"She freaked out!" Christy shouted over the blaring radio of her Suburu. She was giving me a ride to work after school as it had started raining, my bike wedged awkwardly into her hatchback with the front tire removed and placed in the backseat.

"But she must've known you wanted to apply to Berklee." I struggled to focus on the conversation as the events of the day continued to haunt me. Would Kieren come back again? Would he demand to know more? And what the hell would I say to Mr. Martel the next time I saw him? I had managed to sneak out of his classroom without saying a word about what had been in his pocket, disappearing into the wave of students entering.

But I'd see him tomorrow. Why did he have that penny?

For the thousandth time, I fought back an impulse to confide in Christy, to just tell her everything. But, as always, it was impossible. It wouldn't be fair to her, I reminded myself, to dump something on her she couldn't possibly understand. I turned to her instead to hear more about her mother's reaction to the college news.

"Yeah, but she didn't think I was serious about it," she continued. "This is the psychological mind fuck my mom pulls on you—she lets you go just so far in one direction, just enough to make you think you have free will, and then she pulls this reverse psychology crap on you, seeding doubts, making you second guess yourself, until you 'decide' to change your mind and do what she wanted you to do the whole time. She thinks I don't know she's doing it, but I do."

I was nodding solemnly as Christy spoke, trying to keep up with her chain of thought but realizing that she was really just finishing up a private argument with her mother that I happened to be the audience for.

Still, I knew what it meant to her that I was at least listening. Maybe I couldn't talk to Christy—not really—but I told myself that being there to listen to her was still being a good friend.

The rain was pelting down on the car now, causing a thick cloud of white spritz to obscure our view. The car in front of us was only visible when it got within five feet, and so the traffic slowed to almost a crawl.

"Maybe we should pull over for a minute?"

"You'll be late for work."

"Better late than dead."

Christy thought about it for a second, then noticed her gas gauge. "I'm out of gas anyway. Let's pull into this station."

She maneuvered the car out of the congested lane and through a puddle the size of a small lake, coming to a stop under the overhang by the pump. But as soon as she opened the door, it was clear the rain was coming in at an angle and smashing into the side of the car. There was no way to avoid getting drenched.

Christy and I just stared at each other. Usually, when she gave me a ride, we'd take turns pumping the gas. But neither of us seemed to want to volunteer this time.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" she asked.

"You pump and I'll get us snacks," I offered instead.

"Deal."

I darted through the driving rain into the mini mart, shaking off the water from my flimsy sweater and deeply regretting that I had chosen today of all days to wear white. My seventeen-year-old body had just recently decided that it was finally time to grow boobs, and now everyone in the gas station would be privy to that fact.

I discreetly shook the sweater out, trying to determine to what extent my white bra was visible beneath it, as I headed to the chip aisle and picked out a couple bags—ranch for me, extra spicy for Christy. I snagged a couple lemonades from the fridge and headed up to the check-out.

It wasn't until the very heavy-set woman before me finished up paying and moved out of the way that I saw him at the register. I didn't even recognize him at first, even though he basically looked exactly the same. For some reason, I remembered him being taller, but of course that was a ridiculous thought. People don't shrink in two years.

His hair was shorter, though, and his lips drawn tight. He looked... he looked sad. That was the word. I don't know how long I stared, trying to make sense of why on earth Brady Picelli was standing in front of me at the A and P, and not in Boulder where he belonged.

"Can I help you?" he asked automatically before he registered my face. Brady and I hadn't seen each other since the night I went back into Yesterday. I knew that he remembered me because we'd exchanged a few emails. But as far as he was aware, I was just some kid he'd helped navigate the halls of the school one day and who had later followed him to the train station when his girlfriend Piper McMahon had gone to see the Mystics. He remembered showing me the doors beyond the boiler room, and convincing me not to tell the authorities what had become of Piper.

But in this reality, that was the end of our connection. Brady and I hadn't gone to Portland together. I'd had no reason to go since my brother had never been sucked into DW. Instead, Brady had followed his original plan: waiting for Piper to return on her own. As the portal under the lake didn't exist anymore (thanks to my trip into Yesterday), Piper had never disappeared into it.

And so in this plane, Piper did come back to Brady just a couple weeks after she had left. She had never fallen in love with my brother, and in fact, had never even met him.

She and Brady had stayed together and settled in Boulder, Colorado, just as they had always planned. And they were happy there... at least, that's what I thought.

"Holy shit," was all Brady said when it finally dawned on him who I was.

"Hi," I choked out, droplets of rain trickling from the top of my head and down my nose. I instinctively flounced my white sweater, regretting the wardrobe choice more than ever. "What are you—"

"Look at you," he cut me off. "You look amazing."

His eyes darted momentarily down to my chest and I could feel myself blush, an old habit that died hard.

"What are you doing here?" I blurted out.

Instead of answering, he turned to an old Indian woman sitting on a stool behind him, counting out bills and wrapping them in rubber bands. "I'm gonna take my five, okay?"

