Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 8

“You liar!” she laughed, tears in her eyes. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

I ate three more.

Why? Because she was laughing. Because her shoulders were no longer heavy. Because her eyes had color again. Because this, this stupid, sweaty moment with street food and her laughter bouncing off my ribs, felt better than anything had in weeks.

Of course, twenty minutes later, I was hunched over a mall sink.

She stood outside the restroom door, howling.

I groaned. “Betty, I swear to God---”

“You look like a rich kid who just got beat up by a quail egg,” she shouted through the door.

“I’m dying.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“You poisoned me.”

“You asked for it.”

I opened the door slowly, wiping my mouth. She was doubled over, arms around her stomach, laughing so hard she nearly tripped on her own shoelace.

And I couldn’t stop smiling.

Even with the stomach cramps. Even with the humiliation. Even with the lingering taste of hell in my mouth, because in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about school, or my dad, or even her glistening eyes in the library.

I was thinking about this.

How it felt to make her laugh.

How it felt to be with her without needing to ask her to stay.

And for once, I felt like I wasn’t just chasing a better version of myself.

I was becoming him.

“You took me to your world,” I said, wiping tears of laughter from under my eyes, “now it’s my turn.”

She tilted her head. A quiet, almost imperceptible laugh slipped out of her mouth, but I saw it. The slight tension in her smile. A flicker of something… unsure. Like she wasn’t used to being given things without a catch. Like joy had always been rationed.

But I didn’t wait for her answer.

I grabbed her hand and walked. No questions. Just movement. Just trust.

We ended up at the arcade.

The moment the neon lights blinked against her skin, I saw her eyes light up in a way the library never could. She ran to the zombie shooter first, of course she did. She grabbed a plastic shotgun like she was born for this, and before I could even load mine, she was gunning down pixelated corpses like vengeance was coded in her DNA.

We screamed. We ducked behind the screen. She laughed every time I missed and died. I laughed every time she accidentally shot me in the crossfire.

Then came the claw machine.

She looked so serious, brows furrowed, tongue peeking out from the corner of her lips as she moved the joystick with surgical precision. The claw descended. It jerked. It caught.

A plushie. Small. Soft. A yellow duck.

She held it to her chest like she just rescued it from war.

“I’m naming him Andrew,” she said, with that teasing sparkle in her eye.

I blinked. “Why Andrew?”

She shrugged. “Sounds trustworthy.”

I laughed. Harder than I expected. And somehow, hearing her say my second name like that made my chest ache in a way I didn’t understand.

Then we played everything, the step dance game, where I tripped over my own feet like a baby deer. The motorcycle game, where she tried to sabotage me by bumping into my bike. And of course, arcade basketball, where I had to win.

“Show-off,” she said, rolling her eyes as I dunked the last shot.

“You love it,” I shot back, grinning.

“I tolerate it, barely” she replied, but her smile said otherwise.

Then we did karaoke.

She picked Taylor Swift. Every. Single. Time.

She didn’t even look at the lyrics, she just closed her eyes and sang. Loud and off-key and utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.

I chose all the emo anthems I used to scream into pillows when I was thirteen, MCR, Fall Out Boy, early Panic! songs. She screamed with me. She didn’t know the words, but she screamed anyway.

And somehow, that was even better.

After that, I took her to dinner.

A dimly lit restaurant with candles on every table and servers in suits who called me sir. She leaned back in her chair, squinting at the menu.

“These words aren’t real,” she said.

“They’re just French.”

She pouted. “Is ‘salmon’ French?”

“No. But ‘en papillote’ is.”

“I hate you.”

I ordered for her.

When the food came, she picked up the wrong fork, looked around, and whispered, “There are too many damn utensils.”

Then she dropped them all and used her fingers to eat the bread.

The older couple beside us raised their eyebrows. I saw them.

But for once, I didn’t care.

She was here. Laughing. Lighter. Her cheeks pink, her lips shining with wine and butter, her eyes reflecting the candlelight.

We found a photo booth just outside the restaurant. Took three shots. One where we smiled. One where we made faces. One where… I looked at her instead of the camera. And she looked back.

We each took a copy and slipped it behind our phone cases without saying anything.

Later, in the car, the silence was soft. Not awkward. Not heavy. Just ours.

I drove slower than usual.

When I pulled up to her house, she lingered in the passenger seat.

She looked at me with something close to wonder. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I could see the faint lines on her wrist when she reached for the door.

They weren’t angry or fresh. Just… there. Like quiet proof that something once hurt.

And my chest hurt too. Not out of pity.

But out of knowing.

Knowing she had walked through hell and still chose to laugh. Still chose to sing Taylor Swift like she meant every word.

And tonight, I made her smile.

Maybe that didn’t erase the scars. But it placed something beside them.

A better memory.

A reason to keep going.

I watched her walk inside, the yellow duck plushie named Andrew in her hand.

And I stayed parked for a moment longer, holding the photo between my fingers.

The boy in the mirror this morning didn’t know if he could ever make things right.

But the one driving home tonight, he was starting to believe that maybe he could.