I don't know. Gross.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was really an adult by any other culture's standards with a bad "Rachel" haircut and a bunch of band t-shirts with sweat stains on the pits. She thought she was beautiful in a secret kind of way because she was a fucking idiot and had yet to be crushed by the bloody gummy jaws of reality in the grown up world.

That little girl was me once.

It was late at night or early in the morning when I snuck into Brock's lab with the key I had stolen while he slept. The lab was dark and unfamiliar. I had only been there a couple times before, to visit him, to gain his trust, to bring him lunch or a coffee, to pick him up after work and bring him back to my place so he could boss me around in bed while I pretended I was somewhere else.

That little girl went to class every day and studied in all of her free time. She loved her boyfriend and her friends with all of her heart. She wore her hair in pigtails when she danced at the gym. She cried in the movie Garden State and in any movie where a short brunette girl cries. She really liked scrabble and didn't drink or smoke. She wanted to marry her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and live happily ever after.

I got to Brock's corner of the lab and crawled into the machine. There weren't any instructions or anything but I figured he wouldn't have made it dangerous and then strapped those poor little chimpanzees in. I taped the electrodes to my temples, closed my eyes, and let go of 2013, and disappeared from existence, or rather flooded everywhere into existence, falling backward, falling away.

I saw me longboarding through the quad in baggy capris and a Velvet Underground t-shirt. Halfway through the quad I jumped off my longboard and ran to hug a tall, handsome, half Asian man carrying a pile of books. He leaned down but didn't hug me back because his hands were full. 19 year old Barbara danced and laughed and tried to jump up to kiss him on the cheek. Not being tall enough, and not getting any sort of help on his end, she ended up kissing his shoulder. Then she longboarded away.

Mike continued walking in the opposite direction without looking back at 19 year old me.

I jogged into the quad and ran right up to him. He frowned at me from far away and stared at me hard as I got closer. I stopped in front of him. His brow furrowed and he hugged his books to his chest. His lips dropped open. He took a step back.

"Mike, it's me Barbara, well from the future."
"What is this?" he said. "Is this a joke?"
"No I swear. I'm Babs from year 2013."
"Babs?"
"I go  by Babs now."
"Gross."
"Kid, can we talk?"
"Don't call me kid, I'm older than-"
"Are you?"
"I don't know how this works."

We went quickly to the art building and entered an empty classroom. The classrooms were mostly on the basement level and the galleries were on the above ground level. This one had a bunch of long wooden paint splattered tables and smelled like old clay. I turned to face Mike as he adjusted his hoodie strings.

"I really came to warn 19 year old Barbara about you," I said.
"Why? Wait I don't believe any of this." Mike put his head in his hands. I gazed at his dark wavy falling over thick eyebrows. Under his eyes on his cheekbones were a sprinkle of freckles that I had missed. I paced hurriedly around the art room.
"You're going to break her heart into a million pieces. You're not that into her, but she's in love with you."
"I love her too."
"You what?" I stopped short, pivotted and looked back.
"I love her." Mike was staring at me intently with dark chocolate eyes.
"You never told her...me.... In three years you never said..." I breathed heavily.
"I never told her... you... that I did because I was so scared of losing her..."
"Well you push her away to the point that she has a nervous breakdown and doesn't eat for a week," I said pointedly.
"Hot." He walked toward me seriously.

I laughed in spite of myself. I didn't know what to do with this newfound information. I gazed at my college boyfriend. He was looking at me with sweetness and care in his eyes. How could I have never realized how much he liked me? I guess my low self esteem was getting in the way.

"Barbara..." He said, choking a little on the words. "I love you. I think you're wonderful and a genius writer and super weird and special and I do want to spend the rest of my life-"

I reached for his hand gently to comfort him. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. With his other hand he grabbed my cheek and kissed me deeply. My heart fluttered like it hadn't in five years. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He sat me down on the wooden table, kissing me, and began undoing his belt. I maintained eye contact while I awkwardly yanked my pants off. Within seconds we were one, together again, in love, and feeling every emotion and tactile vibration in our bodies and minds. He kept kissing me while I came hard in a room where I had once done a presentation about pictures of goldfish, or maybe that hadn't happened yet. He kissed me really hard and passionately and I felt more wanted than I had ever felt in my life. I could feel myself losing grip on reality and I could feel the time space continuum getting really annoyed at me. I looked up into his eyes and ached to tell him something, to beg him to do something, I struggled to cry out to him, but nothing happened and I just kissed him.

I slowly dissolved from the past, fading from Mike's arms, and reappeared in the future, crying in Brock's basement.

Mike gasped and fell forward, losing his balance on the empty table. There was nothing but air in his hands. He coughed and put himself back together.

Outside the art room door, a little girl sat listening through the wall, with her knees pulled up to her chest. Next to her sat a longboard and a backpack. She wiped her tears with her Velvet Underground t-shirt, got up, and ran away.