The television casts a garish parade of colors across your unlined brow. From the corner of the bar, you watch me, not the game, but drop your eyes when I meet your gaze. More mating whisper than mating call.
Wesley, the sleepy-eyed bartender, spies my nearly-finished drink and ambles in my direction. The simple act of waving him off triggers a series of scenes, the filmstrip of his future unspooling behind my eyes.
Wesley will lose this job in three weeks. His second wife, a distracted beauty, will seize the excuse to leave him, unaware she’s a month pregnant. He’ll flirt with benzos and oxys for thirteen precarious months. He’ll meet his third—and final—wife when she sideswipes his car in a church parking lot.
I no longer wonder whether these things I see will come true. They do, they always do, if left unchallenged. When I was younger, I thought these visions were a curse, and prayed to be spared their often cruel revelations. Now I don’t bother, mostly letting them drift from my mind unexamined, like idle recollections. I have a now to live in.
I glance toward you, feigning nonchalance. You catch me looking, nodding your head as if we now share a secret, and flash a conspiratorial grin. You wipe your palms across your charcoal t-shirt, then approach.
You’ll tell me your name is Connor, and your barstool will screech, nails against blackboard. Undeterred, you’ll offer to buy me a drink. I’ll be charmed, but won’t touch it.
“Hey there. I’m Connor.” Your smile falters until I gesture for you to sit. Skreeee. You wince in embarrassment as your stool loudly scrapes tile. Your expression shifts to hopeful as you settle beside me with a genial smile. “Want another beer?”
Our fingers will touch as you slide the beer in my direction, a spark passing through a newly connected circuit.
I feel the future tugging, insistent on revealing itself, but I resist. You reach past me to wave for Wesley, and your woodsy, spicy scent breaks my defenses. A vision floods me and scattered pieces cohere into a clear picture—everything that could happen between us.
Later tonight, at my place, after we’ve shed sopping clothes and exhausted each other in every way, you’ll gather the courage to ask to stay. I’ll hesitate, reminding you of my early wake-up, but I’ll already have my arm stretched across your wide chest, claiming you.
“I had a pickup line ready, but it’s too dumb.” Your laugh is boyishly adorable. Like the rest of you—your intentionally uncombed hair, button nose, dark playful eyes. “I just wanted to say hello.”
You’ll weave tonight into a story, wearing out its edges through multiple tellings. “Oh, I knew he’d never come to me,” you’ll tell our friends, always adding, “he even tried to run away!” We’ll already be a unit—Connor and Matt. No one can imagine us apart, lungs and heart in a single body. You’ll burst into laughter at the analogy, asking why one of us couldn’t be the brain—the birth of a long-running joke.
“I’m glad you did.” I run my finger through the condensation on my beer bottle. You have no idea how handsome you are, Connor, and never will. “I’m Matias.”
The “brain” will, when he turns up, be named David. An awkwardly handsome computer scientist you’ll meet at your gym. You’ll suggest a threeway with him, though you’ve already hooked up without me four times. You’ve noticed my ability or gift, curse or whatever this is, but pretend you haven’t, and so you lie about your burgeoning feelings for him—even though I always know. I hate that I always know.
“Do people call you Matt?” A nervous swig. Your roaming gaze charts my contours with cartological precision. I do the same to you, constructing a map of hastily gathered details. The twitch of your mouth. The vein curling around your bicep. The fuzz on your thick fingers.
The apartment will be so empty without you, a mausoleum of memory. You’ll call to check in, and I’ll say “I’m fine,” until I finally stop responding. Distance will grow between us like an invasive vine. A friend will tell me you married again. Not David. Someone called Neal.
I laugh. “Not usually. But you can.”
I’ll meet Neal at your funeral. A lovely shell of a man. We’ll share stories about you, crying until we laugh and laughing until we cry again. He’ll be jealous. I knew you when you were young. I don’t offer up your favorite story, about tonight—about what happens next. That’s mine.
I’ve seen many terrible, wonderful futures upon meeting strangers, but I’ve never played so large a part in them, like I just became a character in a novel I’m reading. It’s frightening.
Across the bar, a man in an orange shirt breaks at the pool, the sound crisp and sharp as a gunshot. Wesley watches us like he knows, like everyone in here knows what I know.
There’s still time, if I get away from you now. If I reach the door quickly and don’t turn back, I can outrun our future together. Other futures will find us.
I stand abruptly. “You’re sweet, Connor, but I’ve got an early start tomorrow. Sorry.”
The vision of the future blurs, smearing into sloppy watercolors, as I push my body against the heavy door. Outside, lazy thunder grumbles in the distance.
The street is quiet—no crowd to lose myself in.
Behind me, the door creaks again, spilling mumbling bar noise onto the sidewalk.
“Wait!” You call after me, the scuff of your steps loud against the concrete. You’ve followed me.
There’s still time, but—
I turn. Behind you, music’s still playing in the bar, muffled by the closing door.
“Let me walk you home at least?” That grin again. “What have you got to lose?”
You reach for my arm.
I knew you would.