Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 1

----BETTY FINN----

Betty Finn, sixteen, sat in the passenger seat of her father’s old gray sedan, her knees pulled up slightly and her bare legs sticking gently to the cracked leather seats. Her pink cotton dress, the one her mom always said made her look like spring, clung to her in the humid air like a memory she couldn't shake off. Raindrops slid down the windshield in lazy, meandering trails, catching the faint light of dusk like falling tears. Outside, the sky was heavy with clouds, bruised violet and charcoal, hovering low over a long, winding road that curved through unfamiliar hills and into a town she’d never seen but would now have to call home.

She stared out the window, watching banana trees sway in the soft breeze, their broad green leaves slick from the rain. The wind carried with it the scent of wet earth, rusting tricycles, and the faint sweetness of boiled corn from a roadside vendor they had passed earlier. It was a new scent, raw and honest. Nothing like the sterile, candle-warmed scent of hospital rooms that still lingered in her lungs, ghostlike.

She pulled her hoodie tighter around her and adjusted the earphones snug in her ears. Taylor Swift's "A Place in This World" played low but persistent, like an anthem of confusion. Her fingers twisted the hem of her dress again and again, a nervous ritual. She didn’t know how things had unraveled so quickly. One moment, her mother was laughing at the dinner table, stealing bites of chicken tinola from her bowl; the next, she was buried in a white box, surrounded by lilies and unspoken goodbyes.

“This will be good for us, Betty,” her dad said, his voice cracking just slightly at the end, like a photograph left too long in the sun.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah… I hope so, Dad,” she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear over the hum of the tires against gravel. Her voice sounded foreign to her, like it belonged to someone else. Someone older. Someone braver.

He smiled, but the corners of his mouth were tight, stretched too far like he was using all his strength just to keep it together. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

“Tomorrow you’ll start school. Senior year,” he said, forcing cheer into his voice like a man trying to light a damp match. “It’ll be fun, honey. New beginnings.”

She didn’t respond. Just turned the volume up until Taylor drowned out the ache in her chest. The chorus hit: “I’m just a girl, trying to find a place in this world…”

They entered the town just as the rain thinned to a drizzle. It was small, nestled in the hills like a forgotten secret. Narrow streets flanked by low buildings painted in faded pastels, mint green, canary yellow, pale blue, all chipped at the corners like peeling memories. Laundry danced on clotheslines in the breeze, and old men played chess under sari-sari store awnings. The air tasted of guava leaves and the salt of the nearby sea, though they hadn’t seen it yet.

Their car slowed and turned into a quiet street, ending in front of an old two-story house that looked like it had held its breath for years. A mango tree leaned protectively over the roof. The house was pale cream, its paint weathered and cracked. Moss clung to the stone steps like old grief.

Betty stepped out, her sandals crunching softly on the gravel. The air was thick but clean, filled with the scent of rain-drenched grass and the lingering smoke from someone’s dinner fire. The chill of the breeze kissed her skin, threading through the strands of her damp hair. For a moment, she stood still and closed her eyes. The wind, so light and almost hesitant, carried no promise, but it also carried no pain.

Her dad stood beside her, his hands on his hips, taking in the old family house. “It’s a fixer-upper,” he said, smiling again, “but it’ll do, honey.”