Chapter 39 Noelle
39 Noelle
Once again, I struggle to sleep at Cam’s, but this time, I don’t get out of bed when I’m still awake at three in the morning. Am I doomed to have insomnia whenever I stay over at his place?
Tonight was good. Great.
But in the middle of the night, the worries flood back. Why couldn’t I have met Cam Huang in a normal way? Like on eHarmony or Hinge, or whatever dating sites exist these days. I don’t even know, because before I ate those magical dumplings, I didn’t date.
Dating seemed too risky. I just had to think of how I felt after Dave dumped me out of nowhere, how I sobbed on my kitchen floor and wished I could carve my heart out of my chest with a spoon—because surely that would be easier than dealing with my emotions. Yeah, dating hadn’t held much appeal after that relationship ended.
But in the loop, the lack of consequences made me freer. I started to feel like I’d been missing out on so much. Banter over mini-golf. Laughter over poutine. Lips against lips. Skin against skin. I’d forgotten how vivid life can be.
Big emotions are part of it. You can’t completely avoid them, even if you keep reliving the same day.
I’ve just never been good at such things.
And I’m not dealing with them well now. I watch Cam, his lips curling up like he’s having a happy dream. I feel a strong urge to be honest, like how he was honest when his mom asked if he was seeing someone. You ought to be honest about the big things in a relationship.
But I’m also convinced that Cam, as easygoing and understanding as he is, would not be understanding about the time loop now. I can’t blame him; I sure as hell wouldn’t be. If I hadn’t had personal experience with it, and the person I’d recently started dating told me that they’d repeated the same day over a hundred times, I might ghost them.
The idea of him ghosting me is agonizing.
The thought of not being able to tell other people—like my parents or Veronica—the truth doesn’t bother me as much. Veronica never responded to my text in any version of June 20; there’s no gap in our relationship. As for my parents, yes, I talked to them in the loop, even saw them a few times, but it doesn’t fundamentally change anything.
Cam, however, is a whole different matter.
I scrub my hands over my face and try not to let out a frustrated sigh.
Tell him. Take a risk , a part of me says.
But although the time loop made me more comfortable taking risks, I’m not in the loop anymore, and this seems like a step too far.
When I was a kid, I watched a movie whose main message was that you should seize the day and face your fears. The main character upgraded to a first-class plane ticket when he couldn’t afford it, and this was supposed to be a good thing? Carpe diem seemed like an excuse to defend bad choices.
There’s nothing wrong with the fact that I’ve always been a little cautious. I shouldn’t feel the need to become a completely different person.
I won’t tell Cam.
Except how can we stay together if I’m keeping a big secret from him, the secret of dozens of first dates? It seems like too much, and I know it will continue to eat away at me. I can’t do that long-term. With my extra knowledge about him, I feel like I have the ability to manipulate him, perhaps even unintentionally, and I don’t want that.
If only I’d bothered, back on a June 20 when I’d told him the truth, to ask what I should say once I got out of the time loop—what I should say to get him to believe me. But I didn’t have the forethought to do that, since it was hard to think beyond June 20 when I wasn’t sure I’d ever escape it.
I roll away from the man next to me with a sigh, my heart heavy. He’s sleeping peacefully, while I’m doing anything but. Time is advancing normally now, but I feel trapped by what happened to me, trapped by the past.
I don’t check the mail every day. I get most of my important stuff electronically, and I stopped checking it entirely when I was in the loop. But after work on Tuesday, I give my mailbox a look. To my surprise, there’s a pale pink envelope. I don’t pay attention to the return address, just tear it open as I wait for the elevator. My eyes widen.
Dave is getting married ?
It’s one of those invitations with the year written out in words, in an intricate font. I skim the details as I ride the elevator. Why didn’t I know about this?
After unlocking the door to my apartment, I set down my bag and take a seat on the futon. Avery is in the shower. I read the invitation over and over, then pull out my phone and scroll to my text history with Dave. The last one is dated five months ago. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice it earlier. Maybe because it’s in between a couple of two-factor authentication messages?
DAVE: I’m engaged, and we’re getting married next year.
