Chapter 29 Noelle
29 Noelle
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 saw a 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. I am happy 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.
I nearly lose it. I haven’t seen all these people together in a long, long time. There was no family gathering on June 20, and it would have been awkward to arrange one on any of the iterations I lived through.
Lenora reaches for me. I pull her into my arms, slightly unprepared for how heavy she is.
“Baby,” she says, pointing not to herself but toward the front room. I follow her finger and see Mona on the couch. She’s nursing.
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Cece!” Lenora says.
“Do you like being a big sister?”
She nods solemnly.
Dalton laughs. “She’s not used to sharing our attention with another kid, and sometimes that makes her unhappy.”
I pat his arm. “I’m sure I was the same when you came along.” In fact, based on the stories I’ve been told, it’s pretty clear that was the case.
After my nephew finishes feeding, he falls asleep, so it’s not until after dinner that Mona hands him to me. He briefly opens his eyes and gives me a look that I interpret as suspicious.
Yeah, kid, you should be suspicious of the auntie who just lived through seven months’ worth of June 20s. Who knows what she could do next?
At least with Cecil, I haven’t missed anything. Well, I don’t remember being told that Mona was in labor, and I don’t remember hearing that he was born. But this is my first time meeting him, and he’s still so small.
When he starts fussing, I hand him to Dalton, who goes off to change the baby’s diaper. Then I inquire about the one person who isn’t here.
“How Madison?” I ask.
“She’s fine,” Mom says, a little abruptly.
I open my mouth to ask what happened between Madison and me, then shut it. I ought to know, and what if saying I don’t has a cascade of effects?
Consequences. I can’t handle them.
“That’s good,” I say simply.
I’ll have to study my sister’s social media accounts and see what I can glean, but for now, I need to focus on my job.
I walk into the office at the usual time on Monday morning. After leaving my parents’ house yesterday, I spent about an hour going through my work computer, trying to figure out what projects I’m working on and what the deadlines are. Fortunately, my main project appears to be the one whose proposal was due in June, so I’m somewhat familiar with it.
Alas, my research also revealed that Tyler still works here and is just as useless as always. I can practically hear the frustration oozing out of my voice in my polite emails.
“Good morning…” I trail off as I realize that Eloise isn’t where she’s supposed to be. Someone else—a young man I don’t recognize—is there. Did she quit?
I scan the room. When I find her at another desk, I breathe out a sigh of relief. There’s been some reorganization, that’s all.
I head toward my own desk, but stop short when I see Fernando sitting there.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi, you’re…”
No, he’s not in my seat. He has pictures of his family here. This must be his desk now.
“Oh, right.” I attempt a self-deprecating laugh. “Old habits die hard.”
He frowns. “We changed desks five months ago.”
“Has it been that long?” I say airily. I swear I can feel multiple people looking at me, but hopefully that’s all in my head.
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, I do plan to quit soon, but the idea of being without a steady 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, but why ? 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’m planning 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 seem quite 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.”
He starts pulling my pint, while I gather up the courage for a conversation he might actually remember tomorrow.
It’s a strange new world for me, and it’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying.