Page 57 of Melt With You

‘Star Fleet personnel may not violate the Prime Directive, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation.’

‘An earlier violation,’ Dori repeated. ‘That’s what you think we’ve come to fix? The fact that the theater was turned into a bookstore. That constitutes a violation in your book?’

Rowan shrugged. ‘It’s sort of why I wanted your feedback. But then, you kind of got mixed up in the … alien culture.’

‘So what? You’ve been living in a bubble since coming back?’

‘I never said I was a member of Star Fleet.’ Rowan grinned at her.

Dori considered what he’d said. ‘But what if the indigenous culture is your teenage self? Or your teenage friends?’

They looked at each other for a moment.

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning, how much are we allowed change? What have we affected simply by being here in the first place?’

‘That’s all I meant to fix,’ he said seriously. ‘It was all about the theater to me.’

‘One-track mind,’ she teased him. ‘Like in school. Why’d you even need me?’

He took a long drag. ‘I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. I always valued your judgment, you know. You have a clear head.’

‘Not on this,’ she said, motioning to the joint, and Rowan laughed. ‘But why didn’t you tell me first? Why didn’t you ask my opinion?’

He laughed even harder. ‘Can you imagine? We haven’t seen each other in twenty fucking years, and the first thing I do is tell you I’m going to go back in time and buy The Majestic. What would you say to that?’

‘I’d have said, “Bravo! Good idea. How can I help?”’

‘Liar.’ He blew a perfect smoke ring toward the ceiling. ‘You’d have called the nice men in white coats to take me away. I wanted to tell you, Dori. To ask you. But I wanted to show you, too. And –’

‘And what?’

‘Well, I had ulterior motives. I thought that if I brought you back, if I showed you a good time in the 80s, that we might … that you could …’

‘What?’

He put a hand out and stroked her hair away from her eyes. ‘Sometimes, when you thought about me, didn’t you wonder what might have happened if we’d never broken up?’

He’d asked the question already, but when he said the words again, she realized exactly how much she had missed Rowan over the years. The way they’d been able to finish each other’s sentences. The way she felt good sitting next to him, not speaking. Hanging out at Gael’s, or on the blanket in the field that was now a hotel. What else might they save? Could they recreate the 80s in 2008? Could they save their whole town?

Why even go back to the future?

Was the pot affecting her brain, or might they simply stay back in time?

‘No,’ Rowan said when she posed the query. ‘It wouldn’t work. It’s dangerous enough right now. There are two of us in the past now. We don’t exist in the present at all. If our teenage selves were to see us …’

‘Then what? What would happen to us?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know. I can only go on what I’ve seen in movies. What I’ve read in books. I think you can’t see yourself. I think it fries your brain. You don’t want to do that, Dori.’

‘So what? How far can we go?’

‘The theater,’ he said. ‘That’s all. We’ll get the money. We’ll buy The Majestic. And …’

‘And what?’

‘And we’ll live happily ever after.’

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