Chapter 1 Romy
The first time I jumped I was sixteen. And I touched the locket that had been my grandma’s.
It was all a blur. Kinda like I was dead, and not a part of my body anymore. One minute my family was singing me happy birthday—and I was blowing out my candles—the next I’m looking at them but I’m not really there.
The whole world was frozen; in time. I’d walked around the table, looking at my family, and waving my arms in front of my older brother who was blowing one of those paper horns. I touched it and it felt real, even though time was still. I had no idea what was happening, and no idea how it would affect my life from that moment on.
Even now, five years later I’m still learning my powers or whatever you want to call my ability to jump through time. But it sucks, being a Voyager in 2045 because even just practically thinking about jumping is a crime. The Time Keeper Bureau is tracking my whole family, partly because Dad is a Fragmented. He’s not himself in other words, because he broke the fabric of time by jumping too much.
He’s in the kitchen now, spooning cornflakes into his mouth like a robot. I step up to the fridge behind him to greet him, “Morning Dad. How’d you sleep?”
He turns to look at me, slowly dropping his spoon. “Good morning Romy. I slept well. No nightmares,” he tells me robotically, not able to meet my eyes that are trying to focus on his.
His eyes that stare back at me are soulless, black holes of emptiness. It’s been three years since we lost my brother Delsin. He never should have been in that accident, rushing home for my graduation. He was too drunk to be driving after the party for his best friend Gage Easton. And the guilt has eaten away at me, more and more every day that I have to see Dad this way.
I blame myself that Dad became a Fragmented, all because he’d tried to go back and save Delsin from the accident. He couldn’t stop it and lost himself as well in the process.
Pieces, broken parts of my Dad are scattered through time, and it’s a damn miracle he remembers my name or who I am since most of his memories are gone.
I want to ask him if we’re celebrating Del’s birthday like we do every year, but he’ll most likely have no idea what I’m talking about as he screamed at me last year, telling me he never had a son. And that very thought breaks my heart.
Delsin meant the world to me. He was always such a caring big brother, not minding his little sister hovering around when he had friends over. But since his death, I haven’t even seen the one friend of his I actually liked, which of course was Gage.
I never told Del, but I thought Gage was cute. Boy next door cute. And now—well when I last saw him at Del’s funeral—he was gorgeous. Tall, dark, and deliciously handsome, but also he seemed to for some reason give me dangerous vibes.
And I have no idea how to process that feeling.
I manifest an apple from the selection screen of the Fridge-o-Matic, opening it and grabbing the fresh apple in front of my eyes. We’ve had this crazy technology for years, but it still baffles me that food just appears whenever you ask for it from the abyss that is the modern Fridge-o-Matic.
I give Dad a kiss on the forehead, telling him, “Don’t forget to take your inhibitor, Daddy,” before I munch into my apple as I grab my bag and head out the door.
My feet take me to the cemetery without a second thought. And when I arrive—about to grab the flowers out of my bag—I stop dead in my tracks, a metre away from Del’s grave.
Because this time I’m not the only one there.
