Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 9

I feel him behind me before I even see him. That heavy, quiet presence. He’s not the type to interrupt or distract. But I can sense his eyes over my shoulder, hovering like a question that hasn’t been asked yet.

I don’t turn around.

I keep my gaze on Mr. Oxford, who is explaining iambic pentameter with a kind of desperate passion that almost makes me care. Almost. My mind drifts, back to the sea, back to that fading boy, back to the way I said “I love you” like it meant everything and nothing at once.

Inez leans in during a lull in the lecture, her breath warm against my ear. “Okay, so this might sound insane, but listen---Tim.”

“Tim?” I whisper back.

“Yeah. Met him at that thing James dragged everyone to. He’s funny. A little dumb. Has great shoulders. You’d love him.”

“I’d love him?”

“Well, not like that, but you’d approve. Anyway, the universe obviously got you and James together just so I’d meet Tim.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That’s a stretch.”

“Girl, the whole cosmos is a web of coincidence and hot boys. Don’t fight it.”

The day slips by like film on fast-forward. English fades into Science, where I doodle waves in the margins of my notes. In Math, the numbers blur into each other, faceless and cold. In Social Studies, I stare so hard at the textbook I think I forget how to blink.

It’s like I’m here, but not really.

A ghost moving through the day, haunted by a dream I didn’t want to wake from.

The lunch bell rings, loud and sudden.

I flinch a little. Inez waves her hand in front of my face, eyebrows raised.

“Earth to Betty?” she grins. “Are we eating or are we transcending space and time again?”

The walk to the cafeteria feels like dragging myself through mud.

Everything is too loud, too fast, like the world kept spinning while I stayed stuck somewhere between sleep and breath.

Inez is talking about Tim again. Or maybe James. Or maybe both. Her voice is bright, glittering with movement, but it barely pierces the fog in my head.

Then---

“Betty?”

I glance up.

Matt.

He’s standing a few feet ahead, blocking part of the hallway with that familiar soft-shouldered posture, hands tucked into his uniform pockets, like he’s trying to take up less space than he actually does. His smile is cautious but warm. There’s something in it I used to lean into, before everything started shifting.

“Hey,” I say, a little more breathless than I mean to.

“Just wanted to see how you’ve been,” he says. “Haven’t talked much lately.”

I nod. “Yeah, sorry. Things have just been... a lot.”

“I get it.” He pauses. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d want to come to the next Math Club meeting. We’re prepping for the regional quiz bowl, and you’re probably the only person I know who actually enjoys factoring polynomials.”

I let out a small laugh, but my heart isn’t in it.

“Oh. I---I can’t,” I say, voice too quick, too automatic. “There’s choir. And tutoring James. And school. And---everything. Just… everything.”