Page 79 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
I slink around the office until I locate the desk with my mug. Then I check my email, open up the most recent files on my computer, and pray I don’t fuck this up. When Lee walks by, I glare daggers at the back of his head, but somehow, I manage to make it through the day.
Of course, I could simply quit my job. For real this time. In fact, Idoplan to quit soon, but the idea of being without asteady paycheck is too scary to contemplate, especially when I think of how much I struggled to get work in my field after graduation. I want to find another job first, but it’ll probably be a little while before I’m ready to start hunting for one. Getting back in the swing of things is my priority.
By Friday afternoon, I’m exhausted. It’s been a long time since I worked five full days in a row, but the biggest problem was figuring out what the hell was going on. Because I was playing catch-up, I stayed at the office past six every day, but I’ll stop doing that going forward. I’m used to being the person who will get everything done, butwhy? They don’t pay me enough for that—based on the last deposit to my account, my salary hasn’t gone up in the past seven months—so once I’ve gotten a handle on my work, I’ll make a point of not staying any later than five thirty.
After dinner, I make myself a cup of herbal tea before my video call with Avery. I miss talking to her multiple times a day.
“Hey,” she says. “How’s work?”
“It’s been better,” I say weakly, “but at least I’m caught up now. Sort of. What about you?”
“Work is okay. It’s my personal life that’s depressing me.”
“Where’s Joe tonight?”
She shrugs. “Out with some friends.” She has a sip of something that looks like it has a lot of alcohol. “It appears we got engaged on New Year’s, in front of his family.”
“So you felt like you couldn’t say no?”
“I don’t know what I thought.” She sighs. “But I assume I didn’t know that he thinks he’s too good for me.”
“You’re still going to break up with him, right?” The fact that she hasn’t done it yet has planted a seed of doubt in my head.
“Yeah. That’s what I want to ask you about, actually. I’mplanning to do it this weekend. Could I stay with you after I leave?”
“Of course.”
It’ll be different from the other times she’s spent the night: she’ll bring her stuff with her, and she’ll actually wake up here in the morning. But I wouldn’t say no.
“I promise I’ll try to find a place as soon as possible,” she says, “but the market is a bit rough. I’ll leave my furniture here for the time being and hope he doesn’t put up a fuss when I pick it up later.”
“Do you want me to come over and help move your things?”
“No, no. I should be okay, but thanks for asking. What are your plans for the weekend?”
“Nothing much,” I say. “Though I might go to the brewery and see if Cam’s there.”
I half hope he won’t be. The thought of talking to him makes me anxious.
When I get to the brewery on Saturday afternoon, I don’t see Cam. I’m about to leave when he steps out of a back room and heads behind the bar.
I take a seat at one end—not my usual place, but a man is sitting there. Cam’s now busy serving a group, so I take a moment to admire him.
Cam Huang looks like he could’ve starred in a rom-com in the nineties, if Asian guys had starred in North American rom-coms back then. He’s good-looking, but he’s not some perfectly shredded specimen, which seems to be expected from young male stars these days.
His hair is a touch longer than it was in June. Too long, some might say, but I like it. Yet there’s something about his expression—just like there was last weekend—that doesn’t seemquite right. It’s strained, though that wouldn’t be obvious if I didn’t know him so well.
“Hello again,” he says to me.
I stare at him for a beat too long. I’m not used to him acknowledging that he recognizes me; I’m usually a vague memory he can’t place. For so long, I yearned for him to have a clear memory of me, and now he does, but he still doesn’t recall our dates.
I wonder if he had anything to do with me and Avery getting out of the loop, even though I didn’t see him the day before we escaped it. While I can’t imagine how that would have worked, I once thought he might be the key to ending the time loop.
My thoughts turn to the email from dustypeony. Maybe we were just cursed for a certain number of days, but the memory of the night the lights flickered makes me feel otherwise. I wish I understood what happened.
“Annex?” Cam asks.
“Sure.”
