Page 77 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
Still, knowing she’s no longer in this world is a blow.
It seems unfair that time just keeps going. I wish it could stand still for a while, let me adjust to this new reality, but the world doesn’t stop for my personal life.
A single woman comes in and sits at the bar. After removing her large coat and her winter hat, she regards the tap list.
“You don’t have the Corktown today?” she asks.
“No, sorry,” I say. “We only have it in the summer.”
She must have been here before. I assume that’s why she looks oddly familiar, like a distant memory. She has long dark hair. Dark eyes. Shoulders I can’t help noticing in that wide-neck sweater.
There’s something compelling about her. I can’t quite describe it.
I do my usual spiel about the different beers on tap, but I stumble over my words, which isn’t like me. I laugh and continue as though it’s no big deal… which it isn’t.
Yet it bothers me more than usual. Probably just because everything is bothering me more than usual today—or because she’s rather pretty.
After I set down her Annex Pilsner, which is one of ourmainstays, she gives me a lingering look that makes my skin prickle. It feels like she’s searching for something and hasn’t found it. I have the strangest sense that I’ve disappointed her.
This bothers me too.
She slowly sips her beer, and I assume she’s waiting for someone, but once half an hour has passed and no companion has appeared, I figure she’s here alone. That’s rare: we don’t get a ton of women who sit alone at the bar.
“Would you like another?” I ask when she’s almost finished her pint.
She shakes her head. “Just the bill.”
She pays with her credit card, then puts on her hat and coat before heading out into the January weather. Maybe she had a little time to kill—between shopping and meeting a friend for a meal, perhaps?—and that’s why she came in.
With a sigh, I wipe down the bar and help the next customer.
29Noelle
He didn’t remember me, just like he didn’t remember me countless times before.
But this time, Cam didn’t even say I looked familiar, though I swear there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes. I considered trying to have a conversation, but I was paralyzed by fear. Everything is real now. Presumably, he has the ability to recall what I say to him; he won’t forget tomorrow.
Well, he might forget the unremarkable woman who sat alone at the bar, but if I’d awkwardly flirted with him, I probably would have stuck in his memory for a little while.
I’m not used to such consequences. What if I made a mess of things, and that was it?
Unable to handle the pressure, I simply drank my beer and left, but from the time I spent near him, I had the sense that something was wrong. There was a heaviness to him, which I’d never seen before; if I’d mentioned that, I’m sure he would have been weirded out.
And he definitely would have remembered it tomorrow.
Time is advancing normally now, and it’s throwing me off. Even though this was my life for the first thirty-two years…
No, thirty-three years. My birthday is in September; I sawa handful of texts wishing me a happy birthday when I went through my phone yesterday.
The advancement of time and the existence of consequences—and winter!—will require some adjustment, plus I have to make the adjustment without knowing exactly what happened in the real world in the last seven months. I feel like I ought to be happier about escaping the loop. Iamhappy about it, but I’m scrambling to piece things together.
After leaving the brewery, I take transit to my parents’ house. The sun is low in the sky by the time I arrive; it’ll be dark soon, and I’m not accustomed to the sun setting so early. On the porch, I stomp the snow from my boots, then use my key to open the door. It’s nice to be out of the cold.
My mother and Dalton enter the front hallway as I’m taking off my coat. My mother’s hair is a bit grayer than it was when I last saw her, and I remind myself not to freak out. She’s not aging unnaturally fast; I—or, at least, this version of me—just haven’t seen her since she was seven months younger.
A moment later, my father appears with Lenora on his shoulders.
“Auntie No!” She giggles.
