Page 72 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
“For any reason,” he says.
I give him a hug and head inside. I ask Avery if she wants to come over for dinner and which expensive food she might want to eat.
If I’m going to be stuck here, I might as well take advantage of it.
Avery arrives with macarons and truffle pizza, and I manage a watery laugh.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Other than the obvious, I mean.”
“Cam didn’t recognize me. Which has happened countless times before, but this time…”
She nods and wraps her arms around me.
“What about you? What did you end up doing last night?”
“Made out with the guy at the brewery,” she says, “then decided I didn’t want to go any further, so I got a hotel room for myself. And don’t you dare feel guilty that I spent a night in a fancy hotel so you could be alone with Cam. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to Winnipeg to see my dad.”
We watch three episodes of a procedural drama. I wish we could have a team of experts devoted to solving our problemswithin forty-two minutes. Alas, it’s just the two of us, and we’ve been spinning in circles.
Just after midnight, we get ready for sleep. I recall last night, when I had Cam’s arms wrapped around me, and feel a wave of melancholy, but my emotional pain is duller than it was earlier in the day.
I feel like I can’t expect anything more than that.
26Noelle
June 20, Version 170? 180? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
Back in university, I learned about stress-strain curves. In elastic deformation, the material returns to its original dimensions when the stress is released. But once you hit the yield point, you get plastic deformation: the material undergoes permanent change until it fractures.
A little stress in your life might not fundamentally change you, but there’s no way I won’t be irrevocably changed by this time-loop experience, even if I escape it eventually. I wonder how much plastic deformation I can withstand.
I fear it’s not much more.
I’ve stopped trying to count days. What’s the point?
I’ve also stopped crocheting, too annoyed that my work disappears overnight. I do my best to fill my time with reading and watching TV. I see Avery most days. Occasionally, I go to meet Cam, but I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. One time, he remembers that my name starts with anN; another time, he guesses “Annabelle.” But usually, he has no guesses.
Why the variation? I have no idea.
I’m lost. Despondent.
“I think we have to try dying,” Avery says, one night afterwe watch a movie with a lot of, well, death. “What else is there to do?”
I’m uneasy with the idea. Besides…
“We’ve read a bunch of time-loop books,” I say. “Dying never ends the loop; it just restarts the day. I can’t imagine it would help us.”
She sighs. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Promise me you won’t try it,” I say, because even if dying has never been permanent in any time-loop book I can think of, I can’t help worrying.
“I promise.”
The next day, Avery does try something drastic, though: she attempts to mend fences with her mother, with whom she has a distant relationship for good reason.
Like everything else, it has no effect.
The following day, I want to do something nice for her, so I buy cupcakes at the market again, as well as some birthday candles. I even go to a bookstore and buy the first book in her favorite series. Inside, I write,This is the best I can do for now. I’ll buy you the newest book in the series when we escape the loop. It’s supposed to be released in August.
