The Enemy of Time, page 22
“We are pleased to inform you that your submission to the Creative Fiction Contest has been selected as the winning entry. Please contact us at your earliest convenience to discuss next steps for publication.”
I blinked, rereading the words, my mind scrambling. I had never submitted anything.
Heart pounding, I set the letter aside and reached for the manuscript. I gasped as I took in the title printed on the first page: The Enemy of Time. Below it, in sharp, precise type, was my name.
“Is everyone ready? We need to leave soon,” my mother called out as she stepped into the room. I barely registered her words, my mind consumed by the letter before me. Suddenly, I felt a rush of air as my mother gasped.
In an instant, she was hovering over me, her eyes wide with astonishment. The sun's rays filtered through the window, casting a warm glow that illuminated her face as she took in the words etched on the pages. “He did it,” she whispered, a radiant smile breaking across her lips.
“Did what?” My voice quivered. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. How was this even possible? My mind was racing with questions and doubts. Maybe I was still asleep, and this was all a hallucination from the five-year-old moldy weed. Maybe I was lying in a hospital, hooked up to IVs, in a coma after falling out of Mr. Heckle's tree. Anything would make more sense than what was happening in front of me.
My mother's eyes softened as she spoke. “Jamie came over after he saw you in Boston and asked to go into your room.” She placed a comforting hand on my weak arm. “He said if you wouldn’t reach for the stars, he would grab them for you.” She took the manuscript out of the box and opened it up. “He wrote down all those little poems from your high school journal and submitted them to that contest you refused to enter.”
My mom held the manuscript to me, gesturing gently as she passed it back. I took it from her and flipped through the pages, each decorated with the words of my childhood and teenage years. It was like uncovering a time capsule, memories long forgotten suddenly brought back to life and printed on the page for anyone to see.
“He submitted my journal,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“He said you always did your best work when you thought no one was looking,” my mom replied.
He was right.
My fingers continued to move through the pages until I hit the last one. My breath caught in my chest as I read the final words:
To: Bonnie
From: Clyde
-Forever and Always.
I knew Jamie would be my future—that we would be eternally linked, written in the stars, and forever intertwined. But I never imagined it would be like this. Jamie fulfilled his promise like he said he would; he gave me the future I desperately wanted but was too fearful to grasp. I just always thought that the future would be with him, not because of him.
And in that instant, reality crashed down on me. It wasn’t just the book or the day—it was everything. The walls I’d built, the lies I’d told myself, the numbness I’d clung to—it all shattered.
It was real. Today was real.
Chapter twenty-six
You don’t have to love to be loved.
You don’t have to live to be alive.
You don’t have to die to be a ghost.
Life is made of flickering moments.
Hold on to each and every one tight
Before The Enemy of Time says goodnight.
2:30 p.m.
We drove in silence, none of us knowing what to say or wanting to speak. The clock had run out of seconds. Time was forcing me to face the events of today: the life I lost and the future Jamie had offered me. But a future without him—without his goofy smile that illuminated even the darkest days, without his warm touch that melted my cold heart, and without his laughter that made every moment feel magical—seemed unbearable.
How does one live without the heart that made theirs beat? I twirled Jamie's engagement ring around my finger, the one he gave me that night in Boston. I spent all night waiting for him on that fourteenth day. I spent hours doing my hair and even longer doing my makeup. I bought the most expensive dress I have ever owned, and I wore ridiculous strappy pink sandals to match. I was planning to say yes to him. I was going to confess my feelings and tell him that I wanted him to hold me and never let me go. I waited all night on the fourteenth day, only to receive a call on the fifteenth informing me that moment would never come.
I had five more minutes left before I had to confront the stark reality that awaited. We passed the old playground where Jamie became my white knight, the open field where the Carnival was held every year, and where Jamie kissed me for the first time. We passed the high school where we dashed out of prom and spent our first night together, truly together. We passed all the places that would forever hold the memory of Jamie and me, but now everything looked gray. Without Jamie sitting next to me, the town was void of all happiness.
My stomach hurt from the memory as we drew near to our destination. Julian turned off the car, and my mom slowly unbuckled her seatbelt. I was sitting in the middle between Kayla and Lucas, all of us dressed in black and gray. None of us was in a hurry to get out of the car. We sat there, hoping that by remaining still, the day would vanish and erase itself from the present. Lucas broke the silence by suggesting that we go inside the building before it was too late. He opened the car door and stepped out, and we followed him. His movement gave us the strength to exit the car and walk towards the large double doors that stood between us, and the truth I could no longer deny. Lucas was just about to open the door, just about to open Pandora’s box and unleash all the horrors that came with it.
