Chapter 13 Noelle

13 Noelle

June 20, Version 52-ish

My alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m. Though I know what I’ll find when I go to the living room, I check anyway.

Avery isn’t here, as expected. It’s June 20. Again.

Some foolish, romantic part of me feels a keen sense of disappointment, different from the disappointment I’ve felt dozens of times before. I thought that part of me had long been extinguished, but apparently, I was wrong.

I guess Cam isn’t my true love.

Of course, he still could be. There’s no reason this time-loop curse should be broken by true love’s kiss, just because it broke Sleeping Beauty’s curse.

I’m shaking my head at my silly thoughts when I get a text.

AVERY: I woke up next to Joe. Goddammit.

AVERY: Are you still in the loop with me?

ME: Yeah. I’m still here.

ME: Want to meet up in a few hours?

Avery dumps a bunch of sugar into her coffee. We head to the patio at the coffee shop, managing to snag a table under an umbrella.

“I really thought that might work,” she says. “For both of us. You kissed Cam, I broke up with Joe—and spoke my mind, unlike before. Or maybe it was more that I desperately hoped it would work.” She sips her coffee. “How did I not realize that Joe sees me as beneath him? That he thinks he’s the one who settled? Now I have to live through yet another disappointing birthday, and…” She leans closer and lowers her voice. “Is it your period?”

I wasn’t expecting this change in topic. “Uh, no.”

I haven’t gotten my period since I started this time loop, and I know it’s not because I’m pregnant. Sure, unlikely things are happening to me now, but immaculate conception seems a step too far.

“My body completely resets each morning,” Avery says. “It’s always my period.”

My eyes widen in horror. She definitely has it worse than I do.

“On the plus side, I never run out of tampons.” She chuckles ruefully. “The ones I use reappear each morning.”

I take a peek around the patio, making sure that no one is listening to the very bizarre conversation we’re having.

“There must be some way to escape the loop. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t ,” Avery practically wails, and I cover her hand with mine.

“We’ll get out of it,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. I quickly try to think of ideas. “What about travel? Neither of us has had a real vacation in a long time, right? Maybe that’s what we most need.”

“So we’ll spend all day on a flight to Rome, check into the hotel, then wake up in our own beds?”

That does seem likely, but…

“What if the time loop only happens if we’re in the Toronto area? Our hypothesis is that it’s worldwide, but we should do an experiment to test that. We’ll go somewhere closer than Europe, so we don’t spend all day in transit.”

Avery nods slowly. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“What about New York? Do you have a passport?”

“Yeah. And I’ve never been to New York.”

“Perfect!” I inject enthusiasm into my voice, in an attempt to cheer up my friend. “There are lots of flights to New York, which is good because we can’t buy a ticket in advance. How about we meet at the island airport tomorrow around nine? With any luck, we’ll be out of Toronto by noon.”

“Worth a try,” Avery says.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“If this is the thing that ends the loop, we’ll both get out of it.” She pauses. “I’m glad we’re in this together.”

“Me too.”

I spend a few hours researching what we can do in our presumably limited time in New York. I went once before—with my mother and Madison—but it’s been years.

Around dinnertime, I return to the market. There are still lots of vendors that I haven’t tried. I purchase some dry pho and sit on the bench beside the man and his young son, and…

I freeze.

Cam is standing nearby. His gaze snags on me, and he walks over.

“Hey,” he says. “You look really, really familiar, but I can’t recall your name.”

I suck in a breath. I knew this would probably happen, but it’s still a bit of a shock. Someone who had his mouth on mine ought to remember me, yet he doesn’t. I’m the only one with memories of our date, and now I realize I’d hoped that, at the very least, our kiss would cause him to remember more than before.

Alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” I say, forcing a smile.

“Sorry, my mistake.”

I watch him disappear into the crowd. I could have continued our conversation. Introduced myself. Made that terrible comment about his name, only to have him forget it all tomorrow.

Some other time, perhaps, but I have something else to do tonight. I had an idea while looking at a map earlier.

I make my way to the nearby cemetery. If the dumpling woman is a ghost, maybe I can find her here. The sign says that visiting hours end at eight, so I’ll make sure I leave by then, in case they lock the gates.

The large cemetery is very, very quiet, aside from the distant sound of traffic. Nobody else is around. The busy night market isn’t far from here—lots of people jostling for dumplings and mochi and noodles—but I can’t hear that now.

It’s just me and the tombstones.

A little unnerved, I grip my keys in my left hand. I keep my gaze moving, looking for anything that could be a ghost capable of selling magical dumplings, but I see nothing. A gust of wind rustles the leaves in the trees, but that doesn’t bring out any ghosts.

I think of my grandparents. My grandfather died in my last year of high school, and my grandmother in the summer after my third year of university; they’ve both been gone more than ten years. I last went to their graves—in a different cemetery—on Tomb Sweeping Day.

I hear another rustle, but it’s not due to the wind.

And there it is again.

Slowly, I approach the nearest bush. I see a flash of white among the leaves, followed by a hissing sound, and my heart kicks up another notch.

Is that a shoe?

I step closer.

Oh, crap.

I don’t know much about skunks, but in the past ten minutes, I’ve significantly increased my knowledge base. Apparently, they don’t like spraying but do it when they’re frightened. It must have felt threatened by my skulking about the cemetery.

