Page 70 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
I stare at the glowing red numbers on my alarm clock. At 2:59 a.m., I tighten my hold on him, and my pulse speeds up. It’s almost time.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up to my alarm.
There’s no warm body next to me.
Despite it being exactly what I expected, it feels horribly wrong. I roll to the other side of the bed and try to smell Cam on the sheets, but there’s no evidence that he was ever here, and I’m overcome by the loss. The bed feels unbearably empty without him, and I clutch the pillow that he slept on. It’s a poor substitute for his embrace.
I wonder if some tiny part of him misses me too.
25Noelle
June 20, Version 136-ish
I spend the morning listlessly puttering about my apartment, though I do make an appointment to get my hair cut.
I leave the salon a few seconds later than yesterday, so rather than running right into Cam, I enter the bubble tea shop behind him. He turns back and smiles at me… and does a double take.
“Hey,” he says. “You look really familiar.”
Those casual words… this time, they break me.
You fell asleep in my bed last night, I want to scream.We had sex in your office.
Though I’m not surprised, I guess an ever-hopeful part of me thought that maybe today, he’d remember my name.
Yet here I am. Again. And while yesterday, he got close to guessing the right name, he doesn’t get that far today.
I don’t introduce myself. No, I just stand there and stew.
“Have you ever been to Leaside Brewing?” he asks, clearly immune to my thoughts.
“Many, many times,” I snap.
Then I run out the door before I can express more of my snark.
I want someone to comfort me, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m on the bus, traveling toward my childhood home. I’ve never been on this particular bus at this particular time before, so the passengers are unfamiliar to me.
A young woman with a baby in a stroller. The baby, holding a squeaky lion toy, gives her a gummy smile.
A middle-aged man with stringy gray hair and a six-pack of beer.
An older woman with a visor on her head and a cart of groceries next to her.
Two teenagers on their phones.
I try to focus on what I can see around me rather than the emotions that are making me hunch in my seat.
When I get off the bus, I run to my parents’ house and knock on the door. I have a key, but they aren’t expecting me.
My mother answers. “Noelle, what’s wrong?”
I throw myself into her arms and release the sobs I’ve been holding back ever since Cam said I looked familiar. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong again, not right away, just strokes my hair like she might have done when I had a fever and had to stay home from school.
In some ways, my mother and I are very different. I’ve often felt like she didn’t fully understand me—and that wasn’t merely a teenage phase—but she’s always been kind and patient.
“What happened?” she asks at last.
I shake my head. “I can’t tell you.”
