Chapter 44 Noelle

44 Noelle

When Cam set the dumplings in front of me, I had a hunch. These dumplings were different from all the ones I’d eaten in my quest to figure out what happened on June 20… and Cam’s grandmother died in January. Judith’s mother died in January. They could be the same person, right? His grandmother could be the one who served me dumplings at the night market, in what feels like another lifetime.

As I sat there, contemplating that possibility, Cam started eating, then doubled over.

“You remember,” I repeat. “You remember all those iterations of June twentieth?”

“Well, I remember all the time I spent with you. I remember introducing myself to you over and over. I remember you spilling bubble tea on my crotch. I remember beating you at bowling and losing to you at mini-golf after I got my ball stuck under a kraken.”

I cover my face with my hands.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “I’m glad I have all these memories of you.”

“I’m glad too,” I say. He already believed me, but if he had any doubts, this should erase them. Except… “Some of the early things… I only felt free to act the way I did because there were no consequences. I knew you wouldn’t remember anything the next day, other than maybe a vague feeling. I can’t believe I tried to trip myself in front of you. Spilled bubble tea on you.”

He shrugs. “It’s all good.”

That’s one of the things I learned about him in the loop: he’s better at shrugging things off than I am.

“But what I don’t understand,” he says, “is why these dumplings did that. I—”

“Your grandmother was the woman at the market. Her daughter, Judith, must be your aunt.” She said she didn’t have kids, so she can’t be his mother.

He nods slowly. “Yes, I have an Auntie Judith. But I didn’t know that my grandmother ever sold dumplings. Or that she could manipulate time.”

“Your aunt said her brother—your father, I assume?—made her promise not to do it when she came to Canada. Apparently, she put him in a time loop once.”

Cam seems to have reached his threshold of shrugging things off. He sits there in silence, absorbing it all, and I take his hand and squeeze it. With his other hand, he picks up his chopsticks and eats another dumpling. This time, he doesn’t look like he got a sudden migraine.

I can’t help wondering what this all means.

“Your grandmother said the dumplings would give me what I needed most,” I say. “I can’t help thinking it was related to you.”

“You think she was trying to set us up?” Cam asks.

“It is quite a coincidence that I fell in love with her grandson.”

Did she somehow arrange it? I’m not sure I like the idea that this was fated to happen, thanks to some matchmaking grandma. When she went to the market, was she looking for someone for Cam?

“She didn’t force us to fall in love,” he says.

“Are you positive? What if something in the dumplings acted as a love potion?”

“I can’t imagine it. We watched a drama together once, and she disapproved—strongly—when someone used what was essentially a love potion.” He pauses. “Sure, maybe she had a feeling when she saw you, and by giving you the dumplings, you had the opportunity to encounter me over and over. But it was you who made the effort to talk to me, to ask if Canmore is where I was conceived.”

“Oh my god.” I cover my face with my hands. “You remember that now.”

“Seems you asked it more than once.” A smile plays on his lips.

“Because the first time we had that conversation, we started flirting. It was like following a script. It got me where I wanted to go.”

Does that make sense? Does anything in the world make sense?

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “However this happened”—he gestures between us—“I’m just glad that it did.”

Same. Still, I’d like to have answers. I’d resigned myself, after the conversation with Judith, to never having all of them, but this is a curveball I wasn’t expecting, and I’m struggling to wrap my mind around it.

“I guess your grandma had the ability to imbue food with some kind of magic. Could she choose when to put a person in a time loop versus make a person remember someone else’s time loop? Could they have different effects, depending on who eats them?”

I’m just thinking aloud here. Cam doesn’t have the answers, and I have to be comfortable with the unknown sometimes.

“I wonder what else I didn’t know about her,” he says faintly, “but I’m glad you met her, however briefly.”

“Me too.”

He pops another dumpling into his mouth, but I eye mine with suspicion.

“I’m worried that if I eat them, I’ll get stuck in a time loop again,” I say. “I don’t want that to happen. I like the way things are going for me now.”

On the other hand, maybe they’d make me remember, like they did for Cam. I might recall all the things that happened to the alternate version of me. It would certainly be easier if I remembered.

“I’ll eat them if you don’t want to,” he says. “I don’t think anything else is going to happen to me, beyond what already did.”

“Maybe that would be best.” I should take more risks in life, but this one doesn’t feel right. “I do remember the taste of your grandma’s dumplings, though. They were really good.”

“I’ll get something else for you as soon as I finish.”

And that’s how I end up eating a grilled cheese sandwich, followed by the flan.

