Save Me From Myself Chapter 3

The other Jason walked down the hallway toward Mr. Erwin.

“Get out of here,” he called back to me, and I took off the other way, running past the office, out the door, and back to the lunchroom. I figured my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Smith, would be waiting for me in the hallway, since my homeroom class was about across from the lunchroom exit door. However, the clock on the wall had only moved maybe, five minutes.

“That was quick,” Keith said. “Mr. Erwin came back in and walked around the room, like he was looking for something. So, what happened?”

“Nothing really…just about…about what happened in Band this morning.”

Keith nodded as he handed me a carrot stick. “Oh yeah, he said something about a sea of vomit all over the room. I’d love to see that in all its
“Stand By Me” glory.”

“Sounds like it,” I replied as I saw myself walking past the door.

The walk from homeroom to History, my fifth period class, felt like a death march. I only had a textbook, binder, and a pencil in my hands, but I was mentally burdened by what Tiffany would think of me when I walked into the classroom. I envisioned taking a step into the class, focusing on the desk three rows and one desk back from my own, as it was the only way I could ever look at Tiffany without her—or anyone—noticing.

However, on that day I fought against looking at her. I dreaded the thought of how she must have felt about what happened in Band. The berating from Mr. Drose, plus the proverbial dunce cap of shame atop my head, equalled “no chance” for me. Instead, I raced to my desk and spent time reading from my textbook before the start of the test I was sure to fail due to my terrible study notes. I like to think I was exceptionally good with history. I wasn’t great at “making history,” but I could recall the reign of Charlemagne and the population of Cairo, circa 1988.

“I’ve been thinking…” A familiar sounding voice said from behind me.

My eyes widened and I nearly crushed my pencil lead on my test paper.

“I’ve been thinking that maybe we’re going about this all wrong.”

I only nodded as our teacher, Mrs. Bowling, looked up at the class. She didn’t see my replica stepping to the side of my desk.

“Going to the past isn’t going to help us, not now at least,” he said as he walked to the front of the classroom and sat on Mrs. Bowling’s desk.

“The present is what we need to focus on.”

My present, at that moment, had me trying to suppress a shocked facial expression.

“We need to send her a note. We need to take charge and start the conversation.”

I slowly and abruptly nodded my head.

“Of course, talk only goes so far. Actions speak louder than words, you know.”

I looked to see Mrs. Bowling stand up from her desk and pass through my facsimile. He jumped onto the side of her desk as Mrs. Bowling stood next to the blackboard. He flipped though a few pages of the teacher’s textbook on her desk.

“Do you want to know a secret?” He asked continued to flip through pages.

I barely nodded my head again.

“The future is not particularly all that great. Yeah, we got handheld computers, twenty-four cable TV, and a house in the suburbs.”
I raised my eyes to him.

“Don’t get me wrong…all of those things are great…but, there is a bit of loneliness with being connected to everyone and everything twenty-four seven. Your mind…it goes places, and you miss out on things. Do you know my daughters played basketball, and I missed their championship game?”

With that, my pencil lead cracked, causing several eyes to shift to me.

“Sharpen your pencil, Jason,” Mrs. Bowling said as she walked back to her desk.

“I was there, I was at the game, but I was hyper-focused, like a laser beam, on my phone bill, and the conversation went into talking about phone technology. I was at a basketball game, hearing the crowds cheer as someone made a half-court shot, but I wasn’t really there.”

I walked to the pencil sharpener located near the door.

“I think it all started here, or it ended here…It all depends on how one looks at time.”

The crank turned slowly as he got up from Mrs. Bowling’s desk and she sat down in her chair.

“We need to strategize. How can we get her attention, besides breaking our pencil…and grinding it down to a stub.”

I stopped sharpening the pencil and walked back to my desk.

“I know her favorite color is red. Perhaps you could get her a bouquet of flowers. No matter the cost. We need to make a great impression. It is imperative. Only the greatest and best display of affection will do. That’s how we’ll show her how we feel. We will get the biggest bouquet of flowers money can buy!” He walked to the classroom door. “And tomorrow morning, before Band starts, we will walk up to her, and hand said flowers to her.”

I couldn’t hide behind my fear of talking to her, but I nodded to him.

“Dynamite plan, Jase!” He yelled as he opened the door and walked out.

At the same time, an office worker entered and handed a note to Mrs. Bowling.

I went back to reading my textbook…or at least I went back to reading the same sentence over and over.

My seventh period class might as well have been an exercise in slow torture: like sitting in the back seat of a station wagon on a 450-mile road trip with parents who believe that the car doesn’t stop until it needs gas or it blows a tire. Meanwhile, you have had two cans of Mountain Dew, an apple, and you hope that no one mentions anything to do with running water. The time ticked by ever so slowly until the final bell rang. When I ran out of the building, I was so worked up that I almost thought about running all the way home, or at least maybe across town, but, no, it was best to go home first to scrounge up what little money I had.

“Again, we hiked here for what?”

I set my bike’s kickstand and got off while Keith merely stepped off and allowed his to crash to the ground in front of a flower shop. The store was about two miles away from our houses.

