Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Something Quiet
In the time loop, Amie’s dreams were often very mundane.
She’d just be going about her day, either in her apartment or walking down the street.
Most times she’d be alone, but sometimes she’d be with her parents, or David, or Ziya, or a random acquaintance from high school dredged up from the depths of her subconscious.
Then, almost always, she’d have a sudden moment of realization that things were different, and that she was no longer stuck in the time loop.
She’d laugh at herself for taking so long to notice, and celebrate her freedom.
Then Amie would wake up. And she would still be in the time loop.
She’d cried the first few times. Eventually, she’d learned to move past it and on with her day without a second thought.
This dream was the opposite of that. Amie was back in the time loop, and she recognized it immediately, somehow, as soon as she sat up in bed. She felt it. She just knew.
After a brief moment of panic, Amie remembered Savannah. Savannah was going to die that day.
Hope sparked within her. She’d wanted this, hadn’t she?
This was a blessing, not a curse. She could use the time loop to save Savannah.
This had been Amie’s purpose all along. She was just getting a second chance to fulfill it, now that she knew what she had to do.
She wouldn’t be stuck for long; she just had to save Savannah.
Amie ran out of her bedroom and into the lobby of her building.
She walked outside, down the street and around the corner to the bookshop.
It didn’t matter the time of day, or that she wasn’t at all prepared to stop a murderer from killing Savannah.
She just knew that she had to get to the bookshop.
She pushed open the door to Shelf Starter and entered her bedroom.
No, that wasn’t right. She had to get to Savannah.
She was running out of time. She ran out of her bedroom and into the lobby, out the door and down the street, into the bookstore and back into her room.
Into the lobby and out the door and down the street and through the door into her bedroom and into the lobby and out the door and down the street and through the door into her bedroom and into the lobby and out the door and down the street and through the door into her bedroom and into the lobby and out the door and down the street and through the door into her bedroom and into the
There was a sick feeling in Amie’s chest as she awoke with a shudder.
The room was dark and silent. There was a warm weight on her right hand, and she turned her head to see Ziya, face squished into the pillow in a way that made Amie wonder how she was able to breathe.
Her hand was resting on Amie’s open palm, gently gripping it, even in sleep.
Amie’s heart squeezed. She’d spent so many friend dates with Ziya wondering if there was still the possibility of a future together if the time loop ever ended.
And there she was, out of the loop, lying next to a woman she loved so much it scared her to think about.
She didn’t want to ruin it again. She would do anything to keep things the same as they were before.
“Z,” Amie whispered. It was so quiet; the sound hardly passed through her lips. But Ziya’s eyes fluttered open, her long lashes brushing the pillow as she moved her head to receive air through both nostrils instead of just the one.
“Hm?” she asked sleepily. Her hand on Amie’s tightened as she settled into a new position.
“I …” Amie had so many things to say. She had nothing to say. What should she say? “I had a bad dream.”
“Mmm,” Ziya groaned sympathetically, blinking as she grew more awake. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t really know how.”
“What happened?”
“I was … in the time loop.” She gave Ziya a timid glance. “Remember how I told you about the time loop?”
“Yeah,” Ziya said. “Not a time traveler, a time homebody.”
Amie huffed a nervous laugh. “Right.” She studied Ziya’s face. “I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
She stopped as Ziya gasped.
“That’s how you memorized the podcast.” Ziya propped herself up on her forearm, the teasing humor draining from her expression.
Amie nodded wordlessly. She felt like she could cry with relief to see Ziya, eyes bright, finally believing her.
“Oh my god.” Ziya’s eyes flickered across Amie’s face. “You were in a time loop.”
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Amie said, her voice soft. “I wanted to tell you about it so badly. But you didn’t believe me the first time, and I didn’t want to scare you off by—”
“Amie.” Ziya shifted over, resting her head on Amie’s shoulder as she pulled Amie’s arm around her waist. “You should know by now that I’m not so easily scared.”
