“You can kill Hitler however you want in the past, but in our timeline, he’ll still be alive.” This is how Devon Mason explained his invention. Risk free time travel. The ability to go anywhere in history and do whatever you want with no consequences. It was just what Sarah needed.
She still wasn’t sure how it worked, something to do with creating new timelines. Either way, nothing you did in the past would affect the present.
This made it perfect for scientific study, regular sightseeing, or…
Sarah blinked and she was back at the cabin. She looked around, it was as she remembered it, trees that were old when her father was young created a ring around it, broken only by a dirt driveway leading to the main road. A long ax was buried in a nearby stump with the handle sticking out.
It was March 12th, a vivid memory for her. She was at the back of the cabin, she started walking to the front. Sarah heard a pop song playing from an upstairs window. That was her window, when she lived here. For a moment, Sarah entertained the idea of going to her younger self and telling all the things she should watch out for, all the things she could do, but decided not to. What her younger self did now wouldn’t help her.
Sarah wandered around to the front of the house, and saw what she had been dreading, her father. Sarah took a deep breath. Even if this wouldn’t impact her future, she wanted to do this right. She didn’t want to keep focusing on the past, she wanted to move on. End it. Now Remembering what she had practiced in front of the mirror, Sarah stepped up to confront her father. “Dad!” Sarah said sharply. Her father jolted, almost spilling his drink on himself. She had him off guard. Press the advantage. “I don’t like the way you’ve been treating. I’ve never liked it and I’m not putting up with it anymore.”
“What? I’m minding my own business and then you just come shouting at me. Goddamn, I spilled all over myself.”
“I-”
“Give me a minute to clean myself.” He started getting up
“No.” Sarah said firmly and blocked him. She had put up with that act enough when she still lived with him. She wouldn't put up with him now.
“This has been a long time coming, just let me say what I want and then you can get back to whatever it is you were doing.”
“I was trying to-”
“Let. Me. Finish”
Her father stared, sizing her up. The Sarah he knew was timid and quiet. The Sarah he knew didn’t bother him. The Sarah he knew was weak. Seeing her stand up for herself, and so suddenly, must have thrown his mind for a loop.
Her father shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. What did he care if his daughter wanted to make a fool of herself?
You’ll look the fool in the end, she thought.
“First, I don’t feel comfortable or welcome in this house.” She slapped the side of the house. “I don’t feel like there is a place where I can just relax in the house or really call my own. And the reason for that is you don’t give me any kind of privacy.
“Here we-”
“SHUT UP!” Her father looked shocked her outburst, she continued.
“You’ve always been distant and never really took care of me. I never felt like I could open up to you or that you see me as a person. Whenever I needed something for school, you’d either ignore me or say that I could do it myself. If I could do it myself, I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place.
Her father looked like he was going to respond, but instead he just raised his eyebrow at her. As though, he was genuinely confused or didn’t understand what she was saying, even though she just fucking explained it to him. Sarah felt herself getting exhausted, her outburst earlier and just dealing with her father was draining. She decided to make this last point hurt.
“You never let me make friends.” She waved he hand around the clearing, at the empty trees and road. “For reasons you won’t tell me, you uprooted our lives and moved us to this dingy, lifeless cabin in the woods. There’s no internet or cell towers or anything. The nearest town is a thirty-minute drive by car, and I never felt comfortable asking you for a lift.
You made me a loner; and made me think I never mattered. You didn’t raise my dad, you barely tolerated me. I have to live with that, now you do too. Bye.”
Sarah turned and walked away. She did it. Holy crap she actually did it. A comforting worth spread through Sarah’s body. Oh god it felt so good to finally tear into her father like that. To make him see how shit he’d been. Maybe she didn’t say everything that she wanted, but she said what was most important.
“You did that to yourself.”
Sarah stopped and turned. “What?”
“You did that to yourself. Get your ass back here.”
For a moment, Sarah considered leaving. She got what she came here for, she’d confronted her father. What more did she want?
Then again, whatever justifications he came up with were sure to be stupid and reactionary, probably filled with barbs to save face. Sarah smiled and returned to her father; this should be good.
“That shit you said at the end, about me making you feel alone, that’s not on me. No way.”
“I just explained--”
“What about school huh. You say it's a thirty-minute drive to the nearest town, but what about school? You had years to make friends there and you never did. You had every opportunity to make friends, every chance to not be lonely. But you didn’t take that chance you’re a coward, a weirdo. You’re a boring person.”
Sarah was speechless, her mouth agape. Her father had never said anything like that to her before. Was this what he’d always thought of her?
