Snap. Snap. Snap.
Jason could hear the sharp sound cutting through darkness.
Am I dead?
"Jason William DuPont!"
His eyes shot open to find his mother's face inches from his, her fingers still mid-snap. Behind her, she was holding a wooden spatula like a weapon.
"Get your ass to school before you're dead for real!"
Jason blinked hard, trying to make sense of what was happening. He was sitting at the kitchen table, apparently face-down in a bowl of cereal that had gone soggy. Cheerios stuck to his cheek as he sat up, milk dripping from his hair onto his school shirt.
"What the hell, Ma?"
"Don't 'what the hell' me! You've been sitting there like a zombie for ten minutes straight and I called your name fifteen times!" Maria DuPont waved the spatula threateningly above his head. "Hannah's already at the bus stop and you're sitting here drooling into your breakfast like some kind of mental patient!"
Jason wiped milk from his face with the back of his hand, still trying to process everything around him. The kitchen looked different somehow, smaller than what he remembered, and that ugly avocado green refrigerator they'd gotten rid of was humming loudly in the corner like it always used to do.
"What time is it right now?"
"Seven-forty-five! School starts in fifteen minutes and the bus left five minutes ago!" Maria grabbed his backpack from the counter where it was sitting and shoved it directly at his chest. "You're walking today, genius, and you better not be late again!"
"Walking?" Jason stood up from his chair, still feeling disoriented and confused. "Ma, it's like two miles to get there."
"Should have thought of that before you decided to take a nap in your Cheerios!" She pointed toward the front door with her spatula. "Move it! And don't even think about coming home with another detention slip because I'm not dealing with another phone call from Principal Martinez!"
"Principal Martinez?" Jason nodded slowly. "Right, of course."
Maria stopped waving the spatula around and stared directly at her son with concern written all over her face. "Are you feeling alright? You're acting strange this morning."
"Honey, you're really scaring me right now with the way you're acting. Should I call the school and tell them you're sick today?"
Jason looked at his mother's worried face and felt something twist in his chest. When was the last time he'd really looked at her? Really paid attention to the way she moved around the kitchen, the way she held herself, the way she cared about everything he did even when he didn't deserve it?
Without thinking about it, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.
Maria went completely still in surprise. "Jason? What are you doing?"
"I'm hugging you, Ma." He held her closer, breathing in the familiar scent of her perfume mixed with coffee and the antiseptic smell that always clung to her scrubs from work. "Is that weird?"
"You haven't hugged me in two years, so yeah, it's a little weird." But she hugged him back anyway, her arms coming up around his shoulders. "Not bad weird, just... different weird."
Jason closed his eyes and tried to memorize this moment. His mother was warm and solid and alive in his arms, and he didn't want to let go of her because something deep in his chest was telling him this was important.
"I love you, Ma."
Maria pulled back to look at his face with wide eyes. "Okay, now I'm really worried about you. You never say that anymore, not since you turned fifteen and decided I was embarrassing."
"Maybe I should say it more often then."
"Maybe you should." She reached up and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. "No fever, but you're pale as a sheet and acting like a completely different person."
'Because I am a different person. Or maybe I'm the same person but everything else is different. I don't know what's happening to me.'
"I'm okay, Ma, I just need some fresh air and time to think."
"You sure about that?"
Jason nodded and shouldered his backpack, but as he headed toward the door he caught sight of the calendar hanging on the refrigerator. March 2006. His seventeen-year-old face stared back at him from the hallway mirror, looking confused and lost.
'This is impossible, but it's happening. I'm really here.'
"Jason?" His mother called as he reached for the door handle.
"Yeah, Ma?"
"If something's really wrong, you know you can talk to me about it, right? Whatever it is, we'll figure it out together."
For a moment, he almost told her everything that was spinning around in his head. Almost explained about the confusion and the memories that didn't make sense and the feeling that something fundamental had changed in the world. But what would be the point of that? She'd think he was losing his mind.
