Talia
The car didn’t have its headlights on.
She rolled over the hood and slammed into the asphalt on the other side.
Brakes squealed. A car door flung open.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Can you hear me? I’m so sorry, oh my god, I didn’t see you, it’s my fault, shit, please be okay—”
Talia, face down on the street, groaned. There was a sharp, throbbing pain in her hip where she’d been hit, and her skin stung, burning where she’d slid on the road.
“Oh, thank god, you’re alive. I-I’ll call the ambulance right now, I should’ve right away, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Talia pushed herself up to sitting.
“Ma’am, don’t move. You might hurt yourself more—” The driver gasped. “Talia?”
Talia blinked. “Erin? What’re you doing here?
” Her brain, in shock, hadn’t pieced the situation together yet.
Irrationally, she decided it was important then to try to stand up.
She glanced at her legs, which seemed to be intact other than the pain in her hip.
Her leggings were torn at the knees and she was scraped and bleeding, but nothing felt broken. The car hadn’t been going that fast.
She started to stand.
“Talia, please! Don’t move. I am literally dialing 911 right now.”
Erin turned away to talk to the emergency operator. “Yes, hi, there’s been a car accident. We’re on Stanford campus at Galvez just across from the track…”
Meanwhile, Talia continued to get up. She winced as she put pressure on her right hip and ankle.
And she would be all right. She could undo the last few minutes.
“Hang up,” Talia said, even as a fresh bolt of pain shot up from her ankle to her calf to her torso. “It’s going to be fine.”
Erin turned back around to look at her. The usual pink in her cheeks had drained away, washing her out even more than the streetlamp.
She was crying, staring at Talia, her boss from her dream job whom she’d hit with her car.
“Please, Talia, please sit, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I was working late, and I shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel, and it’s all my fault, oh god, oh fuck—”
“Shh, it’ll be okay,” Talia said. “I’ll make it okay.”
“How? I almost killed you!” Erin was sobbing now.
Talia shook her head. “But you didn’t.”
She reached for her watch and turned the crown.
Back in her apartment.
Workout clothes and sneakers on.
Nausea and fatigue—now familiar companions of her rewinds—came in fast like high tide.
Talia untied her laces and shucked off her shoes. Her joints creaked and her ankle popped as she laid herself down slowly into bed, avoiding sudden movements because it would make the vertigo worse.
Horizontal, she tested her ankle. It wasn’t broken or even strained. Her knees weren’t scraped or bleeding. Of course they weren’t. The accident had never happened.
Yet she still felt wrecked, not quite like being in a car accident, but like being in the emotional phantom of one.
Talia curled up on her bed and clung to her pillow as the waves of nausea washed over her.
It was my fault that Erin hit me. Mine. Talia wasn’t wearing any reflective gear, and she hadn’t checked for traffic when she’d crossed the road; she’d assumed no one was driving at that hour.
Logically, Erin was also at fault. But Talia didn’t see that clearly in the moment, because all her life, Talia had operated under the principle that she was imperfect and she could do better. Therefore, if something had gone wrong, the blame must’ve been hers.
She also decided it was her fault that Erin had been working so late and had to drive home after midnight. The poor, impressionable girl was following in the footsteps of her mentor, drinking up everything Talia did or had ever said.
But what kind of example was Talia setting? What kind of life was she leading Erin to, if every waking minute was work? And by rewinding the accident, was Talia preventing Erin from learning from bad decisions?
No… That was one of those awful things that anyone would undo if they could.
Erin didn’t need to learn from that lesson.
Maybe Talia shouldn’t have rewound all of her performance reviews…
Or maybe in the future, there would be a different lesson she would choose not to rewind for Erin—a smaller lesson, but still valuable.
But why the hell was she thinking about something like that now?
The apartment was still spinning around her. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, the visual memory of her bedroom walls continued to whirl round and round and round.
Meanwhile, one of Sam’s texts from a while ago—about the watch—resurrected itself in her thoughts:
Sam: Don’t overuse it, okay, Tal?… I know you always want to improve yourself, but I worry.
Talia: Trust me, I’m fine, Sam. It’s only a tool, and I’ve got it under control.
If there was ever a time to use it, though, undoing the accident was it. Nothing else could have been more important than saving Erin from something like that that would have traumatized her and affected her future.
Still, Talia was uncomfortably aware of her other frivolous rewinds and how addictive they’d become.
She took the watch off and shoved it to the back of her nightstand drawer.
I won’t use it anymore, she told herself. True emergencies only.