“Listen-”
“No, you listen to be Sarah. Her father suddenly stood looming over her. “I don’t know what started this tantrum of yours and I don’t care. I am your father; you do not tell me I didn’t raise you right when you didn’t even put in the effort to raise yourself. I gave you everything you could need, a roof over your head, food, clothes. Everything else is on you. I don’t know if you know this Sarah, but the world is a lot more unfair than I am to you. Maybe next time you want to birth at me about everything you don’t have, remember what I gave you and be thankful. And if you can’t do that, then get out of my house, cause I’m not fuckin dealing with it.”
He shoved by her into the house. She could hear his footsteps thundering deeper into the house. She felt a momentary pang of pity for the past her, and the mess she just left for her, but Sarah was focused on herself right now.
Why didn’t I say anything, why did I just let him go off on me? Half the things he said weren’t even true. Housing, food, clothes. These aren’t extras, they are the bare minimum a parent should be able to require. Her father was just made she made him realize he’d failed in every other area...
Damn that would have been a good thing to say to him.
It still could be.
Sarah looked at her watch. Though it was small, it was a portable time travel device. Sarah had got it dirt cheap online. The government had tried to stop time travel, but Mason had just made it available everywhere.
She could go back, fix this broken conversation, she could prove that she could stand up to her father.
But hadn’t she just tried to prove that? She came in all confident and cocky, sure her sharp words would damage her father, but she might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Her father just didn’t care.
Didn’t care. What right did he have not to care? He may not have ruined Sarah’s life, but he came damn close. When confronted with this, he was going to boast and whine and then run off to sulk and drink. No, her father didn’t get to have apathy towards her. If he didn’t care, she would make him.
She had been going easy on him this time, she wouldn’t make that mistake again.
-----------------------
“Not to mention you’re just not that interesting as a person,” her father said.
“And do you think that might have anything to do with the fact you don’t let me have any hobbies?” Sarah said. Her father’s eyes widened. Surprised I’m not rising to your barb you little toad?
“I have so little free time because you’re too lazy to clean the house or look after it. You always leave that shit to me, so I never have the time to develop any hobbies beyond my art.”
“Well then talk about that with people.”
“I can’t, because if I show my art to one person, then they tell other people and people start bothering me for free drawings.”
“That’s not even bad. You said be grateful that they want to see you crap art. If you don’t like doing that, I can always give you more work to do.”
“What the hell is with you and giving me so much housework to do. What am I, your maid?”
He snorted. “The reason I grill you so much to do housework is because I’m trying to prepare you for the future, something you clearly aren’t trying to do.”
“Are you actually trying to train me to become a housekeeper.”
“No, a housewife.”
Sarah nearly recoiled at her father’s blatant sexism. “You don’t have any skills you can make into a career; no one cares about your drawings. Being a housewife and having someone else to support you is the only option left. And don’t sound so miserable about it. Your mom was a housewife and she turned out fine.”
“She was?” Sarah had never heard much about her mother. Her dad didn’t like to talk about her, the one time she asked he said it brought up bad memories. And anyone else who would have known her was halfway on the other side of the country.
“Yes. Look Sarah, I don’t know what caused this tantrum, but I’m not just gonna sit here and listen to you whinge at me because life isn’t turning out how you like it. I’m trying to prepare you because you clearly won’t prepare yourself. If you don’t like that, tough. I’m your father, and its my house, my rules.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to treat me like garbage.”
“Look Sarah, do you know what your problem is? You can’t take initiative for yourself. You don’t like what I’m doing, tough shit. Deal with it.”
Her father got up and went inside. Sarah was left standing on the front porch in a quiet and shameful rage.
Goddamn him. God fucking damn him. How does he keep doing that? How does he keep dodging the problem and turning it back on me?
Because you keep letting him, Sarah thought. Stop letting him get the upper hand, if he starts to make a good point, just change timelines. It's not worth dealing with him like this if he’s this unreasonable.
Sarah took a few seconds to compose herself, to plan the next few arguments in her head, then activated her time travel device.
--------------------------------------------------
“Your friends don’t respect me, I don’t feel safe around them.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember that poker game you threw a few months back, you invited some of your work friends over.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I don’t have any friends at work.”
“I Wonder why that is?”
“It's because all of my friends are at the pub around then and I have to wait a few hours to join them.”
“Wait, is that why you never came home until 9. You asshole, I had to stay up all day when I was younger cause you insisted on having me cook and–“
“What were you saying about my friends?”
