Read Online Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins - Free Book Online

in the slightest.”
We share a smile, and then all too quickly, return to reality .
I sit back and try to gather my thoughts.
“So…you really think it’s nineteen twenty-five.”
“It is nineteen twenty-five,” he says. “But I gather you don’t agree.”
“I don’t. Because it’s two thousand fifteen.”
Lawrence raises an eyebrow. “You believe you are living a
hundred years in the future. When your parents own Ned’s
house. When Ned is long gone. When…I’m long gone.”
His words send a chill through me.
Lawrence squints at the gap in the bushes. “Is it possible?”
he whispers.
I’m asking myself the same question. Is it possible that he
actually is from 1925? That he’s traveled here somehow? Or did
I travel back to 1925?
Lawrence’s voice trembles slightly. “I gather that you are
living your life as usual in this house, in your time.”
“And you’re doing the same thing. In nineteen twenty-five…”
“Yes,” he says. “Exactly. And yet, somehow, we intercept on
this beach, and this beach alone.” His eyes get wide. “This
would explain why you thought I didn’t meet you the other
night, why I waited and waited but you never came. I did wait
on the street, but it was in nineteen twenty-five.”
I massage my temples. Too many thoughts in my brain. It
feels like a balloon that has been overinflated, sure to pop
any second.
“I don’t know what to think right now,” I say. “I feel…kind
of sick actually.” Nausea has crept into my stomach. I’m dizzy.
Weak. I just want to lie down.
I stand, and Lawrence jumps to his feet. “Where are you going?”
“In. I …I need some time to process this.”
“Will you come back? Will you meet me here again?”
“Why? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
I back away from him. “Because it’s insane. Because you can’t
possibly be from nineteen twenty-five. It can’t be real.”
“But it is,” he insists. “And we have to try and understand it.”
“My brain can’t handle any more right now.”
His eyes plead with me. “Tomorrow. Please. Meet me here
on the beach.”
I bite my bottom lip. Inside, past the tangle of confusion and
fear, a thrill spreads through me.
“Sometime after lunch,” I say, nodding. “Mom and Frank
are going to an art gallery in the afternoon, so I’ll have some
alone time.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Lawrence says. “I’ll be here.”
Chapter 7

Lawrence
T
    wo a.m. finds me at my desk. I haven’t even tried to lie
down. I know I won’t sleep. Not tonight. Not after what
I’ve seen. My hand grips the pen, trembles against the page,
and words flow. They pour from me like a rushing tide, breaking against the paper in waves of unquenchable fervor. I don’t
think, don’t try to construct a perfectly formed phrase reflective
of my thoughts. I just write. And this feeling, to finally have the
freedom of words I’ve craved all summer, is nearly as exciting as
my discovery on the beach.
    When I’ve filled the last of the paper in my desk drawer,
sweat beads on my upper lip and temples. My pulse pounds
all the way to my fingertips. I set the pen down and sit
back. I leaf through a few of the pages, and the impulsive
wish to share my writing with someone burns through me.
Cassandra’s face appears in my mind. I push through the
sheer linen curtains hanging in the doorway to the balcony
and go out to grip the stone rail. The salty tang of the ocean
glides on the evening breeze, and I can hear the faint crash of
surf, but the blackness of night covers the sight of it. Closing
my eyes, I picture the ocean, the beach. Cassandra vanishing
in a shimmering glint of color. Thinking about it makes me
shiver all over.
    I feel as though I’m on the precipice of something incredible,
something beyond rare. I have to capture everything about this
moment. If I can crystalize it with words, then perhaps, when
I’m shipped off to Harvard and a life of carefully