"I think I'm starting to get used to it."
The words echo in my head for the rest of my shift, a mantra of our new, strange reality. It was a gamble, saying that. It was me taking her unspoken admission of weirdness from Friday and putting a voice to it, confirming that I was on the same page. It was me saying, I'm not scared of this. You don't have to be either.
Her slight nod before she left—that was her reply. A quiet acknowledgment. A confirmation that the ceasefire was still in effect.
When my shift ends, Eleanor hands me my first day's pay in a small, crinkly envelope. "You did good, kid," she says. "You have a calming presence. It'll balance out my chaos."
"Thanks, Eleanor." The envelope feels warm in my hand. Solid. A real, tangible result of a real day's work. In a life that feels increasingly like a dream, this little bit of mundane reality is a precious anchor.
Walking home, I feel… lighter. Not happy, exactly. Happiness feels like a distant country I haven't visited in a long time. But I feel something adjacent to it. A quiet sense of progress. The knots of anxiety in my stomach have loosened, replaced by a low, steady hum of purpose. I'm no longer just reacting. I'm building something. A fragile, weird, tentative… whatever this is.
Sunday is a day of rest. A day without school, without work, without any scheduled opportunities for reality-bending encounters. It's an empty space in the week, and it feels both liberating and terrifying. It's the first full day since the reset that I don't see Sophia, and her absence is a palpable presence. The silence of the universe is deafening.
I spend the day trying to be a normal teenager. I do my homework. I help my dad clean the apartment. I go for a run, the rhythmic pounding of my feet on the pavement a welcome distraction from the constant whirring of my thoughts. But even as I'm moving through the motions of a normal life, a part of my awareness is always tuned to a different frequency, listening for a signal from a girl I'm quantum-ly entangled with. It's exhausting.
By the time Monday morning rolls around again, an entire week has passed since the reset. Day 8. It feels like a lifetime. The first Monday felt like a death sentence. This one feels like… an opportunity.
At school, the atmosphere has shifted. The air is no longer charged with the electric tension of our first few encounters. Instead, there's a kind of settled, unspoken awareness between us. We're in this together, even if we're on opposite sides of a crowded hallway, even if we never say a word.
We have art class first period. I walk in and she's already there, in her corner. Her sketchbook is open, but she's not drawing. She's just staring at a blank page, her pencil resting beside her hand.
I take my seat behind her, and the quiet settles around us like a familiar blanket.
Mrs. Gable starts the class by announcing a new project, and my heart nearly stops.
"For our first major project of the semester," she says, clapping her hands with her usual theatrical flair, "we are going to be exploring the art of portraiture. But with a twist! I don't want you to just capture a likeness. I want you to capture an essence. Your subject can be anyone—a friend, a family member, a stranger on the bus. But your goal is to draw the person they are on the inside." She beams at us. "And, you'll be working in pairs."
A low groan ripples through the classroom. Partner projects. The bane of every high school student's existence.
But I'm not groaning. My mind is screaming. A partner project. This… this changes everything. This is a universe-sanctioned excuse for our orbits to officially, irrevocably collide.
Mrs. Gable holds up a jar filled with folded slips of paper. "To make things interesting and force you all out of your comfort zones, I'll be drawing your partners' names right now!"
My heart is a trapped bird, fluttering frantically against my ribs. My gaze is locked on Sophia's back. I can't see her face, but I can feel the tension radiating from her. This is the last thing she would want. To be forced to work with someone. To let someone into her carefully controlled creative space.
Please, I think, a silent, desperate prayer to whatever cosmic force is pulling the strings of this ridiculous puppet show. Let it be me.
Mrs. Gable swishes the papers around in the jar dramatically. "First up… Kevin will be working with… Jessica!"
A wave of relief and disappointment washes over me with each name she calls that isn't mine. It's a torturous, drawn-out process. My palms are sweating. My leg is bouncing under the table.
Finally, there are only four slips of paper left in the jar. Me. Sophia. And two other kids I vaguely recognize from the back of the class.
"Alright, let's see…" Mrs. Gable reaches into the jar again. "Next, we have… Sophia!"
The whole room feels like it's holding its breath. Or maybe that's just me. I feel Sophia tense up in front of me, a barely perceptible bracing for impact.
Mrs. Gable unfolds the second slip of paper. She squints at it.
A slow smile spreads across her face.
"Well now, isn't this kismet?" she says, her eyes twinkling as she looks directly from Sophia to me. "Sophia, your partner will be… Marcus."
Kismet. The universe really does have a flair for the dramatic.
A heavy, profound silence descends on our corner of the classroom. I can't breathe. Sophia doesn't move. She doesn't say a word. She just sits there, perfectly still, like a statue.
Mrs. Gable, completely oblivious to the existential drama she has just unleashed, continues pairing off the last two students.
The bell signaling the end of the period still hasn't rung. We have twenty minutes left. Twenty minutes where we are officially, academically, unavoidably bound together.
I watch the back of her head, waiting. Wondering what she's thinking. Is she terrified? Annoyed? Resigned?
Finally, after what feels like a full solar year, she pushes her stool back, stands up, and walks over to my table. She moves with a stiff, formal grace, like a diplomat entering hostile territory.
She places her closed sketchbook on my table between us. Then she sits down on the empty stool beside me, her posture ramrod straight, her hands clasped in her lap.
She turns to face me, and her expression is one of complete, unreadable neutrality. Her gray eyes are like polished stones.
"Okay," she says, her voice low and steady, a formal declaration of terms. "Let's talk."
This isn't the confused girl from last week. This isn't the vulnerable girl who confessed her fears. This is someone new. Someone who has accepted the unavoidable weirdness of her situation and has decided that the only way through it is to face it head-on.
She's not running anymore. She's here to understand the unspoken thing between us. And I'm the only other person in the room who can help her do that.