Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 8

After I toweled off, I brushed my teeth twice. Scrubbed until my gums tingled. I leaned toward the mirror, breath ghosting over the glass, blurring my reflection. I wiped it away with the side of my hand, revealing a face I hardly recognized. Not because it looked different, same dark eyes, same tired mouth, but because it felt different. Something in me had shifted. Quietly. Slowly. Like how the tide rolls in when you’re not looking.

I ran a comb through my hair, methodical, every tooth dragging against my scalp with careful pressure. No strand out of place. Not today.

Opening my closet felt like unearthing a time capsule. Black shirt. Black hoodie. Black jacket. My usual armor, draped on hangers like a uniform I didn’t even question. But today… I paused. Something was hiding behind the curtain of black. I reached in and pulled out a shirt I forgot I owned.

Yellow.

The color hit me like sunlight through a dusty window.

It was soft to the touch, linen worn in the right places. I held it up. Not my style. Not something I’d normally reach for. But then I remembered.

Betty.

She once said yellow reminded her of her mom. “She wore it all the time, like she carried sunshine wherever she went.”

I smiled.

For the first time in a while, I smiled just getting dressed.

I slipped it on, buttoning it slowly, the fabric cool against my skin. I added my gold chain, the one I used to wear when I actually cared how I looked, my watch, a couple rings. Gold to match the yellow. A little bright, maybe. But I didn’t care. I was tired of hiding in the dark.

I sprayed my cologne, Versace Dylan Blue. Two spritzes on either side of my neck. One more at the nape, just in case she leaned in. Just in case she noticed. Just in case she cared.

I stared at myself in the mirror. For a moment, I didn’t see the usual blur of who I was supposed to be, troublemaker, slacker, disappointment. I saw someone else. Someone I hadn’t met in a long time. Someone trying. Someone… becoming.

When I walked downstairs, I caught my mom looking at me from across the kitchen. Her face lit up, not a big, dramatic thing. Just a small, soft glow. Like she hadn’t seen me this way in a while. Maybe never.

My dad, on the other hand, barely glanced up from his mug. His lips pressed into a line, like even trying somehow wasn’t good enough.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

That silence followed me to the car. But I didn’t let it drown me today.

I slid behind the wheel and drove, fingers tapping along to some faint song playing on the radio, The Middle by Jimmy Eat World, windows down, morning air crisp and clean. I could still feel the remnants of that dream on my skin, the warmth of her hand, the way her voice echoed in my chest when she said “I love you.” It didn’t haunt me like the others. It held me. Like the ocean holding a swimmer just before the next wave.

It had been over a week since our last session.

And God, I missed her.

I got to the library early.

Not because I had to. Not because anyone told me to. Just… because I couldn’t sit still at home anymore. My chest had been buzzing since I woke up from that dream, no, not a dream, something else entirely. A memory from a life I hadn’t lived. A voice I could still hear whispering I love you, James, like it had been etched directly into my bones. I kept touching my face where she’d laid her hand in the dream. It still felt warm.