The peace treaty holds for the rest of art class. It's not a warm peace. It's more of a carefully negotiated ceasefire. We don't talk again, but the silence between us is different now. The tension hasn't disappeared, but its quality has changed. It's no longer the jagged, defensive silence of two strangers wary of each other. It's the quiet, humming silence of two people who have just acknowledged they are standing in the middle of the same inexplicable phenomenon.
It feels… manageable.
When the bell rings, she packs her things with the same slow, deliberate pace as Wednesday. But this time, as she's about to leave, she hesitates. Her hand is on the strap of her bag, her back is mostly to me, but she doesn't move.
"Hey, um…" she starts, her voice so low it's almost lost to the shuffling of departing students. She turns her head just enough that I can see her profile. "That thing I said. About… the bottle."
I wait. I'm pretty sure we both know this isn't about the bottle.
"You're right," I say softly. "I wasn't really looking."
She gives a small, sharp nod, a gesture of finality. And then she's gone.
It takes me a second to decipher the exchange. It wasn't an apology. It was a clarification. An addendum to our truce. She was telling me she saw me—really saw me—in that moment. My distraction, my inability to focus on something as simple as a still-life. She was acknowledging the shared weirdness one last time before retreating for the weekend.
Walking home from school on Friday afternoon feels like walking on a different planet. The week that started with the jarring agony of a reset, with suffocating panic and crushing loneliness, is ending with… this. This fragile, tentative, unspoken understanding with Sophia. It's not the explosive, immediate connection of Cycle 1, built on laughter and charm. This is quieter. Weirder. And in a way, it feels more real. More earned.
On Saturday morning, I wake up before my alarm. Not because of a reset, but because of a genuine, novel feeling: excitement. I have a job to go to. A new variable. A new stage for this strange play to unfold on.
I put on my best "responsible teenage employee" outfit—clean jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and my least-scuffed pair of sneakers. When I walk into the kitchen, my dad is already there, sipping coffee and reading the paper. He looks up, eyebrows raised.
"You're up early for a Saturday," he says, his eyes taking in my clean, un-slept-in appearance. "And you're dressed. Is this the first sign of the apocalypse?"
I roll my eyes, grabbing a bowl from the cupboard. "Haha. I got a job."
His face changes, surprise softening into a genuine, warm pride. It's a look I don't see often enough. "You did? That's great, Marcus! Where?"
"At that bookstore downtown. The Last Page."
"Wow. That place is a neighborhood institution." He folds his newspaper, giving me his full attention. "I didn't even know you were looking. I'm proud of you, kid. Taking some initiative."
His words land with a strange mix of pleasure and guilt. He's proud of me for a choice that was born out of temporal desperation, a move I only made because my carefully scripted life had fallen apart. Can you take credit for an initiative you were forced into by the fundamental unraveling of reality? It's a philosophical question for another time. For now, I just let the warmth of his approval sink in. It feels good. Real.
"Thanks, Dad," I say, and I mean it.
The walk to the bookstore is brisk, the autumn air cool and crisp. When I arrive at ten o'clock sharp, the little bell on the door chimes my arrival. The store is quiet, saturated with that incredible old-book smell and the golden morning light.
Eleanor is behind the counter, a pair of even funkier purple glasses perched on her nose today. She greets me with a smile.
"Right on time. I like that," she says. "Punctuality is a lost art. First lesson of the bookselling trade: everything has a place, and your job is to know where that place is."
My first day is a gentle whirlwind of learning. Eleanor teaches me the intricate, esoteric filing system she's developed over thirty years, a system that has more to do with thematic connections than the Dewey Decimal system. She shows me how to use the ancient cash register, which seems to operate on a combination of steam power and sheer force of will. I spend an hour just re-shelving returned books, the simple, tactile work a welcome anchor for my buzzing mind.
This is good. This is solid. A real job. Real responsibilities.
Around noon, a flurry of customers comes in. Eleanor handles them with an easy grace, recommending obscure poetry collections and listening patiently to a man who wants a book he can't remember the title or author of, but he knows the cover was "sort of blue-ish."
I'm in the back, sorting a box of new arrivals, when the bell chimes again. I don't think anything of it.
But then I hear a voice that makes my hands freeze on a stack of paperback mysteries.
"Hey, Eleanor. Is… is Marcus here?"
It's Sophia.
My heart executes a perfect swan dive into my stomach. I slowly peek out from between two towering shelves of history books.
She's standing at the counter, her messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She's not looking at Eleanor. She's looking around the store, her gaze sweeping the aisles, a nervous energy radiating from her.
What is she doing here? She knows I work here? How could she possibly know that?
Eleanor, bless her observant soul, just smiles. "He is. In the back, wrestling with a box of John Grishams. Do you know him from school?"
Sophia nods, pulling the strap of her bag tighter. "Yeah. Sort of. I, uh… I left my phone in art class yesterday. And he was the last one in there. I thought… maybe he might have picked it up?"
It's a lie. A ridiculously flimsy, transparent lie. It's an excuse. An excuse to seek me out, outside the forced proximity of school. To see if the pattern holds, if our orbits would collide even here.
It's the boldest move she's made yet.
Eleanor, who I'm starting to believe is either clairvoyant or has a PhD in teenage weirdness, doesn't call her on it. She just leans over the counter and calls out, "Marcus! A friend of yours is here!"
My mind is racing. This is it. A test. What do I do?
My new plan. Be a constant. Be predictable. Be safe.
I take a deep breath, schooling my features into an expression of mild, friendly surprise. I step out from behind the shelves, wiping my dusty hands on my jeans.
"Hey, Sophia," I say, keeping my voice level, casual.
She looks at me, and her carefully constructed excuse seems to crumble under the weight of my actual presence. She'd planned for the question, but not for the answer.
"Hi," she says, her voice small. "My phone. Art class. I thought maybe…" She trails off, her gaze flicking between me and Eleanor, like a cornered animal looking for an escape route.
"Sorry, I didn't see it," I say, giving her an easy out. I keep my tone light. No accusation. No "I know why you're really here." Just a simple answer to a simple, albeit fake, question.
"Oh," she says, looking flustered. A faint pink blush is creeping up her neck. "Okay. Well. Thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you."
She turns to leave, the mission having achieved its true purpose and she now needs to escape the excruciating awkwardness of its aftermath.
But just as she's about to push the door open, I call out to her.
"Hey, Sophia?"
She stops, her hand on the door, but doesn't turn around. "Yeah?"
This is it. A moment for a new variable. Not a push. Just an observation. A shared piece of the weird.
"The weirdness?" I say quietly, so that only she can hear. "I think I'm starting to get used to it."
She's still for a long second. Then, without turning around, she gives the slightest nod.
And leaves. The bell chimes, marking her departure.
Eleanor watches the door close, then turns to me, a knowing, inscrutable smile on her face.
"So," she says, her voice full of amusement. "She's not here about her phone, is she?"
I just look at her, a slow, tired smile spreading across my face.
"No, Eleanor," I say. "She's not."