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Boy meets Girl. Girl falls for Boy. That’s how the story always starts.
In this particular story, Girl collides with Boy in the middle of a crowded marketplace while she’s having an argument with her publisher via email and is clearly not looking where she’s going. Elena Flemming, English professor and soon to be published author, probably should make a better habit of looking where she’s going, but in this particular instance this collision feels like she’s been struck by lightning and she can’t help but stumble back in surprise, to look up at the handsome face that greets her. A handsome face that she can’t help but feel like she’s seen before.
“I am so sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re fine.” His voice is almost like a soothing balm, and she’s never heard anything quite like it, familiar and warm all at the same time. “I should have been looking where I was going.”
“Are you sure that comment isn’t meant for me? Because I totally wasn’t paying attention to where I was going either.”
Boy looks sheepish for a moment, before one hand comes up to rub the back of his neck. “Well I would give you that, but I sort of had tunnel vision on those heirloom tomatoes and you just happened to cross in front of me before I could get there. Collision was inevitable, but totally my fault.”
Elena glances over her shoulder in confusion to see the pile of fresh tomatoes, rare commodities in the highly industrialized age of 2517, and she nods in agreement. “So what you’re saying is that I was almost a produce casualty?”
“If I don’t get just the right tomatoes, the whole plate suddenly becomes worthless and my supplier did not come through for me this time around.”
At that, Elena’s head tips to the side and she gets curious. “You cook? With actual ingredients?” So many meals these days are powered, processed or just goop generated solely for nutritional value, it was rare to meet someone who still made real food.
“I do. I have a restaurant actually.”
“Well, then I think you should make it up to me by making me dinner sometime.” The words come out before she clearly thinks them through and she’s about to stammer over it, apologize for being too forward, but he smiles before she can.
“I think I can manage that.” He holds out a hand to her. “Stefan Giordano.”
“Elena Flemming.” She reaches forward to shake his hand, and the second their fingers touch, she’s met with a flash of something she doesn’t entirely understand, but it’s a voice, whispering in her ear like a forgotten memory:
“Getting out of bed is dangerous these days, but we have to live our lives.”
“Who gave you that horrible advice?”
“Some guy I used to date said it once or twice.”
But as soon as she lets go, the flash is gone and she hurriedly tucks her hair behind her ear. “So. When do I get my Make Up Meal.”
“I work at Damon’s, up the road.” He turns and points over her shoulder. “I’ll let the hostess know and put you on the standing list.”
“Great. I will one hundred percent take you up on that.” And then she takes another step back, and smiles in return. “It was nice meeting you, Stefan.”
“You too, Elena.”
- - - - - -
Five hundred years ago, a boy and a girl met in a small town in Virginia. They loved and lost each other, their love fractured by outside forces and while it was epic and real, it wasn’t built to last. The girl lived her life with someone else, and the boy died to save the town they both loved.
Stefan Giordano knows none of this, however, has no recollection of the decades that his previous life had spanned, all he knows is that when he shook Elena’s hand, he couldn’t help but feel like they already met, he already knew her, and the introduction is more unnecessary than anything else. But yet, they hadn’t and he doesn’t. Which is why he’s currently slicing tomatoes with the kind of automated gesture that is bound to have someone lose a finger, which is why Bonnie reaches out and grabs his arm, drawing it back before things could get bloody.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Stefan blinks, before looking down at the tomato in his hand and noticing how that slice was just a smidge too close to the fingers he values so much. He glances up at her with a grateful look, before sliding the sliced tomatoes to the “ready” area of his cooking space. “Sorry. I spaced out for a second.”
“And you were spacing out with an implement of destruction in your hand because …” The inquisitive look on Bonnie’s face is something he knows he’s not going to wriggle out of easily, and he sighs, before shifting to lean against the counter a bit, and reaching for a rag to wipe off his hands.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I believe in a lot of things, but I’m not sure reincarnation is one of them. Why?”
“This is going to sound really dumb.”
“Most of the things you say sound really dumb, but I don’t hold it against you because you opened my eyes to the fresh food gospel.” She shifts to face him more, before holding up her hands and gesturing to herself. “Hit me.”
“I met this girl in the market today, and … I don’t know what it was, but it’s like we already met before.”
“Déjà vu? Maybe she was a customer.”
“No, not like that,” he pauses for a moment, trying to take himself back to the encounter. “It was almost like I knew her, but a long time ago. Like I knew her, Bonnie.”
