Page 42 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
I don’t ask how many times the day would have to repeat for him to see it differently.
No, I just smile at him over my drink.
And when he kisses me later—in a parkette this time, rather than against a building—I sink into the moment and enjoy that I get to have a first kiss again.
The next day, after Cam and I eat at the market, I suggest mini-golf, something I haven’t done in a long time. We take an Uber to a place in the suburbs.
“You aresogoing down,” I say before the final hole.
Big talk from someone who’s losing, but we’ve been playfully smack-talking each other the entire time.
He grins. “Is that so?”
I set up my shot. My ball goes under the kraken and bounces off the edge of the pirate ship, then off a plastic wave. I cheer as the ball stops remarkably close to the hole. Despite my confident words, I didn’t expect to get this one in fewer than three shots, but I’ll be able to manage it.
“Well, I can do better,” Cam says.
He spends even longer preparing and shoots with a flourish. The ball goes beneath the kraken… and doesn’t come out.
“Dammit,” he says good-naturedly.
“Told you.”
“You still haven’t won yet. Pressure’s on.”
I make a show of shaking out my limbs, getting myself ready for this very important—and easy—shot. My ball manages the six inches to the hole without any difficulty, and I whoop.
Cam lifts his hand for a high five, and when our palms make contact, he pulls me into his embrace. Then he places his putter along the green and jabs under the kraken. The ball emerges, just barely, and it takes three more shots for him to get it in the hole.
Which means I’m the winner. Apparently, that earns me a kiss on the cheek.
“Congratulations,” he says. “What do you want to do now?”
We didn’t eat a lot at the market, so we go out for poutine. The regular kind, with just cheese curds and gravy. No bulgogi or green onions. We claim a picnic table outside in the darkness and sit on the same side of the bench.
It’s a very cute first date.
“I’ll text you tomorrow,” he says as we begin our trip home.
“Yes.” I swallow. “Tomorrow.”
The next day, I find myself wondering how Cam starts his June 20. I’ve never seen him before noon. When does he wake up? What does he do before bubble tea?
I have no idea, but I do know where to find him at 3 p.m.
That evening, we go bowling, and Cam beats me handily. I haven’t bowled in years, and my performance is honestly embarrassing—it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to my mini-golfing—but I don’t care. It’s just fun to hang out with him.
I settle into a new routine of sorts, where I see Cam every day. I also get rather good at crocheting and start to find it frustrating that my creations don’t survive the night, but I enjoy the act of creating something with my hands, however fleeting.
Though I’m often occupied with Cam, I make sure to devote time to Avery each day. Sometimes she breaks up with Joe, sometimes she doesn’t—I understand it would be exhausting to keep doing that. We brainstorm ideas to get out of the loop and give them a try, but we’re completely unsurprised when none of them work. We discuss whether it would be cheating if she were to kiss someone else, if she hadn’t officially broken up with Joe that day—I say that the fact that she’s broken up with him multiple times already (and never taken him back) has to count for something.
I find I’m not too bothered by our inability to escape the loop anymore. I start to feel relaxed for the first time in… I don’t know how long. My life consists of first dates, talking to a friend, reading novels—mostly Avery’s recommendations—and crocheting in front of the TV.
“What do you think happens when we get out of this?” she asks one day when we meet at a coffee shop.
“I assume it’ll be June twenty-first,” I say, “and the version of June twentieth that everyone else remembers will be the mostrecent one we lived.” After all, that’s what happened in the last book I read.
“That’s what I figured, but what if the rest of the world is proceeding without us?”
