Chapter 14
But None of That Ever Happened Now
There’s a pink concha on my desk when I arrive to Intro to Film on Monday.
Alex is in his usual seat. It’s a little awkward seeing him again, in that way it’s always weird after you share part of yourself under the cover of night only to remember those secrets are still out there once daylight breaks.
“Where did this come from?” I ask as I take my seat.
He shrugs casually, pretends he doesn’t know. “Beats me.”
I struggle to hold back a smile before giving up completely. Alex watches as I take a bite of the concha. Pink crumbs fall to my desk.
I offer him a bite, but he shakes his head and keeps watching me with a smile.
“How was your weekend?” he asks as if we haven’t been texting constantly.
I spent the weekend watching TV and applying for part-time jobs. I was mostly alone, since Madison was busy with Patrick on Saturday, then had a shift at the library Sunday.
It was tempting to ask Alex if he wanted to hang out, but I refrained.
“It was good. Laid low.” I shrug, adopting the same dismissive casualness he used when he pretended not to know about the concha, then add, “I did go out to dinner on Friday.”
“Anywhere I’ve heard of?”
“Probably not; it’s pretty far away.”
“Was the food good?”
Something in his voice tells me he isn’t actually asking about the food.
“The food was great.”
“That’s good to hear. Really… good,” he says, his eyes darkening as he glances down at my lips. He’s thinking about kissing me right here in class, I can tell—I wonder if it’s obvious to everyone else.
Friday was pretty chaste, as far as dates go.
We kissed against his car, then drove back to campus, the conversation flowing easily the entire way.
Once we parked, I all but attacked his face, right there in the parking garage, and we made out until I started to feel antsy, the memory of the last time I’d done this with him creeping up on me.
Making out in Alex’s car—albeit a different car.
Moving things from the car to my apartment.
Waking up alone.
Overhearing his conversation with Ingrid.
Seven years of silence.
Years spent trying to rationalize my actions, like telling myself I didn’t really know they were still together because Ingrid had missed the wedding and Alex had mentioned divorce. Although, I eventually had to admit that I had known. I just hadn’t cared.
Or perhaps I’d cared; I just cared more about my own pain.
For a while, I avoided my friends’ get-togethers out of fear Alex would attend. Or, worse, not just Alex but Ingrid, and then I’d have to confront the reality of what I’d done. I finally realized that was unlikely. Alex avoided most get-togethers as a policy.
Too late; I had gotten used to my solitude. I had even grown to like it. If I wasn’t around my friends, I didn’t have to face the secrets they didn’t know about me, the disconnect between the woman they thought I was and the woman I had become.
Years of warring between trying to maintain friendships and trying to move on.
And then one night it all caught up to me.
Unwelcome memories flooded my brain until they were the only things I could focus on, but I tried to push through them, because I wanted this, damn it.
To my surprise, Alex had been the one to pull away Friday night, murmuring something about taking things slow. I was grateful to him for putting on the brakes, because Lord knew I wasn’t about to.
“So when are we eating Mexican candy?” Alex asks as we walk out of class.
“When are you free?”
“For you, Joey? I’m always free,” he says easily. I roll my eyes and laugh at the corniness, but my mirth vanishes when I spot a familiar face.
Helen offers me a small smile in recognition, and I do the same. Once we’ve passed her, I turn to Alex to see him looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Friend of yours?”
“She’s in my creative writing class.”
“How’s that going so far?”
“I’ve only been to class once, but I had to turn in my first short story Sunday night, and let’s just say… I wouldn’t exactly call myself Jane Austen.”
“Well, of course not. Jane Austen didn’t write short stories.”
I search for a change of subject. I don’t want to get into it.
Sitting at my laptop staring at a blank page was hell.
After hours of nothing, I broke down and wrote what basically amounted to a bad synopsis of the movie Yesterday, where the protagonist wakes up in an alternate universe in which the Beatles never existed.
It’s certainly unethical, but the plagiarism can’t be proven, and it also feels kind of perfect, considering the plot.
“Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
Alex’s eyes light up with mirth as he says, “I love your hypotheticals. Sure, but only if you clarify at least two more times that it’s not real.”
“Say I had this friend—”
“Oh, a friend?”
“Not like that. An actual friend, not a placeholder for myself. I have a friend, and she’s struggling. Or… I’m worried she’s going to struggle. Sorry, I know that’s cryptic. I want to help her, only I don’t know how. I need advice, but I don’t want to invade her privacy.”
A pause, then he asks, “Is this about the girl we just passed?”
“No,” I protest too quickly. “No, it’s someone else.”
“Is it anything I can help with?”
“I don’t think so.”
He considers this. “Have you tried consulting the internet?”
I snort. “Like, the whole internet?”
“Not the whole internet. You ever go on Reddit?”
“A couple times.” I wouldn’t say I’ve gone on Reddit so much as it’s popped up when I searched random topics over the years. I have never typed into my browser.
“Make a throwaway account, go to a relevant subreddit, and ask for advice.”
I frown, unsure of this whole ask-the-internet plan. But when I get back to my dorm after acting, the first thing I do is open my laptop.
It takes me two days to post—two days of psyching myself up, lurking, searching for the right subreddits. One class with Helen, my knowledge of her future looming like a dark cloud.
