I just did a bizarre time travel experiment. I was in the dorm office with my three best friends, er, my two best friends and my potential boyfriend. That also felt kind of weird—but weird in a good way, not in a bizarre way.
         We discussed the whole evening again, multiple times. The sodas were long gone.
         "Bottom line," I said, "the future was weird; it didn't seem like my future. But when I time traveled to my past, it did seem like my past."
         "Do you think it's significant?" Ethan asked. "Traveling into the past versus traveling into the future?"
         Well, I hadn't until he'd said it. But now, it seemed significant. "Yes," I said, nodding wisely.
         "What's the difference?" Rory asked.
         "Uh…" My mind was racing. "Clearly, the past has already happened. So, it's sort of fixed, right?"
         "That tracks," Lin said, dipping her head.
         "Yeah," Ethan said.
         Rory nodded.
         "Ooh! I think I get it," Lin said. She sat up straight. "I could, no, I'm going to kiss Ethan. Right on the lips, right now. It's going to be epic. Colossal. Amazing."
         I felt annoyed. Why was she kissing my boyfriend, er, my potential boyfriend? I tried to calm down. Chill, Tiff.
         Rory looked confused.
         Ethan looked confused. "What?"
         But Lin just leaned back in her chair and smiled widely. No kissing. Ah ha. She wasn't kissing him; she was making a point. That made more sense. As long as I'd known Lin, she'd never gone for cis straight guys.
         "I don't get it," Rory said. "Are you kissing him or not?"
         "Not," I said. My brain was whirring along. She could have kissed him. But she didn't. But she could have. "I think the point is, we all have free will. Humans have free will. Our futures aren't fated. They aren't set in stone yet because we haven't decided on them yet."
         Lin nodded. "I don't know if I could have explained it that well, but that's what I was getting at."
         "So, what does it all mean?" Rory asked.
         "I think it means I need to talk to Josh, the guy who's supposed to be a time expert," I said.
         They all agreed.
         
         Friday morning after physics class, Professor Hernandez set up a meeting with Josh Williams and me in Josh's office, D221. Rory was standing right next to me when he told me, and she immediately texted Ethan and Lin the where and when. She looked well put-together as usual in her pink shorts and a short-sleeved white lace blouse.
         Ethan and Lin were still lounging in the back of the classroom, so Rory and I walked up the stairs to meet them. Lin wore new turquoise hair extensions, the same color as her turquoise t-shirt and converses; her board shorts seemed to have more pockets than ever. For his part, Ethan's hair was in a perfect messy-casual coif, and he wore khaki shorts with a teal polo shirt tucked into them. His belt had embroidered …whales. Wow. Was it possible to be too preppy?
         "What?" he asked me.
         "Nothing." I shook my head. "Do you, by chance, have a fraternity meeting later?"
         "Yeah," he said. "Why do you ask?"
         "No reason," I said.
         "It's a FAC, a Friday afternoon club with food," he said. "Basically, an excuse to drink beer. You guys are all invited if you want."
         "Thanks," I said. "We'll see." Rory nodded.
         "Anyway." Lin interrupted. "What did Hernandez say? Did he set up the meeting?"
         "Yeah," I said. "It's a go."
         The four of us quickly walked over to Josh's office.
         As I lifted my right hand to knock on the closed door, Rory said, "This will be great."
         "Yeah, I'm excited to get some answers," Lin said.
         Ethan reached for my left hand and squeezed it gently. "I agree." Whoa. A tendril of warmth spread from my hand to the rest of my body. Were we at the hand-holding stage? Apparently.
         Regarding the meeting, I was on the same wavelength as my friends, excited. I knocked.
         "Come in," Josh called from inside.
         I opened the door. Josh sat on battered wooden chairs with his girlfriend, Kairi, in the small room. "Hi," I said. "Thanks for meeting with us."
         Kairi nodded. She wore a colorful, floral, dotted blouse. Josh wore jeans and a geeky t-shirt.
         His office in the physics building was very similar to our resident advisor's office in the dorm—both had old, mismatched furniture, battered walls, and no windows. Heh. It was funny how the campus was such a mix of old and new: old and new buildings, old and new furniture, and even old and new people, for that matter. The professors were old, and the students were new.
         Me and my friends swarmed into the small room.
         Josh held up his hands. "Whoa. Who are all these people? I said I would meet with you, Tiffani, as a favor to Professor Hernandez. I didn't say I'd meet with these other people."
