That night I dreamed that I was back home in my own time at my parents' house. We were sitting around the dinner table sipping wine and laughing. My mother was to my left, my father was to my right, and straight ahead of me was Connor. He smiled at me as our laughing gently subsided. "You really do have a lovely home," he said. "And a lovely daughter."
I felt my face grow red as I blushed.
"I'm just glad she found such a nice man to spend her life with," my mom said.
"Mom!" I exclaimed, feeling my face deepen in its beet-like nature.
"Well, it's true!" she said defending herself. "The two of you are just so good together."
"We only hope to be half as good together as the two of you," Connor said, looking at my mother and then at my father.
I saw my father give an approving nod. "You're well on your way, son," he said.
I felt my face move just a bit back towards normal as I looked back at Connor. He smiled at me. Then he reached his hands out across the table towards me. Without thinking, I held my hands out and let him take them in my own. The setting of my parents' house, my parents themselves, and the table seemed to fade away until it was just the two of us. "I love you," he said.
I felt both surprised and like I had expected this at the same time, but before I could open my mouth to respond, I saw him fading away, and I felt his hands slipping out of mine. Then I felt tears running down my cheeks and just when I could barely see him anymore, I cried out, "Don't go!"
But it was too late. He was gone. And then I woke up.
Laying there in the dark, on that soggy couch, I felt moisture on my face. I reached up and felt my cheek to find I really had been crying. What on earth was going on? I wondered. It was weird enough that I saw Connor in strange places in my dreams, but now I saw him like this, with my parents, saying "I love you?" That hadn't just felt like a dream. That had felt more like a memory. And it scared me more than anything I had experienced before in my life.
I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. I paced back and forth, wondering what to do, and what all of this meant and whether someone was going to come to kill me today or tomorrow or the next day. As the sun started to come up, I felt no better, but I had made a decision. Even though it might seem too forward and I had planned to wait carefully another day or two while keeping an eye on things, I was going to give Connor a call today and see about getting that cup of coffee.
I was actually a bit surprised when Connor assured me that it certainly was not too soon to meet up and that he would love to meet me not just for coffee, but for lunch. It was the summer time, so neither of us was teaching at the time, but he did have a part time job at a bookstore. I couldn't help but smile to myself a little bit when he said that. Bookstores were a relic of the past in my day. Sure, people still read or, more often, listened to books, but they were almost entirely digital. I had only been in one bookstore in my entire life and it was more like an antique store.
"So what's good to eat near where you work?" I asked.
"Well, there is a nice little coffee shop right around the corner," he said. "Lots of people go there after visiting the bookstore. They have great sandwiches, and if you'd rather just have coffee, that's fine, too."
"Sounds good to me," I said. "I'll meet you there at 1:30."
I hung up, and then I got to wait. I felt nervous. I had been on first dates before, but this first date might literally be life and death. I didn't want to screw it all up.
It turns out I had very little to worry about in terms of me screwing up the date. Connor, on the other hand, seemed even more nervous than I was. He had seemed so calm and natural over the phone, but now in person, I could tell his hands were shaking. He even spilled his coffee at one point. "I'm sorry," he said as I helped him mop it up. "I don't know why I'm acting this way. I guess I just haven't gone on a date for a while."
"Oh?" I queried.
"Yeah," he said.
There was silence for a moment and then I said. "You can tell me about it. It's okay, really."
He looked up at me, seeming a little surprised, but then he smiled. "If you're sure," he said.
I wanted to make him feel at ease. I wanted him to trust me. His life might depend on it. Sharing something personal with me was a fantastic step to take towards this, if I could get him to take it. "I'm sure," I said confidently.
"Well," he began as he sat back down from the mess clean-up, "I met her about four and a half years ago. It was not long after that class we took together, actually. Back then, I wasn't really all that into committing to a relationship. I often went on a couple dates with a girl and then moved on." He sighed. "Frankly, if you had gone out back then, its pretty likely that would have happened with you, too, but not with her. I mean, I tried to break it off and move on, but she more or less refused. That stubbornness intrigued me, strangely, and I decided to try for date number three. And that was when we really hit it off. I don't know, it was just like magic or something, almost like I couldn't explain why I wanted to be with her but I did." He paused and blushed a little. "I'm sorry," he said, "this really isn't good first date material. Maybe we should talk about something else."
