It is Saturday night and I’m in my apartment. Today started out pretty good, then things took a turn.
Right now, I’m pretty sure Emma is next door in her apartment crying. I’m almost 100% sure her boss is in a Lyft fuming.
I’ll skip over the good part: Emma’s modeling at the park. We got home and she asked what dress to wear tonight and I said the blue one. She was happy. I was happy.
She came back a little and let herself in; we have keys to each other's apartments and have agreed to put the chain on if we are undressed or something so the other doesn't come into an embarrassing situation.
I always have knocked the few times I've gone to her place. The idea was we'd use my living room and kitchen and she'd have her place for sleeping and if she wanted to work at her desk.
She came in wearing the blue dress. She looked great, as always, but a little scared.
She came to the sofa where I was sitting and settled down on its armrest. “Merritt, I wanna talk a little ‘fore Addison gets here.”
I looked at the clock. According to plan we had about 45 minutes. “Sure…”
Just then, Emma’s phone signaled a text message. It was Addison, ahead of schedule.
"Well," she said, "I'll hope to tell you later."
Addison made it to the apartment and Emma got busy finishing our meal. She had prepped everything early, so there wasn't much of a delay.
At first, everything was pretty cool. She had a lot of questions about the past.. We finished dinner, had coffee, then moved into the living room. I sat on the sofa—mistake, I should have taken a chair—and Addison sat down with me.
Emma sat in the chair, and we talked a little about the shows at the theater.
“We are opening a new room,” Addison said, “where we can have special, temporary shows.”
She explained all that, but there was a mood setting in that she was focused on me, leaving Emma out. I tried to keep Emma in the conversation, but the mood eventually prevailed.
Emma is very intelligent, and she caught on. “I think I’ll call it a night.”
“It’s early…” I said.
“Well, thank you for dinner. I’ll see you Monday,” Addison said.
Emma took off.
After that, Addison made it clear she was inviting me to set up a date or dates with her. I tried to be nice, because… I’m a nice guy, I think.
"I really feel complimented," I said. "I would never have guessed anyone like you would be interested in me."
"Sounds like you're about to break my heart," Addison said.
"I don't want you to think I'm not interested. I'm just…"
"Emma says you two are not dating," Addison added.
"We aren't," I replied. "This being shoved together has us asking a lot of questions."
"Like what?"
I stood up and walked to the window and she followed. I tried to explain.
"Like 'Why?' Why are we here? How… of course. Will is pulling his hair out digging into quantum physics for the first time a a while. How did this happen?"
"I've decided," Addison replied, "that I'll never understand how. But you're here. Might as well enjoy it, right?"
"I'm trying."
"I'd like to help you enjoy a few hours here and there. Dinner? Dancing? You shouldn't lock yourself up here and just sit around waiting for that mysterious figure to show up."
I nodded. "I guess there's some truth to that."
"Then what do you say?"
“It’s just hard. I don’t know if I can do my job, having skipped over 40 years of technology. I don’t know why I’m even here in 2024 to begin with.”
"What if there is no 'why?' and you're just here? You should grab on to what's here and go with it."
My mind raced through a dozen ways to interpret her last sentence, then I took a deep breath and replied. "I don't know how girls in 2024 are, but what I'm going to say would have, 40 years ago, probably made a girl think I was just putting them off because I wasn't interested."
Addison laughed through her nose and shook her head. "This can't be good."
"Here's the thing…" I said. "The situation has me so twisted up I can't relax enough to enjoy any of that stuff you mentioned. Suppose we did go on a date and it went well. I'd be the whole time worried that any day, I'm back in 1984 or maybe I get yanked into 2064 next. Not to mention that my fear of losing my job is real. Will said he'd try to keep me taking measurements and drawing up sketches, but that's sort of the mailroom of being an engineer."
Addison laughed again. "I get what you're saying. The whole time traveler thing probably does stress you out a lot. I just thought you could let go a little and have some fun."
I nodded, but couldn't think of anything else to say.
She smiled and turned to me. "Listen, no problem here. I'm not in a hurry or anything, and my feelings aren't hurt. I'd hoped to get out of here with a plan to see you again, but I really do understand the time shift and you being freaked out. And Emma… must be so strong to just go along with all this. She skipped the whole 20th Century!"
"Yeah," I said nodding.
Addison pulled out her iPhon and called for a Lyft. "Give me your number and I'll text you so you can have mine. Maybe if you think about your situation for a while, you'll feel up to pizza or something and you can text me."
I walked her to the street to wait for the Lyft then came back inside. Naturally, I thought about my situation, but I'm sure it wasn't what Addison had in mind.
All of this is so hard. When @timetravelerjenn1997 Jenn was around, we sort of held on together thinking we’d soon understand why we are here. Now, it’s just me, my job, and Emma trying to get from day to day with no idea why all this is happening.
Suppose Will can't keep me employed? Then what? Emma's doing okay with her job, but it's a new theater. Anything could happen! Suppose everything falls apart, which it very well could—What then?
Like I said, I like to believe I'm a nice guy. I don't want to hurt anyone.
So, the attention I'm getting to become a "special someone" just gets inside me and eats me up. I need to do what's right in light of everything, and I want to do it without hurting anyone.
I just don't know how.
No comments:
Post a Comment