         "Shoot." But an idea was percolating. I inclined my head back towards the hall. "I'll be right back." The four of us stepped into the hall, and I pulled Josh's office door closed behind us. "What if I call one of you and put my phone on speaker mode?" I whispered. "You should be able to hear everything."
         "Good idea, Tiffani," Ethan said softly.
         "But, then, we're eavesdropping?" Rory whispered. "That's not fair, is it?"
         "Tiffani's going to tell us everything that happens anyway, right, Tiff?" Lin asked quietly.
         I nodded.
         "So, what does it matter?" Lin asked.
         Rory nodded.
         We all walked a little way down the hall, and I called Rory. We both put our phones on speaker, and I slipped mine back into my pocket with the mic end sticking out. I walked back to Josh's office. Outside his closed door, I whispered, "Can you hear me?"
         "Yes," Lin said loudly.
         Someone shushed her.
         "Maybe don't talk," I whispered.
         "Okay," I heard Rory whisper.
         I knocked on the door.
         "Come in," Josh said.
         I walked inside.
         "Close the door," Josh said.
         I closed it behind me. "Thanks for talking to me." I sat down in a rickety wooden chair.
         He said, "This is my girlfriend, Kairi Djaru." I already knew that. In fact, I'd already met Kairi and talked to her about time travel. But that timeline was overwritten.
         "Hello." Kairi's smile lit up her face, making her beautiful.
         "Professor Hernandez says you have some kind of temporal ability?" Josh asked. "That's pretty hard to believe, but I trust him."
         I nodded. "Yeah, you could say I have a temporal ability. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's confusing."
         "Wow," Kairi murmured.
         Josh and Kairi exchanged a look.
         "What's your ability?" he asked, looking skeptical.
         "I think I can travel in time, but I don't understand how or why." At least I'd finally decided I really could time travel.
         They both looked shocked. Yeah, it was shocking.
         "So, Josh, what can you tell me about time?" I asked. "The future, the past, timelines, that kind of stuff."
         "Please keep what we're about to tell you quiet," he said, glancing around the room as if for spies.
         I fingered the phone sticking out of my pocket, feeling a little guilty. "Is it a secret?"
         Josh and Kairi glanced at each other.
         "Not technically," Josh finally said. "Go ahead, Kairi."
         "I'm a time traveler because I'm a native Australian." Kairi fisted her hands in her lap. "My people have sacred myths, including the ancient era known as Dreamtime, when the spirit ancestors created the world. My clan believes in Dreamtime or The Dreaming and thinks it still affects us and is accessible today. Dreamtime is the sacred river of all of time. My clan can utilize The Dreaming," she said. "We are able to traverse the river of time via our special dreaming ability."
         "Neat," I said. "You dream, and then you time travel?" Yes, I already heard this, so I was a little impatient.
         "Yes." Her face relaxed, looking much more natural. "You've gotten it quickly. Most people take longer. Can you utilize The Dreaming, too?"
         My phone pinged. Someone sent me a text. I pulled it out and glanced at it. Lin sent me the text, 'OMG!'
         "That sounds amazing, but I don't think that's what I do," I said.
         "Are you a native Australian?" Josh asked.
         I thought back to my DNA test. "Yes. I have some native Australian DNA—but not a lot."
         "Let's not jump to any conclusions." Josh held up his hands, palms out. "Do you sleep or dream when you time travel, Tiffani?"
         "No," I said. "I don't sleep or dream when I time travel."
         "So, your ability seems different than mine?" Kairi said. "That's amazing." She turned and looked at Josh. "How many kinds of time travelers are there?"
         "That is a good question," he said.
         I shrugged. I understood very little about all this.
         "Do you want to see me do it?" Kairi asked. "Dream? Travel?"
         "Thanks, but not right now," I said.
         My phone pinged. I glanced at it. More texts, 'OMG!' 'Wow!' 'WTF.' I put it back in my pocket.
         "Let's put a pin in that." I tried to gather my thoughts. I was here because I wanted to ask about the science behind time. "Can I ask you some questions, Josh?"
         Judging by their expressions and how they kept looking at each other, Josh and his girlfriend seemed flabbergasted that I didn't want to watch Kairi time travel. But what can I say? 'Been there, seen that.' I was pretty sure what Kairi did was not what I did.
         He frowned. "I guess. What questions?"
         "What is time?" I asked.
         "A dimension," he said quickly.
         "And, simultaneously, time is like a river, flowing continuously," Kairi said. "Some of us can access that river."
         "Physics says time is mathematically the same as space," he said. "There are three dimensions of space and one dimension of time."
         Dimensions were interesting. I was going to come back to that. "I did take freshman physics."