“Okay,” Bonnie begins, placing her hands down on the counter to emphasize her point. “If we are going on the assumption that what those psychologists says is true and that we’ve all get recycled through these past lives and can experience flashbacks of those lives, then it’s entirely possible you did know her.”
“I loved her.”
“Past you loved her. Present you doesn’t even know who she is. If you’re going to start falling for someone because you think a previous version of you loved her once a long time ago that’s a, skeevy, and b, totally not fair to this girl who may be someone completely different. Memories maybe the same but and I could deal with that kind of psychic phenomena maybe, but if you’re trying to convince me of reincarnation and soulmates, you have a way bigger uphill battle ahead of you.”
“Fair enough.” He grabs the next tomato on the table before getting ready to go back to slicing. Bonnie stands there, watching him for a moment, before tipping her head to the side.
“Do you want to get to know this girl better to the point where you may love her?”
“I do,” he says softly. “Not just because of the memories, but I feel like … I don’t know. There’s something special about her.”
“Then go for it,” Bonnie nods. “Just be careful. Make sure you’re not confusing past girl –”
“Elena. Her name’s Elena.”
There’s something in that name that makes Bonnie pause as well, though Stefan isn’t sure if it’s because she’s remembering something herself or if she already knows her. Still, she shakes it off, and comes back to focus.
“—Past Elena with the present one. They may want completely different things.”
Stefan keeps it to himself that he’s hopeful for that, because it doesn’t seem like Past Elena wanted him. But he nods, and offers her a small smile in return. “Thanks, Bonnie.”
“Anytime. Just stop daydreaming and don’t get blood in the food, alright? I think your brother would actually murder you if you made his profit margin drop.”
Stefan rolls his eyes in response, before getting back to work. Dinner service started in a few hours and he still had a lot of prep work to do.
- - - - - -
When Elena arrived at the restaurant that evening, she had no idea what to expect. Now that she’s actually sitting here, eating Stefan’s food, she’s starting to wonder why she never bothered to fight for more real food in her diet in the first place.
(She knows why, it’s expensive as hell, but that’s not really the point.)
Stefan is leaning across the counter from her, smirking as he works on the next order on his list. “So it’s good then?”
“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, trying not to talk with her mouth full, but after she swallows she gives a shy smile. “I didn’t know real food could taste so good.”
“Well, now you know,” he smirks, before placing another plate up and ready to go. “And I’d be more than happy to cook for you as often as you like.”
“Oh,” Elena pauses for a moment, before glancing around and shaking her head. “That’s really sweet of you, but I can’t afford a place like this.”
Stefan nods for a moment, before leaning in closer as though he’s telling her a secret. “I was thinking something a little less formal.”
“Oh.” Again. It makes her blush a little because it’s been a long time since anyone’s been that forward with her this soon, but she kind of welcomes it. In a way, it makes her feel safe, to dive into something so familiar. She twirls the fork in her hand for a moment before tipping her head to the side. “You should know that … when we met I …”
“Felt a little déjà vu?” he finishes for her. “Think we might have known each other in a past life?”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “You felt it to?”
He nods once, before placing another plate to the side and turning back to her, turning down the heat on the stove a bit. “Look, I try not to give a lot of credence to past lives in general, and I don’t really think it means anything.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “My mom always said that it was … a reward or something. Like if you’re repeating a life, you did it because you earned it.”
“So you think Past You might have suffered and died young or something?”
“Maybe,” she shrugs. “Or maybe she made a lot of mistakes, and this is the chance to show that I’ve learned from them, somehow.”
Stefan nods for a moment, before giving a small shrug. “I just think it was a life. It was someone else’s life, no matter how short or long it was, and it doesn’t really have any impact on mine. What I do are my choices. At least until I met you and you were just so … familiar.”
She smiles a bit at that, before picking up another bite from her plate. “Think you’re going to make the same mistakes twice? Because what I picked up about us, it didn’t sound like we lasted very long.”
“I don’t know,” Stefan says with a small shrug. “I just know that I like you, Elena Flemming. And I think that whether we work out or not – I think you’re someone it’d be worth it to know.”
She pauses for a moment, taking that in before a wide smile stretches across her face. “That is a really good line, by the way. You use that on all the girls you run over trying to get to tomatoes?”
“Nah,” Stefan says with a bit of a laugh. “Just the really interesting ones.”
Elena laughs as well, before nodding. “I’ll take it. And I would love to do this again in a less formal setting.”
