If Tomorrow Was Today | Short Story

7.

"Julie!" I called out. "Jules! Julian!" I shouted as I looked to my left and then my right. He wasn't anywhere near the diner. I felt my heart breaking with every movement that I did, my body was struggling to stay up like a candle that burned in the window on a windy day and when my fire went out, he lit it again.

All I had to do was see him and my flames were reignited to a flame that couldn't be easily taken out. "Julian!" I shouted as I ran into the street.

BEEP! BEEP! "Get the hell out of the street!"

"I'm sorry," I said as I quickly made my way over to Julian. He was sitting on the bus stop bench, shivering cold and sniffling away his pain. I cautiously made my way over to him and sat down. "Hey, I-"

"Don't talk." He looked up at me with his drowning eyeballs. "Just hold me," he said softly with a bit of a vocal crack.

He leaned into me and I held him tightly to my chest and with my head rested on his shoulder. I started to gently rub his back like I always used to do and placed soft kisses on his coat where I would usually make contact with his skin---his shoulder.

He was shaking so bad that he brought the earthquake to my heart and shattered it into pieces. Once he stopped crying, he pulled away to wipe his eyes.

"I'm sorry but this is just too much for me to digest. I never would have pictured you having a kid...without me."

I knew he was hurt but I couldn't help but smile a bit because I could tell that he was still in love with me and so was I with him. "I understand. All I wanted was to have a family with you," I said as I started to wipe the tears from his face.

He chuckled once I finished. "Thanks."

"Didn't want the cold to freeze them and hurt that beautiful face of yours."

"So what now?" He asked.

I checked my phone for the time and it was just barely hitting nine o'clock. "Well, we have plenty of time to go do something else."

"Like?"

Like you kissing me, like me coming inside you like I always dreamed off. No, it was too early for all of that but then staring at his lips reminded me of something. I took a stand and smiled. I held out my hand and he took it.

"What?" He asked followed up by a chuckle.

"You'll see."

~x~

We were standing outside of a building that shined with a neon-lit sign that said, "Benny'z Arcade," and memories of when we came there during our younger days came back to me. There might've been snow covering a bit of the sign and the building needed a bit of a touch up on paint but it still felt the same.

"It's like we never left," I said as I locked my hand with his.

He was still staring at the building for a few more moments before he finally turned to me. "Why are we just standing here? I'm ready to beat your ass in every game there is just like last time!"

He was pulling me with him. "Oh, so you really think that I have just been sitting at home not perfecting my gaming skills? I will not go down easily this time!"

When we got in, we paid for our wrist bands, got our coins and then started to spend our coins. All the games we played back when I was 18 and he was only 16, were the games we played in our older days; me, 27 and him 25. Sadly, we weren't able to play every single last one of the games we played because some were not available anymore.

The racing game he beat me in last time, I won by cheating. I pushed him a bit and made him crash into a building. The game where we had to shoot water into targets, I won that as well by cheating once again. No one said that I couldn't splash him.

He chased me around the building and some guy even told us to stop running and oh, did I feel like a teen again. He got his revenge with a smack to the back of my head.

The rest of the games, he completely annihilated me in, as expected, but there was one game we still hadn't played. The game that I purposely saved for last so that we could relive one of the best moments of my life.

"Remember this," I said as I ran my fingers along the air hockey table.

He chuckled. "How could I forget?"

I inserted my last two coins into the air hockey machine and stood on my side. He smiled and then went to his side. We had a few rounds to play and I only got a point. Just like last time, Julian won.

I sighed. "Of course you won." I was walking towards him but then I leaned on the table.

"Well, of course. I'm just better than you at everything."

I smiled. He remembered. He walked in front of me and then stood there for a moment.

I reached my hand out and pushed him gently. "What idiot?" He grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him and kissed me.

Just like the old days, that's exactly how our first kiss happened and I just hoped that it wasn't our last.