The hallway between first and second period is a different kind of time loop. A chaotic, three-minute eternity filled with the slamming of lockers, the shouts of friends, and the suffocating scent of Axe body spray. Usually, I navigate it like a phantom, an observer who isn't really there.
But today, I feel every bump, every jostle. I feel hyper-present, a nerve ending exposed to the world.
I feel like I should know you.
The words are on a loop of their own, replaying in my mind with terrifying clarity. It's a glitch in the matrix. A crack in the perfect, pristine cage of my existence. And hope, the most dangerous emotion of all, is pouring through that crack like sunlight. It feels warm and terrifying, a buzzing, live wire in my chest.
What does it mean? If she can remember—or feel the echo of remembering—this early, does that change everything? Could this be the cycle? The one where something finally gives? The thought is so huge, so overwhelming, that it makes me feel dizzy. My carefully laid plans, my meticulous mental notes on how to perfectly replicate Cycle 1, have been thrown into a blender.
"Dude, you look like you're trying to solve the meaning of the universe with the power of your mind alone."
Ethan appears at my side, seemingly out of nowhere, casually weaving through the human traffic like he was born to it. He's holding a half-eaten granola bar. I didn't even know he had a granola bar. Another new variable. My brain files it away with a jolt of panic.
"Something like that," I mutter, trying to look less like a man having a temporal crisis.
"Let me guess. The clay monsters got to you." He grins, taking a bite. "Told you that place was a death trap. I had Gable in ninth grade. She once tried to get me to sculpt my 'inner turmoil.' It ended up looking like a misshapen potato. A very sad potato, but still."
The joke is familiar. It's not a Day 1 joke; he saves this one for later in the week, usually. My mind races. Is everything accelerating? Or am I just misremembering the script? No. No, I remember the script perfectly. It's seared onto the inside of my eyelids.
My anxiety spikes. It feels like the floor is tilting beneath my feet.
"Are you heading to lunch?" I ask, trying to sound casual, trying to anchor myself to the next plot point on my mental schedule. Lunch. I see her at lunch. We don't talk, but I see her. That's how it's supposed to go.
"Nah, study hall. Got a physics test to cram for. Apparently, time is relative, but my F will be absolute if I don't study." He winks, crumples his granola bar wrapper, and executes a perfect hook shot into a nearby trash can. "Catch you later, man. Don't let the existential dread bite."
He's gone again. And the script is not just bent; it's shattered. He's not going to lunch. He was supposed to be at lunch. He was supposed to sit across from me and spill chocolate milk on his shirt while I spent the entire period staring at Sophia from across the cafeteria.
A cold dread begins to extinguish the warm flicker of hope. What if the changes aren't good? What if her recognizing me wasn't a breakthrough but a destabilization? What if my one chance at getting this right is already ruined?
The lunch bell rings, a shrill, damning sound. I walk toward the cafeteria, my legs feeling like they're made of lead.
The cafeteria is a symphony of noise. The clatter of trays, the high-pitched laughter of a hundred different conversations, the screech of a chair being dragged across the floor. It smells of lukewarm pizza and institutional bleach. Last time, it felt like a stage. Today, it feels like an arena, and I'm the gladiator with no sword.
I get my tray—a slice of questionable pizza and a carton of milk I won't drink—and scan the room.
And I find her.
She's sitting at a small, circular table near the windows, same as always. But she isn't alone. Another girl is with her, someone with bubbly, bright pink hair and an infectious laugh that I can hear even from here. Iris Chen. Sophia's best friend. Her protector. Her gatekeeper.
And Sophia… she looks tense. She's not drawing his face. She's drawing the loops again. Her pencil is moving in a frantic, controlled chaos, scratching angrily against the paper. She's building a wall of lines, a visual representation of the fortress she erects when she feels threatened or confused.
She feels threatened. By me.
My heart aches. The hope that had been blooming in my chest wilts and dies. She didn't see our connection as a gift. She saw it as an anomaly, a threat to her carefully ordered world, and now she's overcorrecting. She's reinforcing her defenses.
I have to fix this. I have to get back on track.
My feet carry me toward their table before I can talk myself out of it. This is a massive deviation. In Cycle 1, I didn't speak to her again until the next day. But I can't wait. I can't let this distance solidify.
Iris sees me first. Her eyes, sharp and intelligent, sweep over me, taking in everything in a single, efficient glance. A small, curious smile plays on her lips. Sophia follows her gaze, and when her eyes land on me, she flinches. It's almost imperceptible, a tiny tightening of her shoulders, but I see it. It's a gut punch.
"Hey," I say, my voice sounding impossibly lame. I gesture vaguely at the empty chairs at their table. "All the other tables are, uh… full."
It's a blatant lie. The cafeteria is packed, but there are definitely other seats. Iris knows it. Sophia knows it. They both know this is a transparent, desperate ploy.
Iris grins, completely unfazed. "The social ecosystem of the Northwood High cafeteria can be brutal. Pull up a chair, mystery man."
But Sophia doesn't say a word. She doesn't even look up from her sketchbook. Her pencil just moves faster, the scratching sound getting louder, more aggressive. She is pointedly, deliberately, excruciatingly ignoring my existence. She has put up a force field made of graphite and awkward silence.
I sit down anyway, my tray clattering on the table. The silence is deafening. Iris, bless her soul, tries to fill it.
"You're the new kid from art class, right? Marcus?" she asks, her voice bright and friendly. "I'm Iris. This emotional black hole over here is Sophia."
Sophia's pencil stops. She still doesn't look up. "I'm busy."
The words are cold. Clipped. Each one is a perfectly sharpened icicle aimed directly at my chest. It's a dismissal so profound, so complete, that I feel my face flush with heat.
"Right. Sorry to bother you," I manage to say, my throat closing up.
I stare down at my pizza. I have no appetite. This was a mistake. A catastrophic, world-ending mistake. I broke the script, and in doing so, I've managed to turn a potential breakthrough into an active rejection.
She's not just confused anymore. She's actively pushing me away. She doesn't remember me, but she's already decided she doesn't want to.
And for the first time, a truly terrifying thought occurs to me. What if there's no script? What if every single one of my actions has consequences that I can't predict? In Cycle 1, I was just a pawn of fate, following a path I didn't know existed. Now, I have knowledge. I have agency.
And I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
I sit there, in the cold, uncomfortable silence, while Sophia continues to draw her fortress of lines.
She doesn't remember me, but she feels something is wrong.
She doesn't remember forgetting me. And that might be the cruelest trick the universe has ever played.