“Wait! I placed my hand on top of his, stopping him. I peered down at my finger, the shiny diamond sparkling in the sun like a little star of hope. My story with Jamie was written, and the book was now closed, but Lucas and Kayla's story wasn't over, or at least I wasn't going to let it be that way.
I looked into my brother's mournful eyes. “I let my past erase my future. Don't make the same mistake.” I took the ring off my finger and gently placed Jamie's final gift in Lucas's palm.
He fixed his gaze on me with a mixture of disbelief and astonishment. “Alex—”
I stopped him from trying to play the big brother role. “Not every love story needs a happy ending. But yours deserves one.” I lightly nodded my head to Kayla, who stood behind us, her eyes glued to the ring like it was a wish fallen from the heavens. “Go get her,” I whispered. Small tears trickled down my cheeks, but they weren't tears of sadness. I was crying because I knew this was precisely what Jamie would have wanted.
As Lucas's eyes met Kayla's, a big, goofy grin spread across his face. His eyes sparkled with a mixture of indescribable joy and immense nervousness. His lips parted, and he was about to say the four words that would forever bind the two of them together—
“Yes!” Kayla blurted out before Lucas could get down on one knee.
“Yes?” Lucas asked back in shock.
“Yes.” She declared repeatedly until he slipped the ring on her finger and sealed their fate with a kiss.
My mom and dad were standing behind us, speechless, and their eyes were welling up just as badly as mine. In one minute, my world would shatter, but at this moment, I could hold onto the little bit of light shining through the darkness.
Kayla broke away from Lucas’s embrace and put her hand on my shoulder. She didn’t need to say anything. I knew it was coming, but at least now I wasn’t facing it alone.
I gripped the handle of the large double door and pushed it open. I walked into the cold building and looked around to see everyone I had gone to school with sitting in rows of chairs lined up to form a walkway. I moved past them to see Jamie at the front of the room. I don't even remember moving, but suddenly, I was standing right in front of him, looking at his beautiful, messy black hair and sun-freckled nose. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted his arms wrapped around me one last time. I tried to tell him I was sorry for not reaching out again and for not trying harder. But I couldn't and would never get the chance because I wasn't standing in front of my Jamie. I was standing in front of a lifeless body. Jamie's body.
The noise from the funeral parlor was muffled by the sound of my heart thumping in my ears as oxygen left my lungs. I officially couldn't lie to myself any longer.
I wasn’t at a reunion. I was at my best friend’s funeral.
For a moment, I couldn’t believe breathing was even possible. Maybe I was the one who had died, and all of this was some kind of illusion.
I inhaled sharply. My heart was still beating. Air still filled my lungs. I was alive.
But I couldn’t comprehend that the person in front of me wasn’t.
I stared down at Jamie—Jamie, the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who could never shake his reputation. Jamie, who stole candy bars from the grocery store and sold them at school. Jamie, who copied my tests just so he wouldn’t look dumb. My Jamie. My other half. The person I would never be whole without. The person who was now lying in a casket with his head slightly elevated on a small white pillow.
His hair was pushed back, and his face was void of expression. His skin was pale, with no flush in his cheeks like when he was angry or embarrassed, no dark circles under his eyes, and no bruises along his jaw from school fights. I told myself to look away, but I couldn't. Maybe if I could stare at his face long enough, memorize his features, map out the lines and marks on his skin, count his every eyelash, every freckle, I could pretend that he wasn't dead. Pretend that he was still alive and we were both simply living separate lives. I could pretend that he found a nice girl, got married, and had two kids, just as he always wanted. I could pretend that he was growing old and happy, instead of frozen in time, about to be laid to rest beneath the earth.
Jamie was gone, taken from this world at 7:42 p.m., killed by a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road—the night he was driving to hear my answer to his question I’d never get to answer. I never had the chance to say goodbye—I never had the opportunity to make it right. Why didn't I call him? Why didn't I put away my pride? Could this day have been avoided? I prayed for an answer to an unknown question. I prayed for more time—time that I would never get back and time I would never have again. But that's the thing about time; it isn't kind. It passes while you're too busy to notice, too busy to care, until one day, the hourglass is shattered, and the enemy of time strikes, and death steals your final breath.
Chapter twenty-seven
The End?
The backyard looked nothing like the battlefield it had been when we were kids. No abandoned bikes, no half-crushed juice boxes, no siblings screaming about who cheated in tag. Tonight, the grass stood trimmed and polite, fairy lights dripping from the maple tree like someone had shaken the Milky Way loose right over our heads.
Kayla stood at the top of the makeshift aisle, a trail of wildflowers curling around her feet, and exhaled the kind of breath reserved for brides in movies who finally get their happily ever after. My brother waited beneath the arch he’d built from branches and flowers gathered around town, tapping his foot like he fully expected her to bolt at the last second.
