Dawn found me at my bedroom window, watching the city shake off its dreams while my mind replayed the night's revisions to history. My laptop hummed with half-finished productions—beats that wouldn't exist for years, reconstructed from memory and tempered by the limitations of 2004 technology. Next to it lay T.K.'s number, scrawled on a napkin that felt too fragile to bear its significance.
The door creaked—Mother's distinctive three-step entry, learned from years of checking on my younger self. "You didn't sleep," she said, not a question but a continuation of conversations we'd had across two lifetimes.
"Couldn't waste the momentum." I gestured at the laptop, where I'd been attempting to capture the energy from The Apex, translating it into something that could bridge my two timelines without revealing their existence.
She settled onto my bed, smoothing wrinkles from sheets I hadn't touched. Her fingers found father's jacket, draped carefully across my pillow. "It still smells like him," she said softly, then: "You did something important last night, didn't you?"
The question carried more weight than she knew. In my first life, this morning had gone differently—the lost jacket, the argument with Rico, the months of tension that followed. Instead, here we sat in gentle dawn light, the future reshaping itself around small changes and saved moments.
"Maybe," I said, turning from the window. "Devon connected with someone who could change everything for him."
"And for you?"
I smiled, remembering T.K.'s expression when Devon had switched to Spanish, the way futures had visibly shifted in that moment. "Let's say some doors opened that weren't supposed to—" I caught myself. "That weren't easy to open before."
Mother stood, bringing father's jacket with her. She held it up to the light, examining it with the same careful attention she'd once given my school assignments. "You know what your father said when he bought this? Said a man needs armor to face the world, but it's got to be armor that moves with him, not against him." She paused, running a thumb over the worn leather. "I never understood what he meant until I watched you wear it last night."
The metaphor hit harder than she intended. Every choice I made was armor and movement both—protecting the future I remembered while allowing it to flow into new shapes.
A text lit up my phone: Rico. "Studio at 10. Bring wonder boy. T.K. called."
Mother caught my expression. "More doors opening?"
"Something like that." I reached for the jacket, but she held it back for a moment.
"Marcus," she said, her voice carrying that tone that had guided me through two childhoods, "whatever you're building—and don't tell me you're not building something bigger than beats and rhymes—remember to leave room for surprise. Even the best plans need space to breathe."
I took the jacket, its weight familiar across timelines. "Like music," I said, remembering my grandfather's words about letting songs find their own rhythm.
"Like life," she corrected, already moving toward the door. She paused at the threshold. "Your father ran from his future. You seem to be running toward something else entirely." Her smile carried hints of pride and worry in equal measure. "Just make sure you're not running so fast you miss the present."
After she left, I stood at the window again, watching the city wake to possibilities it couldn't yet imagine. My phone buzzed with texts from Devon, from Rico, from T.K.—a future assembling itself in real time, different from the one I remembered but somehow more right.
I slipped on father's jacket, checking the pocket out of habit. The lighter was there, warm as memory, solid as promise. Through my bedroom wall, I could hear Mother humming—an old song that, in my first life, she'd forgotten how to sing by now.
Some changes, I realized, were better than memories.
Time to make some more.