Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 3

Matt was quiet for a moment. “I think… there’s a difference between moving on and moving forward.”

I looked up at him, surprised by the depth in his tone.

“You’re not forgetting her,” he continued. “You’re just living. Because you have to. She’d want that, wouldn’t she?”

A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard, nodded.

Behind us, just past the screen door, I saw a shadow retreat into the kitchen, Dad, quietly turning away.

And in that moment, I knew he had heard everything.

But he didn’t say a word.

That night, sleep came in fragments. The room was quiet, too quiet. No city sirens, no neighbors arguing, no distant thrum of traffic like back in the old apartment. Just the whir of the electric fan and the occasional bark of a dog outside. But even in the silence, something didn’t sit right in my chest.

I tossed beneath the thin cotton sheets, the kind Mom used to tuck under my chin. Moonlight spilled in through the curtains in soft streaks, turning the floor into a painting of shadows that danced with the wind. My skin felt clammy, my heart wouldn’t stop thudding like it was keeping time for something I hadn’t caught up to yet. I blinked at the ceiling and then it all slipped away...

I was running.

I don’t remember where it started. I just knew my feet were moving. The ground beneath me felt like wet grass, except there was no scent of it, no breeze, no sound. Just thick, endless quiet. Shadows stretched around me like they were alive, reaching.

And then I heard it.

“Betty…”

A boy’s voice.

Not loud, not urgent, but... known. Known in the kind of way you can’t explain, like a song you forgot you loved or a smell that takes you back to a version of yourself you no longer are.

I turned, searching, but the world kept twisting on itself. Walls appeared out of nowhere. Hallways bent like ribbons. Every door slammed just as I reached it. My breath grew ragged. My heart, God, my heart was trying to leap out of me.

“Who are you?” I asked, or thought I did. But the dream swallowed my words. They came out thick and heavy, like speaking underwater.

And then I saw him.

A figure standing just ahead. Shadowed. Unclear. But real.

I stepped toward him, hand outstretched. He stepped back.

“Wait,” I called, louder this time. My voice cracked in the air.

But before I could reach him, the floor gave way, and I fell.

I jolted awake.

My breath came fast. My palms were sweaty. The room was exactly as I left it, quiet and dark, save for the faint moonlight still reaching through the blinds. My skin was cold, my heart still racing.

Just a dream.

But then I heard it.

Not the voice. Not the dream.

My dad.

Through the thin wall beside my room, I heard his voice tremble, low, quiet, breaking.

“Please… come back to us, love. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard.”

I sat up, holding the blanket tight around me. My throat burned. That wasn’t the kind of crying people did when they thought someone might hear. That was the kind you only let out when your soul couldn’t hold it anymore.

I looked toward the photo on my nightstand. Mom, mid-laugh, hair caught in a breeze, her eyes squinting toward the sun. She looked like she was glowing. I touched the edge of the frame with my fingertips.

“I miss you,” I whispered. “We’re trying, Mom. We really are. But it hurts.”

The ache in my chest was sharp, but something inside me began to settle. A knowing. A choice.

We had to move forward. For her. Not to forget, but to keep living the way she believed we could.

I laid back down, pulling the blanket to my chin.

Then I heard it.

“Betty…”

The voice again.

This time, it wasn’t part of a dream.

It was close. Almost beside me.

My eyes flew open. My breath caught. Nothing. No one.

But something remained. A chill on the air. A weight in the room.

I didn’t ask who it was this time. I just let the question sit inside me, throbbing like a heartbeat.

And before I could stop it, sleep came again, and took me with it.