“I’m going to buy the biggest bouquet of flowers that…” I fished into my pocket and hastily counted as we walked inside. “…fifteen dollars and forty-two cents can buy.”

“And you’re getting this for Tiffany, right?” Keith asked.

“Yes.”

A bell jingled as we walked into front of the shop. There were decorations on display. There were ones for weddings, and I stole a glance at them, as to not give Keith any ammunition to us against me. We walked to the far wall lined by several flower-filled refrigeration coolers.

“Jase, have you looked at these prices?” Keith whispered as we walked past a case of lilies and daisies.

“No.”

“Thirty dollars for a bouquet of lilies. Twenty-five for whatever these are.”

“What does it say about roses?”

“Forty dollars for a dozen, twenty for half, and single flowers for six bucks. The prices do not make any sense to me.”
I stared at the single flowers. If I only got one, then I would look like I was cheap.

“One or two?” I asked.

“Maybe one and some chocolates?” Keith replied. “We can stop by the gas station.”

“I don’t know if she likes chocolate.”

“But you know she likes roses?”

“Don’t all girls like roses?”

“And I think they all like chocolate too. My sister eats it like it’s the last thing on earth. I don’t think she’s ever gotten flowers before though.”

“Okay, so flowers and a box of chocolates?”

“If you’re looking to save some money, you can just buy a bag of Snickers—”

“And find a handful of dandelions to go with it?”

“They’re free, right? Maybe she loves the beauty of nature and will one day take photos of plants and flowers. Wildflowers say a lot.”

I opened the cooler as Keith continued with his pep talk.

“I’m just saying you should save your money. She might ask you to drop dead.”

“I don’t think she’d say that.”

I reached deep inside and moved the flowers around, in my attempt to find the perfect ones. No droops. No damaged petals. No, they had to be just on the brink of blooming so I could surprise her with a full bloom.

“This will help me. It shows tha—”

“That you have no idea how this works, do you?”

“You’re right, Keith. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I’m kind of winging it, but I have a feeling this will work. These will be my way of getting my foot in the door.”

“Getting your foot in the door? More like getting your face slammed in it.”

We walked up to a register. The clerk took the flowers and smiled at me.

“For a girlfriend?”

“I hope so.”

“Well, good luck to you.”

“Lady," Keith interjected, "I’ve been telling him that all along.”

I bolted out of the store so fast; I still do not recall if I got all my change.

I hung the bag on my handlebars as Keith scraped his bike off the ground.

“Keith, it’s the thought that counts. Girls like to be shown that they mean something to you.”

“By buying them dead flowers?”

“They’re not dead,” I replied as we took off down the street.

“Ah yes, I recall your past science test scores on photosynthesis. Go on.”

“If I could buy her a diamond, I would.”

“You do know what that means, right?”

“That I might possibly love her or that I’m crazy?”

“Both, but with more emphasis on the crazy!”

“I’m going to walk into that school, give her these.”

“Okay,” Keith started as he pedaled a few feet ahead of me, “you get an “A” for effort. But, this may be too much. You can’t tell her you’ll marry her someday.”

“Why not?”

“We’re in seventh grade.”

I stared blankly at Keith as he darted behind due to an on-coming car approaching us. “And I the flowers would be overkill,” he replied.

I put my feet down on the pedals and slowed to s stop. “Don’t…don’t harsh my dream.”

“I know it’s your dream, Jason.”

“And you tell me to talk to her. I need a reason to talk to her. I just can’t walk up to her with nothing. These will help me do that.”
Keith shook his head. “Let’s get the zombie plants home so they don’t wilt.”

I made it home and carefully placed the flowers in the fridge. My mom asked who they were for and I avoided the question. She nodded her head, which I took as a confirmation that I didn’t have to explain anything. Racing up to my room, I saw the light was on, which was not how I left it.

I opened the door to see my reversed chronological twin sitting at my desk, playing “Contra” on the Nintendo.

“Did you get it?” He asked as I closed the door. “I don’t remember this game being this hard.”

“I got two. They look nice.”

“Awesome,” he replied.

My glance moved back and forth from him to the TV. “Will this change our future?”

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going,” he said as he turned off the Nintendo and turned to me. “Nothing has happened yet, we won’t know until tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with our future?”

“Our future,”” He stammered for a moment, stood up, and walked to the window that looked out to the street. “It’s…it’s fine, but…but there was a chance to make it different, and we did not do that the first time, or the second, or the third,” he finished with a sigh.

“If it’s fine, then why are we doing this?”

He turned around and pointed a finger into my chest. “Tell me that you don’t love her.”

“I do, but—”

“But nothing. Our plan has to succeed.”

“What happens if we don’t?” I asked, getting a little angry at the situation and the fact he left the game in the system and didn’t put it back in the box.

“Fine, you want to know? I’ll show you!” He grabbed my arm and threw me at the window. I felt a moment of panic that I was about to smash the glass with my face and then, after recovering from the severe cuts I was bound to get, have my dad take my allowance for several months.
I held out my hands, fell through the wall, and landed in the bedroom of a strange house. I was alone, the other Jason didn’t follow.