         "Okay," he said, holding up his hands. "Fair enough. So, time is a dimension. We all move forward along the time dimension at a rate of one second per second."
         "I don't always move through time at that rate." I held up my hand. "But what is time? I've heard it's like a river," I nodded at Kairi, "or an arrow or other stuff. What is it?"
         Josh looked thoughtful. "It's actually like space," he finally said. "Time is part of the fabric of spacetime. It's what makes up the universe. It is the universe. The stars and planets and people all exist in spacetime."
         I frowned. That was hard to get a handle on.
         He was nodding.
         "I still don't get it," I said. "When I travel into the future, it seems like it's always different. The timelines seem to keep changing."
         "You traveled into the future?" Kairi asked.
         I nodded. "I think so." Should I mention the overwritten timeline when I met them before? And explain that was why Josh and I'd had the misunderstanding?
         "My cousin Traveled to the future," she said. "But it was quite difficult."
         All of this was difficult.
         My phone started blowing up. I took it out of my pocket to see more 'WTF!', 'OMG!', fireworks emojis, head-exploding emojis.
         "Who keeps texting you?" Kairi asked, frowning.
         "No one," I said. "No one should be texting me," I said loudly. "It must be a bot." My phone quieted for a moment.
         Ping, ping, ping. I didn't even look at it. Ping, ping, ping.
         "Maybe you should turn your phone off," she said.
         "Maybe I should turn my phone off," I said loudly. Suddenly, the texts stopped. (What a surprise.)
         "So, getting back to dimensions." I frowned. "Or, maybe that's not quite it. What about worlds? I've heard quantum mechanics says there are infinite worlds."
         Kairi was frowning.
         Eyebrows raised, Josh asked, "Have you taken Physics 3?"
         "I'm in it now." I nodded.
         "It is true that some physicists think quantum mechanics means there are infinite worlds," he said slowly. "But even if that's true, a person doesn't experience multiple worlds. Our choices make the wave functions collapse."
         Huh? "So, are you saying there are infinite worlds or only one world?" I asked, my brain struggling to keep up. I was both confused and perplexed. Conplexed? Perfused?
         "First, infinite and then one," he said.
         "So, there's one future?" I asked, totally confused.
         "Yes," Kairi said. "That's right."
         "But until we pick one, there's more than one, right?" I asked. "So, that sounds like infinite futures."
         "Huh," she said, quieting.
         "I'm getting confused," Josh said. He was not the only one.
         "No," Kairi said. "There's one future. My cousin Kyle told me. He's been to the future."
         "But how does he know he went to the only future?" I asked. "What if he just went to a possible future?"
         She shook her head. "He went to the future."
         Josh was staring at his girlfriend. "Uh, I agree with Kairi. One future."
         I was definitely aware of more than one future. I couldn't believe I was actually having this disagreement with them. We seemed to be at an impasse.
         "Can you tell me anything else about these multiple worlds?" I asked.
         "No," she said, but now she didn't sound so sure.
         "Uh, not really," he said. "It's not my area of expertise."
         "Do you know anyone who does know about it?" I asked.
         "I did hear something. Just a second…." He turned to his computer and started typing. "Yes. There's a physics professor in Montana, Chloe Carsen."
         I approached his computer screen and saw an official university webpage with contact info. I snapped a pic with my phone. "Thanks." I nodded. "Thanks a lot for talking to me." I walked to the door.
         "Okay," Josh said. "See you later? I want to learn more about your ability."
         I nodded. I couldn't recall if I had their numbers yet in this timeline. "Can I get your numbers?" I handed Josh my phone, who inputted his number and handed it to Kairi, who inputted her number and handed it back to me. "Thanks." I started walking for the door.
         "Nice meeting you!" Kairi called after me.
         "Likewise," I said, reaching for the doorknob.
         Outside Josh's office, I met up with my friends at the end of the hall. "So, did you hear all that?"
         They nodded.
         Lin said, "I'm not sure they helped."
         I wasn't sure either... "That Montana professor might be a good lead. I'll look her up on the internet." Maybe I could email her or something?
         "So?" Ethan said, smiling. "You guys want to come with me to the fraternity? We can hang out and get some free food and beer."
         It was hard to argue with free food and beer.
         "Ooh," Rory said. "I should put on a pretty dress and curl my hair."
         Lin and I looked at each other. We were not going to put on pretty dresses and curl our hair. She grinned. I grinned back.
         "Sure," I said. "Let's go to the fraternity party. Let's do something normal and ordinary."
         I was ready for ordinary.