Chapter 20 Noelle
20 Noelle
Fifteen minutes ago, I was having a hot-and-heavy make-out session with Cam, but that feels very, very far away now. My desire has been completely replaced with worry.
Avery lives in an old building in the west end. I take an Uber to save time, and when it comes to a stop, I practically sprint inside, following a delivery person into the lobby. We get into the elevator together, and I distantly register the smell of pizza.
Avery answers the door in pajama pants and a large T-shirt, her hair—not dyed today—unkempt. Her eyes are red.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “You were with Cam, weren’t you?”
“Nothing I haven’t done many times before,” I say lightly, even though it’s a lie. I don’t want her to feel bad about needing to talk. I sit down on the couch with her. “Do you want me to get you anything? Food, water—”
“You’re at my place. I should be offering those things to you.”
I shake my head. “Tell me what’s happening.”
I hope I’m doing a half-decent job of this. It’s been a long time since a close friend has called me while in distress because, well, I don’t have any close friends in my regular life. My pre-loop life. Veronica was my closest friend, but I didn’t talk to her all that much; I spent a lot of my time alone.
And honestly, I like spending time alone, but I’m realizing I isolated myself more than I should have.
“I’m just so tired ,” she says, “of seeing Joe’s stupid face on my birthday.”
“Did you break up with him today?”
She nods. “Yeah. I told him he better not be here tonight. Then I ran outside because I can’t stand to look at him anymore, not when I know that he thinks he’s too good for me and no one else will have me. I couldn’t bear to hear him say, once again, that I’d come crawling back sooner or later, that I didn’t realize how lucky I was.”
She releases a sob-hiccup, and I pull her into my arms. I pat her back in a way that I hope is reassuring.
“And I’ve had my period,” she says, “for, like, four months straight.”
“Yeah, that sucks. Nobody should have a four-month-long period.”
“Yet here I am, and I’ve just… had it. With everything.” Her voice is flat. “I can’t live in this time loop any longer. I considered going to an overpass and—”
“Avery—”
“But I doubt that would even work. I’d just lose the rest of the day, then wake up on the morning of June twentieth again.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I say. “It’s likely, yes, but maybe that’s the one thing that would be permanent.”
“It sounds better than being trapped.” She shakes her head. “You don’t seem to care as much as me. You’re calm, and I don’t understand it.” Her voice is still flat, but a trace of bitterness has crept into it.
Yeah, a part of me was enjoying the break from work, and I’ve been having fun first dates with Cam, though it no longer feels like enough.
I don’t know how to make this better. What can I say?
I glance around the room. My gaze lands on a plant by the windowsill. Avery told me that it’s supposed to be watered every week, but she hasn’t watered it since June 18, which feels like a lifetime ago. Yet the plant is still perfectly healthy.
What Avery needs, I assume, is hope—and to spend as little time with Joe as possible.
“From now on,” I say, “every morning, when you wake up, just leave. Come to my apartment. Spend all day there.”
She nods.
“We’ll figure this out. We’ll redouble our efforts.”
“But how?” she asks. “We’ve tried so many things.”
“There has to be more. There’s always something to try.” I feel like I’m talking out of my ass, but it’s the best I can do. “We’ll devote all our time to getting out of this.”
“What if we’re stuck here for eternity?”
“I can’t believe that’s the case. Not yet.” I pause. “Your day is worse than mine, but I want to get out too. Everyone in my family is frozen in time. My niece has been fourteen months old for months . My sister-in-law is pregnant, and at this rate, I’ll never get to meet my new niece or nephew. And it’s getting really frustrating that Cam doesn’t remember who I am.” I pull up the notes app on my phone. “So, what haven’t we tried?”
“We haven’t tried dying. What if that actually gets us out of the loop alive?”
“Err, let’s save that for later, since it could have serious consequences,” I say. “We could travel farther, somewhere outside of this time zone. Seems like a long shot, but we’re going to try it regardless.” I type it into my phone. “What about our jobs?”
“Our jobs?”
“You know, those things we haven’t done in a long time. Maybe we’re supposed to fix them somehow. I don’t know much about your job, but I could, I don’t know, refuse to keep doing the work of two people. Lodge a proper complaint about Tyler.”
I still feel like I’m talking out of my ass. Just saying whatever comes to mind, in the hopes that something will resonate with Avery so she doesn’t test death.
I’m all she has. Therapy won’t help when it’s unlikely she’d be able to make an appointment for today—and no therapist will remember what she said last session.
Unless…
“We need to look harder for other people who are stuck in a time loop—or who have been stuck in one before and gotten out. I’ve posted about it in lots of places online, but we can look in person.” I shoot her a smile that expresses more confidence than I feel. “Does that sound like a plan?”
When she nods, I exhale in relief.
In an effort to cheer Avery up, I suggest we go to New York the next day and see something on Broadway. If someone is truly depressed, they might be unable to get pleasure from anything, but I figure it’s worth a shot. The thought that she considered jumping off a bridge, even in our weird reality, makes me desperate to improve her life.
Before I leave for the airport the next morning, I text Cam, as I promised, and I soon get a response:
CAM: Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.
I’m not surprised, but I’m disappointed nonetheless.
In New York, Avery and I get tickets to Chicago , and even if she isn’t bursting with excitement, she seems to enjoy herself, at least a little.
The following day, we meet at Pearson Airport and see what last-minute flights out of the Eastern Time Zone we can arrange. We end up flying to Vancouver. Avery has been before, but I haven’t. I appreciate that the weather is different in Vancouver on June 20 than it is in either Toronto or New York.
Rain! It’s been a long time since I’ve felt rain on my skin. I didn’t bring an umbrella with me, but I don’t mind. It’s refreshing.
Avery is less enthused about the rain, but after we walk around Stanley Park, she suggests an izakaya that she enjoyed the last time she was here. As we sit down at a cramped table, I think of that meal I had with Cam.
I wonder what he’s doing now. I look at the time on my phone. Toronto is three hours ahead, so he’s probably heading home after talking to the vendor at the night market.
I miss him, but he won’t miss me… or will he feel an ache in his chest that he can’t explain? There’s so much I don’t know.
Avery and I get an expensive hotel room in downtown Vancouver. She falls asleep at 11 p.m., but I’m determined to stay up until midnight. Midnight in Vancouver is 3 a.m. in Toronto. Is the reset always at 3 a.m. Toronto time? Or is it 3 a.m. wherever I am? I don’t truly expect our travels to break the curse, but I can try to get a better understanding of how it works.
Just before midnight, I’m reading the paperback I bought at the airport. I read for the entire flight, and I’ve only got one chapter left. I’ll learn who the killer is and—
I wake up in Toronto to my alarm.