“Great,” Stefan nods as he turns his attention back to the stove again. “I’ll be looking forward to it."
In this particular story, Girl collides with Boy in the middle of a crowded marketplace while she’s having an argument with her publisher via email and is clearly not looking where she’s going. Elena Flemming, English professor and soon to be published author, probably should make a better habit of looking where she’s going, but in this particular instance this collision feels like she’s been struck by lightning and she can’t help but stumble back in surprise, to look up at the handsome face that greets her. A handsome face that she can’t help but feel like she’s seen before.
“I am so sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re fine.” His voice is almost like a soothing balm, and she’s never heard anything quite like it, familiar and warm all at the same time. “I should have been looking where I was going.”
“Are you sure that comment isn’t meant for me? Because I totally wasn’t paying attention to where I was going either.”
Boy looks sheepish for a moment, before one hand comes up to rub the back of his neck. “Well I would give you that, but I sort of had tunnel vision on those heirloom tomatoes and you just happened to cross in front of me before I could get there. Collision was inevitable, but totally my fault.”
Elena glances over her shoulder in confusion to see the pile of fresh tomatoes, rare commodities in the highly industrialized age of 2517, and she nods in agreement. “So what you’re saying is that I was almost a produce casualty?”
“If I don’t get just the right tomatoes, the whole plate suddenly becomes worthless and my supplier did not come through for me this time around.”
At that, Elena’s head tips to the side and she gets curious. “You cook? With actual ingredients?” So many meals these days are powered, processed or just goop generated solely for nutritional value, it was rare to meet someone who still made real food.
“I do. I have a restaurant actually.”
“Well, then I think you should make it up to me by making me dinner sometime.” The words come out before she clearly thinks them through and she’s about to stammer over it, apologize for being too forward, but he smiles before she can.
“I think I can manage that.” He holds out a hand to her. “Stefan Giordano.”
“Elena Flemming.” She reaches forward to shake his hand, and the second their fingers touch, she’s met with a flash of something she doesn’t entirely understand, but it’s a voice, whispering in her ear like a forgotten memory:
“Getting out of bed is dangerous these days, but we have to live our lives.”
“Who gave you that horrible advice?”
“Some guy I used to date said it once or twice.”
But as soon as she lets go, the flash is gone and she hurriedly tucks her hair behind her ear. “So. When do I get my Make Up Meal.”
“I work at Damon’s, up the road.” He turns and points over her shoulder. “I’ll let the hostess know and put you on the standing list.”
“Great. I will one hundred percent take you up on that.” And then she takes another step back, and smiles in return. “It was nice meeting you, Stefan.”
“You too, Elena.”
Five hundred years ago, a boy and a girl met in a small town in Virginia. They loved and lost each other, their love fractured by outside forces and while it was epic and real, it wasn’t built to last. The girl lived her life with someone else, and the boy died to save the town they both loved.
Stefan Giordano knows none of this, however, has no recollection of the decades that his previous life had spanned, all he knows is that when he shook Elena’s hand, he couldn’t help but feel like they already met, he already knew her, and the introduction is more unnecessary than anything else. But yet, they hadn’t and he doesn’t. Which is why he’s currently slicing tomatoes with the kind of automated gesture that is bound to have someone lose a finger, which is why Bonnie reaches out and grabs his arm, drawing it back before things could get bloody.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Stefan blinks, before looking down at the tomato in his hand and noticing how that slice was just a smidge too close to the fingers he values so much. He glances up at her with a grateful look, before sliding the sliced tomatoes to the “ready” area of his cooking space. “Sorry. I spaced out for a second.”
“And you were spacing out with an implement of destruction in your hand because …” The inquisitive look on Bonnie’s face is something he knows he’s not going to wriggle out of easily, and he sighs, before shifting to lean against the counter a bit, and reaching for a rag to wipe off his hands.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I believe in a lot of things, but I’m not sure reincarnation is one of them. Why?”
“This is going to sound really dumb.”
“Most of the things you say sound really dumb, but I don’t hold it against you because you opened my eyes to the fresh food gospel.” She shifts to face him more, before holding up her hands and gesturing to herself. “Hit me.”
“I met this girl in the market today, and … I don’t know what it was, but it’s like we already met before.”
“Déjà vu? Maybe she was a customer.”
“No, not like that,” he pauses for a moment, trying to take himself back to the encounter. “It was almost like I knew her, but a long time ago. Like I knew her, Bonnie.”
