“Would you be interested—” Trevor asked, breaking his sentence and breaking our eye contact in the same moment, “—in eating dinner together sometime?”

I held my breath as I stared at him while he looked anywhere but at me. I could hear my heart beating louder now as I worried that this moment would pass before I could respond. I had never explained to him how time moved strangely for me. I didn’t want him to know and to think only of my disorder when he looked at me.

I stared at Trevor, and I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen with hair that looked like gold and eyes that shined like gems.

“If you mean would I like to go on a date with you,” I said, “then yes.”

I breathed again but the world around me spun. As if I had no more air, I gasped it into my lungs like these were my last breaths. I had never agreed to go on a date before. I had never wanted to. What was the point even? Would I even get to be there? Would time slow to an unbearable boring crawl? Or speed until I could hardly grasp at the moments? Or would it jump and I end up in a strange place by myself again?

Trevor took my hands in his.

I stared into his radiant smile. I let a weak smile creep up into my eyes. I watched the midday sunlight steaming through the window of The Katchsic Inn and Suites.

And then I was in my chair at the front desk again, and all that I could see through the lobby windows was the pitch black of night.

I sighed. I had jumped again. I pulled up the clock application on my work computer and counted the seconds. I counted five-hundred seconds in a minute.

Then, a family of four entered the front door slowly, so slowly that I had finished checking them in before they even reached the front desk.

I barely understood what they said to me because the sounds were so slow.

I had to slow my words and to draw them out to match the time. I was grateful for all that my occupational therapists had taught me after my diagnosis of UTD (unnatural time disorder).

Of course, I didn’t really slow down or jump through time.

As the time doctor explained it to me, my brain didn’t process time correctly. It slowed down or sped up what I saw and did. Sometimes, my brain took a break from processing the current moment at all and so it seemed to me that I had jumped into the future.

I didn’t understand UTD much worse than the doctor’s did. I didn’t know what caused it and neither did anyone else. I knew it happened, that maybe there were triggers but nothing that would trigger it every time or stop it every time.

I worked the night shift as a receptionist a hotel because it was easier with my UTD. If I only went between home and the hotel, there were less chances that I would end up somewhere random. I knew that going on a date was dangerous, but I wanted this.

The date did with Trevor not go well.

At least, I was able to show up, but the moments that I got with Trevor were few. Time sped up and I couldn’t keep up with what Trevor was saying. Then, time slowed down so slow that I got bored out of my mind and almost left.

Then, time jumped.

Suddenly, I was in an ally, alone, in the middle of the night.

I made it home and cursed my decision to go on the date.

The next night at the hotel, I jumped again. I ended up in the hotel lobby in the middle of the day. I saw Trevor, the daytime receptionist, sitting at the desk.

“Great date,” he said with a smile that seemed genuine. “Would you like to do it again sometime?”

I felt shocked. I tried to recover quickly, quickly before time changed again. “Yes,” I said, “but this time why don’t you come over to my house,” I amended right before I jumped into the next night.