Once in a lifetime.

9

January

Sitting in the uncomfortable booth as the aroma of rice and fortune cookies fills in around us, I look at Jules.
"Rules number 2, no sex. No matter how much either of us wants it, I want to keep our relationship genuine and I don't want sex to cloud my judgment."
"Sex is genuine, to me, and especially when it's with you."
"Oh is there someone else?" I hear her teasing tone but I don't play along or take the bait, my face stays straight because I need her to know and hear what I'm about to say.
"No, there was no one else before or after you."
Her face falls, my words sinking in as she processes them.
"No sex, okay?"
I nod. "Okay."
"Rules number 3," Our drinks come and when our noisy waiter walks away she continues. "No running away, if you're going to leave I need to know about it, and right when you know about it. I don't want to be strung along just to find out at the end of the week you need to be two thousand miles away with who knows who doing who knows what and," I reach other and grab her hand.
"No running away. Got it. Number 4?"
She exhales, "Number 4....." she trails off looking at our hands.
"Number 4?" I ask.
"I forgot because you grabbed my hand, and I was on a roll."
A laugh escaped my lips. "You were."
The waiter came back "Is there anything else I can get you?" I raised an eyebrow because it was clear he didn't even notice I was in the room or even the fact that I held her hand.
"Umm," she glanced at me confused. "No thanks."
"Are you positive? I can get you more water?"
Both she and I looked at her still untouched glass, there hasn't even been enough time for the moisture to form on the outside of the glass.
"Dude," I piped in hoping if I made myself more known he'd leave her alone. "It's a buffet. Isn't the whole point of that is us helping ourselves?" I shot daggers at him, I was using all my might to stay in the chair and mentally tell him to leave instead of using my fists. After a few more questions he reluctantly walked away.
"That! That is the reason I want to throw you over my shoulder with a ring on your finger and run away from everything."
"Just that?"
"Among other things yes."
"Why don't I just get 'Dalton's lady don't look at me, he'll punch you' on my forehead?"
"Oh, golly would ya? 'Cause, that'd be swell."
Her giggle is music to my ears. "Okay well, I'm going to get something to eat, and think about what number 4 was."
"Can I think of a number 4 too?"
She stands, sass slipping from her, "As long as they aren't stupid."
I looked around, remembering the first time we were here, and how different things were back then. How naïve and stupid I was. I thought I could have the world and give it to her too. After a few minutes, she wanders back to me.
"Are you going to eat?" I shake my head. "Why not?"
"Not hungry."
She tilts her head ever so slightly. "What's wrong?"
I take a deep breath and look around. "I can't believe so much, yet nothing can happen in a whole year and a few months."
"What do you mean?" She begins shoveling food into her mouth and I can't help but smile at her feeding her body like I've begged her to do so many times before.
"This place, you, me, us."
She looks around, realizing the significance of this place. She puts her chopsticks down.
"Was it in this booth too?"
I nod, looking down because now I want to cry. I don't want to be that guy crying in a Chinese buffet. Who does that?
"Why did you take me here, especially if you're not going to eat?"
I blink quickly trying to push the tears back. "I was." My voice cracks and I clear it, starting again. "I was hoping it would make you remember what it was like back then. The good things about me, before I went and fucked everything up."
We sit in silence forever. "Hey, I got a rule number 4 if you don't have one."
"Sure," she said.
"Can we drop the past, really start over? No more smart-ass comments, from either of us. No more going back to the past to remember what kind of annoying things either of us did. It's been hard on both of us and I just want to start over." She smashes her tongue against the inside of her cheek and nods.
"I'd really like that, to forget the bad stuff, ya know?"
I looked her over, memorizing her, trying to start a file named 'Juliet and why I love her' and keep this moment in there, hidden from the rest of the world for me to only see.
"Me too. I've changed a lot."
"Ehh, you're still a smart ass." Her eyes meet mine and her smile is contagious, I can't help but wear it too.
"But now I'm a grown-up smart ass."
"Sure," she shrugged. "If you wanna call it that."
"Eat," I tell her. "We need to get home to buy a plane ticket."