In Due Time

My life is more complicated than your's.

I know, pretty pretentious, right?

But when I say my life is complicated, I do mean complicated.

When I was 3, I saw this woman in my room. She spoke to me as if she actually knew me.

Weird, right? Well, there's more.

"Mommy, mommy. There's this lady in my room and she told me that I'm gonna be famous," my wide-eyed 3 year old self says with gleam.

"That's not possible, honey, it's only you and me at home right now."

"But mommy, I saw her. She was real."

"Okay, honey, run along, mommy is watching her shows," she said while pointing at the tv.

I walked back into my room and closed the door. Out came the woman from my closet. She sat down on my bed.

"I told you that you can't tell anyone about me, honey."

"But I had too, you're my friend."

"I can't be your friend because I'm you."

"What do you mean?"

Those words were foreshadowing for a really weird future.

I guess.

Before I continue, I'll just say that it's one thing being told that the amount of goals you have in life are infinite, and it's another knowing of every possibility.

Seeing every route etched in your head, like a searing tattoo you got while you were cross-faded.

Okay, okay. I'm sorry I'm making like zero sense right now.

But that person that claimed to be me never really went away. I was 15 and dealing with teenage stuff and she, of course, was there.

I stood in the mirror doing my hair when she appeared behind me, cupping my shoulders.

"Do you think Eric will like my hair like this," I ask her.

"No, forget about Eric, he'll be bad for you. He gets charged for statutory rape in 15 years, you know?"

I broke away from her grip in anger.

"Ughhh, why do you always ruin everything for me."

I ran over to my bed I screamed in my frilly, pink pillow.

"I'm not ruining anything, I just want you to be safe, I-"

"Have seen everything. I get it already, but I just wanna live my life."

She walked over to me and showed me some type of hand gesture.

"What, what are you doing now, huh," I muttered passive aggressively.

"Showing you something important," she said in a hushed tone.

She opened up some kind of hole in the air and I could see figures shifting around beyond the expanding hole.

"This is a rift. It shows you all of the possibilities for your future, our future."

My eyes widened.

I could see me and friends and family all going through different motions I had never seen before. Each segment was shaped like a honeycomb, highlighting a new life choice.

"What is all this?"

"I already told you, it's all the things that could happen."

Yeah, I know, this is all sounding really strange, right? I constantly went through the motions in life knowing full well of all my paths and I knew where I could go while my friends stared aimlessly into the void that was their lives.

Don't look at my words like that, don't look at me like that. I'm not being a bitch, I'm only telling you what I could see.

But, speaking of what I could see, everything fell apart for me once I found out what was really going on.

One day, I was sitting on my bed. I was 19, I think.

"So, where did you come from anyway? Like, why did you actually come into my life if you're already grown?"

She had her back turned to me while she combed her hair in my mirror.

"Why the sudden questions? I've always been here. We're besties, remember?"

I frown firmly.

"Yeah, I get that, but you never told me why you're here."

She turns around looking visibly annoyed.

"How about I just show you."

She does the hand gesture and the rift opens up again. This time, I saw a little girl with tears streaming down her face. I could see blood all over her...and the bodies of my parents lie in front of her.

"Oh my God," I Yelp as I cover my mouth.

"You see, my--our parents died in my realm, so I came here to make sure you didn't fall for the same fate, and I ended up sticking around because I felt more at home here than my own place."

I ran up to her and delivered her a huge hug.

"I am so sorry that happened to you," I said with a pit in my stomach.

She patted my back without saying a word.

Hell of a discovery, right? Well I found something else that might be pretty shocking.

She left open a rift one day because she had to show me something, and she walked into my bathroom to pee.

I didn't mention on this night, it was bleak and loud with all the heavy rain drops and thunder outside.

I tiptoed toward the rift and my eyes expanded like a water balloon.

I could see the little girl from before, crying at the wake of her dead parents, but I looked closer and saw what transpired before it...the little girl had a gun and a knife and she brutally murdered them both right before my eyes.

My eyes clouded with tears and I covered my mouth in fear and shock. Then I heard her from behind me. I jump forward and bump into a picture frame, shattering it in the process.

"I told you not to look at it when I wasn't around."

"You...you killed our parents in your timeline," I asked with hesitation.

"I killed them for a reason."

"No...that's why you're here. You came for my-"

She pulled out a knife from behind her back to cut my sentence short.

"You were always bright, but I didn't want you to catch on like this," she said while walking closer.

I picked up a shard of glass that fell out of the broken off frame and I aimed it toward her with both hands, awkwardly. I clinched it shakingly until my hands began to bleed.

She ran toward me and we struggled for a minute, but I was able to put her down.

See, I told you my life was more complicated than your's.