Sometimes, sanity is a choice. You just have to wake up and decide that the impossible thing that happened yesterday is the new normal, and then you just… live there.
I turn in the application. Eleanor reads it over, humming thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her chin. The air in the bookstore is still vibrating with the ghost of Sophia's presence. I feel like if I took a deep enough breath, I could still taste the jasmine tea on the air.
"Marcus Rivera," Eleanor says, testing my name out. "You've got decent handwriting. That's half the battle right there. The other half is being willing to argue with people about the designated order of a trilogy." She fixes me with a sharp, surprisingly intense look over the top of her blue glasses. "The Lord of the Rings. The main trilogy. Is The Hobbit book one?"
My brain, which has been running on high-alert, trying to process the quantum entanglement of my love life, stutters to a halt. This is a test. An entirely new one.
"No," I say, the answer coming surprisingly easy. "The Hobbit is a prequel. Its existence provides context, but the trilogy is a self-contained arc. Book one is Fellowship of the Ring."
Eleanor's smile is slow, and genuinely delighted. It's like I just passed a secret, sacred exam. "Okay, kid. You're hired. Can you start Saturday?"
My heart gives a frantic, hopeful leap. "Yes. Absolutely. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," she says with a wry grin. "You haven't had to deal with the book club ladies on a Tuesday afternoon." She scrawls a note on my application and files it away under the counter. "See you at ten on Saturday, Marcus. Try to get some sleep. You look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."
The words hit a little too close to home. I give her a weak smile, a nod, and practically flee the store, the little bell chiming my escape.
I step back out onto the street and the world feels… different. Sharper. I'm not just a passive victim of the loop anymore. I've acted. I've made a choice, a huge one, and the world didn't collapse. In fact, it seemed to rearrange itself to accommodate my decision. I got the job. A full ten days early. This cycle is officially a renegade timeline, a wild deviation from the established canon.
And somehow, Sophia was there to witness it. A coincidence so astronomically unlikely it feels like a signature. Like the universe is trying to tell me something. You're on the right path. Or maybe, There is no path, you idiot. You're just falling, and so is she.
The walk home is lighter. The headache behind my eyes has receded. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but for the first time since that sickening jolt of waking up this morning, I feel a spark of agency. I'm not just replaying the notes. I'm improvising.
When I get home, Dad is already making dinner. The smell of garlic and simmering tomatoes fills our small apartment. It's comforting in a way the morning wasn't.
"Hey," he says, not looking up from the stove. "You're late. Everything okay at school?"
"Yeah, fine. Just… walked home the long way."
"Good. A little wandering is good for the soul." He gestures with his wooden spoon toward the table. "Set it, would you?"
We eat in a comfortable silence, the TV murmuring in the background. It feels normal. For the first time all day, something feels truly normal. It isn't a scripted normal. It's just… a Tuesday night with my dad. This simple, unrepeated moment feels like a gift. A deep, steadying breath.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe the point isn't to get everything exactly right. Maybe the point is just to survive the day, and then the next one, and see what happens.
That night, sleep doesn't come easy. My brain is a frantic highlight reel of the day. Her confused eyes in art class. Her cold shoulder at lunch. Her quiet, acknowledging nod in the bookstore. Which one was real? Which version of her is the one I'm supposed to follow? It feels like trying to navigate a maze where the walls keep shifting.
I dream.
It's not a memory dream. It's something new. I'm standing in a vast, empty library. The shelves are impossibly tall, stretching up into a dark, starless void. There's a faint scent of old paper and rain.
And she's there.
She's sitting at a lone table in the center of the room, her sketchbook open in front of her. A single lamp casts a warm, golden circle of light around her.
"I knew you'd find me," she says, without looking up. Her voice is calm, clear. Not the guarded voice from school, but the one from the rooftop. The real one.
I walk toward her, my footsteps making no sound on the polished wooden floor. "I always find you."
She finally looks up, and her eyes are full of a deep, ancient sadness. "Why do you keep doing it? It always ends the same way."
"Because it's worth it," I say, and the truth of it resonates in the silent, infinite library. "Every second with you is worth the reset."
"But I forget," she whispers, and a single tear traces a path down her cheek. "Every time. I lose you. I lose… me. The me that remembers you."
I reach her table and gently place my hand over hers, the one holding the pencil. Her skin is warm. Solid. Real. "Not this time," I say, my voice thick with a promise I have no idea if I can keep. "This time is going to be different."
She looks at me, her gray eyes searching mine. "How do you know?"
"I don't," I admit. "But I'm going to try anyway."
Her fingers curl around mine, her grip surprisingly strong. She leans forward, her expression urgent, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Marcus, you have to—"
And then I wake up.
I'm sitting bolt upright in my bed, my heart hammering against my ribs. The room is dark, save for the faint moonlight filtering through my window. My sheets are tangled around my legs.
The dream felt real. More real than the cafeteria, more real than the classroom. It was like I had found her in some space between worlds, a place where the rules of the loop didn't apply, where her soul wasn't burdened by a mind that couldn't remember.
This time is going to be different.
I don't know if I was telling her that, or if I was telling myself.
I look at my alarm clock. It's 3:17 AM. I have three hours until the loop starts over—or rather, until this strange, fractured version of my life continues. I won't reset tonight. I have a tomorrow to get through. A Day 2.
A fresh wave of exhaustion washes over me. The emotional whiplash of the last twenty-four hours is catching up. I fall back against my pillow, staring at the ceiling, my conversation with Dream-Sophia echoing in my head.
I don't know if this cycle is the one that will break. I don't know if I can save us.
But lying here, in the quiet, lonely dark, I realize something.
I have to try. There's no other option. Because giving up on her is the same as giving up on myself.
So tomorrow, I will wake up. I will go to school. I will see her again. And I will keep choosing this path, this heartbreak, this impossible, beautiful pattern.
Again.
And again.
And again.