didn't see the cow or an asteroid. Now, I don't know what the hell you two did," she says, wagging a finger at me, "but I know for a fact you were involved because you said y'all were."

I can feel a cold sweat pooling behind my neck, and I flutter my eyes. My shoulders slump forward, straining my back under my bookbag.

She takes a deep breath with her eyes closed, then drops her arms and tells me, "Just—go take a shower." Her voice is monotonous, and she rolls her eyes before turning to the door. "Later on, if you're ready to tell me the truth, you know where to find me."