“They’re a bunch of jackasses. When you had them over I couldn’t get to sleep because every few minutes one of them would yell about something or cheer–“
“Aw you had to be there.”
“I don’t care. When you made me come out so I could say goodnight to them all for some stupid reason, I saw one of them leering at me. One of them tried to get into my room later that night, they probably would have if I didn’t have the door locked.”
“What are you doing locking doors in my house?”
“That's what you care about, not that I could have gotten assaulted by one of your fucking friends.”
“My friends aren’t the ones locking doors in my house. That’s it,” he got up “I’m taking your door.”
He shoved by her and stomped into the house.
Cares more about the door than his fucking child. Sarah swore she was going to hit the man.
---------------------------------
“Goddammit. Why can’ you just admit that you’re a shitty father? Why can’t you say that you did all these things because you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you. If anything I’m indifferent towards you.”
“That’s even worse.”
“Oh, whinge, whinge, whinge.”
“I swear, your mother was never like this.”
“Why the fuck should I care how she was? I never knew her, I don’t care how I stack up to her in your vision. But I’m guess she wasn’t perfect, after all she married you.”
“Hey!” he shouted and rose, “don’t you about your mother like that. She was an angel. You don’t care about her? She died in childbirth. Because of you she’s dead and you say you don’t even care, you bitch. She was the only thing that made me happy. I couldn’t stand to be reminded of her, so I moved us out here. Don’t you dare insult her; we were the light of each others life.”
Sarah thought back to a picture she had seen of her mother, she was young and was searching through her father’s drawers for something to play with. This was before he yelled at her and forbade her to ever go in his room again.
Sarah had found a photo. In it was a young man who had a big toothy grin, she hadn’t known who it was but even at a young age the smile had seem fake, and a little disturbing. In his arms was a woman with a white wedding dress. Sarah had thought that weddings were a wonderful thing when she was younger and had been confused as to why the bride didn’t seem smiling. She didn’t look happy at all.
“Light of her life? You made her fucking miserable!” A snarl crossed her father's face. Pain exploded across Sarah’s face and she was flung backwards of the porch. She landed on the hard ground and lay prone.
He hit me.
The fucker hit me!
Sarah tried to get up but her father bounded down the small steps, crossed the distance between them and kicked her in the chest. She curled into a ball as her father rained hits.
“Bitch.” He struck her back. “Ungrateful bitch!” He tried to kick at her face but missed, hitting the side of her neck and making her convulse. Her father glared down at her shaking form.
“You should never have been born. I should have drowned you as a baby, save myself the trouble of raising you.”
In her shock, Sarah barely understood the words, and that her father was saying them. God, everything hurt so much, she felt like crying. She wanted to run but couldn’t.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” her father said. If I ever see you again, I’ll fucking kill you.” He raised his leg and Sarah recoiled, but her father kicked dirt over her instead.
He walked away from her, his stride almost casual, and went into the house.
Sarah shivered on the cold, hard ground. Her breathing was ragged. She was in so much pain. Her father had never hurt her like this. Her father had always wanted to hurt her like this, it was only some faint sense of obligation that kept him back.
Sarah lay on the ground and waited for the pain to recede. When she could feel her legs again, she got shakily to her feet. She considered going home, forget this. Just get yourself a therapist Sarah. Walk away.
Walk away, Walk away. Her father had walked away so casually after beating her.
Sarah took a deep breath, and went back in time.
--------------------------------------------------------
Her father looked up at her bloody specter. “Christ, what happened to you?” Sarah hit him with a club she made by knocking the blade off the ax. He screamed and tried to shield his face, Sarah jabbed him in the chest, and when he goes to cover that, she smacks smacks his head with the club.
“Get up.” She strikes him. “Get up, fuck you!”
Her father rose, reaching for the club with a burst of speed. Sarah dodged to the side and struck him again. He yowled and Sarah shoved him with all her might. Normally this wouldn’t be enough, but Sarah had dizzied her father and he fell backwards off the porch with a curse.
Sarah didn’t give him the chance to recover, she leapt off the porch and began beating her father. “Bastard. Woman hitting bastard. Child abusing asshole.” She hit her father I the elbow and heard something snap. “Immature fucker, trying to make me blame myself for all the abuse you gave me.” She slammed his knee and heard a crack, followed by a moan. “Trying to blame me for your wife dying. Using that to justify treating me like crap.” She hit him in the face, but he was silent. “You made my life miserable. You’ve ruined everything. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”
She hit him one last time in the stomach, then stepped back. Her father lay on the ground, covered in blood and bruises. It didn’t look like he was conscious. Sarah thought she had killed him, fear and guilt lit up her spine. Then she saw his chest heaving, and all the hate came back. The bloodied club fell from her tired grip, and Sarah stood there, just breathing.
