may 3rd, 2017/october 31st, 1961, 7:38 p.m.

Iman was getting used to these unorthodox trips—the sudden, jarring perplexity of being in class or curled in bed back at the dorms one moment and outside a vampire's door the next—and it seemed Julien was, too. This time, he opened his door almost immediately, carefully sidestepping a somewhat poorly-carved jack-o-lantern.

She looked up, picking herself up from the rain-soaked sidewalk. "How did you..."

Julien tapped his ears. "I heard you," he said, then disappeared behind the door for a moment, reappearing with a bowl of individually-wrapped chocolates. "Candy?"

Iman exhaled, accepting a midnight Milky Way on her way in the door. As she unwrapped it, heading mindlessly down the hall towards the kitchen, Julien cleared his throat and gestured toward the staircase instead. "I was up watching Dracula," Julien said, making the fact he had heard her outside his door even more confusing. He quirked his eyebrow. "You know, if you're not a scaredy-cat."

"Please," said Iman with a roll of her eyes, "what year is this—6o-something?"

"'61."

"Exactly. Horror hasn't even been invented yet, Julien."

Julien's eyebrow raised higher, but he was silent as he led Iman up the staircase, around the corner, and past at least four other doors before he stopped at one at the end of the hall. For the first time since meeting him here, in this place, she realized it was a large house for one person. What was Julien's life like when she wasn't here, she wondered? The majority of the time, anyway, where he was uninterrupted by randomly time-traveling women?

Iman swallowed. She realized she didn't precisely want to know.

The room was dark and quiet, besides the flickering black and white images reflected in the mirror beside the king-size bed, Bela Lugosi waltzing across the screen with his popped collar and slick hair as an orchestral suite played in the background. Julien rolled past her, finding a perch at the edge of his bed. He patted the spot beside him, his eyes shiny in the ill light.

Iman sat beside him, folding her legs beneath her as she squinted at the screen. The figures were grainy, the audio low against the pattering rain outside. It was strange, Iman thought, how she never got used to the stark contrasts between the present and the past. Every time she was reminded of all that had changed, all that was better and all that was worse, it was always a slap in the face.

The main girl appeared on the screen, all pale skin and hair, fluttering and careless disposition. Iman cringed as Dracula took the girl in his arms, the girl only letting out a small whimper and rolling her head to the side as he sipped from her skin.

Iman frowned, tilting her head. "It doesn't bother you?"

Julien didn't look away from the screen. "What?"

"This...this inaccurate representation," Iman said, as a chorus of childish cries of glee sounded somewhere outside. Trick-or-treating, even in the rain. She was young, but at the same time, youth was lost on her. "I mean, you don't really sleep in coffins, do you? And you're definitely not all that pasty."

Julien let out a laugh, sudden and endearing, like the flap of a butterfly wing. Iman liked the way it changed his face, how his eyes got small and smile lines appeared in his cheeks. "No, and no," he confirmed. "But it's funny. I don't watch it for accuracy; I watch it to laugh."

"So you're making fun of yourself?"

"In a way," he said, then paused, bumping Iman's knee with his own. "You know, I always sorta wanted a widow's peak."

Iman scoffed. "Be glad you don't have a widow's peak. You would look awful with a widow's peak."

"You think so?" Julien asked, holding his hair back with a hand. "I think it'd be very fitting."

Iman punched him, gently. "Do you always talk this much when you're watching movies, Julien?"

As if to refute her point, Julien went uncharacteristically silent. They sat and listened, to the strange, vintage voices from the box television, to the whir of the air conditioning, to the soft slump of rain against the window. Iman inhaled, breathing in the faintest scent of lingering cigar smoke and birchwood candles.

He said, "Jules."

Iman looked at him, questioning. "Huh?"

"You should call me Jules," he said, then seemed to hesitate, his brow furrowing for a moment. Maybe Iman had realized it before, or maybe she hadn't, but there was an odd, restless energy brimming within Julien. It was something in the way he spoke, in the way his eyes watched the TV religiously, as if he were afraid to look Iman directly in the eye.