“Okay,” Bonnie begins, placing her hands down on the counter to emphasize her point. “If we are going on the assumption that what those psychologists says is true and that we’ve all get recycled through these past lives and can experience flashbacks of those lives, then it’s entirely possible you did know her.”
“I loved her.”
“Past you loved her. Present you doesn’t even know who she is. If you’re going to start falling for someone because you think a previous version of you loved her once a long time ago that’s a, skeevy, and b, totally not fair to this girl who may be someone completely different. Memories maybe the same but and I could deal with that kind of psychic phenomena maybe, but if you’re trying to convince me of reincarnation and soulmates, you have a way bigger uphill battle ahead of you.”
“Fair enough.” He grabs the next tomato on the table before getting ready to go back to slicing. Bonnie stands there, watching him for a moment, before tipping her head to the side.
“Do you want to get to know this girl better to the point where you may love her?”
“I do,” he says softly. “Not just because of the memories, but I feel like … I don’t know. There’s something special about her.”
“Then go for it,” Bonnie nods. “Just be careful. Make sure you’re not confusing past girl –”
“Elena. Her name’s Elena.”
There’s something in that name that makes Bonnie pause as well, though Stefan isn’t sure if it’s because she’s remembering something herself or if she already knows her. Still, she shakes it off, and comes back to focus.
“—Past Elena with the present one. They may want completely different things.”
Stefan keeps it to himself that he’s hopeful for that, because it doesn’t seem like Past Elena wanted him. But he nods, and offers her a small smile in return. “Thanks, Bonnie.”
“Anytime. Just stop daydreaming and don’t get blood in the food, alright? I think your brother would actually murder you if you made his profit margin drop.”
Stefan rolls his eyes in response, before getting back to work. Dinner service started in a few hours and he still had a lot of prep work to do.
When Elena arrived at the restaurant that evening, she had no idea what to expect. Now that she’s actually sitting here, eating Stefan’s food, she’s starting to wonder why she never bothered to fight for more real food in her diet in the first place.
(She knows why, it’s expensive as hell, but that’s not really the point.)
Stefan is leaning across the counter from her, smirking as he works on the next order on his list. “So it’s good then?”
“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, trying not to talk with her mouth full, but after she swallows she gives a shy smile. “I didn’t know real food could taste so good.”
“Well, now you know,” he smirks, before placing another plate up and ready to go. “And I’d be more than happy to cook for you as often as you like.”
“Oh,” Elena pauses for a moment, before glancing around and shaking her head. “That’s really sweet of you, but I can’t afford a place like this.”
Stefan nods for a moment, before leaning in closer as though he’s telling her a secret. “I was thinking something a little less formal.”
“Oh.” Again. It makes her blush a little because it’s been a long time since anyone’s been that forward with her this soon, but she kind of welcomes it. In a way, it makes her feel safe, to dive into something so familiar. She twirls the fork in her hand for a moment before tipping her head to the side. “You should know that … when we met I …”
“Felt a little déjà vu?” he finishes for her. “Think we might have known each other in a past life?”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “You felt it to?”
He nods once, before placing another plate to the side and turning back to her, turning down the heat on the stove a bit. “Look, I try not to give a lot of credence to past lives in general, and I don’t really think it means anything.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “My mom always said that it was … a reward or something. Like if you’re repeating a life, you did it because you earned it.”
“So you think Past You might have suffered and died young or something?”
“Maybe,” she shrugs. “Or maybe she made a lot of mistakes, and this is the chance to show that I’ve learned from them, somehow.”
Stefan nods for a moment, before giving a small shrug. “I just think it was a life. It was someone else’s life, no matter how short or long it was, and it doesn’t really have any impact on mine. What I do are my choices. At least until I met you and you were just so … familiar.”
She smiles a bit at that, before picking up another bite from her plate. “Think you’re going to make the same mistakes twice? Because what I picked up about us, it didn’t sound like we lasted very long.”
“I don’t know,” Stefan says with a small shrug. “I just know that I like you, Elena Flemming. And I think that whether we work out or not – I think you’re someone it’d be worth it to know.”
She pauses for a moment, taking that in before a wide smile stretches across her face. “That is a really good line, by the way. You use that on all the girls you run over trying to get to tomatoes?”
“Nah,” Stefan says with a bit of a laugh. “Just the really interesting ones.”
Elena laughs as well, before nodding. “I’ll take it. And I would love to do this again in a less formal setting.”
“Great,” Stefan nods as he turns his attention back to the stove again. “I’ll be looking forward to it."