When she reached him, my brother brushed his thumb over her hand with a tenderness that made the whole backyard fall quiet, as if the air itself were holding its breath. Our dad stood behind them, chest puffed with pride, delivering the ceremony with a seriousness so earnest it nearly made me laugh.
I caught myself glancing at the empty chair beside me, and a small smile tugged at my lips. I’d kept it open for him—for Jamie—because even if he wasn’t physically here, I knew he wouldn’t miss this day. The hurting would never fully go away, but it had shifted into something softer, something that wasn’t pain anymore.
Their vows were simple. Honest. Awkward in the sweetest possible way, the kind you only get from two people who survived adolescence side by side and still chose each other anyway.
And then my brother slid the ring onto her finger.
Jamie’s ring.
Once part of my story.
Now part of theirs.
It’s strange how the past can slip so gracefully into the future when you’re not fighting it anymore. How something that once felt like the end of my world could become the beginning of theirs.
When they kissed, the whole yard erupted like fireworks, loud, warm, and just chaotic enough to feel like home. And then, in true small-town fashion, everyone sprinted toward the reception the moment the promise of cake and booze became real. The canopy over the tables looked exactly like the backyard forts we used to build, if you swapped out blankets and stolen bed sheets for twinkle lights and linen. Same cramped chaos, same dim glow, same absolute disregard for personal space. Some things really don’t change.
Then someone tapped a glass.
My name rose into the air like a question I’d forgotten to study for.
Of course. Maid of honor. Sister of the groom.
A doomed combination.
It was practically guaranteed I’d be giving a speech; I’d just hoped I could sneak away before the glass-clinking brigade got organized. No such luck.
I stood from my seat and brushed off my terrible puffy pink dress, the one I’d been forced to wear because of “the color scheme” and some horrific Pinterest board none of us had the courage to protest. When I looked around, the yard felt smaller somehow, like all our childhood memories had squeezed in around us, watching, waiting to see if I’d trip over my own feet.
“I’m not the best with words; ironic, being a writer and all,” I said, already hearing the wobble in my voice. “So, I apologize in advance for whatever mess I’m about to unleash.”
I fumbled with a tiny stack of note cards, the speech I’d spent weeks drafting, scribbling out, rewriting, hating, rewriting again, and still somehow despising in this moment.
I looked at Kayla and Lucas, their faces glowing, their cheeks lifted so high it was a miracle they could still see, their arms wrapped around each other like they’d been knitted together. Then my eyes drifted to my purse hanging off the back of my chair. Inside was the first copy of my book. The words Jamie believed in more than I did.
I set the note cards down on the table. They made a soft, defeated flutter. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out the soft-spined book, holding it the way you hold something fragile that somehow survived a storm.
“A friend of ours couldn’t be here tonight,” I said, my voice steadier now. “So, I thought I’d bring a part of him to us.”
I opened the book.
The last page waited for me like a familiar doorway, one I’d been afraid to walk through, until now.
“For Jamie,” I said.
And I read.
Time has a way
of pulling us forward,
not gently,
not always kindly,
but steadily,
like gravity teaching the tide
when to rise again.
And we hold on to the moments
that make us,
the ones that break us,
the ones that mend us,
the ones that remind us
that love is still a risk
worth taking.
Some chapters arrive early,
some too late,
and some end
before we realize
we were meant
to hold onto them;
But love doesn’t slip away
when the clock stops ticking.
It lingers,
in the corners of memory,
in the soft ache it leaves behind,
in the gentle proof
that true love,
when it chooses you,
always finds a way to stay.
And maybe time,
in its quiet mercy,
shows us this:
love outlives every ending.
The last page
is never truly goodbye,
just the moment you breathe
before the next story starts.
When I closed the book, the backyard held its breath. Fireflies drifted between the chairs like slow-moving sparks.
I looked at my brother. “It turns out the past doesn’t trap us,” I said, my voice steady. “It shapes us. And the future isn’t something we wait for, it’s something love helps us walk toward. So here’s to the two of you… to every moment that brought you here, and every tomorrow waiting to unfold.”
Applause rose like a warm tide. I stepped back, letting the night settle around me, the chilled air, the old maple trees, the ghost of the boy who breathed life back into me, and brought my brother back to his greatest love.
Love had opened their forever.
Love had softened my yesterday.
And love was offering all of us a brand-new tomorrow.
About the Author
Haley-Grace McCormick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing with a concentration in Screenwriting, along with minors in Art History and Psychology. She has lived across the United States, from California to Florida, gaining a deep appreciation for diverse cultures and landscapes. This exposure has fueled her passionate interest in exploration and travel. Growing up with a father in the hotel industry and a mother who runs nonprofit organizations, Haley-Grace has been immersed in business and philanthropy from a young age, fostering a love for entrepreneurship and a desire to contribute to societal good.
