Chapter 4
I won't go into detail describing my morning because I know how predictable time loops are. I woke up at 6:13. Obviously. I woke in my unkempt house, alone in my bed, just like every other morning. Sure, there were small differences like how nervous I was to see Amanda again, the way I paced around my house, and stared at a mirror until my face was as close to perfect as I could get it, but all told, the day was exactly the same as any other. Someone watching me would know the exact time I woke up the same way we knew the exact time Amber walked into the bar, and anyone watching Amanda knew she woke up at 8:27. Time loops are predictable.
Amanda woke up in her own bed, in her own room, at exactly 8:27. Her bangs were waxy and stuck to her forehead. She slept in her scrubs, and her time on-call had started to gouge deep bags under her eyes. When Amanda left her house that morning and saw my ex-girlfriend Sadie walking by her house, there were no coincidences. Of course, Amanda would wake up at 8:27, and of course, she'd rush outside and find Sadie waiting. Sadie knew it as well as I did. Time loops are predictable.
I'll get to that though. Like I said, Amanda woke up at 8:27. She'd fallen asleep coated in hospital residue and the fabric ran up past her naval. Her arms hung drunkenly over her unkempt bed, and she chewed the sour morning taste from her mouth. She twisted herself into a stretch, but the moment her eyes snapped open, she was wide awake. By the time she was standing her heart was racing, and the memories of the treehouse raced around her head like a zoetrope.
She glanced at the clock and her heart skipped a beat.
I swear I set an alarm,
she thought, but that morning she never heard it ring. She quickened her pace as she grasped around her lived-in room, and her fingers shook as she grasped for a hair brush.
Amanda had been on call for thirty-six hours before June 16th and her room had started to reflect the effort. Clothes had piled into haphazard heaps, and the room was in desperate need of a candle to fight off the faint smell of tired sweat. She instinctively reached for her dresser drawer, giving a quick prayer there'd be something clean, but her hands stopped short.
She stared down the drawer just long enough to tremble, and saw the same shirt she'd worn when she met me at the treehouse.
Had she been more awake, she might have remembered that it'd been soaked through with sweat and crusted white. She might have remembered how musty it smelled after being pressed against the treehouse carpet, but her heart was still racing and her head was still pounding. She felt her nervousness in the back of her throat, and she nearly tripped as she tried to pull her pants over her ankles.
No,
she thought,
I need to shower. I need to clean. Do my hair. Do everything. It has to be perfect.
At that point my nerves had started to settle. I didn't have to pace anymore, nor was I constantly checking the time, but I couldn't keep my mind from racing. Sure, things were great in the treehouse, and I was excited to hold her again; but that didn't change the fact that she still had to find out the truth about the time loop, and I'd been living June 16th long enough to know reactions were a dice roll.
I sat down to watch the same tv channels I'd seen a thousand times at the same time Amanda stepped into the shower. I rocked gently in my recliner as she scrubbed her legs raw. She shaved between her thighs, and ran her hand one final time around her body, looking for stray hairs as I nursed my morning coffee.
It was nearly nine by the time Amanda locked her front door behind her, and right on schedule, Sadie came hobbling past the driveway.
Amanda almost ignored her. In a moments glance, she was almost unrecognizable, from even a few years before. A scar ran down her neck that told the story of a tracheotomy. Her hair was patchy and fell in white strands she was too stubborn to shave away. Her eyes had started to droop, revealing the redness around her eye sockets, and dark hairs sprouted from the sores all over her face. A lifetime ago, Sadie and I had a dog, we walked together, but as she shuffled past that morning, her only companion was a walker.
When the time loop started, Sadie was twenty-seven, about six months older than me, but the appearance she'd chosen that day made her look well into her sixties, and more sickly than most Amanda saw at the hospital.
Amanda finished her double take, and realized who she was looking at. "Sadie?" she asked, and the sickly woman turned, ready for the confrontation.
Sadie took a handful of exploratory steps, and her legs buckled and shook. She pressed her weight against the walker and tried to make her way up the driveway, but Amanda ran to stop her.
"I got you," she said, but Sadie swatted her away with an annoyed hand.
"It's been so long," Amanda said, but her voice trailed and her mind went blank. The usual platitudes seemed meaningless, when she looked at a woman staring death in the face.
How are you doing?
she could ask, but the answer was clear, just by looking at her tired eyes and weathered skin.
you look great!
she could try, but it was an obvious lie.
"Nearly too long," Sadie said, filling the silence and rescuing Amanda's floundering.
The truth was, the two never really knew each other. They were aware of each other, but once Sadie and I started dating, Amanda kept her distance and the two had only spoken a handful of times over the years, and usually nothing more than pleasantries.
"I'm so sorry," Amanda tried.
Sadie was quick to interrupt, "About me and Charlie?"
If Amanda knew the truth about Sadie she might have caught the suddenness of the answer. If she'd put on her doctor's hat she might have noticed how breathy and abrupt the words were and how quickly Sadie's neck snapped. She might have realized how unusual it all was for someone with stage four lung cancer, but she wasn't looking at Sadie through a diagnostic lens, she saw a girl close to death, and she stared at her with empathy.
"Well I heard you broke up," Sadie said, more reacting to the sudden change in conversation. She saw me in her minds eye, for just a moment as Sadie said my name, and her heart skipped a beat.
"I broke up with him," Sadie said.
At least that was honest.
When she spoke she made her voice as strained as she could, with as much pain in every syllable, with tears starting to well in the corner of her eyes. A master of pity.
Amanda held out a gently hand to steady Sadie's shoulders. She felt how much her muscles had deteriorated, and knew a light gust would steal her footing.
"My cancer went metastatic," Sadie continued, "And I knew my days were numbered. I thought Charlie would be there for me, be my rock, but he got so distant. Sure, I was busy, doing whatever I could just to get a few extra days, but I hoped for something from him. Things got to a point where he barely ever talked to me. I felt so alone. And then my friend Charlotte told me he was cheating on me- it was the final straw. I kicked him out. I don't ever want to see him again."
If Amanda had been paying attention to the way Sadie spoke, she would have noticed Sadie's wheezing dropped off half way through her words. Her voice quickened and she never ran out of breath. Instead, all she heard were the words Sadie said, words about
me.
"You have to be careful," Sadie said, back in her performance, full of coughs and wheezes, "With which guys you trust."