A little further research on my phone informs me that instead of tomato juice, I should try a mix of hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and baking soda to get rid of the odor. Fortunately, I have all of those things in my apartment, so I won’t have to stink up a store. I decide to walk home instead of taking public transit or an Uber, to avoid being in an enclosed space with another person. According to Google Maps, it’ll take just over an hour.

There are few pedestrians on the streets, and I’m not used to walking so far at dusk. It’s probably fine, but I keep gripping the keys in my pocket. Sure, the fact that I smell like absolute shit might scare off some people, but no guarantee it will work on everyone.

My legs are tired when I reach my apartment building, but I take the stairs rather than the elevator to the seventh floor—less likely to run into someone that way—and begin my attempts to de-skunk myself.

By the time I climb into bed, I still stink, but not quite as badly, and with any luck, tomorrow will be June 20 again and I’ll smell like a normal human being.

I’ve never been happier to wake up to my alarm and discover that Wordle is, once again, “happy.” I breathe in deeply. Yep, the skunk odor is gone.

I add Avery’s contact info to my phone and send a text to confirm our meeting time. After a quick breakfast and coffee, I pack a large purse. I add a cardigan and pajamas, but I don’t pack any more clothes.

It’s a long trip down to the airport, but we manage to get there around nine. We investigate the flight situation and discover there’s one at eleven thirty with available seats. I take out my credit card and wince as I pay. I don’t fly often, and when I do, I usually book far in advance and get a good deal. We’re probably only going to spend twelve hours in New York, and it seems extravagant to do this. Even with all my experience of credit card purchases not existing the next day, it still makes me grimace.

It’s instinctive for me to save money. The memories of my parents’ anxious whispers about mortgage and car payments…

In some places, teachers don’t make much at all, but here, they do okay, which means many people think they’re overpaid. Most years, Dad taught summer school for extra money. Mom usually worked part-time, but there were years when she was the main caregiver for my paternal grandparents. My father’s younger brother frequently needed to be bailed out of one thing or another, so with all that, my parents had trouble paying the bills at times. These were problems they tried to keep from us, and my siblings usually didn’t know—but I did. I heard their conversations, and I saw the differences in our lifestyle. I wouldn’t say they were really careless with their money, but they didn’t always make the best decisions, and they felt obligated to help people even when they couldn’t afford it.

It stressed me the fuck out.

I swore that when I grew up, I’d be better at saving and living below my means, so my finances wouldn’t cause such stress—and I’d be able to help my immediate family without sleepless nights. Though if my siblings ended up being as foolish as my uncle—which I highly doubted—I had no intention of repeatedly assisting them.

Housing prices in Toronto have skyrocketed and I still haven’t bought a place of my own, but I hope to within the next five years. I’m careful to put aside a decent amount each month. I don’t own a car. I don’t travel a lot. I don’t go out much. I’m frugal when it comes to my wardrobe. I’ve lived in the same small one-bedroom apartment for eight years, and the rent isn’t terrible.

My repeats of June 20 have been a little different, though, and when we get to New York, I continue to spend money that I wouldn’t normally spend. Even a modest hotel in Manhattan isn’t cheap, especially with the exchange rate. Once we’ve checked in, Avery wants to see the Empire State Building, and we pay to go up and look out at the city. Luckily, June 20 is quite a nice day in New York. Hot, but not completely disgusting, and with the clear skies, we have a good view as we stand among all the other tourists.

By the time we finish with the Empire State Building, it’s almost dinnertime. The flight—and getting into the city from Newark—took much of the afternoon. We see Times Square on the way to Central Park, where we wander around before deciding that food really is a necessity.

“What do you want to eat?” I ask Avery.

There’s a dizzying array of possibilities, but we end up just getting cheap pizza on paper plates. We eat in the park, entertained by a man playing a saxophone, and then we mosey down the streets.

“You know what we should do?” Avery says. “The next time we come here—”

“The next time?”

“Yeah. I have a feeling this isn’t going to break the loop, which means we can come back for free and buy expensive last-minute Broadway tickets. I think it’s too late for that today.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“If I knew how much longer the loop would last, it would be easier to enjoy. Like, another twenty or thirty days? Fine. I’d spend it watching shows and eating good food and trying different hair colors. But when you worry it might go on forever, it’s hard to live in the moment.”

“I agree.”

“But I’ll try,” she says, lifting her chin. “For tonight.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Top of the Rock, so we can see the city at night?”

We go up our second skyscraper of the day, and as we look out at the glittering lights, I feel tiny and insignificant. Toronto is a large city too, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it from up high; I haven’t been up the CN Tower in over a decade.

Yet of all those people, I’m the one who’s stuck in a loop, remembering repeats of June 20 that no one else but Avery seems to recall. Are there others out there that we haven’t been able to find? Is our time loop unimportant, in the grand scheme of things? Does stuff like this happen regularly and we just don’t know about it?

I feel like I don’t have the answers to anything.

Afterward, we have cocktails at a rooftop bar. Then I convince Avery to order cake at a late-night café—it’s her birthday, after all. Once we’ve split a large piece of salted caramel cheesecake, we return to the hotel and collapse into our beds.

When I wake up, I’m back in my apartment.

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