We were walking into my apartment building, consuming some cheesecake. In all the millennia throughout which I had lived, I had been unable to find any cheesecake superior to Magic Jack’s, which was one of the downsides of having to live through the future.

“So,” Zoe verbally nudged, “I’ve gone and told you my origin story…what about yours?”

I swallowed some of the expensive but delectable fare. “The short of it is, I’m from the past but also the future, and I have an ex who makes that guy you told me about look like Ricky from I Love Lucy, and I’m on a mission to stop her from ever starting this chain of events.” I inhaled, not knowing how Zoe would react. It sounded ridiculous, I knew, but she’d been cool with everything else thus far.

She stopped and met my gaze as we got on the elevator. “I want the full infodump,” she asserted, “not just the TL;DR version.”

“All right,” I replied.

It felt great being able to take all the things weighing down on my chest and tell it all to someone like me.