Amie gave her a gentle squeeze. “I know.”
I’m the one who’s scared, she thought.
“Tell me about it.”
“What?”
“The time loop.” Ziya curled closer to Amie, as if settling in for a story. “You said you wanted to tell me about it. I’m ready.”
So Amie did. She told her about how long it took her to accept that she was in a time loop. How she first told David about it. All the grocery store trips and the friend dates. How she’d stopped counting the days after two years.
“Two years,” Ziya said softly. “And I thought three months felt like forever. How did you stay … I mean, did you stay—?”
“Sane?”
“I was gonna say ‘optimistic.’ I just feel like I’d give up. But I can’t imagine you doing that.”
“Well, I had a couple of nihilist phases. I’d sleep a lot. Wouldn’t brush my teeth. Barely ate. Didn’t even text you to say I wouldn’t make our date.”
“For how long?”
“How long what?”
“How long did these phases last?”
“Oh, never more than a day,” Amie admitted sheepishly. “They were some of the only times I woke up relieved to still be in the loop. I’d feel terrible about not texting you. Also, my mouth would taste so bad by the end of the day, I’d have to brush my teeth just from the memory of it alone.”
“I would’ve forgiven you for not texting me, you know,” Ziya said, kissing the underside of Amie’s jaw. “I’m not that needy.” Her hair tickled Amie’s neck as she shook her head. “I don’t think I could’ve stayed that optimistic.”
“I thought you said you’d be incredible in a time loop,” Amie teased, tilting her chin down to look at her. “What about all those marathons you’d run?”
Ziya grinned. “I would do so many things.” Her smile slowly faded. “But I think the novelty would fade pretty quickly.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “You kept going on our date? And just said the same things every time?”
“It was a good date,” Amie said. “I didn’t want to risk ruining it.”
“But didn’t it get boring?”
“I was with you,” Amie said simply. “I couldn’t be bored with you.”
Ziya’s gaze had wandered off to a spot past Amie’s head, and Amie suddenly had the feeling that she’d gone somewhere far away. Desperate to bring her back, she said, “I think I might be thirty.”
Ziya’s eyes flicked back to her, a smile tugging at her lips. “You’re not thirty.”
“I think I might be. I was twenty-eight when the time loop started. I spent over two years in there. That makes me thirty.”
“The time loop doesn’t count. It’s the same day on repeat. Time is basically frozen.”
“But it wasn’t for me! My brain was still taking in information, even if my body wasn’t changing. I was still living for those two years.”
“Were you?”
“What?”
Ziya’s eyes had taken on that faraway look again, though they remained on Amie’s face. “Were you living in the time loop? Did that really feel like you were living?”
“I … yeah. Of course. I was alive. I was breathing.”
“But were you living?”
Amie felt frustration creeping over her. “My heart was beating, so by definition, yes, I was living the whole time.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Okay, no, I wasn’t embracing every day like it was my last, Z.
Is that what you want me to say? We’ve already established that I’m the worst person to get stuck in a time loop, I get it.
You’re right. I spent two years doing a whole lot of nothing.
Par for the course for me. But what I need to know is am I fucking thirty? ”
Ziya laughed, and Amie’s frustration rushed away like a receding tide. “Do you want to be thirty?”
Amie untensed, resting her head against Ziya’s as she thought about it.
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“So you’re still twenty-eight,” said Ziya with the confidence of someone who had read the oh-so-elusive time loop rulebook that Amie had so desperately wished she could get her hands on. “Simple as that.”
“Simple as that,” Amie echoed. “You make it sound easy.”
“It can be easy,” Ziya said softly. Her fingers curled against Amie’s waist, as if she was having trouble catching hold of her. “You make things so hard for yourself sometimes. It doesn’t always have to be so hard, Ames. It can just be easy.”
Amie wasn’t sure what to say to that, and Ziya once again looked like she’d gone somewhere far away. So she didn’t say anything, just held Ziya close, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and hoped that she’d come back to her soon.