DAVE: Just wanted you to hear it from me, instead of someone else.
ME: Oh, congrats!!
DAVE: No hard feelings, right?
ME: Of course not! I’m happy for you.
As I read what I apparently wrote months ago, I wonder how this news affected me. It doesn’t hurt now, not in the way it once would have. I’m more frustrated that I’m was caught off guard because I don’t remember half of last year. Also, why the hell did he send me an invitation? Is it a huge wedding, and he’s inviting everyone he’s ever known? That seems unlikely, but he certainly didn’t invite me because we remained friends. Ha! We did not.
Or perhaps he wants to rub it in my face? Show me that he’s happy without me?
No, that doesn’t sound like something Dave would do.
Yet I don’t really know him. I mean, I did, once upon a time. Though after he dumped me—something I didn’t see coming at all—I wondered how well I really knew him, and the knowledge I had has been tinged by my former heartbreak. And over time, it feels like he’s become a blank space in my mind.
I’m over him now. Truly. I just feel rather annoyed.
Avery comes out of the washroom in a bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her hair. “Hey, you’re home! How was your night?” She waggles her eyebrows, then frowns. “What’s wrong?”
I hand over the invitation. “My ex invited me to his wedding. I didn’t even know he was getting married because… you know.”
She nods sympathetically. “That asshole.”
I manage a watery chuckle and show her my texting history with Dave.
She reads it out loud. “?‘No hard feelings, right?’ He just phrased it like that so you’d agree with him—it would be awkward to contradict him afterward.”
Avery is frustrated with men in general at the moment, so maybe I shouldn’t put much stock in her words, but still, it’s good to hear her say that.
“I also…” I swallow. “Last night was good, but I don’t know if I can stay with Cam.” Saying it out loud… it makes me want to crumple. It makes the uncertainty of our future feel more real, but what does “real” even mean?
“Why not?”
I do my best to explain everything that’s been going through my head, but I’m making a muddle of it. Avery keeps nodding as if I’m making perfect sense, even though I know I’m not, bless her.
“What do you think I should do?” I ask.
“Well, it is tricky,” she says, “but…”
I wait for her to finish the sentence.
She doesn’t.
That night, I find myself thinking about Dave. About what our actual relationship was like, not the end. For so long, I tried not to think about it because it was too painful—and now it’s painful in a different way.
Sure, Dave wasn’t like Joe. He wouldn’t do things like, say, forget my birthday, and he did know how to do basic chores. But there were little digs.
Why are you wearing that ?
Upon reflection, I don’t think I performed femininity quite in the way he wanted. I’d forgotten all about it, but now, a dozen examples come to me.
Was that part of why he broke up with me? I’m not sure.
Memory is, indeed, a strange thing.
For the next couple of days, I lose myself in my routine.
I wake up at the same time every day. Have coffee. Eat breakfast. Avery and I have figured out how to coordinate our mornings by now, so we don’t get in each other’s way.
Then I go to the office. Check my email. Do my work. Wish I could swear at Lee again. Get annoyed at Tyler but seethe in silence.
At five thirty or so, I take the TTC home. Eat a quick dinner. Clean up. Watch TV while Avery looks for apartments.
My days aren’t identical—there are slightly different tasks at work, for example—but I lose myself in the familiarity of them, which is, ironically enough, something I couldn’t do when I was literally reliving the same day.
I wonder what I should do about Cam, but I’m unable to think about it too much without my heart aching, so I don’t. It’s like I’m putting my head in the sand once more, despite the resolution I made for the Lunar New Year.
I recall what he told me on the weekend. Sometimes, when I’m with you, I have the feeling that I’ve done this before, in a previous life or something.
I replay that in my mind, wondering if there’s a way to retrieve those memories. Then I remind myself that I never figured out why the hell I got stuck in the loop—other than that it had something to do with the dumplings—and I have no idea how I got out of it. How on earth could I figure out how to unlock those memories?
At the same time, I wish I could unlock my memories of the seven months when the world kept moving without me, memories created by a different version of me. I make the occasional mistake or weird comment at work that I wouldn’t make if only I could remember those damn months.
I don’t know what kind of amnesia this is, but I hate it.