Two days spent searching for a way to word my post that won’t erase my existence. Typing and erasing and retyping. Wishing I had a paper contract that outlined the terms of my agreement. Replaying my conversation with my caseworker to a degree that I worry I’m starting to misremember.
Two days of pretending I’m fine, just stressing over homework, whenever Madison asks me why I’m frowning so intently at my computer screen.
I can’t tell anyone what happened in my first life.
But a hypothetical question isn’t a confession.
I survived after I posed the scenario to Alex at our first dinner.
I guess I’ll risk my entire existence on the theory that if I can pose it to one person, I can pose it to the whole internet.
Or, at least, to the Reincarnation subreddit.
Preventing a tragedy from your past life?
I have a hypothetical question that I’m hoping this subreddit can help me with.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that after you died, you were offered a second chance at life. An opportunity to go back and live your life over again, retaining all your memories.
Only when you arrive back in time, you meet an old friend whose life ended in tragedy. A fully preventable tragedy. A drug overdose, perhaps. But the wheels for that tragedy have not yet been set in motion. Your friend is not yet an addict.
How would you consciously work to prevent such a tragedy without letting it slip that you’re on your second life?
I hit the Post button and wince, waiting to be Thanos-snapped out of existence, but seconds pass and I’m still alive and kicking.
Hell yeah. Now I just need some stranger on the internet to solve all my problems for me.
I refresh the page once, then again, not sure how it works.
“Do you wanna grab dinner before my shift?” Madison asks, and I jolt at how close she is. In a hurry, I click away from Reddit and frantically open Word.
I catch her frowning at my screen, but if she saw my post, she doesn’t say anything about it. I scramble for a response.
“Oh. Uh.” I really don’t want to leave my computer. I’ve been psyching myself up for this for two days. “No, I should probably stay here. Work on my short story.”
“I thought you just turned that in,” she says, brow furrowed.
“Another one’s due this week.” I shrug helplessly.
“Okay.” She nods, understanding. “Text me if you want me to grab you a plate.”
Madison leaves. I refresh the Reddit page a few more times before I give up, close it, and search for a distraction. I apply to a couple jobs. I attempt to do homework.
An hour later, I’m back on Reddit.
And finally—an alert! Someone responded to my post.
Is this some kind of joke? if you read the posts around here, you’d know that is NOT how reincarnation works at all. are you some kind of troll??? get a life.
Okay, so, that’s not helpful.
I close my laptop. I’m just going to… go to sleep. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to think about my post at all.
After I’ve gotten ready for bed, I check Reddit one more time for good measure.
I have a DM.
The message is from a user called SecondTakeAnonymous with a few numbers after the name. I snort, because it doesn’t seem like a username that should be popular enough that it requires numbers.
The message reads:
SecondTakeAnon: Did this happen to you?
That’s it. That’s the whole message. Simple, to the point.
I freeze, the words sending a chill through my body. Because… that’s not a logical response to my rambling, nonsensical hypothetical question.
Not unless…
Is it possible?
I deflate, realizing I’m probably being too optimistic.
Rethinking my whole existence on the basis of five words sent by an anonymous person on the internet—how pathetic.
I go to their profile and see that they have never posted anything—but their account was created over three years ago. That feels… strange.
I carefully craft my response.
Me: Even if it had, I wouldn’t exactly be allowed to tell you.
Their reply comes almost immediately.
SecondTakeAnon: Of course. Wouldn’t want to be erased from existence.
Holy. Shit.
This is real. This is another person with the same experience. A person who wants to talk about it with me. What do I do? What do I say? What can I say?
Before I can think of anything, the person messages again. And again.
SecondTakeAnon: You’re not alone.
SecondTakeAnon: We have meetings in most major cities. We call ourselves Second Take Anonymous—and officially, we are all addicted to this game. I can connect you to the person running your local chapter meetings if you’d like.
The message includes a link that I’m afraid to click, so I don’t.
I copy it and paste it into Google to see where it leads, and sure enough, it’s a website for some obscure online video game called Second Take.
The summary: “Second Take is an online RPG where a player can relive their life multiple times.”
I run a Google search for Second Take RPG. Other than the same link this Reddit stranger sent, very little comes up.
This is getting weirder and weirder.
I go back to my DMs to find that the person sent more.
SecondTakeAnon: Before I give you any more information, you’ll have to tell me something you could ONLY know if what you’re saying is true. I will extend the same courtesy.
I think for a moment before I respond. What could I say that would prove I’d actually experienced what I experienced?
On a whim, I type:
Me: Ugly-ass olive-green shag carpet.
Again, their response comes swiftly.
SecondTakeAnon: HA. Mine was mustard. I’ve talked to a lot of people, but none of us really understand the ’70s decor. Someone who visited the office before the ’70s claims it always looked that way.
SecondTakeAnon: Okay. My turn.
SecondTakeAnon: Caseworker.
As I stare at those words on my screen, I marvel at how shortsighted I’ve been. Of course there are other people going through what I’m going through. Other people living their lives over again.
Why the hell wouldn’t there be?
And suddenly, I wonder—how many of us are there?
Once I get over my shock that this is really happening, I manage to type a coherent response.
She writes back and tells me that her name is Pam.
She currently lives in Tokyo but is originally from a small town in Kentucky.
I tell her I’m in Los Angeles, and she sends me the address and time of meetings that take place in Hollywood the first and third Thursday of every month as well as an email address for Richard, the local chapter organizer.
Suddenly, I feel a little less alone.