Him

You weren’t expecting HER to join me in telling the story, did you? I bet you were thinking it’s going to be just my sappy story about how I can’t move on. Well, I guess you could still say that. But it’s also going to be kind of funny in places. And hella’ crazy. In any case, I am really happy that Nat’s part of this. As she should be. This was never just about me. It was about us.

I woke up shivering, jumped from the bed panting like I had just ran a bunch of stairs. Last thing I recalled? What I mentioned before – we were in the car and whatever had happened next, it spun us into a blur. And there I was, waking up, jumping from my bed.

Ok. The craziness is starting. Here we go. I woke up in my old apartament. An apartament I hadn’t been in for over ten years. What struck me at first was how similar it still was to how I used to decorate it. Down to my poster still hanging on the wall in the bedroom. But that didn’t make any sense cause that poster should have been at my house. At the house that I now lived with Nat.

Was I dreaming? For a good while I believed that I was. I got close to the mirror, trying to look at myself and to my horror I could see someone moving in the reflection. Had she been in the bed with me all that time? How the hell did we both get here? I decided to wake her up.

As I turned around towards the bed, I screamed. I might have also peed my pants a bit. The girl in the bed was not Nat. No, it was Christine. My ex – Christine. Now happily married and with a baby on the way – Christine. My ex that I hadn’t seen in at least three years – Christine. What the fuck did I do? How did I get here with Christine?

Christine lay in the bed, naked, sleeping and somehow unaware of my yell. I could start to feel my legs failing me. I was close to fainting. I stumbled my way towards the bathroom, turned on the water and tried to put my head under it. It was cold, it felt nice. But for each drop of pleasure, the dread of what was happening to me would flood back. I raised my head from the sink and my own reflection welcomed me from the mirror. Did I shave? When the fuck did I shave? I looked weird without a beard. Like a baby. Or, you know, a younger guy.

I just couldn’t process what was going on and I felt worse by the minute. I have no idea for how long I had stared in that mirror, but at some point, the light in the bathroom turned on. Christine entered, looking sleepy but unfazed like we weren’t just in the craziest, most fucked up situation ever.

She came up, gave me a kiss and then sat on the toilet, peeing.

I lost my shit. I could barely utter the words:

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Hm? Oh sorry, I thought you didn’t mind this. I should have asked.”

“What, what – what are we doing here?”

“I just couldn’t hold it any longer. Just get out if I’m grossing you out. We can jump in the shower later.”

“Jump in the –“ I was stuttering more and more.

“Hey, you ok?” she asked, suddenly paying a bit more attention to me.

“Am I ok? I’m really not ok! Christine? What is this? What are we doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did we do this? Where’s Paul?”

“Who’s Paul?”

Paul is her husband.

“You know - Paul, your husband?”

“My husb – what??”

“Aw, shit. What’s Nat going to say about all this?”

“Hey, who the fuck is Nat? And who’s Paul?”

“She’s going to be so mad,” I said quietly, to myself more than to Christine.

She got up from the toilet, flushed and grabbed my face gently.

“Hey, are you ok? What’s going on? Did you take something last night?”

So, my history with drugs is like this: there’s not much of a history. I’ve never been much a weed guy and my interest in the harder stuff was even lower than that. I tried a bunch of things back when I was with Christine, but I never stuck with anything. She was a bit more open-minded on that sort of thing, but for as long as we had been together, she kind of respected my lack of interest by never over-indulging herself either. Unless…

“Did you drug me?”

“Excuse me?” she raised her voice.

“You heard me! Did you drug me? You always took shit like that. Did you give me some?”

To be fair, that was entirely unfair to her. When she was younger, she did like to have a bit of fun, but she didn’t have like…a problem with drugs. It was recreational. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t even believe it, but at that very moment, I was losing my mind.

“Fuck off, where’s that coming from? I’d never do that. I didn’t take anything last night. We just had those beers.”

“Then how the hell did we end up in bed together?”

“What do you mean, how? We just came home and had sex, wh-“

“Just like that?” I raised my voice irritated.

“Ok, you’re scaring me right now,” she said, taking two steps back.

“Where’s Paul?

“I don’t know who this Paul is!”

“Paul, your husband!”

“Ok, I’m calling 911.” She exited the bathroom. I followed her:

“And put some clothes on you, it’s unbecoming for a married woman to act like this!”

She turned around and threw me the nastiest look I had ever seen from her. Not even when we had broken up did I get THAT.