By now, I was genuinely interested. I told myself that I didn't have a true romantic interest in Connor, despite what my dreams may have indicated, and I needed him to trust me as a friend anyway, so I encouraged him onward. "It's okay," I said. "Really, I want to hear more."
He sighed and seemed a little bit uncomfortable. "If you're okay with telling more, that is," I put in cautiously.
He smiled. "I am," he said. "It's good for me to talk about it. I'm just surprised you're okay with hearing it."
"I'm full of surprises," I said, perhaps the most truthful thing I had said to him so far, "please continue."
"Well, our relationship progressed rather quickly," he said. "She moved in with me after six months and everything was going great. After a little more than a year, I started thinking about proposing, but then I also started to get this weird vibe that the time wasn't right. Things still seemed good, we got along, and I still felt, well, I still felt like I loved her, but I just, well, I guess I felt weird about the future or something. Scared isn't really right. Just weird, like I needed to stay where I was for a while longer. And then I just started to feel awkward around her, almost like I didn't really know her, like whatever magic spell there had been was wearing off. I started to realize that I could barely remember what it had been like to be without her, and that did scare me. I didn't want to lose who I was in who she seemed to want me to be. So..." he sighed. "I broke it off. This time she didn't fight. She didn't even seem surprised. She said the strangest and most hurtful thing she could have." He stopped talking and I thought he was done. I was starting to wonder if I should ask him what she had said, when he told me, "She said 'good'."
I didn't know I should respond to that, so I just let my natural reaction take over. I scoffed and said, "You're kidding."
He shook his head. "No," he said. "Even though I broke up with her, that made me feel like I was the one getting dumped. I remember asking her if she even wanted to talk about it. She shook her head and said, 'Nope'. Then she moved out. I tried to call her a few weeks later to patch things up, see if we could still be friends, but her number was disconnected." He sighed. "I haven't gone on a date since then," he said, remorsefully, "and I never saw Maria again."
I nearly tipped over my drink when he said that. "What did you say her name was?" I asked.
"Maria," he repeated, looking a bit confused. "Why?"
It couldn't be, I thought to myself. It had to just be a coincidence. "What did she look like?" I asked, hoping he would say something to dissuade my fear.
"She was medium height, black hair, hazel eyes, I guess."
I felt my pulse racing. All true of my Maria, the one from the future.
"What was she like?" I asked.
He looked a little confused. "I mean, I already told you some of it," he said, "are you sure you want to know more."
"I'm sorry," I said, "I just... I think I might know her."
He shrugged. "Well, she worked at the library, really interested in books and history. She liked a good mystery, too. She had a smile that would just light up a room and make each person in it feel like everything was going to be okay. And she loved cherry danishes."
At that, my hand was shaking so badly that I didn't dare try to pick up my coffee. "We need to go," I said, forgetting all about my plan to gradually build trust.
Connor appeared utterly baffled. "What? Why?"
"Okay, let me rephrase that then," I said standing up. "I need to go and you would be wise to follow."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, standing as well.
"I know this Maria you dated," I said, "and I don't know what she was up to, but I think we might both be in big trouble."
"Are you saying she's the crazy ex jealous type?" he asked. "Because I haven't heard from her in years. I've finally moved on. That's why I'm here with you now."
"I know," I said. "I think that's exactly what she wanted, for some strange reason."
"What?"
I sighed and sat back down. He followed suit. "Listen," I said in a hushed tone, looking him straight in the eyes, "I know you're confused and you barely know me, but I'm begging you to trust me. Your life might depend on it."
He gave a little nervous chuckle and got this kind-of half smirk half smile on his face that said he was clearly very uncomfortable. "You're really scaring me, Jenna," he said.
"That's not my name," I said.
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