Iman only recognized it because the same energy brimmed within her, too.

"All my friends call me Jules, anyway," he said. "It's a lot less stuffy than Julien, don't you think?"

She moved a limp strand of her hair, still damp from the outside humidity, behind her ear. "I don't think Julien is stuffy at all. I think it's a very nice name for you...Jules."

There was a crack of thunder; Iman jumped before she realized it was coming from the television screen. She might have laughed at herself for her foolishness, but it didn't feel right, not when she felt Julien's fingers brush her wrist.

A flurry of ice shot through her veins. She met his eyes, dubious. "Juli—Jules?"

"I am alone most of the time," he admitted, and though his voice was quiet, careful, it was all Iman could hear. "When you're not here, I'm alone most of the time. It wasn't always that way, but it's how it is now."

Iman's heart was hammering away at her chest. Why was he so close? Why, more like it, was she afraid for him to move away? "I worry about that," she said, dipping her head. She couldn't bear to look in those eyes any longer, black and white in this light, a microcosm in monochrome. "Every time I go, I worry about you."

Julien dragged his bottom lip under his teeth. His hand lifted higher, towards her face. "I know we could never be together. Not really. Not like this. You know that too."

Iman nodded her head. "Jules..."

"But we have tonight," he said, the ghost of a smile appearing at his mouth, "don't we?"

His fingers grazed her ear, dancing across her skin. Iman took in a sharp breath; when she let it out again, Julien kissed her.

Iman was expecting it, waiting for it, even, but still she was stunned when it really happened. Julien's lips were against hers, cold and warm at once, tasting of liquor and candy corn, of past and present and future all-in-one. He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, pushing Iman's curls back from her face. She hesitated—waiting, wondering—but let herself fall in, knotting her hands in his shirt.

For a moment, she forgot. Forgot about the 60s television and the 60s decor and that she was, at all, in the 60s. For that one moment, with Julien's mouth on hers and his hair on her face and his hands holding her close, close, closer—time stopped.

They broke for breath, and until then, Iman hadn't even known she was drowning. She looked at him, blinking, searching for something to say. "I..." She stopped, sputtering. "This will never happen again, will it?"

Julien swallowed, adjusting his now mussed hair. "Probably not," he agreed. "I can't ask you to hold on to this when we don't even know when we're seeing each other again. Besides, there's—"

"Someone else."

Julien squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. "I am trying not to love her," he gasped, "but that's not really how it works."

No, said Iman to herself. It really isn't.

"If you still love her," she asked then, surprised at the twist of jealousy in her stomach, "why kiss me like that?"

The frown on Julien's face swiftly evaporated, replaced by a gentle smile. He raised his hand again, caressing her cheek, his thumb swiping away a smudge of mascara from beneath her eye. "Every time I see you, Iman," he said, "it's like a breath of fresh air. I could not live with myself if I did not kiss you, hold you, at least once. That's why, amor. That's just why."

But it's torture, she wanted to say. But this can never work, and we both know it.

Everything she wanted to say, however, had already been said.

On the box television, the movie cut away to a Coca-Cola ad. Iman sighed, suddenly feeling lightheaded, like she could float away.

"Jules," she said.

He read her tone. "So soon?"

Iman got to her feet, and the moment she staggered, Julien was there to hold her up. She blinked, registering that there was no possible way for him to get there so fast, but not wanting to think much about it.

As the world around her faded ever so slowly to black, Iman kissed Julien on his cheek, a brief, final embrace. "Even if it's not like this ever again," she said, "I will still be happy to see you."

Julien grinned, and if he had a reply, she never heard it.

Back in the present, she found herself in the girls bathroom in one of the lecture halls, the clock on the wall reading nine PM. She knelt for a while against the tiles, regaining her breath, waiting for everything to stop spinning.

Even then, she knew. It was the very first and very last time she would ever let her heart wander so blindly towards him.