My stress levels were still up and I could feel my stomach churning. I kneeled by the toilet and puked everything I had.

“They’re on their way,” Christine said, watching me from the door. She was now wearing a pair of panties. “You sure you didn’t take anything from anybody? Could your drink have been spiked? But that doesn’t make sense, we shared pints multiple times.”

I couldn’t process what she was saying, I was stuck in my own questioning:

“Are you even supposed to be drinking? Aren’t you expecting soon?”

She burst into laughing.

“I don’t know what you are on, but this is hilarious,” She posed smugly: “Do I look like I’m pregnant to you?”

I raised my eyes from the toilet. Yeah, she still looked amazing. Fit, sexy, still working out, I bet. And then I noticed something.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Where’s your tattoo?”

“Uhm…right here.” she replied, raising her wrist where she had some flower motifs done.

“No, I mean the other one. The cat.”

As if I wasn’t already severely messed up, I plunged into an even deeper despair as I noticed behind Christine the aforementioned cat. The cat, Jasper, was sitting there, looking at me with curious eyes. Jasper the cat had died while I was still with Christine. In his honor, Christine decided to get a cat tattoo on her left-side ribs. The tattoo was definitely missing and for sure, there was good old Jasper.

I tried to vomit again, but there was nothing left. Christine’s phone rang and she went back into the room to talk.

Trembling, I got up and I could feel the hair on my whole body raising as Jasper brushed his tail by my foot. Then I noticed my old tablet on the laundry basket. I reached out and pressed a button. The UI lighted up, with the date staring back at me:

Saturday, May the 12th. 2012.

I blacked out.

I woke up with the lantern in my eyes, as one paramedic was calling out my name while another was bandaging my head.

“You ok there, James?”

“Totally. Just waking up from a nap.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yes. But I wish I didn’t.”

Please let it be a dream.

“I need to hear you say it, bud.”

“I’m in my apartment.”

Shit!

“That’s right! And…”

“…and Christine’s here, right?”

“Yes, she is! Good job!”

Aw, fuck! It’s not a dream.

“So what happened, James? Felt dizzy?

“I think the beer I had last night did not agree with me.”

“Really?” he asked surprised.

At that point I figured that Christine had probably told them everything that had happened that morning. Me freaking out, making no sense, saying weird things. I figured I play nice and act like nothing had happened. I wasn’t sure what was going on anyways, but for sure I wouldn’t have been able to figure out much if I ended up locked in a psych ward. So, I lied.

If I come to think about it, I’m a good liar. I’ve never abused it, though. I’ve always used it sparingly, responsibly – like Spider-Man. At that moment, I’m proud to report that it was the best of decisions.

After thirty more minutes of checking me out, the paramedics decided I don’t need to go to the hospital. The head wound didn’t need any stitches and I was just dehydrated. They hooked me up with an energy drink and instructed Christine to give me some pills for the pain and keep me in bed if I get dizzy again.

After they left, Christine sat by my side.

“Are you really ok?”

I nodded in agreement.

“Do you remember the weird shit you were saying when you woke up?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She sighed with relief.

“Where did all that come from?”

“I think I had a nightmare. Combined with my hangover I just…lost it.”

“I never knew you to get a hangover from two pints of beer.”

“I’m getting old, Chris…”

Addressing her as Chris instead of Christine seemed to relax her even more, almost to the point of where she was in the morning.

She laughed as she gave me a kiss on the lips. It felt so weird. So foreign and invasive but at the same time – so familiar. I responded to her kiss and I could feel her body sticking to me.

What was going on in my head at that time? I was trying to convince myself that it had all been a bad dream and that this was really my reality. But as much as I wanted to believe that, in the back of my head were the full memories of my life of the past twelve years or so. I knew it was impossible that I had just dreamt and imagined so vividly twelve full years only to wake back up in 2012. But at that moment I was scared to go further and understand more. I just wanted to rest.

The kiss continued. I slowly started to touch her with my hands, like rediscovering some old forgotten secret only I knew. After a while, I stopped:

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do this.” As I saw her expression changing, I added: “Right now! I can’t do this right now.”

She smiled and slipped her hands into my pants.

“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate,” she replied as she slid down. “Relax, James. Mommy’s gonna make you feel all better.”

My whole body froze. Like I couldn’t say yes, but I couldn’t say no either. It was so weird to be back with Christine while internally I could only visualize Nat.

I let it happened. Afterwards, I felt guilty. Really fucking guilty. Man, it proved to be only the beginning in a series of events where guilt, sorrow and everything in between would drown my whole being, never to be the same again.