She nodded, not looking up from the bills, her lips silently moving with the sums she was doing in her head.

Brady motioned to me to follow him. I looked anxiously towards the front door instead. "Hold on," I said as I popped my head outside, still balancing the unpaid-for chips and lemonades in my suddenly sweating palms.

Christy had pulled the car over to a parking spot and was having an animated conversation on her cell phone. From her body language, I could tell it was with her mother. I held up one finger to let her know I needed a minute, and she waved back that it was fine, obviously needing the privacy anyway.

So I followed Brady through the store and into a small back office roughly the size of a minivan. He closed the door behind me and immediately cracked open a window. The onslaught of rain echoed against what sounded like a tin awning overhead, and the humid, heavy air filled the room with a whoosh.

Brady took out a pack of cigarettes, plopped one in his mouth and lit it with a metal Zippo that he then clicked closed with an upward thrust of the wrist and shoved back in his pocket. He waited until he'd had the first drag before turning to me.

"I thought you quit?" I asked.

He looked at me, his eyebrows twisting into a question mark.

"I mean, you told me once..."

"Yeah, I quit. Then I quit again. And again. You know how it is. I tried vaping for, like, a second, but then I heard that vapes have nine times as much nicotine as a cigarette, so, yeah..."

He took a deep drag and blew the smoke out the window. Small lines had formed around his mouth and his fingertips were yellow from the filters. He looked miserable and tired, and I couldn't help but feel that it was somehow my fault. I hesitated to find my voice before asking the question that I suspected I already knew the answer to.

"Where's Piper?"

He smiled and nodded, not at me necessarily, but just at the question. He stared at the burning embers in his hand for a moment, and then uttered one word, drawing out the hiss of the opening consonant: "Split."

I sat down in a desk chair and realized I was still holding the snacks. "I think I have to pay for these."

"Nah, they're on me. Go ahead."

"Thanks." I opened up the ranch chips and offered him one, but he shook his head.

"You know what sucks? She was happy. I know she was happy."

I nodded, letting him talk. His skin looked blue against the white mist in the window, his hair black. The mad crush I had had on him once came rushing back to me suddenly. God, I was crazy about him. Would I still be if I met him today?

"She really was," he continued. "When we first got to Boulder she was, anyway. We got this little one-bedroom and she decorated it. Got these colorful baskets at the Dollar Store. Everything went in a basket. Her books, her makeup."

"What about your stuff?"

"I didn't have any stuff. I just had Piper."

"And she didn't fit in a basket?" I asked, testing the waters to see if I could make him laugh. It took him a moment to realize it was a joke, but then he chuckled to himself.

"Did you ever meet Piper?" he asked. I had to think for a split second about what the truth was, or at least, what it was for Brady.

"No, not really."

"Mmm. She, um... she said she wanted to see the ocean. Felt like she was missing something, she said. I'd wake up in the night and she'd be pacing, looking for something. And I'd say, 'Babe, what you looking for,' right? And she'd just keep walking around. Wouldn't answer me. Didn't know."

I stared at my feet. Did I do this to Brady? To Piper? She told me once that she loved the ocean. She wanted to live there with Robbie someday. And she wanted me to come out and live with them. She had it all planned out in her mind—her life, mine, and Robbie's, organized into color-coded boxes.

And now what had I left her? The remnants of a dream I knew she no longer wanted.

"I don't know what I did wrong," Brady continued, stamping out his cigarette against the windowsill. "She never said. She just wasn't there one day when I got back from work. Left a note saying she couldn't pretend anymore. Whatever that means."

I cleared my throat, having no idea what I could possibly say to make any of this better. Guilt and sadness seemed to drown me. What I wouldn't give to shout my story out loud now, to tell Brady the truth. Piper was missing a love she never even met. How could he ever understand that?

"I don't know why I'm telling you this. You just... did I ever tell you that you remind me of Piper?"

I smiled through the pain of it. He had told me that once, right before he took me down to the boiler room for the first time. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel my hand nestled securely in his.

For the second time today, my past was staring me in the face, and I couldn't say a damn word about it. I knew I needed to leave the room before the strain of it started to choke me from the inside out.

"I'm sorry, Brady," I whispered as I stood to go. I made it to the door, resting my hand on the knob, but I couldn't look at him. The tears were stinging behind my eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"Wait, Marina, don't go—"

But I was already gone.

I ran out of the room, through the small store and into the pelting rain, slamming the door to Christy's car shut behind me. She had ended her phone call and was listening to an Adele song on the radio, singing along in perfect harmony as the rain cast a steady beat on her windshield.

"Where are the snacks?" she asked.

I looked down at my empty hands, shaking from the wet and the cold. "They didn't have anything good."

Accepting my answer, apparently, she backed the car up and headed for the road. I turned to watch the gas station disappear, straining to see the last blurry image of it before it was eaten up by the nebulous mist.