Chapter 16: Bill, Part 2

"I didn't freak out, though. I kept my cool and figured that when I fell asleep again I'd wake up and everything would be right again. But it wasn't. The next day I was still here. And that's when I freaked out. I tried to explain to my parents that I was from the future. Try as I might, they wouldn't believe me.

"My parents were never quite the nurturing types. Mom came from a wealthy family, and it was pretty evident that my dad only married her for the money. He took very little interest or notice of me. My only purpose was to distract my mother. But my mother had no true interest in parenting me, and whenever things got too 'real' for her she retreated to her 'nerve pills'." Bill made air quotes around the words real and nerve pills. He looked bitter for the first since we'd met.

"By the time I was thirteen my mom was in and out of rehab, and that left me with my dad, who hired nannies to look after me until I was old enough to get shipped off to boarding school."

Bill looked at me as if remembering that I was the reason for his trip down memory lane. "Anyway, back when I was eight years old I still thought that my mother was the most beautiful person in the world and that one day I would gain the respect of my father. Yet when I refused to give up my insane notions about being from the future, my father hit me."

I covered my mouth and groaned. "I'm sorry, Bill. That's terrible."

Bill nodded. "My father is barbaric! I reasoned with him, tried to talk to him man to man. And still he took off his belt and struck me with it! Repeatedly!" Bill's face was red in apparent outrage.

I frowned. "Are you saying that your father…spanked you?"

Bill's lips were two thin lines in his angry face. "He struck me with that belt until I had welt marks on my legs! That was no mere spanking. He brutalized me!" It sounded to me as if he'd gotten a true to life, down home ass whupping.

"You've never gotten a whupping before?" I asked in awe.

He lifted his chin. "I got swatted on the butt once, and my mother swore that it would never happen again, so I forgave her and didn't report it to the police."

"I see," I said while trying not to sound exasperated by the difference in our upbringing. My mother used to wield the belt like it was a lasso in the hands of a cowboy. "So your Dad beat you with his belt and then what happened?"

"I ran away," Bill replied as if there was nothing else to do but that.

"And how did you get from there to having enough money to live like this?"

His face reddened again. "Well I wasn't going to leave without taking what I felt I was due. I knew the combination on the safe from when I became the executor of Dad's estate. So I cleaned out what he had stashed away." We were both quiet for a long time. "Don't judge me," he finally said. "There's plenty more money in safe deposit boxes and bank accounts. He even has some squirreled away that my mother knew nothing about."

"I'm not judging you. Obviously your relationship with your parents sucked. So they don't know where you are?"

"Nope."

"Why were you at the White Castle? You were looking for me?" I didn't agree with his actions, but it wasn't my business.

Bill nodded. He stood and left the room, returning with the envelope. He handed it to me. I looked at him for a long time before opening it.

The envelope was made of the same heavy paper as the envelope that had been sitting on my desk. I was afraid to open it and to read its message, which had sent another time traveler to locate me.

Bill stood watching me until I finally slipped the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. Its simple message was imprinted in the exact same box letters as mine:

White Castle 3911 MLK Way. 4:17 PM

Kenya

My hands were trembling. I looked at Bill. who seemed to be taking this in stride.

"Do you get messages like this often?" I asked.

"This is the first one besides the one that sent me here."

My head began to ache, and my stomach started to twist. I wanted to be sick. I wanted to lie down or black out. My name had been on that envelope. Who was behind this?

"So what about you?" He asked when the quiet began to stretch.

It took me a moment, but then I told him my story, leaving out my suicidal thoughts. I told him about how hard it was to get along with my mom and how everything seemed so different from my memories. Despite how messed up I felt Bill was, he was still the only person that I could speak to about this.

"Oh crap!" I jumped up and hurried to the window. The sun was going down. "I gotta get home! My mom is going to kill me!"

Bill didn't move. "Kenya, you don't have to go back to your house. You're welcome to stay here."

"I can't do that." I shook my head frantically. "I have to fix my relationships with my family because I intend to go back to the real world." I didn't want to add that he could stay here trying to figure it out if he wanted to.

He stood and picked up his set of keys. "All right, I'll take you home."

"Thanks, Bill," I said.

We didn't live too far from each other, and he was pulling down my street before it was full dark.

"Don't pull up to my house," I warned. "Let me off here."

"When can meet again?" Bill asked.

"I'm not sure. My mom is taking me to get a drug test tomorrow." I opened the car door. "We can meet tomorrow afternoon, unless I get grounded again for getting home late!"

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll be parked here tomorrow at about three. Meet me then."

I slammed the door and dashed down the street to my house calling over my shoulder that I would meet him.

When I opened the front door, my mother's angry voice met me. "Kenya. you are pushing it, girl!"

"Sorry, Mom!"

"Go wash your hands and come eat before your dinner gets cold."

"Yes, ma'am."

I was so happy she hadn't threatened to whup me.