This should have made her happy, as an angry teen she had fantasied about hitting her father before, but never like this. She could barely believe she had done it. She could barely believe that after all this effort, she just felt tired. Where was the satisfaction, of finally putting down her abuser, where was the closure?
A gasp brought her back to her senses, Sarah looked at the house and saw herself standing at the porch, with her hands over her mouth.
What? Oh, right. Time travel. Her younger self looked at their father, half dead on the ground, her gaze swung to the club that had beaten him, and then to her older self. Shit, Sarah thought.
“What is, who are you? What did you do to my dad?” Her younger self asked.
Sarah thought for a moment, if she wanted, she could just get out of here now, get back to her own time and leave this trouble in the past. But seeing her young self looking so frightened and confused, Sarah felt a strong sadness for them. For herself?
“Um, I’m you, from the future. You know that guy, whose claiming he invented time travel a few weeks ago. Well, that’s real, its why I’m here now.” Her younger self said nothing, she was in contemplation. “Do you believe me?” Sarah asked.
“I- I, yes. I can believe that, but… why are you here? Why did you...” She trailed off as she once again glanced at her father, then looked at Sarah with fear.
“You know why,” Sarah said forcefully. “This fucker made my life miserable. In fact, you’re living in some of the worst moments of it right now. He deserved it.”
“But that doesn’t explain, I can’t,” She stiffened suddenly. “You said he made your life miserable. That he ruined it. So why didn’t you confront him in your life or whatever? Did he die?”
“Well, no he's still alive its just-”
“If he's alive in your time why not confront him there, why did you come to my timeline and mess with it.”
“Well, first this is my timeline, and second it's not really messed with. Despite what media says, time travel doesn’t really have consequences. When I go back, I’ll be in my own timeline where this didn’t happen.”
“Then what was the point? What, you were too much of a coward, you couldn’t confront your real father, so you came here so you wouldn’t risk messing with your own life? He ruined your life so you’re ruining mine.”
“I'm not ruining your life, if anything, having this sack of shit being beaten should have taught him a lesson.”
“her younger self looked at her with shock, then rage. “This won’t teach him anything. When you leave, he's just going to treat me worse because he’ll think I beat him up. He might even kill me if he thinks I’ll just come back to beat him.”
“Hey, come on, that's not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, will you stop complaining. This should be your dream. We’ve always hated our dad, don’t hate me because I actually did something about it.”
“Did you really? Did this help you deal with your trauma, and if it did, what does that matter to me, my life is over. You ruined this life for me, just so you can have some catharsis that isn’t even real. You came here so you wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of telling your dad to go fuck himself. You came here, and you ruined my life, and you’re going to get away with it.” Tears appeared in her eyes.
“I did the best I could. You should be thanking me.”
“I hate you!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Sarah screamed. Her younger self sobbed and ran back inside the house. “yeah, runaway you little coward. You fucking–” Coward. Sarah stopped herself. That was what her father had called her.
This wasn’t fair She had done everything right. She had restarted multiple times just so she could finally express how much she resented her father, just so she could finally make him understand how shitty he had made her feel. And Sarah had just done the same thing to her younger self. God damn it. God fucking damn it
Sarah stormed away from the house. She checked her watch. She had put so much time and preparation into making this perfect and it blew up in her face.
She wanted to leave this place. Just go back to her own time and cry and cry and…
She looked back to the house. She knew what her younger self would do. She would run up the stairs to her om, trying not to let the tears come out in full yet. She would enter her room and slam the door, then she would launch herself unto the bed and wrap herself in the covers. She would reach out to grab her pillow or a stuffed toy and hold it to herself, so she felt like she was being comforted by something. And then she would cry.
The routine here always made her feel pathetic, like she was a baby who couldn’t deal with the real world. Wasn’t that what her father had tried to tell her? That she was just a kid. That she would always be a kid.
Without anyone to tell her any different, she had always believed that, and always believed that she would. And hadn’t Sarah just showed her younger self, that might be true.
They had been right, about the time travel. It wasn’t that there would be no consequences for what Sarah had done, it's just that they wouldn’t affect her. They would affect her younger self. And had affected the Sarah’s from every timeline she abandoned. When she moved timelines to try and get one over on her father, she had left her younger self with a man who now had extra reason to hate her. She had made their lives harder and thought only of herself. If Sarah left now, she would be no different than her father, inflicting his problems on to her, then leaving her to deal with the aftermath.
