Velocity To Never Exceed

Chapter 17

Running away. The words hit me, full force, like they're full of electricity. I glance at my red bag. That's what I've been doing, isn't it?

"Fine, then," I finally say. "But you should be sitting down for this."

"I am sitting."

"Oh, right. Well, that's good."

Rion waits as I stall. And then finally I say what I haven't yet fully accepted myself, despite my fear of hearing the words spoken out loud. My fear of what the words will mean once they leave my mouth.

I take a deep breath, and the dry air scratches my throat. "Okay, so remember at the beginning of the last loop – no, wait, it was two loops ago – when you asked me what was wrong and I said it was probably nothing?"

Rion fidgets, uncomfortably. "Yeah."

"Well, I'd like to revise that answer."

His chest shudders as he inhales unevenly. "So, something is wrong?"

I nod.

"You mean, like wronger then it already is?"

I nod again. It's suddenly hot in here. I reach overhead and crank the jet to high, tipping my face into the path of the cool airstream. "Do you have that Toblerone on you? I could really use some chocolate right about now." My gaze drops to his feet, where I notice speckles of sand stuck in between his toes. He must have been to the beach this morning before he caught the flight, letting the foamy waves wash over his feet.

This morning.

The thought makes a bubble of maniacal laughter surface, but with difficulty, I swallow it back down.

Now's not the time to lose it, I tell myself. Keep it together. It's critical now. We're at a turning point.

Rion's gaze is fixed on my face as he ignores my request for chocolate.

The plane begins to shake as I force the words out. "So, back when I said it was probably nothing... well, it turns out it wasn't probably nothing. It was definitely something."

"And it has to do with the air masks?"

"Yes." My answer is quick and precise. Definite and certain. Yes. I'm now absolutely positive. The masks quelled any lingering hesitation. Any hope it wasn't what I feared.

Rion rubs his eyes. "I'm starting to think I'm not ready to hear this."

"Probably not," I agree.

"But you're going to tell me anyways, right?" His blue eyes search my face, looking for some sort of assurance. They're so shockingly bright, it's like I've never seen the color blue before.

"I have to," I hear myself say. "That's what you've been telling me. That I need to trust you, and tell you what's going on."

He nods. "Right, we're a team. No secrets. Okay, what is it? What's wronger then what's normally wrong?"

My chest inflates like a beach ball. "Here goes nothing," I mumble, trying to wrangle the words like I'm a herder, throwing a word lasso through the stale airplane air, snagging stray letters and pulling them all together. "The loop has been changing. It appears – and the last loop confirmed it – that the loops have been getting..." I pause, finding my Chapstick, and slap on a quick coat. "Longer."

"Longer?" he repeats. He does this a lot, I realize. He repeats what I say back to me, as if saying it a second time will make it any different.

Rion looks pale, like he's about to pass out. He grabs the armrest between us, as if its steadying him. Keeping him upright. "So you're telling me that a completely identical loop that you've been in nearly 400 times has suddenly started to change? To get longer?"

Sibyl Erly squeals behind us as she soaks her blouse. Again.

I'm not feeling much better than Rion's looking. Nausea roils in my gut, and my fingers tingle with adrenaline that has nowhere to go. It's been so long since I've been outside and I would give nearly anything to breathe fresh air, and move my body. I'd even love to start training for a marathon and I hate running.

"Yeah, I had a funny feeling something was off right after you woke, but the first couple times I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The nosedive felt different somehow, but I just figured that maybe it was because I was sharing it with someone else for the first time. Like, I was experiencing it new through your eyes which made it feel different, somehow." I pause and watch Margaret eat another pretzel, suddenly regretting my decision not to take a packet. "But by the third loop after you woke, I knew it wasn't that. I then realized that it was growing a couple seconds longer each time. And now, with the masks falling..." I trail off, not feeling a need to state the obvious.

I hear the snap of the luggage compartment popping open.

Rion looks like my words slapped him across the face. "Wait, what? You're saying that it started happening right after I woke up. That I did this?"

I freeze, not realizing he'd interpret it that way. That he'd feel like I was blaming him, or he'd blame himself, somehow. "No, of course not! How could it be your fault? You didn't do anything. We're just stuck in a royally messed-up, logic defying time loop anomaly. It's no one's fault."

"That's not making me feel any better," Rion mutters as his eyes glaze over.

"Look," I say, with a new assertive voice. When he glances up, I continue, "You're no more responsible for the loop lengthening than I am for the loop starting."

If Rion looked pale before, he's now resembling a sheet ghost. "So, that's what you meant a couple loops ago when you were rambling on about a car accident, and time slowing down and all that?"

My lips twist. "I was still figuring it out. I just wanted to be absolutely sure before I said anything. I didn't want to worry you about nothing. But then the masks falling and the baby crying, well, they made things certain."

"You didn't want to worry me?" Rion repeats again, like he's my own personal echo chamber. "I think we're past that, Ev, don't you? We're in a time loop, constantly reliving a nosediving airplane. I think worrying each other is the absolute last thing that we should be thinking about."

I grin. "Aw, that's the first time you've called me Ev. Does that mean we're friends now?"

Despite himself, the corners of Rion's mouth crack into a grin.

"But," I say suddenly, with a new edge to my voice. "Now it's your time to come clean. You, Orion James, haven't been telling me the truth."