Much as I want to spend the night at Cam’s, I didn’t bring all my work stuff, so it’s easier for me to head home. Otherwise, I’d have to wake up super early tomorrow morning to return to my apartment.

When I arrive, Avery is furiously typing something on her laptop, but she pauses as soon as I enter. I think she started writing fanfic for her favorite series a few days ago.

“Based on how long you were out,” she says, “I assume it went well? He believed you?”

“He did.” I sit down beside her. “You’ll never guess what happened next.”

Avery’s eyes widen as I explain what I discovered this afternoon.

“Wow,” she says. “That’s… wow. I don’t blame you for not eating the dumplings. I wouldn’t have either. I mean, in hindsight, maybe that time loop was what I needed, but it’s certainly not an experience I need to repeat. I wouldn’t take even a small risk of that happening.” She pauses. “In less exciting news, I got an apartment.”

“That’s not less exciting news! It’s a big deal. The place Veronica suggested?”

She nods. “I went to see it today, and it’s really nice. Hard to know for sure how the roommate situation will work out until I actually live there, but I thought we clicked.”

“That’s good.”

“You’ll have your apartment to yourself again soon.”

“I’ve been happy to have you here, but you must be looking forward to having your own room.”

“I can’t deny that,” she says, “but thank you. For giving me a place to stay when I needed one, and for making the time loop much more bearable.”

I chuckle. “I wonder if anyone has ever said that sentence before.” But I need to acknowledge her words as something other than an unlikely phrase. “Having you there made it much better for me too. I didn’t have any close friends before. I was rather isolated, and now…”

I can’t quite find the words, so instead, I lean forward and give her a hug.

That evening, Avery and I finally get around to watching the historical drama whose trailer we saw countless times while in the loop.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t worth the wait. Everything good about it was clearly crammed into the trailer. But we enjoy ourselves nonetheless, making comments through much of the two-hour movie and sharing microwaveable popcorn that will not reappear in my cupboard tomorrow.

As the credits start rolling, I turn to Avery. “I assume I was put into the loop to fix the interpersonal relationships in my life. To fall in love with Cam—because if it weren’t for the loop, we wouldn’t have met. Possibly to fix my relationship with my sister too. But I think part of it had to do with you. When I celebrated your birthday—candles and a gift—that was some kind of “proof” of our friendship. I’m not sure exactly what Cam’s grandmother could see of our reality, but I’m convinced she tried to get us both out of the loop that night but failed because she was sick.”

“And me… I was in the loop to break up with Joe and become your friend?”

“That’s my guess.” As I say the words, it feels right.

Neither of us had a close friend before… and now we do. I’m grateful that Avery is part of my life. Grateful Cam’s grandmother could tell this would happen—I assume she had an intuition about the two of us.

On Monday, I find myself leaving the office at the same time as Fernando. I think back to that first June 20, when he commented on me working late again.

I rarely work beyond five thirty now. Yes, it happened once—there was an error that needed to be corrected at the last minute—but I’ve also been saying no to some of the extra tasks my boss tries to thrust upon me, while glaring at the back of his head when he’s not looking.

The job market isn’t ideal, but hopefully, I’ll find something else in the next few months, and in the meantime, I can manage. When I’m not with my new boyfriend, I spend my free time crocheting and reading. I barely let myself relax for years, but that’s changed now. I’ve let myself relax a little when it comes to spending too—I should be able to enjoy some of my money. Being obsessive about saving was causing me to stress unnecessarily over finances, and that stress was, in fact, what I’d hoped to avoid.

This morning, I packed an overnight bag, and I smile now as I head to Cam’s apartment. While I’m waiting for the subway, a melody pops into my head. It takes a moment for me to figure out what it is: the sea shanty that Cam and Justin were singing the first time I walked into the taproom. I text him and ask if he remembers.

He does.

It’s such a simple thing, sharing a memory with him—but I don’t take it for granted.

Plus, it’s not as simple as it might initially seem. The fact that we’re very different people will color how we remember events and how we move through life. That’s part of the splendor of this strange world in which we find ourselves.

Cam and I are going to make so many great memories together, and I can’t wait.

I also know that the experiences we have, both good and bad, will change who we are. The placeholder versions of us—the Cam I met over and over on June 20, and the me who moved forward in time while I was in the loop—couldn’t change, from what I can tell, because they weren’t the real versions of us. I once wished that my ex hadn’t changed and moved on, but there is beauty in being able to transform, even if it’s frequently in ways that are small and not terribly dramatic.

Though I don’t know exactly who Cam and I will become, after everything that has happened, I have faith that we can change and grow together.

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