Page 55 - In Five Years

Chapter Eight

“It’s nice to see you again,” Dr. Christine says.
The plant is still there. I assume, now, that it’s fake. Too much time has
passed.

“Yes, well,” I say. “I don’t really know who else to tell.”
“Tell what?”
The truth of what I have learned. That what I saw in that apartment is from

the future. It will occur in exactly five months and nineteen days, on December
15. I graduated as valedictorian of Harriton High, magna cum laude from Yale,
and top of my law class at Columbia. I’m not gullible, nor am I a fool. What

happened wasn’t a dream; it was a premonition—a prophecy sketched to life—
and now I need to know how and why it happened, so I can make sure it never
does.

“I met the man,” I tell her. “From the dream.”
She swallows. It could be my imagination, but it seems like it’s taking some

effort. I want to skip this part, the part where we have to determine what it is and
how it happened, the process. The part where she thinks I’m maybe a little bit
crazy. Hallucinating, possibly. Working out past trauma, etc. I’m only interested
in prevention, now.

“How do you know it was him?”
I give her a look. “I didn’t tell you we slept together.”

“Oh.” She leans forward in her brown leather chair. Unlike the plant, it’s new.
“That seems an important part. Why do you think you left it out?”
“Because I’m engaged,” I tell her. “Obviously.”
She leans forward. “Not to me.”