"Couldn't you have just straightened up your own place for this?" asked his old friend.

"Guess you haven't seen my place in a while. Plus, I've been using this apartment for his last five or so visits, and I wouldn't want to confuse him." He shuffled around the kitchen, opening and closing each cabinet, figuring out where all the utensils were.

"It just seems like more effort than it's worth. Not to mention that you're kicking me and Lisa out of our own home for the evening."

"Look," he said sharply. "When he first started visiting, you agreed to help out. So unless you change your mind, can you lay off? Now show me how to work your stove again, I forgot. Oh, and don't forget to leave me a set of keys." "There's nothing wrong with where you live. And you shouldn't be lying to him, well, to you."

"I know there's nothing wrong with my place," the former time traveler told his friend, becoming slightly annoyed. "But my thirteen year old self wouldn't like it. I remember this visit as the most exciting thing that happened to me at thirteen. And it was here. It will be here."

"Well, you still shouldn't lie to him."

"He's a teenager. He has some idea of where he wants to be when he's twenty-seven, and if he sees that he doesn't get there... he doesn't need that."

"A journalist, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," he said, impressed that his friend remembered. "I wanted to write for the Times."

"It wasn't a stupid goal or anything."

"I guess."

"You could try to make sure he follows through."

"Listen," he said, furious this time. "It didn't work out, okay? And I don't need to tell him that. I'm happy with where I am."

"Then just show him your life."

"He doesn't want to see my life!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Do you think when he asks me to show him where he will live, that he wants to see the same room across the hall from his parents', where he lived in the eighth grade!? Do you think he wants to hear stories of how he will mess up every chance at his goals, how he will ruin every decent relationship, how he will lose every friend!? If I fucked things up once, I'll do it again! So let him be happy while he can!" His reddened face slowly returned to its normal color, and he looked at the ground.

Neither the former time traveler nor his old friend said anything for a while.

Finally, his old friend spoke again. "He'll realize eventually that things don't work out as he expected, and when that happens... he'll be disappointed."

"I know."

"This is his last visit. Your last chance to get him to change things."

The former time traveler felt a vibration in his pocket. "It's him," he said, looking at phone. "He's in the present."

"All right. So do you need that set of keys?"