The light pitter patter of rain hit the window. It was late in the night for Saoirse, but the crackling of thunder wouldn't allow her to rest her eyes. She had an aversion to thunderstorms ever since she was a little kid. To her they brought only the faint memories of the Before.

Before.

"No, not this time. I can't afford to spend all that time in the Before again," she says shaking her head, trying to put the memories to the back of her head before they could take hold of her.

Pushing her wavy copper hair back behind her ear she pulled out a book she had been reading earlier in the day. The book was an interesting one. It leaned into the idea that Darwin's evolution was a mere glimpse into the actuality of Einstein's thoughts on the space time continuum; that humankind could travel into the past or future. We just haven't been able to do it yet as the book claimed. There were reports of people who could, but not of their own free will. All of those people were put into labs and studied by their various governments so not much was known about these people.

These people were known as Time Casters, and Saoirse was one of them.

Saoirse discovered her gift in her teens and due to the fact governments were taking people like her and experimenting on them, she had chosen to push everyone away because of her gift. Or curse. Sometimes she felt like it was a curse.

You see the way it worked was that if she were to dwindle on a memory, not a fictitious thought, but an actual memory, she would be thrust back to that point if she thought about it long enough. It would change the history of that the memory for Saoirse and all those involved in it when she blinked back into the Now. That was one small part that the book got right.

"You'd think this author would have interviewed someone or something," She said, shaking her head. "This whole thing is pure speculation." She closes the book and sets it on her nightstand.

The part it didn't get right so much was that Time Casters had control over how they got back, and to be perfectly honest Saoirse had never met someone like herself. So she wasn't sure if that was true completely, but it wasn't true for her. No one knew about what she was and what she could do, well except for one person.

Callum

Callum had been her best friend since grade school. Saoirse was quite tiny as a child. Some considered her sickly with her pale skin and coppery red hair. That didn't bother Callum and he had always stood up for her. As they grew older, their bond grew stronger. Wherever one of them was found, the other wasn't too far behind.

Saoirse was still insanely tiny as she grew up. Instead of growing out, she grew up. She was tall and gangly, and constantly picked on by her peers at her all girls Catholic school. Her mother thought that it would help her get out of her comfort zone and stop shying under Callum’s wing by sending her to a school Callum could not attend.

It did nothing but draw her further into herself. Girls can be rather nasty when given the chance. Callum would always tell her to toughen up and stand up for herself, teaching her how to defend herself after school. But Saoirse wasn't much of a fighter. She would defend herself if she had to, and could because of the "Punch Like A Girl" lessons Callum gave her. But Saoirse was a dreamer, and this got her in trouble often.

It was because of these nasty encounters with the girls at St. Vincent's Catholic College for Girls that started this whole adventure. Before the age of 13, she didn't know Time Casters existed. She didn't know she was one, until one day hidden in the bathroom instead of going to the gym, she found herself back to the day she met Callum.

You see she had been thinking about him a lot lately. As one becomes older, the relationships between the opposite sex sometimes change. There isn't an exact date of when it will for everyone but at some point, it does for most, and anyone telling you that it doesn't is a liar. Saoirse felt different about Callum, but she wasn't too sure that he felt differently about her. It was that awkward teenage situation. Best friend as young children. Still best friend as you get older, but some kind of fatal attraction takes hold. It had a hold of Saoirse and she was too scared to find out if he felt that way too.

As she felt those strong thoughts in the girl’s bathroom, she blinked and it was 1997 on her first day of First Class at Grothens Primary. She had shyly clung to her mother’s leg until a snaggle tooth black haired, green eyed boy came up to her to ask her if she wanted to play pirates. With a little nudge from her mother, she went with him, holding his hand. But her conscious knew that this was a memory. She quickly let go of Callum’s hand and her child-like voice rang from her throat, "What are you doing here?!"

"What do you mean?" Callum said with a puzzled look on his face. In Saoirse's memories that is not what happened. They played pirates all morning, had nap time next to each other, and hugged each other as wee ones would do at the end of the school day. But it wasn't just a memory. She was here.

She wrung her hands, "I was just in the bathroom. In Junior school. I'm not a baby!" She stamped her foot in protest. Callum gave another toothy grin and grabbed her hand pulling her towards the costume chest.

