My Future Self Called to Save My Ruined Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Call
Minutes before she gives up her full ride, Lindsay gets a call from her own number, accepts Ashford, ignores Ryan's demand for three hundred dollars, and drives to his apartment, where Kendall opens the door in Lindsay's sweater.
At 11:47 on the night before my scholarship deadline, I had my cursor on the word "Decline."
Then my phone rang.
The caller ID showed my own number.
I thought it was a scam, the kind that fakes your contacts.
I picked up anyway, because I didn't want to click the button yet.
"Don't do it," a woman said. "Click accept. Right now."
Her voice was hoarse, like she'd been crying for a long time and had stopped.
It was my voice.
Older, and worn down to the thread, but mine.
"Who is this?"
"You know who this is. Linds, listen to me. We don't have long."
My hand stopped over the mouse.
On the screen, the Ashford University portal glowed at me.
Full tuition. A monthly stipend. A master's in computer science in Boston.
Two buttons. Accept or Decline. Thirteen minutes left.
"Ryan's been sleeping with Kendall since August," the voice said.
"Since the month Grandma died."
I couldn't breathe.
"He told you to stay because Kendall wants a salon. Your twenty thousand is the down payment. That's all you are to them."
"That's not true," I whispered.
"You'll check. Just accept first."
She talked faster.
"After you accept, keep every cent of Grandma's money."
"When the Summit Capital Growth Fund launches next March, put all twenty thousand in. It'll be one of the best funds of the year."
"At Ashford, apply to Professor Garner's AI lab before your first semester ends."
"His project gets bought by a tech giant in two years. Core members get equity."
"Why are you telling me this?"
There was a long breath on the line.
"Because I'm thirty-two, and I'm tired, and I stayed."
Somewhere behind her, a door slammed.
"Twenty-two-year-old Lindsay, please. Stop holding yourself back for anyone else."
The line went dead.
I pulled the phone away from my ear.
My recent calls showed Ryan at six, Kendall at seven, and nothing after that.
No call at 11:47.
No call from my own number at all.
I sat in my room above the laundromat and listened to the dryers thump downstairs.
The clock on the laptop said 11:51.
I moved the cursor from Decline to Accept.
My hand shook so badly I clicked twice.
A box popped up.
"Congratulations. You have confirmed your full scholarship admission to Ashford University."
I read it until the words stopped looking like words.
At 11:55, my phone lit up.
Ryan.
"Hey babe, did you pay this month's rent?"
Then another one.
"I'm broke right now. Can you Venmo me three hundred? Urgent."
Then a little sticker of a puppy with big wet eyes.
A week ago I would have sent it before I finished reading.
Every month, I sent Ryan half his rent out of my tutoring money.
Five hundred and fifty dollars, on the first, every first.
The rest went to his sneakers and his gym clothes and the dinners he picked.
I told myself we were building something.
I told myself he was just between things.
He'd been between things for three years.
I looked at the puppy sticker.
I didn't send anything.
I typed, "Are you home?"
He answered almost immediately.
"Yeah just chilling. Why?"
"Is anyone with you?"
This time it took him two minutes.
"No babe. Just me. Tired. So can you send it?"
I stood up.
I pulled my coat on over my pajama shirt and grabbed my keys.
I had a key to Ryan's apartment on Wayne Avenue.
I'd had one for two years.
I paid for half the door it opened.
It was a twelve-minute drive, and I did it in eight.
His windows were lit.
Music was going, low and slow, the playlist I made him for his birthday.
His car was in the lot.
So was a white Jetta with a pink steering wheel cover.
I knew that car.
I'd helped pick out that steering wheel cover at a gas station in tenth grade.
I sat in my car and stared at it.
Maybe she was dropping something off.
Maybe she was helping him with something.
At 12:19 in the morning, she was helping him with something.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor.
I could hear laughing through the door.
His laugh, the one he used on waitresses.
And hers.
I didn't use my key.
I knocked, three times, the way I always did.
The laughing stopped.
Somebody hissed.
Feet moved fast across the floor.
The door opened.
Kendall stood there with her blonde hair piled up in a messy knot and her mascara smudged.
She was wearing my sweater.
The cream cable-knit one.
The one my grandmother knitted for me the winter before she died.
It had a little uneven stitch at the left cuff, where her hands had started to shake.
It hung off one of Kendall's bare shoulders.
She looked at me.
I looked at the sweater.
"Oh," she said. "Linds. We weren't expecting you."
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