I woke up to buzzing of my alarm clock. I slapped at it and it fell off the nightstand, onto the floor, and the alarm kept blaring. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of my room. Then, I sat up to see my bed, dresser, desk, and Nintendo. I didn’t move for a moment. Then I looked around again. I was, or at least I was supposed to be, twelve again.

“Jason Alexander Dennereck! Turn off your alarm!” Mom yelled from downstairs.

I jumped out of bed, slapped at the alarm clock, canceled the beeping, and ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. There I was. No gray hairs, no wrinkles, no wedding ring, no kids. Just me...and I looked terrible.

“Whatever had happened to me, apparently bedhead survived it,” I said with a laugh and walked back to my room. Then I saw them on the bookshelf: the roses. Fifteen dollars and forty-two cents. I stared at them and then picked them up. They were real. I could smell them, and they were intact. I sat on the edge of my bed and held them up to my face.

“The entire thing could’ve been part of that dream,” I whispered. “The boat, the island, the tornado… Those felt like dreams.”

I lowered the flowers to my lap and bit my lip.

But I remembered the people, too. The girls who called me Dad. The other me, who had waited thirty-seven years to tell Tiffany how he felt.
Before all this, I hadn’t known any of them. Now it felt strange to wake up without them.

I couldn’t tell what had been a dream and what had been real. Considering how many seventh graders had landed on me during PE, a head injury did make sense.

I looked down at the roses. Whatever had happened, I still had to decide what to do with them.

I got dressed, grabbed my backpack and oboe case, looked at the roses and picked them up with shaking hands. I walked downstairs. I had a few minutes before the bus would be coming down the street. Mom walked out of the kitchen the moment my feet hit the living room floor.

“You're up. I almost thought you were going to be walking to school this morning.”

“Yeah,” I replied as I held the flowers to my chest before I moved them behind my back.

“Who are those for?” Mom asked with a grin, pointing at the flowers.

“Uh...” I froze. If I had to explain everything, I would miss the bus.

“Are those for her?”

“Who?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I didn't know how to answer that. Apparently mothers know everything.

I walked outside. There was a difference in the morning air, or maybe it was me.

I held the roses close as I walked to the bus stop and met up with Keith.

“Whoa, a double surprise from Jason this morning!” Keith exclaimed as he pointed at the flowers.

“Funny,” I replied.

“No, dude, I’m surprised they survived the night.”

“And the other surprise?” I asked.

“That you actually brought them with you.” He pointed at the roses again as the bus arrived.

We walked down the aisle and sat down in our usual seats. I handed Keith my History notebook.

“You finally did it,” he commented while flipping through my notes.

“I haven't done anything yet.”

Keith pointed a pencil at the roses and I moved them away. “That's more than you've done the last three months. What are you going to say?”

“I don't know.”

“So much for another surprise,” Keith said.

“I know what you’re going to say about it, Keith.”

“What, like, I don’t know, just tell her you like her.”

“That sounds too easy.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“For you, maybe,” I replied as he shrugged and passed my History notebook back. I traded him for my English one.

“You've been making this way harder than it has to be.”

“Yeah,” I said with a smile, causing Keith to throw a questioning look to me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The bus pulled up to the side of the school and we walked down the crumbling sidewalk to the front door.

“I want to see this happen,” Keith said with a laugh. “Can you wait until the end of fourth period?”

“No.” I shook my head as I opened my locker and laid my backpack inside.

“Good luck, man,” Keith replied as I walked down the hall and out the door to the new building.

My heartbeat accelerated with each step. Mr. Drose would’ve been impressed. I was finally keeping a steady beat. I opened the door into the new building with the band room straight ahead.

For a moment, I froze once again as I saw Tiffany standing in the hallway, several feet away from the band room doorway, talking to another girl.

She looked at me and our eyes met. She smiled and I almost turned around.

Almost.

Then I remembered the other me and how long he had waited to tell her. I didn’t know what would happen after I gave her the roses. I just knew I wanted her to hear it from me. So I walked toward her. The girl she was talking to waved ‘bye’ and walked down the hall towards Mrs. Smith’s classroom.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she said with a smile.

I held out the roses to her.

It took every ounce of courage I had to get four words out: “These are for you.”

Tiffany looked at them and then she looked at me.

“For me?”

“Yeah,” I replied as she took them.

“Why?”

This was the moment. The one I’d been finding excuses to avoid. My brain went into overdrive with ways to leave without dying of complete embarrassment. I slammed on the brakes and took a deep breath.

“Because I like you.”

She smiled, and I realized I’d been so worried about what she might say that I hadn’t thought about what would happen if she smiled.

“Okay,” she replied.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

I waited for the ocean to swallow me, for a red-eyed tornado to pull me away, for bright lights to blind me, or the other me to grab my shoulder and tell me I did it all wrong. But nothing happened. We continued to stand in the hallway together, just Tiffany and me.

“Do you want to walk with me?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a smile.

We started walking towards the band room. I glanced back and saw nothing there. No future me or a mythical doorway to another life. There was just a school hallway.

I still didn’t know what would happen with Tiffany. My hands were still shaking, and I hadn’t suddenly figured out what to say next. But she was walking beside me. I didn’t need to see thirty-eight years ahead to know I wanted to be at her side.

She took my hand, and we kept walking together.

I looked at Tiffany and she smiled. I smiled back. She took my hand, and we kept walking together.