David Hasselhoff smiled and took my small hands in his bear-like paws. His huge head moved closer and closer as he puckered his lips. I closed my eyes and waited.

"I hate everything about you - why do I love you?" Puddle of Mudd sang in my ear. My eyes opened and I growled as I rolled over and picked up my cell phone. "What?" I snarled.

"Jessie, it's me. You have to come over right now!"

"Scott, you really have to stop calling in the middle of the night," I mumbled as I rolled onto my back.

"I have to show you something. It's important."

"Is it another antique typewriter?" I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Scott's a Steampunk and he constantly calls in the middle of the night with some fantabulous new find or invention to tell me about.

"No, this is way cooler than a typewriter. It's a ... well, I don't want to tell you. It's something you have to see and experience for yourself."

"Can I just go back to sleep and experience it tomorrow? Oh, and thanks for saving me from nasty, old Hasselhoff lips."

"What?"

"Ugh. Never mind. I'll be there in a minute."

Scott didn't even wait for my knock. He threw open the door and drug me inside, down the steps to the basement. When he reached his workbench he stopped and pointed.

"A record player? Seriously?" I turned and headed back up the stairs.

"No, wait. Look!" He walked over to his wall of music, the row of shelves where he kept every album he had collected over the years. He pulled a record out of a sleeve and put it on the player. As Bing Crosby sang about a white Christmas a random string of numbers and letters projected onto the green, block walls of the basement.

He turned and stared into my eyes. "If you could go back in time and change one event in your life what would you change?"

"What does that have to do with an ancient projection machine record player thing?" I asked.

He grabbed me by both shoulders and shook me. "Jessie. What would you change?"

Still half asleep I mumbled, "Well, I guess I would have never watched a single episode of Baywatch. Or America's Got Talent, for that matter."

He sighed. "Seriously. Come on. One more try and you're gone."

I didn't think to wonder what he meant by "gone". Instead, I looked around the table, searching for inspiration. My eyes fell on an old, handmade picture frame covered in dried daisies. The picture was of Scott and me in fifth grade. We had our arms slung over each other's shoulders and goofy grins on our faces. The picture was taken about

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