Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 2

Dad pulled the truck to a stop and turned to me.

"Betty."

I looked at him.

"You don't have to prove anything to anyone, okay? You just... be you. That's enough."

I swallowed hard. "What if I don't know who that is anymore?"

He paused. Then, reaching into the glove compartment, he handed me a small paper bag, slightly crumpled. I peeked inside. A pack of mamon and a mango juice box.

"Start with remembering what makes you smile," he said. "And maybe... share that smile with someone new today."

It wasn't much. But it felt like a prayer.

I opened the door, the morning heat hitting my face in a soft wave. My legs trembled a little, like I was stepping onto a stage.

"Good luck, anak," Dad called as I stepped down.

I turned back to him, heart heavy and full at once.

"Thanks, Dad."

Then I shut the door, and the truck drove off in a puff of dust and fading exhaust, leaving me standing at the edge of something I wasn't sure I was ready for, but willing to try.

Because she would've wanted me to.

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The school gates felt like the mouth of something ancient and hungry.

I don’t know why that was the image in my head, maybe because the building looked old, sun-faded, with flaking paint and vines curling around rusted fences. Or maybe because walking through it felt like walking into a version of my life I didn’t ask for but had to survive anyway.

A new school. A new town. A new life.
I swallowed down the knot in my throat.

“A Place in This World” played softly through one earbud, the other tucked into the front of my blouse, as if I could half-pretend to be present while Taylor Swift sang the words I couldn’t say out loud. “I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me.” I was sixteen. I had no idea what I wanted. But I knew I didn’t want to be here.

There was this soft, ghost-colored morning light, the kind that painted the world in watercolor. It made the leaves look sleepy and the hallways too bright, and the chatter of students felt miles away, even though I was walking through it. A girl’s laughter echoed across the courtyard, and it hit me like a stone,  that pang of missing what it felt like to laugh like that. Loud. Carefree. Like the world didn’t just end three months ago in a hospital room filled with too much beeping and not enough breath.

My sneakers squeaked slightly as I stepped into the main building. The floors were tiled in a pale shade of gray and brown, worn smooth from decades of teenage footsteps. It smelled like floor wax and pencil shavings. A bulletin board greeted me with curling posters: Join Glee Club! Basketball Tryouts! Candidates for Senior Queen!

I wasn’t here to join anything. I was just trying not to fall apart.

The hallway was a maze of people, arms brushing, shoes thudding, voices bouncing off the lockers. Everything moved fast. I kept my head low, clutching my class schedule in my hand like a shield. Homeroom: Room 109.

I paused at the stairwell, the sudden volume of the space crashing over me. I turned up the music in my ear. Taylor sang about not fitting in, about being invisible. And I believed her.

I turned down the next hallway, biting the inside of my cheek. That’s when I collided with someone.

A shoulder bumped into mine, firm, unintentional, but enough to jolt me out of my mental fog. My phone nearly slipped from my hand.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, barely looking up, pressing myself against the lockers.

“No, my fault,” the boy said.

And then I looked. Really looked.

His eyes were dark, not black but something deeper, almost bruised. His hair was messy in a way that felt intentional, like he didn’t try too hard but still somehow made it look right. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. There was a blue pen behind his ear. And there was something else, too.

A flicker. A thud in my chest.
Something like recognition. Like memory.

But that was impossible. I didn’t know him. I couldn’t.

“First day?” he asked.

I blinked. “That obvious?”

He smiled. Not with his whole face, just the corner of his mouth lifted, like he didn’t quite know how to do the full thing anymore. “You’ve got the ‘where am I and what timeline is this’ look. Classic transfer student vibe.”

I let out a soft, nervous laugh. “Room 109?”

“Straight ahead. Third door on your left.”

“Thanks,” I said, brushing my hair behind my ear. My fingers were trembling slightly.

He started to walk away, then turned back. “I’m James, by the way.”

“Betty,” I replied, and then we just looked at each other, two strangers, the hallway rushing around us like a current.

There was something about him that made the moment stretch, like I was supposed to remember something that hadn’t happened yet.

“Nice to meet you, Betty,” he said, and then he disappeared into the crowd.

I stood there for a second, staring after him, heart pounding. Then I followed his directions.

As I passed the next row of lockers, I caught a glimpse of James again, this time standing with a girl whose short black hair was clipped with a green satin ribbon. She touched his arm lightly as she laughed. He smiled at her differently, casually, like it wasn’t something he had to think about.

I didn’t know why that stung a little.

I shook my head and moved on. I was being ridiculous. I didn’t know him. Not really. Maybe that feeling in my chest was just nerves. Or grief. Or both.

But still…
As I stepped into Room 109, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had known his name before he said it.
Like it had already been written somewhere.
Like a name I used to whisper in a dream.