Layla looked down at her salad. “At least your mom cares about your future. She’s just trying to get you somewhere good in life before she lets go.”

“Maybe.”

“But she’s wrong about what you’ll become. You will never be a dentist.”

“Because I’m going to discover time travel. So you really are from the future.”

Layla leaned in closer to whisper, “Do you see how hard it is for me to let you pay for my meals? To let you so much as put a bandage on my knee when I can do it myself. If getting to the airport is all I needed to do to get back to my work and my life, don’t you think I’d do it?”

I leaned in to whisper, “So is this conformation that you really are from the future? That this isn’t a hoax?” I was so close to her again. Her fragrance was everywhere, filling my senses. I could feel her presence and it electrified the air between us. My heart raced as I stared into her eyes that were huge saucers of warm hot chocolate.

She was in the same trance, looking back at me and having trouble forming her sentence. “I…can’t…tell…you.” She swallowed.

“I think you already did.” I knew in my heart I was having a moment. It was just like the flashes that I had to jot down in my notebooks. This wasn’t just the attraction between a guy and a pretty girl. This went deeper. This was more. She was my future. Just as much as that vision of how time travel would work. I was seeing into my future and all the potential that came with it.”

I leaned in closer. I didn’t want anyone to hear the craziness of what I was about to say. “What if you are Layla? THE Layla. What if you are the catalyst sent to get me on the path to my destiny? What if you and the time travel go hand-in-hand and there cannot be one without the other? You want me to accept that I’m never going to be a dentist. Well if all you are telling me is true, maybe you need to accept that you are never going back home. You are Layla.”

She pulled back and took in a quick breath at my last statement. She looked like she was going to speak but never did. Maybe she was having trouble processing the idea.

“If I’m to be a time traveler and it all starts with my great love for the beautiful Layla and you have shown up in my timeline and I automatically call you Layla. Then you must be Layla. You either believe the stories you were taught or you don’t. Or maybe you liked them better when they were for someone else and didn’t require anything from you.”

She said nothing as I watched her take it all in. Her blonde hair was messy from the ocean breeze by the pool, but I liked it like that. It reminded me of how she looked when she got up from bed. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I could hardly believe I was sitting at a table with someone like her. It almost made her story unbelievable because there was no way that I’d end up with a woman like her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked, her eyes becoming even more wet with emotion.

“Like what?”

She blinked and swallowed. “Like I mean everything to you.”

I thought about her words and what she had told me about my future. I thought about the time travel I’d told no one about. I thought about the notebooks and the Cheerwine and Philo T. Farnsworth.

“Because maybe you do.”