How Not To Be A Groupie

Chapter Thirty Eight: Yes, I'm From The Future

After giving me a hotel bathrobe to change into Angus got into some clean clothes and put on the kettle. We were back in his hotel room out of the hot sun and away from the crowd of people. Giving me a cup of tea and settling down with his own, Angus sighed. "Before ya' say anythin' else...." he said. "I wanna ask one question."

My heart raced. "Okay," I said. "What is it?"

Angus clasped his hands and looked at the floor. "Is it true?" he asked. "The...the time....travel stuff? 'Cause when I first read the notebook....ya' know, I figured it was jus' a story or somethin'." Just like I predicted. He thought I was writing a work of fiction. "An' then Stelle mentioned what you said to her...."

I took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. "Yes," I said. "It's true." I waited for Angus to say something but he just looked at the floor. Even now I wasn't sure he believed me. Was I going to have to prove it to him too? "I'm from the future." Angus looked rather pale.

"What....what year did you say? Stelle said some year but...."

"2024."

"Oh," Angus said. He wouldn't even look at me. His tea just sat there on the coffee table next to a book. I knew things wouldn't be the same between me and these men. Once everyone found out they'd all see me differently. Maybe they'd want to keep their distance. There would be no more casual conversations, they'd only look at me and be reminded of the truth. How can you go on talking about the weather when one of you is from forty six years into the future? "That's...that's pretty far off." Angus sort of smiled.

"I'm a long way from home," I said. It sounded better when I worded it that way. It felt easier to comprehend and more realistic. Like I was really here just visiting. 

"No kiddin'" Angus mumbled. He finally looked at me and looked almost....sad. I couldn't tell if he was sad for me or himself. "How did it happen?"

I explained to him about the winds that blew through my house and dropped me off in Australia 1978. It sounded ridiculous when I said it all out loud. But it was the truth and Angus deserved nothing less than the truth. I was tired of hiding it and I may as well rip the band-aid off. He stayed quiet the whole time and let me recount my story sans the Wattpad fanfiction part. 

Nobody needed to know about that...

After I was finished he finally took up his tea and drank. "That's hard to believe," he said.

"I understand if you don't," I said.

"I didn't say that," he said. "It's jus'....how in the hell did it happen? Somethin' must have caused the wind." The best I could do was shrug. 

"I'm just as clueless about it as anyone," I said. "I just thought it would be nice to see an AC/DC concert in the seventies and....here I am."

"An' what about the journalism thing?" Angus asked. My palms got sweaty. "Was any of that true?"

I hung my head. "No," I said. "I'm not a real journalist." Angus sighed, leaned back on the couch, and put a hand over his eyes. I felt awful. "That's why I pretended to not remember the name of the magazine, that's why I said freelance and....everything."

"So we've been tellin' ya' stuff for nothin'?" he asked. "What are ya' gonna do with all that once ya' get back home? If ya' get back home?"

"I don't know!" I said. "I didn't mean to force my way into your lives and follow you around, I didn't mean to lie to everyone about who I was and I didn't even mean to come here!" If Angus Young was going to roast me alive, I wasn't going down without a fight. "I don't even know if I'll ever get back home so once you guys leave for your tour and Stelle goes to Germany I'm on my own."