"I know, Ma. I love you."
She smiled at him with that expression she got when he surprised her in a good way. "I love you too, sweetie, but you really need to get going before you're any later than you already are."
Jason stepped out into the March morning air and immediately felt the cold hit his face. Brooklyn looked exactly the way he remembered it from when he was younger, but also completely different at the same time. The cars parked along the street were older and bulkier than what he was used to seeing, and no one was walking around staring down at phones in their hands.
'I need to figure out what's happening to me and why everything feels so strange.'
He started walking toward Bay Ridge High School, his mind trying to get a sense of what was happening to him, but he had no answers. The walk took him past the same shops and buildings he'd grown up seeing every day, but they all looked somehow newer and older at the same time.
When he finally reached the front steps of the school, first period was already halfway over and the hallways were mostly empty except for a few students heading to the nurse's office or coming back from the bathroom.
Jason stopped at his locker and tried to remember the combination. 15-22-8. His birthday, his lucky number from basketball, and his mother's birthday. After three tries, it finally clicked open with a metallic sound.
Inside were textbooks he recognized but hadn't touched in what felt like forever. Chemistry, calculus, AP history. There was also a photo of him and Marco at Coney Island from last summer, and they both looked so incredibly young in the picture that it made his chest ache.
"DuPont!"
Jason turned around to find Mr. Kowalski, the hall monitor, walking toward him with a detention slip already in his hand and a frown on his weathered face.
"Late again, I see?"
"Yes, I apologize for my tardiness."
Kowalski blinked, clearly not expecting such a formal response. "Uh... right. Well, I've heard every excuse in the book and then some." He scribbled something on the detention slip. "You've got lunch detention today, no exceptions."
Jason wanted to argue with him, but what was the point? In his memories, he'd probably been late just as much when he was in high school the first time around.
"Very well, I accept the consequences."
Kowalski stopped writing and looked up with surprise. "Very well? That's it? No sob story about missed buses or sick relatives or your alarm clock breaking?"
"Nope, I'll take the detention."
"Huh." The hall monitor looked genuinely confused by this response. "Well... okay then, I guess. Get to class and try not to be late tomorrow."
Jason grabbed his chemistry book from his locker and headed down the hallway toward Mr. Peterson's classroom. The school looked exactly the same as it always had, with the same fluorescent lighting that made everyone look sick and the same industrial carpet that probably hadn't been properly cleaned since the 1980s.
He slipped into chemistry class during the middle of a lecture about molecular bonds. Peterson barely looked up from his notes as Jason took his usual seat in the back row near the windows.
"Nice of you to join us, Mr. DuPont. We were just discussing ionic compounds and their properties."
"Sorry I'm late."
Jason opened his textbook and tried to focus on the lesson, but he couldn't stop his mind from wandering to other things.
'If I'm really back in 2006, then that means I know what's going to happen next. But how is that even possible?'
The memories in his head felt real and solid, but they also felt distant, like they belonged to a different version of himself entirely.
"Mr. DuPont."
Jason looked up to find Peterson staring directly at him with an annoyed expression.
"Since you seem to find my lesson less interesting than whatever's going on inside your head, perhaps you'd like to tell the class about covalent bonding?"
'Shit, I wasn't paying attention at all.'
But as soon as Peterson asked the question, the answer came to him easily. Working as a prosecutor meant studying everything from forensics to chemistry to psychology, and the knowledge was still there even if he couldn't understand how.
"Covalent bonds form when two atoms share electrons to achieve stable electron configurations. Unlike ionic bonds, which involve the complete transfer of electrons from one atom to another, covalent bonds typically form between nonmetal atoms that have similar electronegativity values."
Peterson's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. The rest of the class turned around in their seats to stare at Jason like he'd just spoken in a foreign language.
"That's... absolutely correct and more detailed than I was expecting." Peterson looked confused and slightly suspicious. "Have you been studying ahead in the textbook, Mr. DuPont?"
"Something like that, yeah."