"I didn't say you were a baby. Why are you acting weird? Here wear this." He handed her a pirate hat and an eye patch. "You can be my first mate. I'm going to be Captain Hook!" He said, making a pirate sound as he pulled out a fake hook to cover his hand.

"No, I mean I was just at St. Vincents. In the bathroom. I wasn't a little kid. I am 13. And you're supposed to be 13 too."

Their encounter went on like that until she went to the bathroom. Somehow going to the bathroom, and sitting on the toilet in the stall brought her back to the present day. Her watch told her that she hadn't been gone longer than 10 minutes, but it felt like she had been gone the whole afternoon. Saoirse raced out of school when the end of school day bell rang. She asked Callum about the day they met. Instead of recalling the memory that she had, he recalled the encounter that she had experienced earlier in the day. Whenever she went back to the Before time, it changed the history of that moment.

She eventually told Callum what was happening to her. Reports had started to come out in Ireland that the government was looking for Time Casters. They both thought it best to keep this newfound gift a secret. Callum always kept her secret. Nothing he could do would make her love him less.

Her family never seemed to understand her disappearances at times. Saoirse's father believed she was a troubled young lady and needed to be institutionalized. However, her mother strongly believed that with a little more guidance, she could be just as normal as any other young person. But eventually, Saoirse grew up, moved out of her parent’s house, and tried to lead as much of a normal life as a Time Caster in secret could. The only thing that kept her from falling deeper into her depressive state was Callum.

As the years went on, nothing really changed. Callum was still there for her, but the love that she had for him never manifested into anything. Callum would have a string of girlfriends through the years, none of them liking Saoirse much. It was always comforting to her that on every occasion when Callum was given the ultimatum to choose between his girlfriend and Saoirse, he always chose Saoirse. He always said it was the one line no one was allowed to cross with him.

By the time they were in their mid 20's, they decided it was time to leave their town of Clifden and move to the big city of Dublin. It was an exciting time. Callum was a software engineer and had landed a job working for a tech firm. Saoirse's love of books found her a job as a librarian at one of the small libraries within the city. They were lucky in the sense that they found an apartment they could afford in the busy city. It finally allowed them to get away from the small town malarkey that was in Clifden. They each packed up their things, shoved them into their beatup cars, and headed to Dublin.

They had been climbing the two stories to their flat all morning. As she grabbed another box to take up to their flat she saw Callum across the street. He had found a deli earlier and went to grab them lunch. "They had sourdough!" He said with a huge smile on his face as he held up his paper bags of food. As Saoirse balanced a box on her hip, a loud car horn railed.

In a blink of an eye, a car swerved around the corner. Bags went flying everywhere. Callum’s body flung hard over the hood of the swerved car, hitting the ground with a thud. Not even thinking about it, the box that had been balancing on her hip went crashing to the floor. She ran to her friend. She knelt next to him. A pool of blood started to surround his messy black hair and his eyes were closed shut. "No, no, no, no!" She cried. She felt as if all the air in her lungs was escaping.

The funeral had been quick. Many from the community of Clifden did not attend the funeral, but her mind relived that moment over and over again of watching his casket being lowered into the ground. It felt like a piece of her was being lowered into the ground, not just the body and soul of her best friend. This memory was one of the strongest for Saoirse and she found herself there more than once in the Before of this moment.

Callum never got to start his job. They never got to live in their tiny flat where they would argue about who left the milk out. She would never get to tell him how much she loved him.

Another clap of thunder made the entire flat shake, Saoirse wiped a tear from her eye. As she blinked the air rushed out of her lungs. Not AGAIN. She prepared herself for another venture into the Before.

------

The cool salty breeze of the shore flooded her nose and lungs. It was something unrecognizable.

"Saoirse," the cool modulated voice of a dark-haired man said quizzically. "What are you doing here? How did you know I would be here? This isn't one of your memories."

Opening her eyes. There he was. Just as the day she last laid eyes on him.

But, something was different.

Her surroundings were different. It was not a memory she had lived before. This was a new memory.

This isn't the Before. And it wasn't the Now. It couldn't be the After. Callum was dead. But there he stood, tall and strong with that same mischievous grin on his face.

"Callum?" Saoirse reached up and touched his cheek. It was warm, stubbly, but warm.

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