No, Sarah thought. I am not him.
Sarah marched back to the house, barely glancing at her father as she passed. I am not like you. She went to her old bedroom door, was paralyzed about what she should do, then resolved herself. Sarah knocked.
No answer, or course.
Um, hey. It’s… me.” No response. “I want you to know, that I’m sorry, but if you don’t want to hear that, then I’m willing to leave. It’s wasn’t fair what I did to you, especially when your life is as hard as it is. I shouldn’t have tried to leave you with the aftermath of my problem.”
Once again, no response. Sarah waited for a full minute, then started adjusting her watch, feeling like she had failed.
“You can come in.” The muffled voice said.
Sarah opened the door and closed it softly behind her. Her younger self had her face poking out from under the covers. Her face was crimson. “Ah, I always hated how hot it felt under there. It made it hard to focus on why I was mad, maybe that was part of why I did it.” Her younger self nodded but was silent.
“Right, I’m here to apologize.”
“You already did.”
“From outside the door, but that wasn’t all I wanted to say.”
“It was what I wanted to hear.” There was an annoyed pitch to her voice.
“Oh okay.” Sarah said. They stared at each other. They could each feel how uncomfortable the other was. They hated awkward silences.
“Do you want to know about your future,” Sarah asked.
“Why would I, you already said it was shit.”
“That’s true but it's not the whole story. You do eventually leave this hell hole for a better place.”
Her younger self sat up on the bed. She patted a small spot beside her. “Where?”
Her younger self sat up on the bed. She patted a small spot beside her. “Where?”
Sarah smiled and took the offered space. “Well, its about three days away from here, far enough that dad never bothered to visit me. I live alone in a small apartment, and I work as a graphic designer for this comic company. It’s peaceful, except for when there’s a sudden crunch time, but that's only happened twice since I worked there in five years.” Her younger self seemed nonplussed about this. Which was good, Sarah was building up to the good parts.
“But, since I moved there, I learned and changed a lot about myself.”
“Like what.”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t hide under the covers of my bed when I get upset.” Her younger self looked annoyed, Sarah quickly followed up with, “And that's because I have people to talk to about whatever is upsetting me. They’re great and I love them.”
“Oh.” They sounded a little disappointed, like they didn’t understand.
“Do you know what I mean when I say that. When you get older you aren’t alone. When you feel sad you won’t have to hide because you can hear dad’s voice telling you you’re worthless or not good enough. You have so many people telling you they love you and support you. You don’t know what it's like yet, but it's wonderful, and it's gratifying, and it's worth all the hardship it takes to get there.”
Young Sarah perked up at that, the words striking a chord with her, then she deflated. “That sounds wonderful and I’m happy for...us but mow its harder for me to get that. I just, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do until then, I don’t think I can last.”
Sarah glanced at her watch, the time machine. “Maybe you don’t have to.”
“What do you mean. Can you take me back with you?”
“No.” Sarah winced. “I mean, technically I could, but the government is trying to crack down on bringing things back from the past, especially people. People keep trying to bring back their loved ones, or important people. Like Hitler.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah, people are messed up. But that’s not what I was talking about.” She took off her watch, placed it gently on the ground, then stomped on it. When she lifted her boot, it had been smashed to pieces. Young Sarah looked confused.
“I can’t take you back with me. But I can stay with you. Forget waiting for the next five years, I’m gonna take you to the city. Now.”
“You will?” she asked, hopeful. Then she shook her head. “Wait you can’t, what about your friends, or your life, there’s no way you can get things just the way they were. In fact, what did you even do, if that watch was your time machine then you just removed the chance of going back?”
“But this way, I can’t be tracked. I can look after you and I will look after you.” Sarah got up and went to the door. “When I left here, my dad was shit at remembering things. He would always need to write things down. In fact, I went to the bank with him a few times, and saw that he carried a slip of paper, with the same password on it the entire time.”
Her young self still didn’t look ready to go. Maybe it was that's he didn’t trust Sarah, couldn’t believe in her plans, or just nerves at leaving her home at such a young age.
“Look, when I smashed that watch I already knew what I was going to do and is something I should have done from the start. I’m going to look after myself, and that means looking after you. I’m going to do my nest to look after you and give you the life we could never have under dad’s roof. I may not be perfect, as this entire situation has shown, but I promise, I am leagues better than dad will ever be. Will you trust me?”
Her younger self didn’t hesitate, she got up and asked help in finding a travel bag. Sarah was going to move on with her life.
The End.