**

Her

As you can imagine, I was confused. May 12th, 2012. I was still living with my parents. So, I ended up in my old bedroom. As I opened my eyes, I must have sat there for an hour, not even realizing anything was actually wrong.

My parents had always been the kind of people that would leave their kid’s room the same as it was, even years after the ‘child’ had moved from home. So in 2012 the room was extremely similar to how you would find it in 2024. As a result, the alarms in my head ran with a delay. Sure, it was weird to wake up at my parents’ all of a sudden, but it was a safe space, from that state of confusion, at least I didn’t wake up in panic – like Jamie did. I was, perhaps, a bit luckier from that standpoint.

Only when I heard the noise from outside did I actually figure something was off. I looked through the window and saw dad, working in the yard and my first thought was…huh, he’s at it again.

But then I jumped out of bed and looked again. Dad was still out there, working his carpentry. I burst into tears.

My first instinct was to try and wake up. This was a dream, a bad dream. I didn’t like dreaming about him, it always ended up making me sad and empty. But as I was feeling my way through the room, it was so vivid, so palpable, so natural, that I knew kind of immediately – this was no dream.

When I think about it now, I don’t recall the whole way down but a couple of minutes later I found myself outside, looking at him – silent, terrified to even call him out.

There was no need. He turned around, all smiling, and greeted me:

“Good morning, kiddo!”

I was shaking uncontrollably, trying to hold it in and not break down completely. He saw it immediately. He put down the tools and walked towards me.

“Is everything ok?” he asked.

I just jumped into his arms, squeezing so hard, trying to convince myself that he was real. I buried my face into his neck, trying to take all in. His smell, the texture of his skin, the warmth of it as the sun gave him a slight tan. And I could feel his arms hugging me gently, trying to calm me down.

“Kiddo,” he said, after a couple more minutes. “What’s going on? Let me look at you.”

I was crying my eyes out, not being able to process that whatever was happening, he was not going away. There he was, still. Dad.

But as this carried on, I realized that I was freaking him out. He was now visibly concerned and was already looking to call out for mom.

I wiped my tears using the sleeves of my pajamas. For a second, I cried in surprise. Those PJs had been out of use for at least ten years. But then I looked back at him, trying to gather my words:

“Sorry, I was just…happy to see you.”

He smiled - a bit embarrassed for me:

“Just went to get some more wood for the garage.”

I could feel tears pouring from the depths of my soul towards my eyes. I tried to speak quickly in order to make them go away:

“I’m fine, daddy. I’m just on my period, that’s all.”

I saw the color leave his cheeks. Now he was embarrassed for the both of us. Poor guy.

“Just fine!” I added before turning around and running back into the house. As I got in, I just bumped into mom and again startled, this time because of her appearance. She smiled in surprise. She was…well, younger. Simple as that. Her hair was still a rather bright red, her figure slenderer and her smile warmer.

Again, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I hugged her too and she responded in kind.

“Well look at you being all lovey-dovey today.”

How strange, even her voice sounded younger.

“So, what’s going on, Nat?” she asked.

“Nothing! I’m on my period. Hormones are dancing, it’s crazy!”

“Right…” she said, not really buying it.

You can use the ‘period’ card on your dad. Not so much on your mom. Not my mom, anyways.

“This is not about any boy-trouble, is it?”

She was now looking thoughtfully at me. I laughed.

“No, no boy-trouble. I don’t think so.”

But as I uttered those words, panic grabbed me. Jamie. What had happened with Jamie? To convince myself of what I was already aware of, I went to the TV in the living room. A song called “Somebody that I used to know” was on, and sure enough, there was the date. Crazy!

My thoughts were scrambling trying to make me prioritize something, anything. What on earth was I going to do? I went back to my room looking for my phone and for the third time that day, ended up in shock – I was using a Windows Phone. I looked through my contacts.

Then it dawned on me. It was 2012. I was 18 years old. Still in high school. On top of still being a kid, not really independent in any form or matter, I hadn’t yet met some of my closest friends and neither did I know where my boyfriend is or, rather, was in 2012. And I had no idea how to get in touch with him.

So, I hadn’t been honest to mom that morning. There was a certain degree of boy-trouble (double-trouble, as it turned out) going on and despite the enormity of all that had happened and all the consequences and implications that came with it, my mind became invaded with just one single purpose – to get back to Jamie. Or at the very least, assuming he was in the same situation as I was, get back with Jamie. Wherever he was.